Tooth for a Tooth (16 page)

‘We?’

‘Me and Jim.’

Something akin to electricity ran the length of Gilchrist’s spine.

‘Legless, I was,’ Linda looked up with a defeated smile. ‘I’ve not had a drink for ten years, and here I am. Legless again.’

Gilchrist tried to offer a smile, but did not pull it off.

‘Don’t know what I saw in him. Jim wasn’t my type, really. Drove a fancy sports car. Just sitting in it made me feel special. Jim was no looker. But when you’re young and stupid and drunk mostly every weekend, who cares? I was on the pill. We all were. What did it matter?’

‘It was raining, you said.’

She looked to the window, as if searching for her memories. ‘I was wearing a mini-skirt.’ She shook her head. ‘How on earth we wore them I’ll never know. I looked good, though.’ She slapped her legs. ‘Nice and shapely they used to be. I’ve always wondered, if the style had been different, would that night have turned out different, too?’

‘I’m not sure I follow.’

‘That’s what distracted Jim. My legs. He couldn’t keep his hands off them. I told him to stop, keep his eyes on the road, he’d get what he wanted later.’ She pressed her hand to her mouth as tears filled her eyes. ‘Listen to me, I sound like a wee hairy. But I wasn’t. Honest to God, I wasn’t. I was just drunk.’ She dabbed the corners of her eyes, tucked loose hair behind an ear. ‘I never saw him.’

Gilchrist’s mind sprang alert. ‘Saw who?’

‘The man Jim hit. I only heard it. A right hard thud, so it was. Jim stopped the car. He just sat there, gripping the wheel, looking in the mirror. He looked scared.’

‘You never saw the man he hit?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I was digging in my handbag for a fag.’

‘Then what?’

‘Jim drove off.’

‘Did he not get out of the car?’

‘No.’

Gilchrist raked his hair, fought off an image of his brother lying on the side of the street, blood draining along the gutter in red waves. If either of them had taken a look, could they have saved Jack’s life? ‘What were you thinking of?’ he said. ‘Your boyfriend had just killed someone and the next thing—’

‘It wasn’t like that.’

The snap in her voice coincided with the click of the front door. Gilchrist held his breath, like a lover caught in the act. He felt, more than heard, Rabbie walk the length of the hall, and waited until the kitchen door closed. ‘What was it like, then?’ he asked.

Linda’s fingers gripped her wheelchair, worked the rims of the wheels, wriggled it around until she faced Gilchrist head on. ‘I didn’t know he’d run over someone—’

‘I thought you’d—’

‘Let me finish.’

Gilchrist waited while her fingers relaxed their grip. He waited while her eyes welled and tears blinked free.

‘I’ve thought about that night for years,’ she began. ‘The older you get the more aware you become of your own mortality. And here I am, glued to this chair, waiting to die.’

Gilchrist struggled to contain his anger. ‘Jack would have been fifty-four next year,’ he growled.

Like a wind uncurling a folded rag, her face shifted. ‘Jack? You knew him?’

‘He was my brother.’

She held his gaze for a long moment, then looked away, defeated. ‘I never knew,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sorry. So sorry.’

‘Tell me what you remember.’

‘Jim told me he’d hit a dog.’

‘What kind of dog?’

‘What difference did it make? A dog’s a dog. He said it was OK, that it just got up and ran away.’

‘And you believed him?’

‘Why wouldn’t I? I never saw what happened.’

‘A right hard thump, you said.’

‘I just thought it was a dog. A big dog.’

‘He looked scared, you said. After hitting a dog?’

‘But only for a wee while. That’s what Jim was like.’

‘But you found out later.’ A statement, not a question.

She gripped the wheel rims and tugged. ‘I heard about the accident on the telly the following week. But I never saw Jim again.’

‘Didn’t you speak to him about it?’

