Life For a Life (18 page)

They found the others – Jessie, Nance, McCauley, Baxter and Rennie – seated at the rear of the bar, and it intrigued him to see how Jessie and Nance had chosen to sit diagonally opposite each other, as far away as the table permitted. Jackie manoeuvred her way next to Nance who took her crutches from Gilchrist and laid them on the floor against the seat.

‘I see you’re getting to know everyone,’ he said to Jessie.

‘It’s amazing how the words
my round
win instant friendship.’

‘My round?’ said Gilchrist, and could not suppress a grin when Baxter tried to finish his pint in immediate acknowledgement. Nance surprised him by asking for a Cointreau with plenty of ice and a slice of lemon for Jackie. ‘A double?’ he asked Jackie.

Yes please, she nodded.

Round purchased, and thirty quid lighter, Gilchrist managed to squeeze in between Jessie and McCauley on the bench seat. He thought Nance’s glare was uncalled for, but ever since she’d split up with John, she seemed less tolerant – not quite bitter, he thought, but more like she was beginning to realise that despite her looks and sex appeal, she could not sustain any meaningful relationship and that life was passing her by. But Gilchrist often surmised that her take-noprisoners attitude could hold men at bay, even push them away.

He triggered some fresh banter by venturing, ‘No Mhairi?’

‘Angus asked her out.’

‘And she said yes?’

‘I think she’s giving him one more chance.’

‘That’s two more chances than he deserves.’

‘What is it with guys and their dicks?’

‘What is it with women and their one more chances?’

‘She should have told him to piss off.’

‘Yeah, take a hike, fatman.’

‘I mean, what an absolute spastic.’

The banter hushed, while hands reached for their drinks, all eyes away from Jackie.

‘Talking of spastics,’ Jessie chirped, ‘Jackie says she can always tell when she’s had too much to drink because when she staggers home she slots the key in the lock first time.’

No one laughed, reminding Gilchrist of her routine in the Stand Comedy Club.

Jackie hid behind her drink but could not suppress a chuckle.

‘Did you hear the one about the sailor with the wooden leg?’ Jessie said.

‘Why don’t you tell us the one about the fat bimbo from Glasgow?’ Nance said.

‘Don’t know that one, Nance. Like to run it past me?’

Nance picked up her drink, and for an unsteady moment Gilchrist thought she was going to throw it over Jessie. But she cast Jessie off with a mouth-twisting smirk, and said to Rennie, ‘How’s your wife keeping?’ and took a sip.

‘Four weeks to go,’ Rennie said. ‘We’re hoping for a boy.’

‘We hope so too,’ Baxter said. ‘With an ugly mug like yours, a daughter wouldnae stand a chance of getting herself a man.’

Rennie grinned, a flash of teeth that looked too big for his mouth. And as Gilchrist listened to the others chip in, Jessie’s silence felt like a physical presence that sat by his side as unforgiving as a cold wind. Watching the group liven, he could almost feel her hurt from Nance’s barbed comment, like some stranger alone in a new land. He lifted his pint, tilted his drink to hers, but she was looking to the side, her attention drawn to her iPhone, already pulling away, shuffling to her feet. She made the connection, and walked towards the side entrance for some privacy.

‘Where did you dig her up?’ Nance said to him.

‘Give her a chance,’ Gilchrist replied, conscious of a quietening at the table. ‘She’s sorting out some issues.’

‘She needs to sort out her tongue first.’

‘That cuts both ways,’ Gilchrist said.

No one spoke, as if his words had chastised them all. He was saved by Jessie’s return.

She lifted her pint, took a parting swill, and said, ‘Got to go.’

‘I’ll put a pint for you behind the bar,’ Baxter offered.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll catch you next time.’ She grinned at Jackie, stabbed an imaginary key into an imaginary lock, then gave a twist followed by a thumbs-up. ‘Toodle-do.’

Jackie chuckled, gave a thumbs-up in response.

As Jessie squeezed her way towards the Market Street door, Nance whispered, ‘What a bitch,’ causing Jackie to look to the floor.

Like the others, Gilchrist chose not to say anything.

McCauley and Baxter stayed for only one more, and Jackie hobbled off after finishing her double Cointreau. Rennie had gone to the bar to order a round, where he now stood, deep into an argument with someone over the rise in transfer fees –
where’s it gonnie end?
– how sports agents were lining their pockets –
they’re ruining the game
– what a season ticket for Dundee United would cost next year –
fucking out of order, so it is.

