Tooth for a Tooth (7 page)

He arrived at Jeanette Pennycuick’s at five to seven. The cold stone building looked dull and imposing, all the more uninviting seen through a damp drizzle that hung in the air like an east-coast haar.

He stepped from his car and pulled his collar up.

He pushed open a heavy metal gate that groaned on rusted hinges, and walked along a pathway lined with the skeletal branches of pruned autumn bushes to a dark door sheltered by a portico with twin stone columns. A matching pair of flowerpots shaped like lions sat on the first step and guarded the door. The brass doorknob resembled a roaring lion with a ring knocker like an oversized nose-piercing. A dim light on the door frame led his fingers to the doorbell, beneath which lay a polished brass nameplate.

Geoffrey Pennycuick
.

No mention of his having a wife.

A deep chime echoed back at him when he pressed the doorbell. A dim light warmed the ceiling of an upstairs room. If not for that, he would have said the house was deserted. Late October was the time for the mid-term break. Maybe the Pennycuicks were away on holiday with their children, if they had any children. Or perhaps they had gone out for the evening. If they were not to return until after midnight, he would have a long wait. Mind made up, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and returned to his car, intent on paying them a visit first thing in the morning.

He wound his way through night-time traffic to Jack’s flat in Hillhead. Unable to find a parking spot, he abandoned his Merc in a cobbled lane opposite and hoped he would not be clamped.

Jack’s flat was one of a terraced row of tenement buildings; whose façade had been sandblasted clean within the last year. Despite the communal door being freshly painted black, the starless Glasgow sky doused the area in misery. He climbed the footworn steps. From somewhere beyond the bottom of the road, he heard the sound of breaking glass, people shouting. He eyed the junction but saw only passing cars, their lights piercing the night air like laser beams. He pressed Jack’s doorbell.

Several seconds later a tinny voice said, ‘Heh.’

‘Jack?’

‘Who’s this?’

‘Your father.’

‘Heh, Andy, didn’t recognize the voice. Up you come, man.’

The lock buzzed, and Gilchrist stepped into a dark close that echoed with the sound of his footfall. The door thudded behind him. On the third-floor landing, Jack was waiting. They hugged, tight, and when they parted Gilchrist dabbed a hand at his eyes. Jack faced him, eyes glistening in the chilly landing air.

‘How are you holding up?’ Gilchrist asked.

Jack shrugged. ‘Over the worst of it. Pity you couldn’t make it yesterday.’

‘Got an urgent call. Pressure of work, and all that.’

‘Turned out to be a good do. Well . . .’ Jack gave a twisted smile. ‘If you could ever call a wake good.’

Gilchrist tightened his lips, held out The Macallan 10. ‘It’s a bit early for Christmas,’ he tried, forcing a joke. ‘But anyway, Merry Christmas.’

‘Any excuse’ll do, right?’ Jack studied the label. ‘This looks good enough to open right away.’

‘I see you still take a lot of persuading.’

‘Only where drink’s concerned.’ He placed a hand on his father’s shoulder and pressed him towards the open living-room door.

Gilchrist stepped into a room he remembered as being dull and drab. Now, woodwork sparkled with off-white gloss. Bold oil paintings of indeterminate subject hung from ceiling to floor on every wall and brightened the room in blues, greens, reds, yellows, with shapes that swirled and swooped like some multicoloured maelstrom. He recognized Chloe’s work.

‘Can never sell them,’ said Jack, and placed two tumblers on a bleached coffee table stained with enough paint for Gilchrist to think it doubled as a palette.

Jack cracked open The Macallan 10.

‘How are her exhibitions going?’ Gilchrist asked, and almost cringed at his question. He had promised to come along to the most recent one, but had called off at the last minute, tied up with the case of the week.

Jack poured a hefty measure. ‘Great,’ he said. ‘A lot of interest in her work.’ He handed the glass to Gilchrist. ‘But they pissed me off in the end.’

‘They?’

‘All those wankers who think they know a bargain when they see it.’

‘You don’t like her work?’ Gilchrist asked, failing to hide his surprise.

