The Meating Room (3 page)

‘I did, sir, yes.’ She nodded to the Jaguar. ‘The driver was clearly beyond help.’

He eased back the lid, took a sip – latte, no sugar – perfect.

‘I thought he might still be alive, sir, so I opened the door . . . but . . . he . . .’

Gilchrist was surprised to catch a glimmer of a tear. Or maybe it was just the cold air nipping her eyes. Then a thought occurred to him. ‘Did you know McCulloch?’

She gave a long blink, and nodded.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘My mum knew him. I mean, a friend of hers knew him. I think they went to the same school. I only met him a couple of times. He seemed a nice man. You know what I mean, sir?’

Gilchrist smiled.

‘His name popped up from time to time. That’s about it. But Mum’ll be upset.’

Although Gilchrist had not known Brian McCulloch personally, he had already heard enough about the man to know he was that rarest of breeds – a local boy made good, who had clawed his way out of the doldrums and made something of his life. By all accounts, he had started out as a brickie, moved on to general contracting, mostly small jobs – roofs, extensions, garden walls – and hit the big time after meeting Thomas Magner, an out-of-towner with stars in his eyes, as Gilchrist’s father would say. A major contract with Fife Council fifteen years ago had been the first of many, with McCulloch keeping every project on schedule and budget, and Magner drumming up ever more lucrative business. No one had a bad word to say about McCulloch. He had married his childhood sweetheart, never forgotten his roots, and given plenty back to the local community.

Gilchrist took another sip of coffee, then replaced the lid. It was Jessie’s, after all. ‘When you first arrived,’ he said, ‘and had a look around, did you see anything suspicious?’

Mhairi grimaced, wobbled her head in a yes-and-no answer. ‘Not
really,
sir.’

‘Except . . .?’

‘Except that I don’t understand why he would commit suicide.’

‘Did you mention that to DS Janes?’

‘I did, sir, yes. We had a chat about it. And she agreed it seemed suspicious.’

‘So, who came up with the murder theory?’

‘DS Janes, sir.’

He nodded, caught a glimpse of Jessie emerging through the trees, and tilted the coffee cup. ‘I’d better give this back to her.’

Jessie met them halfway back from Mhairi’s car. She took the coffee and asked, ‘You leave me any?’

‘Just the top half.’

She cracked open the mouth-slot, peeled it back, peered inside. ‘Very funny,’ she said, and swallowed a mouthful as if trying to burn her throat.

‘Everything okay?’ he asked.

‘Oh, sure,’ she said. ‘Jabba’s on his way to St Andrews tomorrow. Says he’s going to take me out for lunch. Got something he wants to tell me. I’m on a diet, I tell him. I’m taking karate lessons. I don’t do lunch. Don’t worry, love, he says. We can walk it off on the West Sands.’ She gulped another mouthful.
‘Love?’
she said, with a grimace. ‘Wanker.’

‘What’s he want to tell you?’ Mhairi asked.

Jessie glared at her. ‘That’s the scary part. I think he’s really gone and done it this time. Left the wife.’

‘Fucking hell,’ Mhairi said.

‘Exactly,’ Jessie declared. ‘Fucking hell’s exactly where Jabba’s headed if he tells me what I think he’s going to tell me.’ She shook her head, blew out a gush of air, then held the cup out to Gilchrist. ‘Want to finish it?’

He took it from her, more to keep the peace than for the heat or the caffeine, then said to Mhairi, ‘Would you arrange for a liaison officer to visit Mrs McCulloch?’

‘I don’t think she’s home, sir.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Mum says they have a house in Spain, one of these luxury villas, and that she’s there more often than she’s at home.’

‘You think she’s there now?’

‘Mr McCulloch didn’t get home last night, sir, and Mrs McCulloch never phoned the Office to report him missing. I’ve already checked with North Street and Anstruther. And we’ve left I don’t know how many messages on their voicemail, so I’m thinking that’s where she’s at.’

‘Maybe he told his wife he’s away on business,’ Jessie offered. ‘Maybe staying out all night is par for the course.’

‘I don’t think he’s that kind of a man,’ Mhairi said, which received a snort from Jessie.

But something far more troubling was stirring in Gilchrist’s mind. ‘They’ve got two children, right?’ he asked Mhairi.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Ages?’

‘Not sure, sir. Teenagers, though.’

‘School age?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘We’re not in the school holidays, are we?’

‘Not that I’m aware of, sir. No.’

