The Meating Room (18 page)

A hoof to the gut could not have winded Gilchrist more. Over the years, he had come to trust Stan’s judgement and their instincts rarely clashed. But this was one of those rare occasions, and Gilchrist was only now beginning to question why he had been so blinkered. He had next to bugger all to suggest Magner was involved in the McCulloch murders, or Janice Meechan’s hit-and-run, for that matter. Whichever way he tried to cut it, Stan was right.

A feverish flush rose within him as he struggled to fight off an image of Amy McCulloch’s butchered body. He blinked once, twice, to force away the horror. But that left him with the painful realisation that his investigation was going nowhere, that he was failing, that over the last forty hours, the most critical period in any investigation, he had come up empty-handed.

As if to offer him one last straw to grasp, Jessie walked through the door.

Gilchrist looked at her. ‘Penny for your thoughts?’

‘Lying bastard,’ she said. ‘I’m going to nail him to the mast.’

Gilchrist almost said, ‘That’s my girl.’ But deep down he felt the debilitating sickness of failure, the burgeoning weight of worry, and at that moment he did not have it in him to contradict her.

Gilchrist’s alarm rang at 7 a.m.

He reached for his mobile, and switched it off, then struggled against an almost overpowering urge to close his eyes, savour another few minutes of glorious sleep. But he knew that would probably turn into a couple of hours.

He had crawled into bed this side of 3 a.m., but his mind had ebbed and flowed with sleep – one moment wide awake, the next sucked into its deepest folds – and now he felt exhausted, as good as drugged. He lay there, trying to pull his mind back into the present, shift the remnants of his fading nightmare – humans hanging by hooks through their feet, naked bodies stripped of skin and guts, bloodied meat with nerves still twitching, swaying past him on overhead rollers, an endless line. He knew the imagery would stay with him through the rest of the morning, dragging him down, replacing all sense of enthusiasm with ominous foreboding.

With cursed resignation, he rolled from bed, but could not shift the draining sense of failure. He had put too much stock into searching for some connection –
any
connection – between the McCulloch massacre and Magner. But instead of working with the facts, he had let his gut instinct overrule all logic.

A piping-hot shave, followed by a ten-minute shower, managed to clear the fog from his brain, but did nothing for his stomach. He felt as if he could throw up on request, and almost did when he entered the kitchen and opened the fridge. Not that any food had gone off; his stomach just cramped at the thought of even a slice of toast.

A jog to the harbour had his heart racing and his breath steaming in the cold March air. A sea haar that shrouded nearby rooftops stirred and shifted around him like thinning smoke as he slowed then walked the length of the stone pier. By his side, boats sat as silent as hunting beasts. Gulls eyed him from their perches on the stone wall. At the pier’s southernmost tip, he stared off to the horizon. Even the ocean seemed stilled, as if it too were struggling with the dismal weight of it all.

He turned and faced the old fishing village of Crail.

Haar obliterated the background. The harbour row could have been all that was left of the world. His breathing had recovered, his heart no longer pumping hard. But instead of jogging back, he decided to carry on walking. Something about the frigid air and the salty smell of the sea and kelp was clearing his mental fog, nudging his mind back to life. A flock of gulls ruffled their wings and strutted along the sea wall, as if contemplating flight. A gust of wind brushed in from the sea, and one by one they spread their wings and settled on to it, webbed feet hovering inches above the stone, as if reluctant to set off into the new day.

Then they spilled over the edge, out of view.

By the time Gilchrist reached the shorehead, the haar had mostly cleared to reveal a high sky streaked with pinks and reds. The village seemed to spring into vivid colour, too. A shaft of sunlight stroked the harbour walls, and tile-reds, plaster-whites, stone-browns all sparked alive with lightened hues. A door opened and a collie jerked its owner on to Shoregate. A grey Ford cruised around the corner, its engine breaking the silence. Even the boats seemed to be emerging from slumber as they creaked and bumped against their moorings.

Gilchrist pulled out his mobile. He had ordered a review of CCTV footage in Anstruther and Pittenweem in the hope of identifying the vehicle that had killed Janice Meechan. He scrolled down the Call Log for Glenrothes HQ’s number, and was put through to the surveillance room, and WPC Elizabeth Sutton.

‘Anything?’ he asked her.