Seated alone at the table with Nance, he found it odd that she had nothing to say to him. Where they had once shared more than casual conversation, she now seemed intent on avoiding eye contact. Her attention was focused on her mobile, texting a message. He was nursing his second pint, taking his time, catching snippets of Rennie’s argument, when he heard, ‘Any room in there for me?’

He had not noticed Cooper enter, and as she leaned forward and placed her glass on the table – a surprising filled-to-the-brim whisky and crushed ice – loose curls swirled by her shoulders like a shampoo ad. Her eyes were darkened with a touch of kohl – another surprise – and when she gave a hint of a smile and a flicker for a wink, they sparkled with a blue fire. Nance shifted her chair, an invitation for Cooper to sit next to her. But Cooper ignored the gesture and squeezed between the tables, and took a seat next to Gilchrist.

That close, her presence felt like electricity that pulsed the air. A fragrance – soap and shampoo with a hint of some perfume he had smelled before, but could not place – filled his senses with the freshness of a spring morning.

She lifted her glass, chinked it against his.

‘Welcome to Saturday night in the Central,’ he said to her.

‘Busy little place.’

‘You should see it when it’s full,’ he joked, strangely relieved to see her return his smile. He took a sip of his beer, conscious of Nance watching them, like a student checking to see if her teacher is going to try the same old tricks on someone new. He was aware, too, of Cooper’s closeness as she searched her purse and sidled closer, not much, but enough to let him feel the press of her thigh against his.

‘What brings you here?’ Nance said to her.

Cooper gave a narrow smile. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I haven’t seen you here before.’

‘Me neither. So tell me, Andy, anything new on the case?’

Gilchrist thought he had never seen Nance look so put out. He sipped his pint, and from the corner of his eye watched Nance ease her seat back and, with a ‘See you Monday,’ push to her feet and slide into the throng. Rennie glanced at her as she bumped past, and gave a belated, ‘See you.’

‘So where were we?’ Cooper said to him.

‘I think I was about to order a drink,’ he said.

‘Put it on my tab. And I’ll have another one of these.’

‘Which is?’

‘Rusty Nail.’

‘Would you like to see a menu?’

‘I’ve booked a table for two at the Doll’s House.’ She glanced at her watch, which hung on her wrist as loose as a bangle. ‘Which gives you about thirty minutes to finish your pint.’

‘Ah. Right.’

He ordered the round, handed over a tenner, niggled by the thought that Cooper had assumed he would go along with whatever she planned. He was happy enough to have a pint with her in a busy bar, but somehow the thought of being caught in the more intimate setting of a restaurant irked.

‘There you go,’ he said to her, placing her Rusty Nail on a coaster, while she returned her mobile to her handbag. He took a quick sip of his Deuchars, then said, ‘I think I’m more of a pint and a pie kind of a guy. So you might want to cancel that table.’

‘Already done that.’ She patted her purse.

‘You have?’

‘You’re an easy man to read, Andy.’

He lifted his pint and took another sip. Any libidinous thoughts he had about that evening’s liaison evaporated in the Saturdaynight hubbub.

His escape came by mobile phone.

‘Got a few names and numbers for you,’ Dick said. ‘Five in total. But a couple she called several times. I can email them to you.’

‘I’m not in the office.’

‘I’ll send them to your mobile.’

‘I’m hopeless with that stuff, Dick. Just read them out to me. I’ve got an old-fashioned pen and paper.’ He slid a pen and notepad from his pocket and, with his mobile tucked under his chin, scribbled as fast as Dick could recite them.

‘Couldn’t put a name to the last number,’ Dick said. ‘Probably one of those dodgy SIM cards, prepaid. They’re almost advertising them in the supermarkets down south. Buy your SIM, slot it in, use it until the credit runs out, then throw it away and slot in the next one. By the time you trace the call, the punter’s on his way to France or wherever.’

‘Untraceable?’

‘You might be able to locate the source, but these guys are in the moving business. One day here, another there. You’d never pin it to anyone. I checked the transmission data and was able to get a bearing on it. It’s local.’

Gilchrist pressed his mobile to his ear. ‘St Andrews?’

‘Dundee,’ Dick said. ‘And another further south.’

‘Kingsbarns?’

