Hand for a Hand (8 page)

“What the hell am I supposed to tell him, Andy?”

“That we’re looking to increase manpower?”

“We’ve no one else to put on the bloody thing, for God’s sake. We’re stretched to the bloody limit as it is.”

“Chloe Fullerton lived within the jurisdiction of Strathclyde Police. I would think a call from the ACC—”

“Don’t,” snapped Greaves. “The answer’s an emphatic No.”

Gilchrist had anticipated no support on the touchy subject of requesting assistance from outside sources. He had tried the back door himself. But even Dainty had given him a body-swerve, saying he was up to his oxters in alligators of his own. Police units throughout the nation had their own tight budgets to meet. “We’re doing what we can,” he said, “but without the rest of the body we can’t expect much.”

“Well, do something, Andy.”

It was on the tip of Gilchrist’s tongue to ask for Watt to be replaced, but he thought better of it. “We’re widening our search,” he said, “but the body’s nowhere near here.”

“Where then?”

Where indeed?
“Glasgow,” he said.

“You have proof?”

Gilchrist shook his head. “Just a hunch.”

“For God’s sake, Andy. I need more than just a hunch. I need evidence. I need results. I need.… Oh for God’s sake, just get bloody well on with it, will you? I’ll think of something to tell Archie.”

Gilchrist felt his face flush as Greaves reached for his phone.

The meeting was over.

Outside, an easterly chill swept in from the sea and seemed to funnel its way along North Street. Overhead, gulls fought with the night storm, wings flashing white as they tumbled and swooped in the stiff gusts.

Gilchrist pulled his collar around his neck and walked towards College Street. The proverbial shit was piled at the fan and splattering through the system. First, ACC McVicar. Second, CS Greaves. Next, DCI Gilchrist, acting SIO in a case stacked against him. His name was printed on a note, and the press were baying for results. Thoughts of having it out with McKinnon
surged through his mind for an angry moment, then he glanced at his watch.

Just after 8:00. To hell with it. He needed a pint.

He reached the corner of College and Market Streets and veered left into the Central Bar, promising to have greater willpower in matters of import. If McKinnon photographed him once more with a pint in his hand, well, that was just too damn bad.

The bar was redolent of cigarettes, beer, and warm food. The air swirled thick and blue under a high ceiling. Piped music competed with raucous laughter. High in the corner a television screen showed a muted football match. Rangers and Hibs, it looked like.

He found a vacant spot at the bar, close to the till, and managed to catch the barmaid’s eye. She mouthed,
With you in a moment
. While he waited, he dialled his own home number to talk to Jack, but was shunted into voice mail. He left a message, telling Jack he would be home shortly, and keep your hands off the Glenfiddich. He glanced up to see Nance waving at him from the opposite end of the bar.

When he joined her, she said, “Caught.”

“You or me?”

“Both of us.”

Gilchrist smiled. Nance was hardworking and thorough. If she wanted to have a drink at the end of a day’s shift, then who was he to question her?

“Pint?” she asked.

“You talked me into it.”

She laughed, a staccato chuckle that almost took him by surprise. It had been some time since he had seen Nance happy. He had heard she had split from Gregg, her partner of eighteen months.

Nance ordered two pints of Eighty-Shilling.

“On your second already,” Gilchrist said. “Must’ve been a hard day.”

“Hard partner, more like.”

“How are you getting along with my favourite DS?”

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you.”

Gilchrist scanned the faces around the bar. “He’s not here, is he?”

Nance shook her head. “He’s checking out a lead.”

“Taking the dog for a walk?”

Nance chuckled. “I’ve stopped asking,” then tipped the remains of her first pint to her lips. “Cheers.”

Gilchrist did likewise, loving the beer’s smoothness as the first mouthful slid down his throat. He returned his glass to the counter, ran his fingers across his lips. “Boy, was I ready for that.”

“Have you heard about the sweepstake?” Nance asked.

“What sweepstake?”

“Watt’s started a sweepstake on when the next body part will turn up, and which part it will be.” She grimaced. “He’s one disturbed human being, let me tell you.”

An image of McKinnon writing a scathing article on Fife Constabulary’s gambling over murder enquiries burst into Gilchrist’s mind with the force of an electric strike. He felt his teeth clench. Watt had to go. The man was a liability. He made a mental note to have it out with him first thing in the morning and have all bets forfeited and the monies deposited into the charity box. Then the slimmest of ideas shimmered before him.

