Hand for a Hand (26 page)

“I’ll get back to you.”

“Tonight, Nance. I need it tonight.”

When he hung up, Jack said, “You look knackered, Andy. You need a break. I’m going to think about it over a pint. Like to join me?”

Gilchrist eyed the printouts. “I’d love to,” he said. “But I can’t.”

“Anything else I can do to help?”

He shook his head. “Have a pint for me.”

With Jack gone, he started sifting through the printouts. Some were printed emails, others copies of typed letters. He had no idea what he was looking for, then realised he had forgotten to collect the rest from Leighton. But even if he had them all in front of him there was nothing more he could do. He had only one pair of hands, one pair of eyes. He glanced at his watch—22:09. In less than two hours, Maureen would have been missing for one more day, and he was no further forward. He pressed on with reading her correspondence, but half an hour later took a break to call Nance.

“Any luck tracking down Hammie?” he asked her.

“Moved to the Borders. But I’ve got him working on it.”

“How did you manage that?”

“I recited the verses over the phone. That was what you wanted, right?”

It took a full two seconds for Gilchrist to realise the folly of his thinking. He’d had it in his mind that the verses needed to be hand-delivered. Maybe Jack was right. He really was knackered. Nance’s voice came at him as if from a distance. “What’s that?” he said.

“I was asking if you’ve eaten.” He hesitated long enough for her to say, “Why don’t I nip down to the chippie and bring you out your favourite?”

“It’s really no—”

“I’m on my way.” The line went dead.

Gilchrist closed his mobile then removed a letter from the next pile.

A note to Tracy. Never heard of her. He eyed the date. Two years ago. Then the address. West end of Glasgow. He lifted others, reading, but not reading, scanning for key words. Ten minutes later, he wished he had gone to the pub with Jack. One pint would—

He frowned at an addressee’s name.

Kevin Topley. Chris Topley’s brother?

Then the address. Christ.

He grabbed his mobile, called Nance’s number. “Where are you?”

“PM’s.”

“Stay there. I’m on my way.”

It was a long shot, but a shot nevertheless. He dialled Dainty’s mobile.

“Small speaking.”

“Dainty. It’s Andy. Can you get a hostage team together at short notice?”

“Is this to do with Maureen?”

“It is.”

“You know where she is?”

He wanted to hold back, say he was not sure, but instead said, “Yes. I do.”

T
HE COLD HURT
.

It bit through her skin, wormed deep into her core, dug into the marrow of her bones. She pulled her legs to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, tried to stop shivering. But the cold cut through her woollen skirt and top as if she was naked.

Her breath rasped in grunts that stung. The pain in her chest was greater than the pain in her torn wrists. Her efforts to cut
through the duct tape had caused the skin to rub off from the inside of her forearms, leaving gashes of raw flesh. She had ignored the pain, just kept driving her arms up and down. But when she managed to rip the tape off, the sight of her bloodied skin almost made her faint.

With her arms freed, she ripped the tape from her mouth, then her legs. Only then did she realise the seriousness of her predicament. She thumped the wooden door, appalled by its strength. She scraped at the hinges, dark and rough with rust. She eyed the keyhole, but saw nothing in the darkness of her tomb. A small gap at the bottom allowed her to slip her fingers under. But she felt only the dustiness of cold concrete. She shouted and screamed until her throat ached. She battered the door until she could no longer stand the pain in her fists. She scraped at the stone around the hinges until her fingernails bled.

Then the cold hit her.

Her chamber felt as cold as a morgue. Which was what this stone tomb was about to become. She saw that now.

Her own personal sarcophagus.

Chapter 30

G
ILCHRIST SQUEALED TO
a stop at PM’s fish and chip shop. Nance jumped in and pulled the door shut as he floored the pedal. “I’d like to eat this from the wrapper,” she said. “Not off the back window.”

He powered the Roadster onto North Street.

“Open wide.” Nance slipped a piece of battered cod into his mouth, did the same with a couple of chips, then waited until they cleared the town before saying, “Care to tell me where we’re going?”

“Glenorra.”

“Ah, yes, Glenorra. I’ve always wanted to go there.” She popped another piece of fish into his mouth. “Haven’t packed a bikini or brought my passport. Is that a problem?”

