Tooth for a Tooth (38 page)

‘Were there any other Lorenas?’

‘I didn’t go out with her at all, as best I can recall.’

‘Not even for a few days?’

Ewart pressed his lips together, shook his head.

‘Not go on holiday with her?’

‘No.’

That was the first lie, Gilchrist thought. ‘Ever been to Spain?’ he asked.

‘Once,’ he said, too quickly, as if Gilchrist was asking questions to which Ewart was primed for the answers. ‘And no, Lorena wasn’t with us.’

‘Us?’

‘Me, Brian and Johnnie.’

‘Brian Fletcher and Johnnie Walker?’

Ewart nodded. ‘What’s this all about?’ he asked. ‘Has she been murdered?’

Right question. Wrong woman. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘Isn’t that what you do? Investigate murders?’

‘And missing people.’

‘Ah,’ Ewart said.

‘And what about Mexico?’

‘What about it?’

‘That’s where Lorena’s from.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘Ever been there?’

‘Never.’

Gilchrist let the second lie of the day pass. He would come back to that one, catch him out later. ‘Not even with Lorena?’ he asked.

‘Look,’ said Ewart, ‘I’m not sure I like—’

‘I take it that’s a no.’

‘No. I mean, yes, it’s a no.’

Ewart was becoming flustered, losing some of his guile. Gilchrist pressed on. ‘Do you know where Lorena lived?’

‘What?’

‘Can you remember the address?’ Gilchrist watched Ewart’s face crease into an amazed smile. ‘The name of the town, then?’

‘Look, can you tell me what this is all about, please?’

‘As you said, I’m investigating a murder.’ Gilchrist moved away from the door, swung his computer case from his shoulder, laid it flat on the desk. He caught his image in a mirror on the wall, thought he looked tired and bruised.

‘I’d like to show you some photographs,’ he said. ‘For identification purposes.’

‘If you must.’

‘We could do it at the office later, if you like. Have you come into St Andrews, this evening, if that would—’

‘No, no, this is fine,’ Ewart grumbled, and stood by Gilchrist’s side.

Gilchrist repositioned himself. From where he stood, Ewart’s face filled the mirror. He unzipped the back of his case and removed the envelope containing the photographs. ‘I don’t need you to see them all,’ he said. ‘Just a few.’ He watched Ewart nod as he slid his hand into the envelope and removed the postcards.

Ewart seemed to still, as if time had stopped for an instant. Gilchrist fumbled inside the envelope and removed a batch of photographs. He spread them over the table.

In the mirror, Ewart paled.

Gilchrist picked up one of the photographs – Kelly alone, her eyes and teeth smiling in the bright sunshine. In the background, a bed of daffodils fixed the date as spring. He held her image up. ‘Can you identify her?’ he asked.

‘That’s the American,’ Ewart whispered.

‘Yes,’ said Gilchrist. ‘That’s Kelly.’ He looked at Ewart as a thought squeezed into his mind. ‘Did you ever go out with her?’

‘Wasn’t your brother seeing her?’

‘Let me ask the questions, Dougie.’

Ewart shook his head. ‘No. Never.’

‘Ever go to her flat in College Street?’

Ewart raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, I’m sure I must have,’ he said.

‘Must have?’

‘Didn’t she share with Megs for a while?’ Ewart shrugged his shoulders. ‘Megs and I were an item for years.’

‘Before she moved in with Kelly?’

‘Before she even went to uni.’

Well, that was news. ‘On again, off again?’ Gilchrist suggested.

Ewart gave a grim smile. ‘Megs can be difficult to live with.’

‘And in between, you’d have relationships with others?’

‘Hardly.’

‘And what about Megs?’

‘She’d mope around, make life difficult and then we’d get back together and everything would be fine for a while.’

‘And what about Lorena? Did you go to Mexico with her?’ he asked again.

‘I’ve never been to Mexico.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

Ewart’s eyes flickered left and right, as if his mind was working out which way to jump.

