VAL McDERMID
The Last Temptation
Copyright
Harper
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2002
Copyright © Val McDermid 2002
Val McDermid asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Extract from Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Eliot (published by Faber and Faber Ltd) reproduced by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007344710
Ebook Edition © SEPTEMBER 2014 ISBN: 9780007327621
Version: 2014-09-28
Map
Dedication
For Cameron Joseph McDermid Baillie:
not much of a gift by comparison,
but the best I can do.
Epigraph
The last temptation is the greatest treason:
To do the right deed for the wrong reason.
Murder in the Cathedral T. S. Eliot
Only when it is responsible for providing psychological diagnoses for state purposes does psychology really become important.
Max Simoneit, scientific director of
Wehrmacht Psychology, 1938
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Map
Dedication
Epigraph
Part 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part 2
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Part 3
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Part 4
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Part 5
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
Keep Reading
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Other Books By
About the Publisher
Case Notes
Name: Walter Neumann
Session Number: 1
Comments: The patient has clearly been troubled for some time with an overweening sense of his own infallibility. He presents with a disturbing level of overconfidence in his own abilities. He has a grandiose self-image and is reluctant to concede the possibility that he might be subject to valid criticism.
When challenged, he appears offended and clearly has difficulty masking his indignation. He sees no need to defend himself, regarding it as self-evident that he is right, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. His capacity for self-analysis is clearly limited. A typical response to a question is to deflect it with a question of his own. He shows a marked reluctance to examine his own behaviour or the consequences of his actions.
He lacks insight and the concept of a wider responsibility. He has mastered the appearance of affect, but it is unlikely that this is more than a convenient mask.
Therapeutic Action: Altered state therapy initiated.
1
Blue is one colour the Danube never manages. Slate grey, muddy brown, dirty rust, sweat-stained khaki; all of these and most of the intermediate shades sabotage the dreams of any romantic who stands on her banks. Occasionally, where boats gather, she achieves a kind of oily radiance as the sun shimmers on a skin of spilled fuel, turning the river the iridescent hues of a pigeons throat. On a dark night when clouds obscure the stars, shes as black as the Styx. But there, in central Europe at the turning of the new millennium, it cost rather more than a penny to pay the ferryman.
From both land and water, the place looked like a deserted, rundown boat repair yard. The rotting ribs of a couple of barges and corroded components from old machinery, their former functions a mystery, were all that could be glimpsed through the gaps in the planks of the tall gates. Anyone curious enough to have stopped their car on the quiet back road and peered into the yard would have been satisfied that they were looking at yet another graveyard for a dead communist enterprise.
But there was no apparent reason for anybody to harbour idle curiosity about this particular backwater. The only mystery was why, even in those illogical totalitarian days, it had ever been thought there was any point in opening a business there. There was no significant population centre for a dozen miles in any direction. The few farms that occupied the hinterland had always required more work to make them profitable than their occupants could provide; no spare hands there. When this boatyard was in operation, the workers had been bussed fifteen miles to get to work. Its only advantage was its position on the river, sheltered from the main flow by a long sandbar covered in scrubby bushes and a few straggling trees leaning in the direction of the prevailing wind.
That remained its signal selling point to those who covertly used this evidently decaying example of industrial architecture from the bad old days. For this place was not what it seemed. Far from being a ruin, it was a vital staging post on a journey. If anyone had taken the trouble to give the place a closer look, they would have started to notice incongruities. The perimeter fence, for example, made of sheets of prefabricated reinforced concrete. It was in surprisingly good repair. The razor wire that ran along the top looked far more recent than the fall of communism. Not much to go on, in truth, but clues that were there to be read by those who are fluent in the language of deviousness.
If such a person had mounted surveillance on the apparently deserted boatyard that night, they would have been rewarded. But when the sleek black Mercedes purred along the back road, there were no curious eyes to see. The car halted short of the gates and the driver climbed out, shivering momentarily as cold damp air replaced the climate-controlled environment. He fumbled in the pockets of his leather jacket, coming out with a bunch of keys. It took him a couple of minutes to work his way through the four unfamiliar padlocks, then the gates swung silently open under his touch. He pushed them all the way back, then hurried back to the car and drove inside.
As the driver closed the gates behind the Mercedes, two men emerged from the back of the saloon. Tadeusz Radecki stretched his long legs, shaking the creases out of his Armani suit and reaching back into the car for his long sable coat. Hed felt the cold as never before lately, and it was a raw night, his breath emerging from his nostrils in filmy plumes. He pulled the fur close around him and surveyed the scene. Hed lost weight recently, and in the pale gloom cast by the cars headlamps the strong bones of his face were a reminder of the skull beneath the skin, his darting hazel eyes the only sign of the vitality within.
Darko Krasic strolled round to stand beside him, angling his wrist up so he could see the dial of his chunky gold watch. Half past eleven. The truck should be here any minute now.
Tadeusz inclined his head slightly. I think well take the package ourselves.
Krasic frowned. Tadzio, thats not a good idea. Everythings set up. Theres no need for you to get so close to the merchandise.
You think not? Tadeuszs tone was deceptively negligent. Krasic knew better than to argue. The way his boss had been acting lately, not even his closest associates were prepared to risk the flare of his anger by crossing him.
Krasic held his hands up in a placatory gesture. Whatever, he said.
Tadeusz stepped away from the car and began to prowl the boatyard, his eyes adjusting to the gloom. Krasic was right in one sense. There was no need for him to involve himself directly in any aspect of his business. But nothing was to be taken for granted just now. His mindset had been shaped by his grandmother, who, in spite of the noble blood she insisted flowed in her veins, had been as superstitious as any of the peasants shed so despised. But shed dressed up her irrational convictions in the fancy clothes of literary allusion. So, rather than teach the boy that troubles come in threes, shed enlisted Shakespeares adage that When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.