Life For a Life (12 page)

Ten minutes later, after following Jessie’s directions, Gilchrist pulled up to the street address, nothing more than a windowless brick building, fronted by a pavement littered with the remains of last night’s carryout – three crushed cans of Carlsberg Special and a sodden brown paper bag from which two chapattis peeked. A dilapidated sign in need of a blowtorch scraping and a coat of paint, maybe several, announced Dillanos Furniture Showroom. To the side, an adjacent plot, wired off with a rusting chain-link fence, displayed the name of some security firm – and not a security guard in sight.

The first thought that crossed Gilchrist’s mind was, what would Angus think of his cinematic Caryl Dillanos if he ever saw this? He opened the car door and stepped into the damp Glasgow air. The sky hung low with grey clouds that threatened rain or even snow. What odds were the bookies offering this year for a white Christmas? A heavy-duty padlock hung from a double door painted the colour of rust. He palmed the surface to confirm that the door was indeed wood, then gave the padlock a hard tug. But it was secure.

‘Welcome to upmarket Glasgow,’ Jessie said.

‘Not quite what I expected,’ Gilchrist had to concede. ‘What’s that sign say?’

‘Business hours, Monday to Saturday ten a.m. to ten p.m.; Sunday ten to five p.m.’

‘Looks like we have a thirty-minute wait.’

‘Fancy a coffee? I’m starving.’

‘Hungry,’ he said. ‘People in famines are starving.’

‘Is that today’s English lesson over?’

They found a café on Paisley Road West, and Gilchrist ordered two lattés. ‘Will that be all, sir?’

‘Share a blueberry muffin?’ he asked Jessie.

‘These berries look like bluebottles.’

‘And a muffin,’ he said. ‘Cranberry.’

Outside, Gilchrist held the muffin out to Jessie. She tugged a glove off with her teeth, and said, ‘Excuse the fingers,’ and tore off a piece. Crumbs scattered to the pavement as she pressed it to her mouth. ‘Cranberries are nice.’

‘Better than bluebottles?’

‘You get more meat with bluebottles.’

For the first time that morning, she smiled, and Gilchrist was surprised by how white her teeth were – nice and even, too. He tried to tear off a piece of muffin, but with a coffee in the other hand he almost dropped the lot. He managed a small piece, then followed Jessie as she strolled along the pavement.

Then she stopped, and looked the length of the street. ‘You can’t imagine how busy this street used to be,’ she said. ‘You look at old photographs of Glasgow and the place is just heaving with buses and trams and people. You ever been on a trolleybus?’ she asked.

‘Once,’ he lied.

‘I thought you were old enough,’ she said, then added, ‘They’ll probably bring them back, the way the price of petrol is going.’ She took another sip of coffee. ‘You going to eat that thing or stand there like a doo-wally looking at it all day?’

He held it out to her.

‘I shouldn’t,’ she said. ‘But as I said, you’re a smooth-talking bastard.’

‘Did you grow up here?’

She shook her head, and mumbled, ‘Easterhouse. Other side of the city.’ One more mouthful finished the muffin, and she brushed her hand on her coat, leaving a trail of crumbs. ‘I needed that,’ she said.

He sipped his coffee, his breath steaming in the cold air. ‘Your parents from here?’

‘Once a detective . . .’ She looked at him and smiled.

Her eyes were the darkest brown, and glistened damp from the cold, as if they could well at any moment. The tip of her thin nose had reddened in the cold, and her flawless skin had chilled to the palest of whites.

‘Just asking,’ he said.

She nodded, then looked away, as if her gaze was drawn to some phantom image in her mind. ‘One of my mother’s boyfriends lived around here,’ she said. ‘That’s another one of the reasons I hate her.’

Silent, Gilchrist waited.

‘I was four or five, or thereabouts. I remember being dragged from one bus to the next, then being tugged along this street. At that age, I didn’t have a clue where I was, and it wasn’t until years later that I recognised the street.’ She turned in the direction of the Clyde. ‘It was the dockyard cranes that I remembered. The Clydeside used to be full of them, ugly black monstrosities that stood above everything else.’ She chuckled. ‘I read
The War of the Worlds
when I was in my early teens, and I always pictured these cranes as the Martians.’ She fell silent then, but Gilchrist did not want to lose her.

‘Another one of the reasons?’ he prompted.

Again, the speed with which her emotions changed puzzled him.