Gilchrist picked up another photograph. A winter shot of Kelly with Rita. In the mirror, Ewart’s tongue ran across his top lip. ‘Remember Rita?’ Gilchrist asked.

‘Vaguely.’

‘She shared the same flat.’

‘Look,’ said Ewart. ‘I don’t see what I have to do with any of this—’

‘Almost done.’ Gilchrist delved into his case, removed the computer-generated image, placed it flat on the table like a trump card. Kelly stared up at them, half ghost, half alive. ‘We found her.’ he said.

Ewart’s lips tightened, as if to make sure he did not say something he would later regret.

Gilchrist turned over one of the postcards. ‘From Kelly to her parents.
Going to Mexico for a short break. Won’t be back in the States until March. Will be in touch. See you soon. Love you both. Kelly. Kiss kiss.’

Ewart frowned. ‘I didn’t go with her, if that’s what this is about.’

‘She never flew to Mexico. She was murdered in Scotland and her body buried in someone else’s grave.’ Gilchrist picked up the Mexican postcard. ‘
Staying on in Mexico a bit longer. Expect to be back at the end of April. Love, Kelly.’

Ewart scratched his head. ‘You have me confused,’ he said. ‘If she never flew to Mexico, how could she have sent the postcard?’

‘She didn’t.’

Ewart paused. ‘I’m not sure what you’re trying to tell me, Andy.’

Gilchrist noticed the use of his first name, a ploy to soften him up, perhaps, keep it friendly. But sometimes you had to go in with the boot. ‘Someone sent the postcard from Mexico on her behalf.’ He stepped forward, closed the gap. ‘That someone was you.’

Ewart frowned, his forehead a mass of intersecting furrows that seemed to move in waves as his eyebrows lifted and fell. ‘I’ve never been to Mexico.’

‘Why don’t I believe you?’

‘How would I have got there?’

Gilchrist almost stumbled. ‘Flown. How else?’

‘I don’t fly. I’ve never flown. Not once. Ever.’

Something fluttered in Gilchrist’s chest, then kick-started with a rush of blood that threatened to scald his face. ‘You went to Spain,’ he tried, but he already knew the answer.

‘We took Johnnie’s car.’ Ewart’s voice seemed to ring with renewed confidence. ‘Aviatophobia,’ he pronounced. ‘I have a fear of flying.’

‘People take pills for that.’

‘I’m allergic to most of them.’

Even then, Gilchrist tried not to lose face. ‘I’ll check passport records, look into—’

‘No need to,’ Ewart said. ‘I’ve kept my original passport. The only one I’ve ever had. The only stamps on it are the exit and entry to Spain that year. First and last time I’ve ever left the country.’

Gilchrist stepped to the end of the desk and stared out the window, trying to find the flaw in the logic. Ewart could have had a false passport, used it to fly to Mexico, then destroyed it. Or maybe lost his passport and had another issued. But if his fear of flying and his allergies were for real, then he really was accusing the wrong man—

He jerked at the sound of squealing tyres.

From the tilt of Ewart’s head, he knew he had heard it, too.

He squinted through the blinds. By the corner of the building, a team of policemen spilled from the opened doors of a white Transit van, followed by Tosh, all wild arms and red face, shouting out orders.

Gilchrist swept the photographs and postcards off the desk and into his laptop case. ‘Give me five minutes, Dougie, all right?’

Ewart seemed puzzled to the point of grinning.

Gilchrist leaped over the desk and pulled open a drawer.

‘Hey, hang on—’

Gilchrist slammed the drawer shut, opened another and pulled out a set of car keys with a BMW keyring. ‘Tell them I left five minutes ago. If it comes down to it, I’ll swear under oath that I threatened you.’ He zipped up his case, swung it over his shoulders, pulled the blinds to the side and opened the window. A final check confirmed that Tosh was out of sight, probably running his way through the main door. Others would surely follow.

He swung his feet up and over and dropped to the ground.

It never failed to amaze him how the mind worked. Even as he ran, his brain fired up in some part of his subconscious, sprang alive somewhere deep within its neural network and, with the logic of a computer, dissected and analysed and spat out the answer.

