The Last Temptation
Val McDermid
The Last Temptation
“A psychologically chilling and multifaceted thriller…With consummate skill and pacing, [McDermid] braids together the complex story lines through surprising revelations, heart-stopping suspense and cruel double-crosses…creating even more tension. McDermid’s writing and her understanding of the criminal mind get better with each novel. With its European locales, depiction of Nazi-mind experiments and hints at another Jordan/Hill novel, this may well be her breakout book. She certainly deserves it.”
—Publishers Weekly
“McDermid’s Dr. Tony Hill is so tortured he makes Thomas Harris’s troubled heroes seem like lighthearted game-show hosts. McDermid has become a whiz at generating breathless, crosscutting suspense.”
—GQ
“This well-executed novel has it all: a complex, suspenseful plot, a full cast of interesting characters, and two budding romances.”
—Library Journal
“Exciting and compassionate.”
—Salon.com
“White-knuckle suspense, hot action, and graphic chills. Sure to be a hit with thriller fans.”
—Booklist
“Irresistible…McDermid skillfully controls her cast…This is a hugely ambitious novel, involving three police forces, [and] the settings in Berlin are vividly evoked.”
—The Daily Express (UK)
“More than just a serial killer novel, [The Last Temptation is] a masterful examination of evil and the relics of Nazi and Stasi years in Germany.”
—The Guardian (UK)
“Val McDermid is one of the few crime authors who can be convincing when it comes to writing tough, yet retain a powerful emotional insight.”
—Scotland on Sunday (UK)
“A scary, disturbing, exciting, and atmospheric white-knuckle read.”
—The London Times (UK)
Killing the Shadows
“Vivid and adept…mounts in tension while at the same time making readers aware of their complicity in craving the grisly shocks the genre provides…[A]s Stephen King did in Bag of Bones, McDermid is trying to address the inhumanity that’s all too easy for popular writers to lapse into as they seek to titillate an increasingly jaded readership…McDermid is a whiz at combining narrative threads…and ending chapters with cliffhangers that propel you to keep reading. In terms of hooking her readers and carrying them along out of sheer desire to find out what happens next, McDermid is as smooth a practitioner of crime fiction as anyone out there…Killing the Shadows is further proof that she’s the best we’ve got.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Smart…[S]killfully executed…[A]s nasty as it is delicious. [McDermid] tells this wicked tale with style, intelligence, and the blackest of humor.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“Memorable…[F]raught with close, careful plotting and jangling surprises.”
—Newsday
“McDermid skillfully alternates points of view and creates memorable scenes and complex characters.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A compelling, intricately plotted page-turner.”
—Library Journal
“Nerve-jangling suspense…A gripping read with layers of plot complexity, heart-stopping suspense, and guts and gore aplenty.”
—Booklist
“Terrific…McDermid’s deft mix of the whodunnit, the psychological thriller, some sparkling action and plenty of tension results in a hugely entertaining, gripping read.”
—The Times (UK)
“As compelling as A Place of Execution… puts the much-over-rated Patricia Cornwell to shame.”
—The Guardian (UK)
“[McDermid] is still head and shoulders above…the competition.”
—The Observer (UK)
“[Killing the Shadows] could rank as McDermid’s finest yet crime novel.”
—Publishing News (UK)
A Place of Execution
“One of my favorite authors, Val McDermid is an important writer—witty, never sentimental, taking us through Manchester’s mean streets with the dexterity of a Chandler.”
—Sara Paretsky
“Masterly…Inventively conceived and wonderfully written, A Place of Execution is a marvel from start to finish.”
—The Washington Post Book World
“Compelling and atmospheric…A tour de force.”
—Minette Walters, author of The Shape of Snakes and The Breaker
“From the first page of McDermid’s A Place of Execution, we know we’re in the hands of a master.”
—Jeffery Deaver, author of The Empty Chair and The Bone Collector
“One of the most ingenious mystery novels ever.”
—Newsday
“A novel about a murder in which the police find the culprit but not the body—a circumstance rich in the stuff of which page-turners are made…McDermid generates curiosity and, finally, whiplash surprise.”
—The Atlantic Monthly
“One jaw-dropping suspense after another.”
—San Jose Mercury News
“A modern masterpiece…a book that will haunt us forever.”