‘I love her work. She’s brilliant.
Was
brilliant. I told them that.’ Jack held out his glass, chinked it against Gilchrist’s. ‘Cheers,’ he said, and threw it back as if it was a shot, then grimaced. ‘How good is that?’

‘Good enough to savour?’

‘Always like to slam the first one.’ Jack refilled and took a measured sip, licked his lips. ‘Well, this one guy in particular. A real English plonker. Fancied himself as some art connoisseur. A right prick. With the grey-haired ponytail and the bow tie and the public-school voice. Offered me ten grand for the lot. I told him to fuck off.’

‘I can’t imagine that going down well.’

Jack chuckled. ‘He kept upping it, as if that was going to make me change my mind. When he told me twenty-five was his final offer, I told him I wouldn’t sell even one of them for that. He looked at me like I was crazy. Just like you’re looking at me now.’

‘Twenty-five thousand’s a lot of money.’

‘And your point is?’

With Jack it was never about money. It was about freedom of expression, the exploration of self, the discovery of the new or even the old. Jack would never change. But paintings did not pay bills, and Gilchrist worried that Jack always appeared to live a penny or two above the poverty line. Chloe’s display, rather than putting money in the bank, was also keeping Jack locked in the past, not letting him move forward.

‘How’s your own stuff selling?’ he tried. ‘Last I heard you were back to painting some of your own.’

Jack chinked his glass to Gilchrist’s. ‘Like me to show you?’

Glass in hand, he followed Jack into a back bedroom that felt arctic-cold. The sharp tang of turps and paint caught the back of his throat. The room was stripped of wallpaper, carpet and furnishings. Their footfalls echoed as they crossed the floor. A bare window stretched almost from floor to ceiling, next to an artist’s easel on which rested an unfinished painting, nothing more than brush strokes of bright colour that converged in the middle and gave the impression of being sucked along some kaleidoscopic corridor.

‘What’s it supposed to be?’ he asked.

‘Whatever you want it to be.’

Gilchrist cocked his head. ‘I suppose the colours are bold, refreshing even. But . . .’

‘You don’t like it.’

‘I wouldn’t go as far as that.’

‘Wow. Andy
almost
liking my stuff.’ Jack grinned. ‘Now that’s a first.’

‘I didn’t say I liked it,’ objected Gilchrist, then chuckled. Despite recent events, it was nice to see Jack so relaxed. A noise from the hallway, the metallic clink of a key being inserted into a lock, diverted his gaze.

‘That’ll be Kara,’ Jack said, and walked from the bedroom.

In the hallway, Gilchrist met a fresh-faced woman with blue eyes and fine blonde hair hanging straight to the shoulders of a grey business jacket. A black skirt came to just above her knees, revealing slim legs that stopped at a pair of running shoes. Jack closed the door behind her. She put her leather briefcase and canvas bag on the floor, then approached Gilchrist with an extended arm.

‘I’m Kara. I’ve heard so much about you.’

Her grip felt firm. ‘All good, I hope.’

‘And I’m sorry to hear about Gail,’ she said. ‘It was a blessing in the end.’

Gilchrist nodded, tight-lipped. She had not accompanied Jack to the crematorium yesterday, and the first-name familiarity seemed odd to him. Perhaps she had gone along to the clubhouse later.

As if sensing a need to lift the mood, Kara said, ‘I see Jack’s already got you on his favourite subjects. Drink and art.’ She gave off a laugh that brought colour to her cheeks. ‘Let me get out of this lot, and I’ll join you.’

‘Working overtime?’ Gilchrist asked.

‘Had to stay late, finish a report for a case that finds in court tomorrow.’

‘You’re a solicitor?’

‘That’d be the day. I’m a paralegal. I do all the dirty work, while others get to stand up in court and take all the glory.’ She tugged a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘The hours are long and the money’s poor. But it pays the bills.’

Gilchrist thought he detected a hint of resentment. ‘What would we do all day if we didn’t have to work to pay the bills?’ he tried with a smile.

‘Paint?’ she offered.

Gilchrist felt himself cringe on Jack’s behalf.

‘Kara’s a bit like you, Andy. Thinks I should go out and find a proper job.’

‘One that gives a bit of financial security,’ she added.