By the time he powered up Dougie’s BMW, he thought he had it worked out.

CHAPTER 30

He found her in the back garden, pegging washing to a whirligig.

The look on her face shifted from shock to surprise, then settled into a strained grin that warned him – here was a woman who could slide a knife deep into the heart of your gut and tell you she loved you. Cracking a bedside lamp against Kelly’s head would have raised about as much emotion as tapping a nail into wood.

‘You’ve decided to come back,’ she said.

Gilchrist followed her into the kitchen where she shoved the clothes basket into the utility cupboard. Before she could turn, he clamped both her arms to her side and pushed her through to the lounge, away from the kitchen with all its cleavers and knives.

They reached the safe haven of a bookshelf in an alcove to the side of the fireplace. He let his computer case slide from his shoulder to the floor.

She turned to him, her face an odd mix of surprise and determination, her hands hoisting the hem of her skirt. ‘When did you last have a woman, Andy?’

Five weeks ago, his mind whispered. But Nance’s heart had not been in it.

He pushed away from her. ‘Give it up, Megs,’ he said. ‘It won’t work.’

‘What? Percy won’t rise to the occasion?’ She guffawed. ‘I think we’ll have Percy popping out of his pants and just gagging for—’

‘Megs.’

He had not intended to shout, but the strength of his voice made her freeze. She stood for a long second, stilled like an image trapped on film. Then he caught the movement in her eyes, the quickest of glances to the kitchen door, and realized she was not just one step ahead of him, but probably four.

‘Let me get a drink to loosen you up,’ she said, and moved towards the kitchen door with the speed of someone half her weight.

He managed to slam the door shut as she opened it.

She faced him, her back pressed against the wood. With one hand holding the door shut, they stood closer than he liked. Her breath rushed hot and hard by his face. He sensed her panic, her fear, her inability to work out how to stop it.

‘Let’s talk, Megs. Shall we?’

‘Verbal foreplay? I’m all for that.’ Her smile came off all wrong, a baring of teeth that gave him a glimpse of her dark side.

Hand still flat to the door, he nodded to the sofa. ‘Take a seat.’

With pained reluctance, Megs shuffled to the sofa and slumped down on it.

‘It took me some time to work it out,’ he said, ‘but once I did, I wonder why I never thought about it sooner.’

She patted the sofa, an invitation for him to sit beside her.

He returned to the bookshelf, stood with his back against it. From there, he felt in control. Megs stared at him as if preparing to listen. But behind her façade, he knew an active mind was trying to work out some way to trick him.

‘You phoned the office,’ he said, ‘and told them I was at Dougie’s.’

She pouted. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘How else would they have known?’ he replied. ‘They had nothing to go on, nothing to point them there. Until you told them.’

One hand played with the hem of her skirt. ‘You look shot, Andy. Come and lie down. Let me help you relax.’

‘Did jealousy make you do it?’

Her tongue slid over her lip. She shifted her skirt higher.

‘I think that’s what happened,’ he said. ‘Kelly was a young woman from another country, with a free spirit, living away from home, not afraid to sample life to the full. She was blonde, beautiful, slim. Everything you’re not.’

Her skirt flapped to her knees with a speed that startled him. Anger blazed behind dark eyes that settled into a dead gaze and seemed to focus on something miles behind him.

‘She could have had any man she wanted,’ he pressed on. ‘Even Dougie. The love of your life.’

Her gaze returned, as black and sullen as a betrayed señorita. And it struck him then, that Megs might have been the woman who had comforted Mrs McLeod at her husband’s graveside all those years ago.

‘Bitch,’ she spat.

Now they were coming down to it.

‘You travelled a lot,’ he went on. ‘South America was your favourite. You could have lived there. You said so yourself. Was it even better than Mexico?’ He kept his eyes on her as he bent down, opened his case and removed the postcards. ‘But you never went anywhere by yourself. You went to Mexico for a mid-term break with Wee Johnnie. It took me a while to work out how the flight manifesto checked out, because Kelly never flew to Mexico –
you
did, under her name.’