‘No.’ She stared through the window again. Clouds curled across a sky as grey as a roadside gutter, and he caught another glimpse of his brother’s face. ‘I knew something was up,’ she whispered. ‘All night he’d been talking about doing it. That’s all he wanted. He couldn’t have given a toss if I was legless or unconscious. All he wanted was a shag.’ She backed her wheelchair away from him, as if to distance herself from the memory. ‘But he said nothing after the accident, just drove me home and dropped me off without so much as a goodnight grope.’ She worked the wheels of her chair so that she faced the window full on. ‘But he did say one final thing.’

Gilchrist stared at her. If she lied, he would know it.

‘He said, if anyone ever asks, tell them it was a dog.’

A dog
. Records had shown that Jack had died from loss of blood. The force of the hit had broken his knee and shattered his thigh, causing a bone fragment to slice his femoral artery. He could have been unconscious in a minute, dead in two. And James Matthew Fairclough had compared Jack’s life to nothing more than that of a dog.

‘Look,’ she said, and spun her chair away from the window, so that her back was to him. ‘I’ve told you all I know. Please, Mr Gilchrist, will you leave it at that?’

‘Any problems?’

Gilchrist turned at the sound of Rabbie’s growl and, from the glaring eyes and tight lips, caught a glimpse of the wild beast that could be a drunken Rabbie.

‘Mr Gilchrist is just leaving, Rabbie. Aren’t you, Mr Gilchrist?’

‘I would like an answer to one final question,’ he said.

‘Can you no hear the woman?’ Rabbie brushed past and stood between Gilchrist and his sister.

Gilchrist waited while Linda shuffled her wheelchair around to face him. Tears stained her cheeks.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Gilchrist. I should have done something about it before now. But I didn’t. And that is my regret.’

‘Can I ask why?’

Rabbie stiffened. ‘Is that your final question?’

‘It could be.’

Linda dabbed a shaking hand to her eyes. ‘Jim frightened me. It was as simple as that, Mr Gilchrist.’

Gilchrist needed to press for one more answer. ‘Would you be prepared to go to court and give evidence?’

Rabbie stepped forward. ‘You’ve had your final question.’

‘It’s all right, Rabbie, it’s all right.’

Rabbie retreated to the side of the wheelchair, placed a hand on her shoulder.

Linda almost smiled. ‘I don’t have long to live,’ she said to Gilchrist, ‘so what have I got to be afraid of any more?’

Gilchrist let himself out.

He tried to give Tam a farewell chuck behind the ears, but Tam returned the gesture with a growl, leaving Gilchrist with the feeling that he had upset everyone that morning.

CHAPTER 12

It took Stan less than two hours to come back to Gilchrist with a current address for James Matthew Fairclough – Livingston, on the western outskirts of Edinburgh.

On the drive through, Gilchrist called Jack.

‘How do you feel this morning?’ he asked.

‘Andy? Hey, man. How’s it going?’ He gave out a hard cough that sounded like gravel turning in a cement mixer. ‘What time is it, anyway?’

‘You sound a bit rough.’

‘Just hungover.’

Hungover?
‘Jack,’ Gilchrist said, and felt his fingers tighten their grip. ‘I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to tell me the truth.’

‘I’m not taking drugs, Andy. I’ve told you that before. Did Kara say that to you?’

The speed with which Jack had jumped to his conclusion surprised Gilchrist. Maybe his son possessed his own sixth sense. ‘Why don’t I believe you?’ he said.

‘I smoked some marijuana not so long ago,’ Jack confessed, as if realizing the futility of arguing against a detective parent.

‘Define
some
.’

‘Not a lot.’

‘You’ll need to do better than that.’

Another cough, less phlegm-laden. ‘I was struggling with the flu,’ Jack said. ‘I’d taken some stuff to keep my temperature down. We went out for a beer. I had a shandy, of all things. Don’t laugh. It was Kara’s suggestion. But we met up with an old friend, and one thing led to another. We ended up at some party in the west end, and I crashed out.’

‘Crashed out?’

‘Fainted, then. Is that better?’

‘What did you take?’

‘Mostly alcohol.’

‘And?’