Jessie said, ‘You got an address?’

Mhairi rattled it off from memory; the McCullochs’ home phone number, too.

Gilchrist recognised it as somewhere on the other side of Kingsbarns. Or maybe he had heard about the luxury residence while having a pint at the bar. Not that it mattered. What did matter was that the nearest police station was Anstruther. ‘Do you think the children go to boarding school?’ he asked, as he dialled McCulloch’s home number.

Mhairi shot that idea down with, ‘Mrs McCulloch’s too down to earth for that.’

Gilchrist turned to Jessie. ‘Can you get directions? We’ll take my car.’

Jessie passed her keys to Mhairi. ‘Have someone drop the Batmobile off at the Office,’ she said, then wriggled out of her coveralls.

Mhairi pocketed the keys without a word, her thoughts elsewhere.

Gilchrist got through, but after a couple of rings he heard the automatic recording – a woman’s voice with a soft lilt to it – and ended the call. He unzipped his coveralls and slid his phone into his jacket pocket. ‘Get hold of that liaison officer regardless,’ he said to Mhairi. ‘In case we’re wrong.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And call the Anstruther Office, give them the address, tell them to send a couple of uniforms round, to check up.’ Only then did he glance at Mhairi and realise how thoughtless he was being. He offered a short smile of reassurance. ‘I’m sure there’ll be a simple explanation.’ Then he turned and strode to his car, Jessie by his side, still fiddling with her mobile. ‘You got those directions yet?’

‘Hang on, nearly there. Got ’em.’

He clicked his fob and the Merc’s lights flashed.

Without a word, he slid in behind the steering wheel and stuffed his coveralls under the seat.

Jessie strapped herself in as the Merc bumped across the clearing, then accelerated on to the tarmac road. ‘You know what I’m thinking?’ she said to him. ‘I’m hoping I’m right about it not being suicide.’

As Gilchrist pressed hard down on the accelerator, his mind worked through Jessie’s thought process. When the logic hit him full force, he gritted his teeth and hissed, ‘Christ. Surely not.’

It took just over twenty minutes to reach McCulloch’s home, a renovated farmhouse with a pair of barns-cum-extensions on either side, and a U-shaped paved courtyard with a raised pond in the middle. A hideous-looking statue in the shape of an angel spouted water from its mouth. Netting as fine as muslin covered the pond, to prevent marauding herons from taking the koi carp. The pristine farmyard overlooked acres of open fields that spilled downhill, beyond which the North Sea glinted like diamonds on a grey canvas.

A police car, its doors open, sat beside a Lexus SUV with a private number plate – one letter and two numbers. Clearly the McCullochs had more money than they knew what to do with. The main door of the house was open too, and not a uniform in sight. It seemed that Gilchrist’s worst fears were about to be realised.

‘I don’t like the look of this,’ Jessie said, as she stepped on to the courtyard.

‘Call Anstruther. See if they’ve heard anything.’

He strode towards the farmhouse and entered without announcement. In the entrance vestibule, his hopes soared when he heard voices. Had Mrs McCulloch invited the uniforms inside for an early morning chat and a cup of tea? But a pair of school blazers hanging on a couple of hooks, and a phone on a corner table, its red light blinking to remind the McCullochs they had unanswered messages, dashed his hopes in the next breath.

He followed the voices, his footfall echoing on the parquet flooring, and turned left into what he presumed to be the main lounge.

One of the uniforms – a young WPC – was already on her way to intercept the intruder. In a firm voice, she said, ‘Step back outside, please.’

Gilchrist flashed his warrant card. ‘DCI Gilchrist, St Andrews. We called Anstruther. Is that you?’

‘It is, sir, yes. Sorry, sir. PC Jennings,’ she said, and stepped aside.

The other uniform, another constable Gilchrist did not recognise, finished talking on his phone, then turned to face him, his back to a wide bay window through which Gilchrist saw Jessie speaking into her mobile. The PC introduced himself as Taggart, and gripped Gilchrist’s hand as if intent on crushing it. Gilchrist thought the man’s face looked drawn and tired, too pale, as if he had not seen the sun in years, or had a good sleep in months.

‘What have we got?’ Gilchrist asked.

‘They’re upstairs. Three of them. All in bed.’

Gilchrist felt his heart jump, and a lump choke his throat. ‘The children?’

Taggart grimaced. ‘And the mother.’