‘Nothing conclusive yet, sir, but a black BMW 6 series – we’re thinking top-of-the-range 650i – fits the time frame. We haven’t been able to ID it, because the plates were covered—’

‘
Covered?
’

‘As best we can tell, sir, it looks like plastic sheets were clipped to both the front and rear plates.’

Gilchrist exhaled. They had to find that car. ‘Were you able to follow it through the town?’ he asked.

‘It turned left on to the B9131 to St Andrews, sir. That was the last we saw of it.’

Gilchrist cursed. Once out of town, the road network was as good as a rabbit warren. If you kept to the back roads, it was possible to drive all the way to England without coming across another CCTV camera. ‘What about damage to the car?’ he asked.

‘The front nearside wing looked dented, and the windscreen appeared to be cracked, but it’s difficult to tell for sure at night on black paintwork under streetlamps. We’ve got our IT guys reviewing footage,’ she added.

‘Witnesses?’

‘Not to my knowledge, sir. But we’re still asking. So far no one’s come forward.’

Gilchrist thanked her, told her to notify him the instant they found something, then ended the call. His mind pulled up an image of Janice exiting her car, her attention more on her phone than on passing traffic. After all, most drivers do what they can to avoid pedestrians. The BMW must have hit her hard – judging by the distance her body was found from her car – the impact throwing her on to the bonnet, into the windscreen, then flying over the top to land on the road, probably dead before she hit the ground. An image of electric-blue toenails came to him, and he had to blink hard to shift it.

The driver had taken a calculated risk driving into Anstruther with the number plates covered. But he had to drive somewhere, and on a Saturday night, in the Fife countryside, who would ever have noticed? And if the covering plates were fixed by clips, a short stop at the side of the road, a quick tug back and front, and the car would be legal again.

It struck Gilchrist that the driver probably had another car, so he could garage the BMW until the incident was all but forgotten. A power wash with a pressure jet and soapy water would clear all trace of human impact from the paintwork. Then wait a couple of months, let police interest die down, and take it to any number of bodywork shops out of the county.

By the time Gilchrist reached High Street, he had heard that Janice Meechan’s mobile had been found in the hedgerow, undamaged. She had called Magner’s registered mobile number twice on Saturday afternoon, but he hadn’t answered. Ten minutes after the second unanswered call, she had received a call from an unregistered mobile number that had lasted less than three minutes. When Glenrothes Office dialled the number, the call just rang out. Gilchrist was convinced that Janice’s two calls to Magner had prompted him to call her back using a pay-as-you-go phone, and arrange to meet her. But the details of how the hit-and-run on a country road was set up continued to puzzle him.

In the Co-operative, he bought a
Sunday Times
, two soft breakfast rolls and a packet of smoked back bacon. Just the thought of a grilled bacon and poached egg roll revived him, and as he opened the front door and stepped inside Fisherman’s Cottage he had already resolved to refocus his line of enquiry.

He switched on the kettle, fired up the grill and a hot-ring, put a couple of tea-bags in the teapot. Then he filled a pan with water and sat it on the ring. Next, he slapped four slices of bacon under the grill, set on low. The pan was boiling nicely, so he turned it down to simmer and removed two eggs from the fridge.

And while Gilchrist was preparing breakfast on autopilot, his mind was working through the logistics of how Magner could have killed three people – Amy McCulloch and her daughters – four, if Brian McCulloch’s death was not suicide – or even five, if you included Janice Meechan’s hit-and-run.

But it just seemed so improbable.

Magner had the perfect alibi for Janice’s hit-and-run – a date with a blonde bimbo – and the perfect alibi for the McCulloch murders – a conference in a hotel in Stirling. Given that Magner could not be in two places at one time, on two separate occasions, was it possible that he had an accomplice, someone who did as he was told?

Should all efforts now focus on trying to find that connection?

Or should they concentrate on Stratheden Enterprises, the business common to all five who had died, and the one irrefutable and direct link to Thomas Magner?

Gilchrist flipped the bacon over, added a couple of drops of vinegar into the simmering pot, and gave the water a stir. Then he cracked an egg and slipped it in, and did the same with the other. He peeled the rolls open, slapped some low-fat Lurpak on to them, then checked the time – 08.21.

He called Mhairi.