Her lips pursed and she narrowed her eyes, and he had a sense that she was about to open up to him. A tear swelled, trickled down her cheek. She dabbed it dry. ‘The boyfriend she was going to meet was an artist,’ she said, then scanned the tenement buildings as if searching for his address. ‘Never could find out where he used to live.’

‘Got a name?’

She shook her head. ‘Bob, I think. But I never really knew. Not like she introduced me to him or anything. But I remember liking the smell of his house. Turps and oils. And there were no carpets on the floors, just newspapers spread around to catch the drips. I used to kick my feet through it, you know, the way you do with autumn leaves.’ She fixed her gaze on a memory in the distance, and something dark and dangerous seemed to shift behind her eyes. ‘He had whisky breath,’ she said, ‘but his hands were as smooth as polished stone. When he ran them down my face, he would tell me how lovely I looked.’

Gilchrist felt a cold chill slip through him. He wanted to tell her to stop, it really was too personal, but part of him—

‘My mother would let him do it to her in front of me, standing up against the wall, or on the floor, among the newspapers.’ Tears dripped to the ground.

‘You don’t need to say any more.’ He reached out to her, squeezed her shoulder.

She frowned up at him, then shook her head. ‘I’ve never told anyone about this.’

Gilchrist lowered his arm, hid his face in another sip of coffee.

‘My mother told him . . .’ She shook her head. ‘She told him . . . he could have me if he wanted.’

‘Jesus . . .’

‘I didn’t know what she meant.’

‘Jessie . . .’

‘And when they were doing it, Bob with his twisted face and his arse going twenty to the dozen, she would sometimes hold her hand out to me, wanting me to come closer . . .’

Gilchrist caught the giveaway word – sometimes – which told him all.

Jessie sniffed, lifted her head, stared across the Clyde as if willing the alien machines to turn their ray guns her mother’s way. ‘What kind of a mother would do that to a child?’

Gilchrist had no answer. He had been brought up in a lower middle-income family, in secure and healthy surroundings, with parents who by Scottish nature did not dote on their two sons but taught them the strict rights and wrongs of their own firm moral beliefs. How would his own life have turned out if he had been exposed to the same—

‘Come on,’ Jessie said. ‘That showroom should be opening soon.’

From childhood memories to police business in zero seconds flat? But Gilchrist just nodded, knowing that pressing for more would likely shut her down for good.

With the car’s engine running, and parked fifty yards from the showroom, they waited, and watched.

10.00 came and went. As did 10.15.

‘Not exactly Sauchiehall Street,’ Jessie said.

It took until 10.39 before a skinny blonde with backcombed hair, tight denim jeans over legs of stick, and a black Michelin-man anorak walked round the corner, crossed the street, and stopped at the door. From her handbag she removed what looked like a set of jailer’s keys.

‘About bloody time,’ Jessie said.

Cigarette smoke spiralled around the woman’s face as she struggled to work the keys. Then she jerked the padlock off, and with one final draw and a flick of her fingers, cast her dout to the wind, and pushed the doors open.

‘Let’s go,’ Jessie said. ‘I’m bursting.’

Inside, the furniture display surprised Gilchrist. The size was confusing too, as if they had stepped into a present-day Tardis. Three- and four-piece suites were arranged on raised plinths the size of living rooms. Family-sized signs hung from a ceiling of exposed metal beams and pipes, announcing autumn and winter sales with prices slashed as deep as 75 per cent.

‘Can ah help youse?’

The accent was thick Glaswegian. Up close, the woman’s bloodshot eyes looked as if she’d been up all night. Mascaraed eyelashes seemed in danger of falling off. Lavender perfume failed to smother the throat-catching decay of cigarette ash.

Gilchrist flashed his warrant card. Jessie did likewise.

‘Aw fuck,’ the woman said.

‘Caryl Dillanos,’ Gilchrist said.

‘Loo?’ Jessie added.

‘Loo’s that way,’ the woman said with a nod of her head.

Jessie walked away.

‘Whit about Caryl?’

‘Have you seen her?’ Gilchrist asked.

‘No for weeks.’

‘Does she work here?’

‘Naw. Uses it as a call centre.’

‘Why Dillanos?’

‘Whit?’

‘Is she related to the owner?’

‘Dillanos is a made-up name,’ she said. ‘Gives the place a right Mediterranean-cum-Italian flavour, so it does.’

‘So, who owns this place, then?’

‘Big Jock Shepherd. You might’ve heard of him. Big businessman. Restaurants and pubs all over the place. Minted, so he is.’