“Did Watt put on any money?” he asked.

“He led the way.”

“Which body part?”

“Leg.”

“Left or right?”

Nance looked at him as if he had sprouted horns. “I don’t know.”

“And when does he bet this leg is going to turn up?”

“Tomorrow,” Nance said. “You’re not suggesting.…”

“Not really. But it’s an interesting thought all the same.”

Gilchrist lifted his pint. He had not heard from Martin Coyle about Watt’s phone records. Maybe Coyle could turn an interesting thought into something worthwhile.

“H
AUD ON THERE
,
big man,” said Wee Kenny. “Watch what you’re doing.”

Jimmy Reid grimaced. “Just hold the fucker steady. Is that too much to ask?”

Wee Kenny scowled as Jimmy placed the red-hot poker flat against the skin. Black smoke curled into the air as he pressed down and rolled his wrist to ensure a deep brand.

“What’s the matter, wee man? Never smelt burning meat before?”

Wee Kenny put a hand to his mouth. “That’s fucking honking, so it is.”

Jimmy returned the poker to the brazier, slid grimy fingers across his forehead and licked the sweat from them. He seemed always to be sweating now. He had a touch of the flu. That was all. He hawked phlegm from the back of his throat and spat a gob of green into the brazier where it hit with a hard hiss then bubbled and popped. Then he removed a flat tin from his pocket and fingered tobacco onto a strip of Rizla paper. He evened it out, rolled the paper, ran his tongue along the edge. He pulled the poker from the fire and held it to his face. As he drew on his cigarette, acrid smoke forced his eyes to water, and he slapped the poker back onto the skin.

Wee Kenny jumped, but kept his grip.

Jimmy held his cigarette in one hand, stirred the poker in the brazier with the other. Cigarette smoke shifted in the still air. He half-closed his eyes. The heat from the brazier felt as hot as the Spanish sun. He hated the sun. The sun was no place for a man to sit out in. He stabbed the poker at the coals. Sparks flickered then died in the night air. He felt a sudden need to just get on with it, and drew the tip of the poker across the skin in a curve.

Curling fingers of black smoke rose into the darkness.

“What’s it say, big man?”

For a moment, Jimmy thought of pressing the poker to Wee Kenny’s face. That would shut the fucker up. But he gobbed again and worked in silence, laying the poker on the skin, twisting and branding, taking pleasure from Wee Kenny grimacing from the stench of burning skin and putrescent meat.

When it was done, he eyed his handiwork.

Wee Kenny squinted at it. “Blood-what?” he asked. “Is that how you spell blood?”

“It’s not blood.”

“I thought it said—”

“Don’t be so fucking stupid,” he snarled. “Just wrap the fucker up.”

Wee Kenny pulled a polythene sheet from the box and did as he was ordered.

Jimmy took a final drag, the short stub crimped between the tips of his thumb and forefinger. He sucked in hard, felt the dowt’s burning heat, then flicked it into the brazier.

Wee Kenny glanced up at him, then returned his frightened gaze to the poker, staring at the handle sticking out of the red coals, at the tip glowing white-red. He knew Wee Kenny was scared of him. That was the way it should be with goffers. Wee Kenny had seen him in action before, seen him with his brother, Bully. He told Wee Kenny that you could never tell with Bully. But you could never tell with himself either.

You just never knew the minute.

Wee Kenny hugged his gruesome parcel to his chest. “Is that us?”

Jimmy hawked another gob onto the brazier. “That’s it, wee man. Let’s go.”

Chapter 10

G
ILCHRIST PEERED AT
the digital display.

5:01. Bloody hell. He reached for his mobile phone and pressed
Connect
.

“Gilchrist.” He tried to sound awake, but his voice betrayed him.

“We’ve got another body part, sir. Report’s just come in.”

Gilchrist slid his feet from under the quilt. “Whereabouts?” he growled.

“Near the Golf Museum.”

“On the Old Course?”

“No, sir. By Golf Place.”

Opposite the R&A clubhouse. Not a bunker in sight. “Who’s at the scene?”

“PW Lambert, sir. She called it in about a minute ago.”