“Very funny.”

“So, where is Glenorra?”

“You should be asking, what is Glenorra?”

“Sorry, Andy, but you have me at a disadvantage here.”

“It’s Kevin Topley’s home address.”

Nance mouthed an Ah-hah. “Mister big-shot Chris’s brother. That Kevin Topley?”

“The very one. And Chloe had a boyfriend called Kevin.”

“The same Kevin?”

“Could be.”

“But you don’t know?”

“No. But Maureen wrote to Kevin several years ago.”

“She did?”

“Chloe’s Kevin’s dead. And Dainty confirmed that Chris Topley lost his brother a few years back.”

“How old was he?”

“Early thirties. From a drug overdose, according to Dainty. Before Chloe met Jack, she had a flat in the south side of Glasgow. Her relationship with Kevin was in the south side also. She frequented pubs there. They both did. That’s where Jack met her.”

“In a pub?”

“At a party. But I’m sure drink was involved, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“Must run in the family.” She slid another piece of fish into his mouth.

Five minutes later, with the suppers finished, Nance scrunched up the wrapping. “Where can I put this?”

“Not outside.”

“Of course.” She dropped it on the floor, nudged it into the depths of the footwell with her shoe.

“Here.” Gilchrist held out a cloth. “For your fingers.”

“A gentleman to the end.” She cleaned her hands, held up the cloth. “Floor, too?”

“What can I tell you?”

Nance dropped the cloth between her feet. “So, what’s so special about Glenorra?”

“It’s also the place where Maureen said she and Watt would meet. In an email she wrote to him.”

“So we’re driving to the late Kevin Topley’s house to do … what, exactly?”

“I think Maureen might be there.”

“You think?”

He caught the hint of incredulity in her voice, and gripped the steering wheel. “I can’t sit back and do nothing,” he said. “Talk to me. What am I missing? What do Burns’ poems have to do with anything?”

He removed the letter to Kevin and the scribbled verses from his pocket, and handed them to her.

She tugged the visor, switched on the mirror light. “The letter’s three years old.”

“Correct.”

“Dear Kevin. Thanks for the party. Larry and I really enjoyed ourselves. Who’s Larry?”

“One of Maureen’s conquests?”

Nance read on. “It’s a thank-you letter.”

“So?”

“The only questions this raises are, has Maureen never heard of thank-you cards? And why would she not write it by hand?”

“She’s a wannabe novelist. Maybe sitting at her computer is easier. Maybe she’s lost her handwriting skills.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

Nance studied the sheet of verses. “Does any of this mean anything to you?”

“The reference to princess. That’s what I called Maureen as a child.”

“And Bully knew that?”

Gilchrist twisted the steering wheel. “That’s what worries me.”

“How accurate are these?”

“I taped our meeting. Why?”

“I’m not sure.” She removed a piece of paper from her own pocket. “I did a search on first lines, and variations of that first line, thinking that perhaps Bully had got them wrong, maybe forgot the words.”

Gilchrist shook his head. “Bully thinks he’s smarter than us. It’s characteristic of a psychopath.” He overtook a slow plug of cars. “He’s playing some kind of game,” he went on. “Bully was expecting me. It’s the first thing he said. Don’t you want to play? He said that, too. Read it out again. The verse about the princess.”

“
Oh princess, by thy watchtower be, it is the wished the trysted hour
,” she said, then added, “As far as I could find out, Burns never used the word
princess
or
watchtower
in any of his poems.”

Ice chilled Gilchrist’s neck. Was this Bully’s clue? Had he slipped them into a poem by Burns? Princess for Maureen. Watchtower for …? For what? And a thought struck him.

“What if that line is not by Burns?”

Nance shook her head. “Google would have picked it up, no matter who wrote it. That line does not appear in anything written by anyone.”

Gilchrist let the logic of her words work into his mind. This was Bully’s clue. It had to be. Why else would he say these words? But he had recited other verses. Would he find more clues in these? “Call Jack,” he ordered, “and tell him to check the other verses, make sure they match Bully’s lines. And get him to call back the instant he finds something.” He gripped the steering wheel. “Maureen’s alive,” he urged. “She’s alive. I know she is.”