—The Denver Post
“A stunning and cunning novel.”
—The Orlando Sentinel
“An extraordinary story [told] with extraordinary skill.”
—San Antonio Express-News
“If you only have time to read one mystery this or any other season, make it A Place of Execution.”
—Associated Press
“McDermid can’t write an uninteresting sentence.”
—Women’s Review of Books
“McDermid’s a skillful writer—comparisons with such American novelists as Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton are appropriate. Clever, absorbing and lots of fun.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Masterly…inventively conceived and wonderfully written…[A] marvel from start to finish.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“Superb…[A]n extraordinary achievement.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
The Wire in the Blood
“This book [has] a sense of gravitas and intelligence utterly beyond lesser writers in the field…This is a wholly satisfying read which cleverly subverts tradition and expectation.”
—Ian Rankin
“This is a shocking book, stunningly exciting, horrifyingly good. It is so convincing that one fears reality may be like this and these events the awful truth.”
—Ruth Rendell
“Ye Gods, she’s Good.”
—Colin Dexter
“A superb psychological thriller.”
—Cosmopolitan
“Truly frightening. McDermid’s capacity to enter the warped mind of a deviant criminal is shiveringly convincing.”
—The Times (UK)
“The story, handled with verve, wit, and style, never flags.”
—Mail on Sunday (UK)
“Clever and exciting.”
—Sunday Telegraph (UK)
The Mermaids Singing
“Compelling and shocking.”
—Minette Walters
“A dark tale…[C]omplex, carefully crafted, and disturbing…[P]owerful…[P]sychologically terrifying…[I]mpossible to put down.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Exciting, rapid-fire…[A] satisfying descent into the territory of a twisted mind.”
—Booklist
“[A] terrific chiller from Manchester’s answer to Thomas Harris.”
—The Guardian (UK)
“Truly, horribly good.”
—Mail on Sunday (UK)
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
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
Acknowledgments
For Cameron Joseph McDermid Baillie:
not much of a gift by comparison,
but the best I can do.
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
* * *
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 pigeon’s throat. On a dark night when clouds obscure the stars, she’s 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. He’d 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. He’d lost weight recently, and in the pale gloom cast by the car’s 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 we’ll take the package ourselves.”
Krasic frowned. “Tadzio, that’s not a good idea. Everything’s set up. There’s no need for you to get so close to the merchandise.”
“You think not?” Tadeusz’s 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 she’d so despised. But she’d dressed up her irrational convictions in the fancy clothes of literary allusion. So, rather than teach the boy that troubles come in threes, she’d enlisted Shakespeare’s adage that “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions.”
Katerina’s death should have been sorrow enough. Tadeusz prided himself on never allowing his face to give him away, either in business or in personal relationships. But that news had transformed his face into a howling mask of grief, tears flooding his eyes as a silent scream tore through him. He’d always known he’d loved her; he just hadn’t grasped how much.
What made it worse was that it had been so ridiculous. So very Katerina. She’d been d
riving her Mercedes SLK with the top down. She’d just left the Berlin ring road at the Ku’damm exit, so she’d probably still been going too fast when a motorbike shot out from a side street in front of her. Desperate to avoid hitting the careless rider, she’d swerved towards the pavement, lost control of the powerful roadster and careered into a newspaper kiosk. She’d died in the arms of a paramedic, her head injuries too appalling to comprehend.
The biker was long gone, unaware of the carnage he’d left in his wake. And mechanical examination had discovered a fault in the circuit that controlled the anti-lock braking in the Merc. That, at any rate, was the official version.
But once his initial grief had receded to the point where he could function again, Tadeusz had begun to wonder. Krasic, ever the loyal lieutenant, had reported that in Tadeusz’s temporary absence there had been a couple of more or less subtle attempts to move in on his business. Krasic, who had stoically refused to be distracted by his boss’s bereavement, had dealt ruthlessly with the threats, but as soon as Tadeusz showed signs of life again, he had laid out the full story before him.
Now, the word was out. Tadeusz wanted the biker. The police officers on his payroll had been little help; information from witnesses was scant. It had all happened so fast. It had just started to rain, so passing pedestrians had their heads down against the weather. There were no surveillance cameras in the immediate area.
