Eye for an Eye (31 page)

This time, as soon as Garvie was out of the kitchen, he slid his legs over the wall and stifled a grunt as he fell onto the grass.

He got onto his knees, disconnected, and stumbled toward the door. If Garvie reached the kitchen too soon, she would see him.

His mind screamed,
Now.

He rolled to the right, away from the kitchen window, toward the ventilation grille. The thick grass softened his landing, but did nothing to cut back the pain that stabbed his side, forcing him to stifle another grunt. He rolled onto his back, pressed hard against the wall, his face only inches from the wire mesh that covered the grille.

The first thing he noticed was the mesh had been moved. Someone had tampered with it. Was his hunch correct? He gripped the edge of the chicken wire and pulled.

The back door opened.

Light flooded the grass and slabs by Gilchrist’s feet.

He froze.

Garvie bent down to place something on the back step. From where she stood it seemed impossible for her not to notice his shoes. He fought off the urge to pull in his legs, knowing that the slightest movement would register in Garvie’s peripheral vision. Pain forced tears to his eyes, but he dared not move.

Garvie straightened up, her sharp profile dark against the backlight from the kitchen. ‘Here, Pitter, Pitter.’

Something landed with a quiet thud behind him and he knew without looking that Pitter had leapt from the wall and was loping through the tall grass toward her keeper.

He held his breath.

If Pitter stopped ...

If Garvie turned her head ...

‘There you are, Pitter. Who’s a clever puss?’

Gilchrist watched Garvie lift the cat to her face. ‘Who’s a clever Pitter?’ she said, casting a look toward the boundary wall before closing the door.

The garden settled into darkness once more.

Gilchrist felt his breath leave his lungs in a long sigh. He shifted his position, trying to find some way to ease the pain. But it was no use.

He gritted his teeth and tugged the ventilation grille free from the wall. He had to roll onto his side to place the concrete block behind him and gasped as the pain hit. The block slipped from his grip and dropped onto the grass.

When the fire faded, he pushed his arm back through the hole in the wall. The still air under the flooring felt warm and he wondered why, during his earlier search, he had thought of only down, and not up. Was he slipping? Would Stan or Sa have been more thorough? And was it not strange how it had taken being hit with an old cricket bat and remembering how the bat hung on hooks on Beth’s wall?

Hooks. Or nails hammered in and bent up like hooks.

Like the nail he had found the day before. Not an old nail, but a nail tarnished by rust light enough to brush off and expose metal as fresh as new.

Gilchrist’s fingertips searched the side of the wooden beam, its surface as dry and bristled as a pig’s hackles. He patted the beam, stretched as far as he could manage.

Nothing.

He tried the other side, felt a flush of disappointment.

Was he wrong?

He shone his torch through the hole, and peered in. But the opening was too small, the angle too tight. He shifted his body, pushed his arm back through and reached for the beam on the left. The surface bristled with splinters of wood.

He touched something.

Something cold and slippery, something that shifted in his prying fingers. Plastic. A sheet of plastic. A sealed package.

Hanging on nails for hooks.

He lifted the bundle up and off its hooks and out through the opening. He felt the cold shiver of horripilation as he clicked on his pencil-torch.

Wooden staves glistened beneath the plastic sheath like rods of gold with unmistakable ridges. Bamboo. Thirteen in total.

Gilchrist fingered the tips.

Blunt. All of them.

None sharpened to a point. Not yet.

His investigation teams held differing views on why the Stabber used shaved bamboo staves. The general consensus was that natural ridges of bamboo provided an excellent handgrip.

But why were they shaved?

Gilchrist had seen each stave after it had been removed from the eye socket of the victim. Now he could see they all came from a single piece of bamboo furniture. But he saw, too, why they had been shaved.

The ends of several were discoloured where they had been bound together, perhaps as the corner of a coffee table. Or a bookcase. Shaving the varnished surfaces, at the same time as whittling one end to a point, obliterated all trace of the bindings.

All of a sudden, Gilchrist was aware of the seriousness of his predicament. If he took the lot to the Office, in all likelihood the staves would not be permissible as evidence. He had no search warrant, no right to be on Garvie’s property, not to mention being suspended. Patterson would have a field day. And so would any defence lawyer.

He could make an anonymous call. But doing so would not serve his own needs. He would still be viewed by Patterson as
persona non grata
, his reputation vilified. The prospect of Patterson’s own career being exalted at Gilchrist’s expense sealed it for him. He would not, could not, go down that route. Two days on the case and the Scottish Crime Squad exposes the identity of the Stabber. How right Patterson had been to bring in DeFiore. And how wrong Gilchrist’s supporters had been to believe he was the right man for the job.

The more Gilchrist thought about it, the more he saw he had no choice but to keep his find to himself and continue with the investigation alone. And God help him if victim number eight turned up before he caught the Stabber.

As Gilchrist crept from her Garvie’s garden, he decided he would wait. And watch.

Sebbie finished the last of the six-pack. He glanced at the digital clock on the microwave: 8:11.

What had happened? Margo said she would be round at eight. Had she—

The doorbell rang.

Then again. Longer this time.

He slunk into the kitchen doorway in case someone looked through the letterbox.

The telephone rang, then the answering machine cut in.

He listened to Alice’s voice end her recorded message with her stupid
Have a great day
, then Margo’s voice say, ‘Alice? Dieter? Me and Jim are outside. If you’re there, can you pick up?’ A pause for several seconds, then, ‘Did you get my message?’ Something thudded against the door.

Sebbie tightened his grip on the knife, held it up before his eyes. In the moonlight, the serrated blade glinted like burnished steel.