Something in Taggart’s haunted eyes, and in the resigned finality of his voice, told Gilchrist to expect the worst. ‘Show me,’ he said.

Gilchrist followed Taggart into the hallway as Jessie entered. ‘SOCOs have already been called,’ she said. ‘So it’s not looking good.’

Gilchrist nodded. He seemed to have lost the power to speak. His feet felt leaden as he mounted the stairs to the half-landing in silence, aware of Jessie behind him, then around a polished newel post, and up another flight to the upstairs bedrooms.

Taggart stopped at an open door on the left and held out his hand – an invitation for Gilchrist to enter. Even from where he stood, the posters on the bedroom wall told him it was the room of a teenage girl with a passion for boy bands. A powerful sense of familiarity came to him – memories of his own family, Maureen and Jack as children, how he had missed so much of their growing up because of work, how he would come home late from the Office to find them both in bed, his only interaction with them being to kiss them goodnight when they were already asleep.

‘So, what’ve we got?’ Jessie asked, and brushed past him.

Gilchrist followed, but managed only two or three steps before pulling up. The murder scene was not what he expected. No blood, no mess, no disturbance of any sort, just a young girl in her midteens, lying in bed, on her back, apparently asleep. He felt as if he and Jessie should be walking around the room on their tiptoes. The girl’s eyes were closed, lips curled in the tiniest hint of a smile, as if she were enjoying a peaceful dream. It seemed the gentlest of shakes would wake her.

Jessie reached the head of the bed and looked down at the girl. Her lips pursed into a tight white line.

Gilchrist asked Taggart over his shoulder, ‘You touch anything?’

‘No, sir.’

‘So the bedside lamp was on?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Jessie glanced at the lamp, then at Gilchrist. ‘Is that significant?’

Gilchrist shook his head. ‘Probably not.’

Jessie leaned down to the girl’s face, and for one confusing moment Gilchrist thought she was going to kiss her. But she sniffed – once, twice – and said, ‘Not a thing. But vodka’s odourless.’ Then she took hold of the girl’s chin, as if to turn her head to look at her. ‘Full rigor,’ she said, and stood upright. ‘Which puts death at some time between, say, eight o’clock last night, and eight in the morning.’

‘Cooper might be able to narrow it down,’ Gilchrist said.

‘Her name’s Eilish,’ Taggart said. ‘Siobhan’s in the next room.’

‘You knew them?’ Jessie asked.

Taggart nodded. ‘Most locals do.’

Gilchrist closed his eyes for a moment’s thought. Two girls. What on earth had driven McCulloch to take their lives? How bad could his life have been? All that wealth, the big house, the big car, and the big salary to go with it, no doubt. But Gilchrist also knew that success in business was often achieved with other people’s money. Was Stratheden Enterprises in financial difficulty? Had investors in the company demanded back their money? Had McCulloch’s dreams of pots of gold turned into nothing more than buckets of rust?

He turned away from the bed and saw that Taggart’s face was even paler now, if that were possible. The PC nodded in the direction of the other bedroom. As Gilchrist brushed past, he found he could not look Taggart in the eye.

The second bedroom was smaller but brighter, with the curtains open. Other than that, the scene was almost identical. Boy bands offered white-toothed smiles from the walls. Their sparkling eyes and fresh-skinned energy were at odds with the scene before him. Another girl, smaller than her sister, maybe a couple of years younger, lay on her back, the sheets tucked neatly under her chin. Gilchrist thought she did not seem quite as peaceful, her mouth downturned a touch, as if she had gone to sleep and slipped away with a petted lip.

He scanned the room, then said, ‘The bedside lamp’s not on.’

‘No, sir.’

Was that significant? He couldn’t say. But at least it explained the open curtains.

From the hallway, Jessie asked, ‘Where’s the master bedroom? Is that it?’

Gilchrist felt the floorboards shift as Jessie moved towards the door. He heard the click of its lock, then a sudden stillness and an ominous silence before a voice said, ‘Jesus fuck.’

Gilchrist left Siobhan’s bedroom and crossed the hallway in three strides. Taggart was standing with his back to the master bedroom, his lips clamped tight, his throat and jaw working hard to keep down the bile.

Even before Gilchrist entered the room, his mind was analysing the scene before him, telling him that it must be bad for Jessie to be standing with her hand to her mouth. But when he walked through the door, turned to face the bed, and saw what he thought must be the body of Mrs McCulloch, he realised nothing could have prepared him for just how horrific it was.