‘You’re only as safe as the length of your notice,’ Jack said. ‘And in this climate, who knows whether their job is safe or not. At least I’ll always paint.’

‘Yes,’ Kara said, ‘we’ll always have that.’ She glanced at Gilchrist. ‘Excuse me,’ and picked her bags up from the floor and disappeared into the bedroom opposite.

‘Don’t worry about Kara,’ Jack said. ‘She takes her work too seriously. And to make matters worse, some plonker in her office treats her like shite.’

‘Charming,’ Gilchrist said.

‘Needs taken out the back and beaten up,’ Jack snapped, and something in the flare of his eyes, the set of his jaw, had Gilchrist wondering if Jack had changed.

‘Seems like she can look after herself,’ Gilchrist offered.

‘When push comes to shove, she chickens out.’

‘Probably afraid of losing her job.’

‘And therein lies the problem,’ Jack growled. ‘See what I mean? Everyone’s got to suck up to everyone else so they don’t get canned.’ He shook his head, finished his whisky, grabbed the bottle for a refill. ‘That’s what’s wrong with this fucking place—’

‘Glasgow?’

‘Planet Earth.’

‘It’s all we’ve got—’

‘Not for much longer, the way we’re fucking it up.’

Gilchrist held Jack’s blazing eyes for a moment, before saying, ‘Are you all right?’

‘’Course I am.’ He spilled some whisky on the table. Gilchrist watched him flourish his glass, thought he must have had a drink, maybe two, before they met. ‘All this money talk. It’s all everyone thinks about. Instead of all these rich capitalist bastards making more money than they could spend in ten lifetimes, they should be taxed to the hilt and the money put back into the environment—’

‘To save Planet Earth?’

‘We should abandon the monetary system. Go back to trading. That’d sort the fuckers out.’ He tilted his head back, almost emptied his glass then faced Gilchrist with a knowing grimace.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘it’s been a while since I got arseholed. Fancy a pub crawl down Byres Road?’

‘What about Kara?’

‘She’ll catch us up. Come on.’ He drained his glass, opened the bedroom door and shouted, ‘We’re going down the pub. Meet you in Curlers if you’re quick.’

But Kara didn’t make it to Curlers, or Tennents, but caught up with them as they were ordering a second pint in Jinty’s in Ashton Lane.

‘Sorry I’m late.’ She went on tiptoe to give Jack a peck on the cheek.

‘Didn’t know we were in a hurry,’ Jack said, and pulled crumpled notes from his jeans. ‘What’re you having?’

‘The usual.’

‘Can’t persuade you?’

She shook her head. ‘Just bottled water. None of that fizzy stuff. And no ice.’

‘Very sensible,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Wish I had your willpower.’

‘Both my parents were alcoholics. So I keep well away from it.’

He thought that standing in a pub, surrounded by drink, soaking in the alcohol-fuelled atmosphere contradicted her stance. And he noticed the past tense –
were alcoholics
– which had him thinking her parents were dead. While Jack pressed through the crowd to the bar, he asked, ‘So, how long have you known Jack?’

‘Several years, but we’ve only been together for about four months.’

Gilchrist nodded, and wondered why Jack had never mentioned her in all that time.

‘Jack’s upset,’ she said. ‘I’ve never seen him cry before.’

‘Excuse me?’

She searched the bar, as if ensuring Jack was out of earshot. ‘His mother,’ she said. ‘She was very young.’

‘Forty-six,’ he agreed.

‘I lost one of my sisters to cancer,’ she went on, her voice as soft as a whisper. ‘I still can’t believe it. She was much too young to have died.’

Gilchrist held her gaze. Her eyes were the lightest blue, like a frosted sky on a winter morning. ‘How old was she?’ he asked.

‘Twenty-two.’

Twenty-two
. Kara’s sister had been around the same age as the girl in McLeod’s grave when she had been murdered. And older than Gilchrist’s brother when he had been killed in a hit-and-run. And he saw that he and Kara must have shared the same emotional pain, probably even the same tear-filled dreams. He wondered what life would have been like if his brother had not been killed, and how his own mother had put a brave face on it and struggled through the remainder of her life. And that thought made him realize something more troubling than an unsolved murder.