A man’s voice joined the woman’s, their words indecipherable. Then, ‘I’ll call later, Alice. Okay?’ Another pause, as if the woman was still hopeful of an answer, then a click as she disconnected.

Sebbie lowered the knife. He was about to return to the hallway when he heard a metallic rattle, a light tinny sound like a lid closing. From the front door.

He heard it again. A key being slotted into a lock?

Did Alice’s friends have a key?

How stupid he had been not to jam the lock. He should have stuck a hairpin in it, a bit of plastic, something, anything he could have snapped or torn off to block the mechanism.

A heavy sound reverberated along the hallway. Sebbie half-expected the door to burst open. He drew back, knife raised, ready to strike.

But when the digital display read 8:20, and the door had not exploded open, and the telephone had not rung again, and the whispers and rattles and thuds had vanished, he lowered his weapon.

He was safe.

In the darkness, he listened to the sounds of the house, felt the hair on the back of his neck rise as he heard something, a low moaning sound, as if ...

Knife in hand, he crept from the kitchen, across the hallway and into the back bedroom. The room felt cold, and his nostrils filled with the stench of decaying meat.

Alice and Dieter lay on the floor, their wax-like bodies twisted into two hapless heaps. The wind moaned past the open window. Sebbie pushed the sash up until the moaning stopped. Then he heard a laugh escape his lips as he looked down at Alice’s bloated face.

‘Cat caught your tongue,’ he cackled.

Gilchrist stood on the cliff path, his back to the metal railing, the sea wind brushing his neck with fingers of ice. Garvie’s upper curtains were still open, but the house looked dark, save for a faint glow from the door by the landing. Garvie said she worked at night on her computer in the study off her bedroom, but as the upstairs rooms lay in darkness, he guessed she had finished for the day. Was she in bed? Or still downstairs?

Was she alone?

He remembered the shadow he thought he had seen flit past her bedroom window earlier. He needed to know if she had company, and who it was. But after fifteen shivering minutes, with the house showing no signs of life, he decided to pay Garvie a visit.

What could Patterson do? Fire him twice?

The doorbell chimes echoed back at him. He gave another press then waited until the chimes faded to silence.

No response.

He waited thirty seconds then stepped to the lounge window. A glimmer of light slipped through the tiniest of gaps between the curtains. He pressed his face against the cold glass.

In the thread of light he could make out only the wall opposite the sofa, but enough to confirm the fire was out and the fireguard was in place. Snow was forecast. If Garvie was in, would she not have the fire on?

He tried the doorbell again, ringing once, twice, before accepting that Garvie must have slipped out. He was about to turn when he heard the tinkle of a tiny bell. He searched the shadows but saw no twin moons shining back at him. The thought of the cats’ names brought a smile to his lips. Pitter, Patter. Two cats, two owners.

He stiffened. Why had he not thought of it before?

Pitter, Patter. Two cats. Two owners.

Or a third person common to both?

His mind powered through the labyrinth of what-ifs and maybes, the fogs of detection giving glimmers of probables, possibles, maybe-nots, until they thinned to leave the visual remnant of a cat with a disfigured face, and Fats Granton standing beside a young Maggie Hendren. He listened to Fats curse him in the front room of his mansion, heard the whisper of voices replay the words,
Whose cat’s she holding?

Not mine. Hate the fuckers.

And at that moment, Gilchrist saw his error.

He remembered puzzling over why the top of the photograph had been cut, and saw now that its edge had not been trimmed to fit the frame, but to centre a snapshot taken by someone unfamiliar with photography.

All of a sudden the fog lifted.

CHAPTER 31

Wind whips icy blasts across open fields.

I pull my anorak tight and turn to face the cottage. Through the kitchen window I watch Patterson’s wife move into the dining room. I can tell from her vacant look that her expectations of life have passed her by. She is a beaten woman. In body, as well as in mind.

I see in her actions the same lifeless movements of my mother, her body and hands going through the motions of day-to-day existence. Another dead soul. It is disgusting how her husband has treated her. On the surface, he is someone regarded in high esteem, a man who holds one of the highest offices of public trust. But he is a hypocrite, a betrayer of his profession and of those who placed their trust in him.

He is the worst kind of misogynist.

Soon he will suffer the consequences of his hypocrisy.

‘This is Detective Inspector Gilchrist. Put me through to Stan, please.’

‘He’s not here, sir. Have you tried his mobile?’

‘Of course I’ve tried his mobile. It’s switched off.’

‘Well, all I can do is—’

‘Who’s he with?’

‘DC Wilson.’

‘Could you give me her mobile number?’

‘I’m not allowed to give that out, sir.’

‘Who am I speaking to?’

A pause, then, ‘Constable Greg James. Sir. I can get DC Davidson on the radio and have him give you a—’

‘Forget it,’ snapped Gilchrist.

Why had he not asked for Norris, or any other of a number of detectives and officers for that matter? Because he trusted Stan. Simple as that. Over the years, his level of trust in others had deteriorated. Then a thought struck him.

He trusted Alyson Baird, too. She worked as a secretary in the upper office, providing support for Patterson and others.

But at that time of night, was she still there?

Gilchrist pressed
REDIAL
. He had often puzzled over his affair with Alyson. Gail had left six months earlier and drink had played its usual will-weakening part. The affair had been short-lived but its sexual passion had provided Gilchrist a much-needed lift. More importantly, its secret survived Patterson’s interrogation. Alyson had denied it all with a barefaced ease that had astonished Gilchrist at the time.