As he powered into the night, he prayed he was right.

And that he would not be too late.

S
HE DID NOT
know how long she cried.

But even when she tried to stop, heavy sobs came at her in nervous spasms that tore the air from her lungs. In the cold darkness of her death chamber, her sightless eyes nipped from dust and lack of tears. Her throat ached, and her tongue felt thick and dry as she tried to work up saliva.

She could not survive long without water.

She thumped her hand at the door again, nothing more than a heavy slap, a feeble effort that told her that the last of her energy was spent. She had nothing left.

She was going to die.

But she could not die. Not now. Not here.

“No,” she screamed. But the dry hack that coughed from her throat sounded like the voice of someone who was already dead.

G
ILCHRIST PARKED ON
the pavement.

From the activity around the house he knew they were too late. A SOCO van, with its door open to reveal an array of equipment, sat parked as if abandoned.

He found Dainty in coveralls, phone pressed to his ear. When he saw Gilchrist, he slapped his phone shut.

They gripped hands in grim silence.

Then Dainty said, “Maureen was here. But we’re too late.”

The power to stand almost deserted Gilchrist. “Too late?”

“She’s been moved. We found a shed in the back.”

Gilchrist pushed past, but Dainty gripped his arm.

“It’s not pretty, Andy.”

“I need to see.”

Dainty squeezed his lips together, then said, “Put on your coveralls.”

The back garden looked like a film set. Dragonlights lit the scene like a stage. An unkempt beech hedge pushed branches over a pathway overgrown with weeds. Beyond, a light shone from the open doorway of a wooden building at the bottom of the garden.

Together, they stepped down the pathway. SOCOs shuffled in silence, tagging and bagging. Someone was pouring a milky looking substance onto the ground, making a cast.

“We found a bare footprint.” Dainty pointed. “Over there. The grass is covered in shite. We think it’s human.”

Gilchrist followed in silence. His tongue felt hard, his mouth dry. He stopped on the threshold, gripped the doorframe for support. The stench had him almost backing up.

In the near corner, discarded underwear lay knotted and thick with fecal matter. Close by, a bra, a skirt, a white blouse, dirty and bloodied. But no shoes. Gilchrist ordered his memory to call up
an image of Maureen. Was the blouse hers? The skirt, too? But it was useless. He forced himself to analyse the facts as if he was looking at the crime scene of a stranger. He stared at bloodied smears on the floor and walls. Was that Maureen’s blood? A chain fetter lay coiled on the floor, next to a stain that had him gritting his teeth. The chain ran up the wall to an iron ring bolted to the wood near waist height.

Dainty’s voice snapped him back.

“Through here.”

He entered another room, not much larger than the one with the metal shackles. The air was thick enough to taste, a cloying stench of fat and meat that stuck to the tongue, a rich fleshy smell that reminded him of the butcher’s shop on Market Street. A table as thick as a workbench lined one wall. His eyes took in the instruments of torture—the circular saw with its twelve-inch blade that Mackie had calculated, three hacksaws, blades dark with blood or rust. The bench was scarred with a history of cuts and scrapes clogged with dried blood. Bits of flesh or skin lay curled on the clatty surface like tiny scraps, and Gilchrist wondered if they would find slivers of fingernails embedded in the sides. Beneath the table, the floorboards lay stained black. Flies stirred from the mess with a noisy rush.

To his side, dull wooden walls brightened with a display of stapled photographs.

He stepped towards them, felt his breath catch.

He stared at the closest image—Chloe’s white face. Her eyes stared at him with the vacant look of the dead. It took Gilchrist a full second to work out that the slime on her lips was sperm. Another next to it—Chloe on the floor, naked. Breasts as flat as a child’s.
Mons veneris
lined with a pathetic strip of blonde hair that did little to hide her vagina.

Around her ankles, Gilchrist recognised the shackles.

He peered closer. Was that the toe of a boot?

Closer still. It was.

“There’s two of them,” he said to Dainty.

Dainty pressed in beside him.

Gilchrist pointed at the image. “Can we get an enhancement on that boot?”

“Can do.”

“What do you think, Nance?” he asked, and saw from her tight lips that the worst was yet to come. A glance at Dainty revealed he knew that, too.