Tooth for a Tooth (11 page)

Ten minutes later, he returned to the kitchen, refreshed and surprised by how hungry he felt from the smell of tea and toast.

‘Help yourself,’ she said, nodding to the plate. ‘I like mine toasted. I’ve made some with plain bread, too. I’ll be back in a mo.’

Gilchrist waited until he heard the bedroom door click shut before he stepped away from the table.

In the utility room off the kitchen, he read handwritten notes pinned to cork boards, mostly names and numbers. A calendar hung on the wall, with printed notes in daily squares. Dentist at ten on Wednesday. May and Rhonda round for a curry on Saturday at seven thirty. Hairdresser today at two.

In the lounge, tucked behind a clock, he came across a number of photographs folded flat. One of a younger Betty, hair sprung in a blonde perm. By her side, an older man with balding head and swelling waist.
My Bob
before he became a
right fat slob?
Another of a once happy couple on a strip of beach, their skin and faces glowing copper red. Caribbean? Spain? He eyed the other photographs, but found none showing any children. A drinks trolley sat in the corner of the dining room, displaying mostly gins. Beefeater. Gordons. Boodles. He picked up the Boodles. It had been a while since he’d tried any—

‘Can I help you?’

Gilchrist replaced the Boodles on the trolley. ‘I didn’t mean to pry,’ he said.

‘Could have fooled me.’ She held his gaze for a long second, then nodded to the kitchen. ‘You haven’t eaten.’

‘Thought I’d wait until you returned.’

‘To give you more time to pry?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have, but . . .’

‘It runs in your blood. Being a detective. Right?’ She smiled, and her face seemed to light up, as if to let him know she couldn’t have cared less if she’d found him with his head under the settee. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s eat.’

They sat opposite each other at a four-seater circular oak table. ‘I’ll play mum,’ she said, lifting the teapot. ‘Milk? Sugar?’

‘A little milk. No sugar.’

‘I like my tea the way I like my men. White and sweet.’ She laughed, then patted her stomach. ‘I shouldn’t take sugar. But there you go.’

‘Try sweetener.’

‘It’s not the same.’ She stirred his mug and slid it to him.

Between bites of sandwich and sips of tea, Gilchrist asked about her earlier life, her reasons for attending St Andrews, her family background, and all the while she answered with a willingness he found refreshing. But her answers told him nothing new. She knew of no one who had gone missing from the university. It was not until he tackled her about sharing accommodation with Jeanette Pennycuick that he sensed the first hint of animosity.

‘Can you remember the names of any of the other flatmates?’ he asked.

She shook her head.

He thought it was important to identify these temporary lodgers, students who may have known about a missing woman, perhaps tell him something that might help shed some light on her disappearance. ‘Denise?’ he offered. ‘Alyson?’

‘No idea. None of them stayed long. Cramped our style too much.’

He gave her five seconds or so, hoping a name might emerge, but when she stared at him in anticipation of his next question, he said, ‘Your style?’

‘Small flat with small bedrooms, and not enough privacy to get up to what any normal teenager in the sixties got up to, if you know what I mean.’ She smirked. ‘More tea?’

He pushed his mug forward. ‘Were you there when Jeanette met Geoffrey?’

‘There?’

‘The flat in South Street.’

‘Jeanette’d been with Geoffrey on and off for years. Even before they went to St Andrews.’

‘On and off?’

‘Rich little spoiled kids, both of them. Always had to have everything their own way. Used to drive me nuts. One minute they were together, the next with someone else. Sometimes it got to the stage that when I came back to the flat I didn’t know who’d be sleeping with Jeanette. She was a looker, I’ll give her that. Men fell over themselves trying to date her. Fancied her like mad. Especially when she had a tan. It was her Mediterranean looks: dark hair, dark eyes. Great skin.’

Gilchrist stilled. ‘Italian-looking?’

She chuckled. ‘By the look on your face I’d say I’ve surprised you.’

‘I spoke with Jeanette this morning,’ he said. ‘She didn’t give the impression of, how should I say it, putting it about.’

‘Well, she did. And so did he, let me tell you.’

