Hand for a Hand (21 page)

Gilchrist nodded. Jack had inherited the trait from Gail that when she was unhappy she worked harder. Maureen was the same. Not that Gilchrist could put in more hours even if he tried. “How was Harry?” he asked.

“The usual.”

“Which is?”

“Bit of a diddy.”

Gilchrist frowned. “You don’t like him?”

“He’s all right. He looks after Mum.”

Somehow hearing how Harry and Gail interacted did not sit right with him. He had never fully understood why he had been so upset about their break-up. Had it been the loss of his children to another man? Or the mental image of Gail making love to Harry? Or was it because he thought he still loved Gail, even after what she had done, and the fact that their marriage had died years before the split?

As he sipped his beer and watched the football the heat and the alcohol took their toll. Within minutes he was asleep, dreaming of wakening up in a coffin, finding he was sharing it with a woman who turned out to be Maureen. Except that it wasn’t Maureen, but Chloe with her body parts stitched together.

He woke up sweating to a dark room and black television screen and an empty chair vacated by Jack. By the time he pulled himself to bed, he would be back on his feet in less than three hours.

Chapter 24

“A
WARRANT FOR
W
ATT’S
arrest for murder?” Greaves blasted.

“What in God’s name’s gotten into you, man?”

“For
suspicion
of murder,” Gilchrist corrected.

“Cut the semantics, Andy. It’s not on.”

“Why did you assign Watt to my investigation?”

Greaves’ anger dissipated to annoyance. “We’ve been over this already.”

“I never asked for Watt. He wasn’t needed.”

“That’s for me to decide,” Greaves said. “Not you.”

Gilchrist pushed his fingers through his hair. He had come up against Greaves in this mood before, once when he had argued for extra compensation for his staff. He had lost then. And he was losing now. Then it struck him like a slap to the head, and he wondered why he had not thought of it earlier. “It’s out of your hands. Isn’t it?”

“Don’t push it, Andy.”

“Push what, Tom?” Gilchrist stepped closer. But Greaves stood six-two and was not a man to be intimidated. “My son’s girlfriend has been murdered and is being fed to me in bits. Not to you. Not to anyone else. To me. Her left arm was found yesterday.” From the look on Greaves’ face Gilchrist thought he had just given him some news. “Now my own daughter’s missing and I’m terrified she’s going to be served up to me in bits as well.”

Greaves’ eyes narrowed, showing in their damp reflection the tiniest glimmer of compassion. “Very well, Andy.” He returned to his seat, stared hard at his desk for several seconds, then looked
up. “Ronnie’s with Strathclyde Drug Squad.” He held up his hands. “I can’t give you details, for the simple reason that I don’t know. My remit was to find him a position in this Division and make it look as if he was back with Fife Constabulary.”

“That doesn’t explain why you assigned him to me.”

“It was a perfect arrangement.”

“What are you talking about?”

Greaves gave a tiny smirk. “You hate the man. Can’t say I blame you. So, I knew you would do your damnedest to keep him out the picture.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Oh, do come along, Andy. It’s a bit late in the day to play dumb.”

Gilchrist wondered why he had never before noticed the cruelty reflected in Greaves’ eyes. But he was still missing something. Then he thought he saw it, and wondered if Greaves could really be that devious.

“You knew I would keep Watt busy,” he said. “You knew I would bury him in the investigation, have him go off on his own, effectively give him the means to carry out his Drug Squad business.”

Greaves gave a tight smile.

But Gilchrist was in no mood to let him off. “Did you know Watt was seeing my daughter in Glasgow?”

Greaves frowned. “What?”

“Soon after Watt arrives back in St. Andrews, Maureen goes missing.” He leaned closer. “Does that not make you suspicious?”

“Of what?”

“Now who’s acting dumb?”

“Watch that tongue of yours.”

Gilchrist struggled to keep his voice steady. “If I ever find out that Watt is involved with Maureen’s disappearance, I swear to God, Tom, I’ll hold you personally responsible for interfering with my investigation.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Don’t pretend. Pray.” And with that, Gilchrist strode from Greaves’ office.

Outside on North Street he thrust his hands into his pockets. His outburst had drained him. He felt emptied, flattened, beyond anger. He imagined Greaves on the phone with ACC McVicar, demanding his resignation. McVicar had stood up for him in the past, but there were only so many rules a man could break, and his final threat to Greaves might have broken the lot.