‘And some marijuana. Just a couple of spliffs.’

‘Nothing hard?’

‘No. I swear.’

‘How many other times?’ The silence grew, along with Gilchrist’s doubts. Jack was lying. He could sense it.

‘There were no other times—’

‘Come off it, Jack. You don’t crash out on alcohol and marijuana. You’re talking as if my head zips up the back.’

‘I’m telling you, Andy. That’s it. The only time. With Kara, at least.’

There. He had it. Jack’s confession that he had taken drugs
before
Kara.

‘What I mean is,’ Jack continued, ‘the only time like
that
. I was really sick, man. I had to go to the hospital. Kara insisted they pump my stomach, keep me overnight. I told them I had the flu, that’s all. But no one would listen. They thought I was on cocaine or something. But the alcohol must have reacted with the prescription medication—’

‘Prescription?’

‘Yeah. I went to the doctor. I was feeling lousy.’

Gilchrist felt a spurt of hope. Jack would have seen a doctor only as a last resort. As a child he’d hated the doctor’s surgery, with its dismal waiting room and morbid silence. But a doctor kept records. ‘Which doctor?’ he asked.

‘Look, Andy. I’ve just about had it with you on this. I’ve told you. I don’t. Take. Drugs. OK?’

‘I hear you.’ But the line was already dead.

Gilchrist slapped his mobile shut and threw it on to the passenger seat. He knew his son. Jack had always been weaker than Maureen. Well,
weaker
was not the correct word. Less strong, perhaps. More telling, he thought, was that whenever Jack lied, he would fight it out to the bitter end, argue black was white if he had to. But caught in an argument over the truth, he would clam shut, just walk away. Or hang up. Which told Gilchrist that Jack was not on drugs. He’d taken them in the past. That was an indisputable fact.

But not now.

He found the housing estate just before midday and eased his Mercedes into it.

Detached homes lined both sides of a quiet road that branched left on to an elliptical cul-de-sac. Trimmed hedgerows bordered tidy lawns. Glistening paintwork edged sparkling windows. All picture-perfect, except for one home that stood out like an old caravan at a car auction.

The rusting body of an old MGB GT that sat on the side lawn beside the tarpaulin-covered hulk of another vehicle had Gilchrist’s heart pounding. For a moment he thought it could be the same car Gina Belli identified, but the registration plate dated it in the seventies, years after the hit-and-run. Both cars had not been moved for some time. Grass sprouted around tyres and under the chassis like desert scrub. A dilapidated Ford Sierra huddled half on, half off the pavement, in front of a battered Transit van with taped cardboard where the side window should have been. The only vehicle that looked as if it had moved in the last year was a long-bodied Ford van with the telescopic arm of a cherry picker folded along its roof.
Fairclough Engineering
stood out on its grimy side panels.

Gilchrist parked his Merc four houses away.

When he returned, he lifted the corner of the tarpaulin on the car next to the MGB, just enough to identify the badge of an ancient and dilapidated Ford Anglia. No luck there.

Fairclough’s home was no better. The door had not felt the welcome bristles of a paintbrush for at least ten years, maybe twenty. Square lawns either side of a cracked path looked as if the grass had been torn, not cut. Curtains hung askew in the front window. The door split from the frame with a sticky crack on Gilchrist’s third pressing of the doorbell.

A pot-bellied man in a grimy T-shirt and baggy sweatpants stood barefoot in the hall. Hair like white wire sprouted either side of a bald head. Swollen bags under bloodshot eyes folded into fat cheeks. The stench of sour milk drifted with him as he stepped forward.

‘James Fairclough?’

‘Whatever you’re selling,’ he growled, ‘I’m not interested.’

‘James Matthew Fairclough?’ Gilchrist fingered his warrant card.

‘So?’

‘Can I have a word?’

‘What about?’

‘Inside?’

Fairclough coughed, a hard bark that brought phlegm to his mouth. He pulled a filthy cloth from his pocket, spat into it, then slipped it back into his sweatpants. Maybe outside was better.