Gilchrist saddened. Somehow that comment turned his mind back to Gail, and to their first sexual liaison in the Valley of Sin. His wife-to-be’s libido had surprised him at the time. But he supposed it should not have. In the sixties and seventies, pre-AIDS, the youth of the day had an almost blasé attitude towards casual sex. Not only were Jeanette and Geoffrey Pennycuick putting it around, but so was almost every other sexually mature youngster in the British Isles and beyond. He forced thoughts of Gail away.

‘Can you remember the names of some of the women Geoffrey went around with?’

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘But he would always make a point of trying it on with some of the others who shared our flat. When Jeanette found out, she would toss their stuff out in the street.’

It struck Gilchrist that perhaps Geoffrey Pennycuick kept his affairs close to home just to inflict greater pain on Jeanette. Betty interrupted his thoughts by saying, ‘So, tell me. How is the bitch anyway?’

‘She said you and she hadn’t spoken for five years.’

‘She tell you why?’

‘Something to do with you trying to start an affair with Geoffrey.’

Her porcelain mug cracked the top of the table with a suddenness that made him jump. Tea splashed on to the oak surface. He watched a flush of sorts work its way from behind her eyes, shift across her face and disappear in a white line at her lips.

‘I take it she wasn’t telling the truth,’ he offered.

She dabbed at the spilled tea with her napkin. ‘Twisted, stuck-up bitch,’ she hissed.

Silent, Gilchrist waited.

She rolled her napkin into a tight ball. ‘Geoffrey can’t keep his cock in his pants,’ she said. ‘Never could. Never will. But that stupid stuck-up bitch refuses to see that.’ She grinned, and the anger of moments earlier vanished. ‘He had a thing for me at St Andrews. But I shouldn’t get worked up about it. Geoffrey had a thing for
everyone
at university. Especially himself.’

‘Fancied himself, did he?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘
Loved
himself. He was a handsome devil back then, I’ll give him that. Girls used to have orgasms at the mention of his name.’

‘Back then?’

‘What’s that?’

‘You said,
back then
.’ Gilchrist sipped his coffee. ‘Which I suppose means you don’t think he’s handsome now.’

‘Wouldn’t let him touch me with a ten-foot bargepole.’

Gilchrist chuckled. ‘Haven’t heard that one before.’

‘Mae West said that.’

‘So, you didn’t . . .’

‘Here’s what happened.’ She leaned across the table, and Gilchrist sensed that he was being made privy to some rare secret. ‘Jeanette’s never trusted her man. And she’s every right not to. Geoffrey’s a serial shagger. For some reason, Jeanette doesn’t want to challenge him. She knew he always had a thing for me.’ She shook her head. ‘Nothing to do with the way I look, or anything like that. I’m just one of the few who turned him down. Anyway, he still tries,
tried
. We don’t see each other any more. But he calls from time to time.’

‘Here? At home?’

‘Amazing, isn’t it? He still thinks he’s got a chance.’ She seemed to struggle to gather herself, then said, ‘Bob had left me about a month, back then. Jeanette calls to invite me to a party. Except it wasn’t Jeanette’s idea, but Geoffrey’s. I didn’t know that at the time, or I might not have gone. When I get there, Geoffrey’s nice as can be, all attentive, acting like he really cares, making sure I’m all right after Bob and how nothing could have surprised him more. But I’d seen him in action before, and I knew what he was all about.

‘Later that night, he tries it on. Shows me the new conservatory he’s having built. But I know what’s coming. So, I’m ready for him.’ She shook her head, and Gilchrist caught the sparkle of tears. ‘When we’re out of sight he makes his move. He presses me against the wall, starts telling me how much he’s always wanted me. I tell him to piss off. He pushes. I push back. But he just keeps on. He won’t take no for an answer. Next thing I know, he takes it out.’ She stared at Gilchrist, her eyes and mouth wide open with disbelief. ‘His cock. He just took it out.’

After several seconds, Gilchrist realized he was expected to say something. ‘Then what?’