Dorothy Lambert
. Dot to friends and colleagues. “Which part is it this time?”

“Leg, sir.”

Gilchrist grimaced as Nance’s words came back at him.
Watt’s started a sweepstake
. “You called anyone else?” he asked.

“Not yet, sir.”

“Have Nance meet me at the scene,” he growled. “And don’t call Watt until.…” He glanced at his watch. “… 5:45. On the button.”

“Sir?”

“And get Bert Mackie and his team down there right away. I’m on my way.”

He stumbled to the bathroom. Rain battered the frosted glass. He brushed his teeth, felt his stomach lurch, and coughed into the sink. Why had he let Jack persuade him to have a half? Just the one. But one always led to two. He tried to convince himself that he’d had a few to keep Jack company, get his mind off Chloe. At that thought he coughed again, spat out a dribble of bile. Jesus. Was he really about to see Chloe’s hacked off leg?

He stared at the mirror, ran a hand over his face, felt the hard brush of stubble on his chin. Slivers of grey pressed by his ears. He tried a smile. It was a toss-up as to which was whiter, his teeth or his face. The bags under his eyes looked as dark as mascara. If he ever thought he was a looker, those days were gone. Maybe it was just as well Gail had found Harry. And how could he blame Beth for running off to Spain?

He shaved and showered, and as he stepped into a brisk east coast breeze he made a promise to himself that soon he would retire. He would take up photography again, be more serious this time, maybe turn the front room into a gallery, make a few bob selling framed photographs, just enough to supplement his pension. Much more sensible than running around at all hours of the day and night looking at body parts.

Twenty minutes later, he parked his Merc by the side of the R&A Clubhouse. The rain had stopped, the air as fresh and cold as ice. He removed a set of coveralls and gloves from the boot, put his head down, and marched into the wind. Winter on the Fife coast could be freezing cold. That morning was making no exceptions.

Ahead, the lone figure of PW Lambert stood as still as a silhouette by the dulled light from a streetlamp on the opposite side of the road, the area devoid of police tape and cones.

Gilchrist reached her. “Where is it, Dot?”

“This way, sir.”

He thought her voice possessed a hint of a shiver, from the cold or her gruesome find, he could not say. She pointed to a
rolled sheet of plastic that lay just off the back of the path, then stepped to the side, as if in deference to his seniority. The plastic sheet had split open to reveal the knee joint and a length of white calf.

Gilchrist slipped on his coveralls and gloves.

He eased back the sheet to reveal the painted toenails of a left foot. Rain dotted the plastic’s grimy surface, but from the length of it, Gilchrist could tell it was a complete leg. He grimaced.
Left leg
.

Watt had won the sweepstake. A guess? Or had he known?

Gilchrist promised himself he would tear it out of him.

The package had been dumped on the grass next to the putting green, and by the way it had burst open Gilchrist would bet a month’s wages that it had been thrown there.

Tossed from a passing car?

“How did you find it?” he asked Lambert.

“It was just lying there, sir.”

“Which way were you walking?”

She glanced over his shoulder, away from the beach, past the R&A Clubhouse. “From that way, sir.”

“Did you walk along the Links Road?”

“Yes, sir.”

“From the pathway by the Jigger Inn?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So, from the Jigger it would take you what, five to ten minutes to walk from there to here?”

“About that, sir. Yes.”

“During which time this road”—he swept an arm from the seafront to Auchterlonies, down past Tom Morris’s to the house at the end of the terrace that overlooked the eighteenth tee—“would have been in your view.”

“Yes, sir.”

It would have been dark, too. But still.…

“Did you see anyone?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“Any cars? Anything?”

“Sorry, sir. I was just walking past when I happened to look over and see it.”

Gilchrist nodded. At night, this was a quiet part of town. No reason for anyone to walk or drive that way, unless they were heading to the beach. And who would do that in the pre-dawn hours of a winter morning? He turned to The Scores, the road that ran uphill at right angles to Golf Place. Hotels lined one side and overlooked an expanse of grass that fell away to rocks and the beach below. Martyrs’ Monument stood dark and tall as a silent sentinel.

Gilchrist eyed the hotel windows. Most lay in blackness, but beyond The Scores Hotel a few rectangles of light spilled into the pre-dawn gloom. Had someone glanced out one of those windows? Had anyone heard anything, seen anything?