‘Did Jackie get back to you with details of Stratheden’s first major contract?’ he asked.

‘She did, sir, yes. I don’t have it in front of me, but if memory serves, it was a three-year maintenance contract with Fife Council’s Department of Housing. They really hit the motherlode in the first year, the winter of 1990/91. Three months of snow, high winds, heavy rain and sub-zero temperatures had them working double crews round the clock.’

‘Anything contentious about the contract award?’ Gilchrist asked.

‘Jackie’s not come up with anything yet, sir. But if it was contentious, it’s hardly the sort of thing the council would broadcast.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning we probably need to talk to someone.’

‘Anyone in mind?’

‘Let me get back to you, sir.’

‘Make it soon.’ He ended the call, and replayed the conversation in his head.

If they found any evidence of Magner handing over brown paper bags stuffed with cash to crooked council officials, at least they would have
something
– an indication that his business life was as dubious as his personal life. But if Magner and McCulloch had lucked out by landing their first council contract at the perfect time, then where did that take his investigation?

No closer to solving the case as standing on Mars, came the answer.

He was so far off target, he could have been shooting at the wrong bull’s-eye. He had absolutely nothing, and the odds of finding something were worsening with each passing hour. If the investigation was in the same sorry state a week from now, they might as well send the lot straight to cold storage.

His mobile rang – Mhairi again.

‘It doesn’t look good, sir,’ she said. ‘The guy who was director of the Department of Housing when the contract was awarded to Stratheden has since died.’

Gilchrist groaned.

‘But Jackie’s done her usual. Got copies of the minutes of every relevant meeting, highlighted the important sections. You were right, sir. The award
was
contentious. Stratheden was not the low bidder. Three others tendered lower bids, but all three subsequently withdrew.’

‘Did the Council pull their bid bonds?’

‘I’ll ask Jackie to check it out.’

‘Who was head of the council when Stratheden won the contract?’

‘Hang on, sir.’ Gilchrist caught the sound of paper rustling, then Mhairi’s voice came back with, ‘Jack Russell.’

‘Like the dog?’

‘Yes, sir. Woof, woof.’

You had to laugh, he supposed. But something in the shadows of his mind caused his smile to fade. He had come across that name years before, in a newspaper article about a crime somewhere. Not in Fife. In the Highlands and Islands, perhaps? No, not a crime.
Allegations
. Sexual allegations. Was that right?

‘Ask Jackie to look into him for me. He’s ringing a bell, but I can’t quite place him.’

‘Will do, sir. Anything else?’

‘Yes. Have her get back within a couple of hours,’ he said, and ended the call.

Next, he called Stan.

‘Bloody hell, boss. What time is it?’

‘Jack Russell, Stan. Does that name mean anything to you?’

‘Russell? Jack?’ A gush of breath, then, ‘Nothing’s coming to me, boss.’

‘When it does, give me a call.’

He thought of calling Jessie, but she was from Glasgow. Crime in the north of Scotland probably would not have made it on to her radar. Besides, she would have been no more than a teenager at the time. He heard a spark from under the grill, and cursed as he removed the bacon – more crispy than he liked – and placed two rashers on each roll. He drained the water from the eggs – hard-poached, not soft, damn it – and stuffed them into the rolls, too.

He bit into the first roll, heard the bacon crunch, then carried the plate through to the lounge and switched on the computer. Googling the name brought up a host of articles, and as he studied them, his memory cleared.

In the early nineties, Jack Russell had been a rising star in Scottish politics, holding a parliamentary seat in Aberdeen. But his life started to unravel when he began dating Nichola Kelly, an up-and-coming soap-opera actress from Inverness, and filed for divorce from his wife of twelve years. When Jack’s wife refused to go quietly, Jack retaliated with fearsome vengeance, accusing her of having a lover of her own.

The press latched on to him, and nicknamed him ‘The Terrier’.

He was photographed at all hours of the night in various states of drunken revelry, and always with the photogenic Ms Kelly on his arm. In spite – or because – of this, his political ratings soared. It looked as if Jack was still heading for the big-time, when rumours of drugs and swinger parties made the headlines, and his career took a nose-dive that proved terminal. No longer the handsome charmer with the aphrodisiac of political power, Nichola Kelly ditched him for a younger stud.