He pulled out his mobile, called Watt’s number, but it was unobtainable, or his mobile was dead. He tried Nance, and she picked up on the third ring.

“Have you seen Watt?” he asked her.

“Good morning to you, too,” she said. “He’s standing right beside me.”

“Put him on.”

“He’s on his mobile.”

Gilchrist almost cursed, then realised that his calling Peggy Linnet’s number earlier had warned Watt off, forced him to change his SIM card, or use another phone. For all he knew, Watt might be on his new mobile to Greaves, listening to his confession that he had to let the SIO know about Watt’s connection to the Drug Squad.

“Where are you?” he asked Nance.

“Outside the University Library.”

“Nail that bastard to the wall. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

By the time he entered the University grounds, he had cooled off some, but not by much. Watt grinned at him as he approached, his lips lopsided from chewing gum, and Gilchrist had a sense of Nance backing away.

He reached Watt, grabbed his shirt at the throat. “I warned you,” he growled.

Watt dead-eyed him. “Don’t make me have to break your arm.”

“I should kick you off the—”

“You can’t kick me anywhere,” Watt said. “This goes higher than you, higher than Greaves, higher than McVicar.”

Gilchrist tightened his grip. “I’m not talking about that,” he snarled. “When did you last see Maureen?”

Watt seemed to freeze, but only for a second. Then he lifted his hand and took hold of Gilchrist’s bunched fist. “I told you I didn’t want to break—”

“Give it up, boys,” Nance interrupted. “You’re causing a scene.”

Gilchrist relaxed his grip. Watt pushed his hand away, tugged at his collar.

“I won’t ask you to kiss and make up,” Nance said. “That might scare the students even more.”

All of a sudden, Gilchrist was aware of young men and women standing in silent groups, watching them. “Outside,” he growled at Watt.

On North Street, Nance had the sense to keep out of earshot while Gilchrist had a face-to-face with Watt. “Does Nance know?”

“Only you and Greaves. The silly fucker shouldn’t have told you.”

“Then you’d have no excuse not to be kicked back to Glasgow.” Watt grimaced at Gilchrist’s logic.

“How about Maureen?” Gilchrist pressed on. “Does she know?”

“Not a chance.”

“I know you’re seeing her.”

“Not any more,” Watt said. “It’s over.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “And so is this half-arsed interrogation.”

“Not so fast, Ronnie. When did you last see Maureen?”

“About three weeks ago.”

“And the last time you spoke to her?”

“About a week ago.”

“And what about her job with Chris Topley?”

“What about it?”

“Why is she working there?”

“A job’s a job.”

“And you know Topley.”

“In Glasgow, who doesn’t?”

“Who’s Peggy Linnet?”

“Never heard of her.”

Gilchrist knew he was being stone-walled.

“Are we through?” Watt said.

If Watt’s authority was higher than McVicar, then the chances of Gilchrist being made privy to an on-going drug operation ranged from zero to one hundred below. Watt would tell him nothing, and he would just have to live with it, work alongside the man. But now he had confronted Watt, he could think of no reason for him to be lying about Maureen.

“Make sure Nance has your new mobile number,” he growled, and stomped off.

Past the Dunvegan Hotel, he turned into Grannie Clark’s Wynd, then veered onto the Old Course, oblivious to the golfers. A cold wind hit him, bringing with it the smell of a brisk sea. The Old Course seemed such an important part of the killer’s plan that he felt an almost irresistible need to walk the links.

Was the Old Course itself significant? Or was it being used simply to gather media attention? He walked past the Road Hole Bunker kicking his feet through the rough that bordered the fairway’s length. He continued alongside the sixteenth. From there, the course ran all the way out to the Eden Estuary. He plodded on in his solitary search, criss-crossing the dunes like some game-dog, groping as far as he could into gorse bushes that cluttered the rough. He had to dislodge himself from a bristling clump off the fourteenth fairway to answer his phone.

The rush of Jack’s voice had him pressing his mobile tight to his ear.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Maureen?”

The question almost threw him, but he recovered with, “It’s early days, and I—”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Harry told me there’s an appeal on the TV for information on Maureen’s whereabouts. That doesn’t sound like early days to me.”

