Free Cleanskin by Val McDermid Page B

losing them on the long flat straight roads lined with poplars. They pulled in at a large modernvilla on the far edge of a smart little village that looked like a movie set. After they’d taken the rest of the shopping inside, we carried on a few miles to the next village where we celebrated quietly with beers all round.
    ‘That villa’s a bitch to stake out,’ Blythe said.
    ‘We don’t need to stake it out. There’s only one road through the village. We just need to split ourselves up. Two cars to the north, one to the south. We’ll pick them up when they leave.’
    Nobody had a better idea. It meant we were more or less trapped with the vehicles, but it could have been worse. And luckily, it didn’t go on very long.
    Just before midnight that night, the first car on the road north called in to say Farrell had just driven past, alone and pedal to the metal. Blythe and I swung straight out into the road and kept a steady speed till we saw headlights behind us. We picked up our pace so he wouldn’t overtake us too soon and to give the others a chance to catch up.
    There were a couple of hairy moments, but we managed to keep on his tail all the way to the marina car park. As Farrell walked towards the gate, we made our move, screeching thecars to a halt around him, jumping out and taking him down. It took four of us to subdue him, but he never really stood a chance.
    We cuffed him, took his keys off him and marched him to his boat while Kirsty parked the cars up neatly and left the keys under the drivers’ seats. We’d call the rental company when we got home.
    The main reason I’d chosen Kirsty came to the fore now. She could sail. She’d been messing around on boats since she was a kid and she’d been crisscrossing the Channel on her parents’ little cabin cruiser for as long as she could remember.
    We stuck Farrell below in the main bedroom, while those of us who weren’t driving sat in the saloon and played cards. Farrell kept up a steady stream of swearing and shouting for a while, but he got tired of it before we did.
    We were back on English soil in time for breakfast. The story was simple. We’d had a tip that Farrell was on his way back and we’d caught him as he stepped ashore. His word against five of ours. No contest.
    At first, it looked like there wasn’t much we could charge him with. Faking a suicide isn’tthat big a deal. But thanks to Stella, that soon changed. She got an ID for the body we’d mistaken for Farrell. The guy worked in Farrell’s porn business and he’d last been seen leaving a bar with Fancy Riley and Farrell himself. That was good, but even better was the discovery of the knife that had killed Brian Cooper and Ben Wilson. It was in the cutlery drawer on Farrell’s boat, his prints all over it. The final nail in the coffin was the experts matching traces of explosive in a locker on the boat to the stuff that had blown Joey Scardino to bits.
    It’s been almost a year since the night Katie Farrell died. Her father’s due to stand trial in a few weeks. Funny how many rats came out of the woodwork to lay stuff at his door once they knew we had him bang to rights on something major.
    It’s been a long journey for all of us. Karen Wilson’s still adrift in grief and her kids look like lost souls. We kept Ben’s name clean and I think that’ll survive the trial. But I feel like I’ve paid a high price for that. After Ben, I can’t find it in me to trust anyone. Something I couldn’t hide from Stella. She left for Knoxville, Tennessee and the Body Farm a couple of weeksago. As far as I can see, the only winners have been a bunch of charities that help homeless kids, drug addicts and women sold into sexual slavery.
    Like I said, when a child dies, everybody hurts. And some hurts can’t ever be healed.

About the Author
    Cleanskin
    Val McDermid grew up in a Scottish mining community then read English at Oxford. She was a journalist for sixteen years, spending the last