‘Could be. I’ll keep looking, and get back to you with anything new.’

Gilchrist thanked Dick and hung up, his mind firing with possibilities.

Dillanos was calling someone in Dundee? Was that where the rat’s nest was? If so, renting a cottage in Kingsbarns made sense. Not exactly shitting on your own doorstep but Dundee was close enough to keep an eye on it, and far enough away to deny any connection.

He eyed his scribbled notes, and scanned through the names and numbers. He thought he understood a couple – Dexter Murphy, an address in Greenock, could be Megan Murphy’s callme-Caryl brother, or father; Siobhan Murphy, an address in Altrincham, could be her sister; Murdock and Roberts, her accountant, in Glasgow. Why call them? Oh, and here’s a surprise, McKinlay Iqbal Solicitors, an address in St Vincent Street, Glasgow, which told him that she might have reported that morning’s incident, no doubt exaggerating the way she had been treated by the local constabulary, and in particular by a certain DCI Gilchrist.

And finally, the number with neither name nor address – just Dick’s confirmation that it was local. Gilchrist toyed with the idea of calling it. But would doing so only alert them that someone could be on to them?

He checked the details of the calls, and saw that Dick had read out the list to him in chronological order. Caryl Dillanos had called Dexter Murphy first – 3.24 minutes – short and to the point. Which meant . . . ? Could mean anything. Then Siobhan Murphy for a shorter 0.37 minutes – left a message on an answering machine? – followed by another 0.29 minutes call – to leave another message? Then a longer 6.22 minutes call some twenty-five minutes later – sisters’ heart to heart? Somehow, an image of Dillanos taking solace from anyone, let alone a sibling, failed to materialise. Murdock and Roberts were next – 1.43 minutes – which had Gilchrist thinking she had called to set up a meeting. But that call niggled him. A call to an accountant after being grilled for a couple of hours by the police was out of place.

Would she not have called her solicitor first?

He picked up his pint, took a sip, and wondered if the call to Murdock and Roberts was about the twenty thousand, or rather the
eighteen
thousand, she had brought with her. Who had that amount of cash just sitting around? Caryl Versace Dillanos had, of course.

But the calls to McKinlay Iqbal, all three of them, held his attention.

In his haste to scribble them down he had not picked up their significance, and he now saw a certain sense in their order – a short call of 0.54 minutes to ask to speak to her solicitor; two minutes later, almost to the second, another short call of 0.38 minutes to be told that they had not yet found him; followed by the final call another two minutes later, which lasted all of 15.29 minutes, long enough to give a detailed account of her grilling in the office, and to receive legal advice in return?

It seemed as good an explanation as any.

Then the final call, the one with no name and address, that lasted all of 2.31 minutes.

And that was it—

‘Should I book a table for one?’

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just . . .’

‘To do with the case we’re working on?’

‘In a way, yes.’

She smiled then, and chinked her glass to his. ‘Don’t let me keep you,’ she said. ‘It’s lovely to watch.’

‘What’s lovely to watch?’

‘You on the job. You light up. Your whole being becomes energised. Has anyone told you that?’

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I really do have—’

‘Don’t be sorry, Andy. Go. I can find my own way home.’

He thought it strange how quickly emotions can change. Ten minutes earlier he had felt irritated at being expected to wine and dine to order. Now he felt regret at leaving. On the spur of the moment, he leaned over and pecked her on the cheek. ‘I’ll call later.’ He prepared to stand, but her hand gripped his arm.

‘I’ll call you,’ she said.

Outside, the cold hit him anew, a bitter chill that flapped at his scarf and had him bowing his head as he strode into it. Snow now covered the cobbles and drifted over the stones in flurried gusts. He walked down College Street and into North Street. He thought of driving home, but he was a couple of pints over the limit, and he had a few things to check at the office, which would help him work the alcohol from his system.

Or so he told himself.

Back at his desk he powered up his computer, and googled McKinlay Iqbal Solicitors. Their office was a corner building in the city centre, which looked as if it could do with a coat of paint, maybe three, not exactly the way to advertise legal services. He checked his watch – 19.53. No one would be at work on a Saturday night – well, if you did not include DCIs who’d had a couple of pints, that is. He was about to dial the number on his screen when he paused. He removed his notebook from his pocket, checked the website number against the number Dillanos had called, and confirmed they were different.