“I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t want to say anything until I knew for sure.”

The fight seemed to go out of Jack then. “Don’t tell me Mo’s next,” he said, and before Gilchrist could offer anything, he hung up.

Gilchrist folded his mobile and eyed the grass and gorse around him. How could he go on with this? How could he search for Chloe when his own daughter was missing? But even as he asked that question of himself, he knew the answer to Maureen’s disappearance would be delivered through the remaining parts of Chloe’s body.

He hung his head and struggled on.

By the time he reached the twelfth tee he had found nothing. The tide was out and the flat sands of the Eden Estuary stretched before him as uninviting as mud. Overhead, clouds tumbled like windblown cotton. He decided to cut across the Jubilee and the New Course onto the West Sands and walk back to town along the beach.

When he ducked through the wire fence that bordered the links, his mobile rang.

“No luck,” said Dick without introduction. “Peggy Linnet is one of three students who rent the flat from McPhail. The number belongs to her ex-boyfriend who used her address for billing purposes.”

“Got a name?”

“Joe.”

“Joe who?”

“That’s the problem. She only ever knew him as Joe.”

“How long had she been going out with the guy?”

“Three months.”

“And she never knew his name?”

“Looks like it.”

“Are they all covering for him?”

“Don’t think so. Apparently he’s a nasty piece of work. Drank too much. Argued all the time. Left without paying his share of the rent. Peggy says she keeps getting his bills and keeps sending them back. They would all shop him if they could.”

“Description?”

“Slim. Dark hair. Five-eight. Thirty-something going on fifty. Rolls his own. Born in Glasgow. Rough as they come.”

Gilchrist dug his thumb and forefinger into his eyes. A thousand Glaswegians would fit that description. “Keep at it, Dick,” he said, even though it was probably useless.

He slid down a worn path between two dunes.

The West Sands stretched before him, copper and gold bordered by the dark waters of the North Sea. Multi-coloured kites of reds, yellows, blues, dipped and swooped then soared high. In the distance he noticed a gathering crowd and wondered if a busload of day-trippers had offloaded and spilled onto the sands, or if someone was having a party, a student perhaps, celebrating God only knew what excuse for a drunken orgy.

By the time he figured it out, his feet were pounding the firm sands at the water’s edge, his breath coming at him in hard hits. He heard his own whimper burst from his mouth with the certain knowledge that after a few more minutes he would have only one more body part to find. And then.…

“Dear God, no.”

Chapter 25

G
ILCHRIST ORDERED EVERYONE
to, “Step back. Police. Step back.”

And louder. “
Sir
. Back from the body.”

He had used the word
body
, even though it was not a complete body, but a mostly limbless torso. As he stood by the white thing that lay before him like a lump of bloodless meat, his lungs seemed unable to pull in air. He stumbled to his knees. Seawater soaked through his trousers.

He stared at it, at the headless torso with no legs, and only one arm—without a hand—which shifted on the sands with each incoming wave. Ruddied pockmarks dotted the skin where gulls and other seabirds had pecked through.

He brushed sand from the flat swell of the stomach, revealing what looked like a black stain above the belly-button. He cupped seawater with his hands, spilled it over the torso, and a tiny love-heart swam into view.

He pushed himself to his feet, brushed his hands on his thighs. Despite himself, he could not take his eyes off the blackened nipples of her small breasts. It struck him then that her nakedness was exposed for all to see, and he snapped at the onlookers, “Go on. Get out of here. What are you looking at?”

With hesitant reluctance the crowd backed up.

He slapped his mobile to his ear, ordered the SOCOs, and gave directions. But it was not until he closed his mobile and stared at the blonde pubis that lay between twin circles of butchered meat that he realised something was missing.

Curiosity overpowered his revulsion. He kneeled again, and studied the love-heart. The finest of blonde hairs, dried by the sun, stood proud, as if refusing to give up life. His gaze shifted on to bony shoulders made all the more narrow by the missing left arm, down across a rippled ribcage to a wasp-like waist that made Chloe’s torso seem strangely thin and frail. The gulls had not done too much harm. Open pits around the upper chest looked more like unhealed sores than carrion food-spots. But other than the tattoo and the peck-holes the torso was unblemished.