‘I laughed.’ She placed her hand to her mouth. ‘I just laughed at him. At
it
. Well . . .’ She shook her head. ‘He went wild. Called me all the names under the sun. Fucking trollop. Tight-cunted dog. Next thing, he leaves. So I head to the bathroom to put myself in order. Not that anything was hanging out, mind you, but I was shaking like a leaf. Before I’m finished, in barges Jeanette, accusing me of coming on to Geoffrey, and what the hell did I think I was doing trying to split up a family? Them with two kids and everything.’ She stared off to some point over Gilchrist’s shoulder. ‘I gave it to her straight, but the more I tried to sort it out, the more she didn’t believe me. In the end, I told her I never wanted to see her or her pencil-dick husband again. That’s when she knew.’

Gilchrist frowned. ‘Knew what?’

‘That Geoffrey had tried it on. She knew I had seen his cock. Long and thin, it was.’ She laughed. ‘Bob might have been getting to be a right fat slob, but I tell you what, it would take a lot more Christmas paper to wrap his up than Geoffrey’s.’

Gilchrist said nothing. He smiled in an attempt to share her amusement, but deep down he burned. Here was a woman who had almost been raped, who had the guts to fight back, only to find her would-be rapist had the barefaced audacity to turn the truth against her, making him the offended, not the offender. As sadness settled over Betty’s face, Gilchrist wondered why Jeanette would stand by her husband when—

‘And for about five seconds that night,’ Betty continued, ‘I was scared.
Really
scared.’

‘You sounded as if you had it all under control.’

She shook her head. ‘For five seconds I had nothing under control. I thought I was going to wet my knickers. For five seconds I saw the real Geoffrey Pennycuick. I had no doubt he would kill to get what he wanted. Kill someone. Me. Anyone. Who knows. I saw it in his face.’ Tears swelled, threatening to spill down her cheeks. ‘It was his eyes,’ she hissed. ‘They blazed.’ She glared at him. ‘Do you know what I mean?’

Silent, Gilchrist nodded, his mind crackling through possibilities until his thoughts clicked into place as firmly as snapping handcuffs on to Geoffrey Pennycuick.

CHAPTER 8

Back in his Roadster, Gilchrist called Stan and asked him to check the university records for Geoffrey Pennycuick. ‘And while you’re finding out what he eats for breakfast, get someone to comb through police records and see if we’ve got anything on him. Unpaid parking tickets, drunk and disorderly, spitting in public, flashing his cock at old women, anything and everything, I want to know about it.’

‘Gotcha, boss.’

It was not until Gilchrist was crossing the Kincardine Bridge and casting his gaze over the mud-brown waters of the River Forth that Bert Mackie called.

‘You OK to talk, Andy?’

‘I’m all ears.’

‘One of my boys gave that cigarette lighter a good going-over. It’s a common-or-garden lighter of the cheapo type, the kind you used to pick up in any shop back in the sixties. Imitation silver-plated, rusted to buggery. One interesting thing though,’ he added. ‘The scratches look like they’re initials after all.’

Gilchrist’s thoughts flashed to Geoffrey Pennycuick. Surely it could not be this easy. ‘Let me guess,’ he said. ‘GP?’

‘Try JG.’

Disappointment flushed through him, then stilled with a cold shock.

We used candles
. Was it possible? Jeanette Pennycuick, née Grant. JG.

‘How sure are you of the initials?’ he asked.

‘Not a hundred per cent,’ Mackie said. ‘I’ve ordered an electron-microscope analysis, to try to differentiate between natural scratches and printed scratches. That should clear up any confusion.’

‘When do you expect the results?’

‘Soon.’

Gilchrist’s mind crackled. ‘You sure your boy got the initials right? They couldn’t be IG, or JC, or something like that, could they?’ He had no idea who IG or JC was, but he worried that the initials matching Pennycuick’s wife could be wrong.

‘I’ve studied them myself, Andy.’ He could almost hear Mackie shaking his head. ‘It’s JG. I’m almost positive.’

‘Almost?’

‘Near as damn it. But we’ll know soon enough.’

He thanked Mackie for calling and told him to keep in touch.

JG. So, there he had it. Or had he?

The initials could be those of the murdered woman. That was the simple explanation, of course. But the fact that they also matched Jeanette Pennycuick’s maiden name forced Gilchrist’s logic along a different path.