‘And he knows Caryl?’

‘He must, if he named the place after her.’

‘And he gives her permission to use it as a call centre?’

She shrugged.

Gilchrist said nothing. Cash paid under the table for a receptionist and an address to add to a business card was one of a thousand ways to keep costs down and beat the tax man, as well as giving a moneyed reality to spongers like Angus.

‘Can we talk outside?’ she said. ‘I’m gasping for a fag.’

Gilchrist followed her back through the double doors and on to the pavement, where she stood sans Michelin-man anorak, shivering in the chill, cigarette already lit and in her mouth, cheeks pulling in as if her life depended on it—

‘It’s Dot, isn’t it? Dot Bonar.’

The woman turned as Jessie joined them, took another draw that looked as if it hurt.

‘Thought I’d seen you before,’ Jessie said. ‘Your man runs a taxi business.’

‘If you can call it that.’

‘You bailed him out last month, if my memory serves me.’

‘And the month afore,’ she said, and held the packet out. ‘Want one?’

Jessie seemed tempted. ‘Giving it up.’

‘Wish I had your willpower,’ Dot said, and removed another cigarette.

Gilchrist wondered what she had done with the first one, then located a smoking stub on the pavement about ten feet away. He also noticed she was visibly shaking.

‘It’s cold,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we go back inside?’

‘Let me finish this first,’ she said, and sucked her money’s worth.

‘I won’t tell anyone,’ he tried.

She tilted her head, blew a stream of smoke over his shoulder. ‘I’m still on my three-months’ probation with this job. One fuck-up and I’m out on my ear. Excuse the English.’

Gilchrist thought that opening the store almost forty-five minutes late counted as a fuck-up, but he said, ‘So how do you contact Caryl?’

‘I don’t.’

‘If she uses this place as her call centre, how does she get her messages?’

‘She phones in for them.’

‘Every day?’

Another shrug, another draw.

‘Who does she speak to?’

‘Whoever’s answering the phone.’

‘So if she called right now, that would be you?’

‘It would.’

Gilchrist glanced at Jessie, but she beat him to it. ‘Nip that fag and let’s go back inside and you can show us.’

The reception area was nothing more than a glassed-off desk near the entrance. Dot stepped behind the desk, took a seat by a phone. The walls and glass panels were plastered with scribbled Post-its.

‘Is this it?’ Jessie asked. ‘The telephone reception?’

‘Classy, isn’t it. Not.’ Dot fluttered her fingers through a spiral notebook, and said, ‘Here we are. There’s only two. Someone called last night – “9.10 p.m., male, no name or number, will call later.” I hate when they do that. And here’s the other one, the day afore yesterday – “10.30 a.m., Freddie wants you to call back.” ’ She looked up. ‘That’s it.’

‘Who’s Freddie?’ Jessie asked.

Dot gave another disinterested shrug.

Gilchrist took the notebook from her, flipped through it, searching for other messages, but found none. ‘What do you do with the old messages?’

‘Bin them.’

Jessie knelt on the floor, tipped the rubbish bin, and leafed through the pile, none of which were pages from the notebook. She pulled herself to her feet, leaving the mess on the floor. ‘When was the last refuse collection?’ she asked.

‘Are you kidding? We’ve got a dumpster out the back, and that’s it.’

‘When was it last moved?’

She shook her head. ‘A day or so ago. I widnae know.’

‘We’ll have a look through it on the way out,’ Gilchrist said. ‘You said you haven’t seen Caryl for weeks?’

‘That’s right.’

‘She came here?’

‘Aye.’

‘What for?’

‘To check out the furniture, what d’you think what for?’

‘Who keeps your sales records?’

‘Jock’s accountant.’

‘Who is?’

‘A firm in Govan.’

‘Name?’ It was like pulling teeth.

She removed a tack from a card on a cork board over the desk, and handed the card to him. ‘That good enough?’

Murdock and Roberts CA Ltd. The company name meant nothing to him but, if necessary, he could obtain a warrant for Dillanos Furniture’s sales records. Not that it would ever come to that, he thought.

He pocketed the card. ‘So what does this Caryl Dillanos look like?’

‘Like she’s minted.’

‘Blonde brunette tall small thin fat?’

She looked at Jessie. ‘Blonde. About your height, but thinner. And wears only brand names, all expensive.’

‘Car?’ Gilchrist pressed.

She nodded.