Tooth for a Tooth (26 page)

Greaves frowned. Two lines creased his forehead. Gilchrist thought he had never before seen a man so torn. ‘Regrettably, there appear to be some question marks hovering over this one,’ Greaves went on. ‘And regrettably, Andy, they’re hovering over you. I will say that Jeff’s a good policeman, a strong man to have on your side, but he seems disinclined to believe you. I’ve challenged him on your integrity, of course, but until we clear up what I’m hoping will be nothing more than a simple explanation, I have to carpet you, Andy. I’m sorry.’

Well, there he had it. Suspended once again.

‘You’ll be on full pay, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘Yes. Well. Any questions?’

‘No, sir.’

Greaves leaned forward, resting both hands on his desk. ‘I don’t like this, Andy, not one bit. It upsets me when I see a ready willingness to find blame among our own. That would never have happened in the old days. We were all part of a team back then, and proud as punch to be cops. Don’t let anyone know I told you this, but if you need to lay your hands on anything to do with this investigation, let me know and I’ll do what I can to get it to you. God forbid if the press ever got hold of that. So, I’m relying on you to keep that between us.’ His eyes burned. ‘All right?’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Gilchrist strode towards the door, gripped the handle when Greaves said, ‘One other thing, Andy.’

Gilchrist stood in the open doorway. ‘Sir?’

‘Why
did
you remove the cigarette lighter?’

‘Do you believe in ghosts?’

Greaves frowned, tilted his head, as if looking down his nose. ‘Can’t say that I do.’

Gilchrist backed from the room. ‘I never used to either, sir.’

He closed the door.

‘Same again, Andy?’ asked Fast Eddy.

‘You talked me into it. You don’t happen to have a phone book in here, do you?’

‘Sweetheart,’ Fast Eddy shouted to a woman Gilchrist had not seen before. ‘Phone book for the gentleman at the bar.’ As he eased a fresh pint from the tap, Fast Eddy said, ‘You look a bit out of sorts, Andy. Everything all right?’

‘Same old same old.’

‘Tell me about it. Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing in here, pulling pint after pint. Nothing but a shopkeeper is what I am. And the shite I have to take from some customers? One of these days I’m going to nail one of the pricks to the wall. Thanks, sweetheart,’ he said, handing over the phone book. ‘I don’t believe you’ve met Andy,’ he said. ‘Andy, this is Elspeth. She’s just joined our happy little outfit.’

Elspeth wiped her hand on a bar towel and held it out to Gilchrist.

‘Pleased to meet you, Andy.’

Andy took her hand. ‘And you, too. Haven’t we met before?’ he asked her.

‘Can’t think where.’

‘Watch Andy’s patter, love. He’s a charmer, that’s for sure.’

‘I’m only here for the beer.’ Gilchrist opened the phone book and within thirty seconds had the number of the travel agency. Five minutes later, he was booked on a Continental flight from Glasgow to Newark the following day, connecting with Continental Express to Albany, New York. ‘Going on holiday?’ Fast Eddy asked.

‘Not quite.’

‘Haven’t seen much of that Gina Belli woman for the last day or so. One week she’s in here every minute of every day, it seems like, and the next, poof, she’s gone from sight. Bit of a looker, I’d say.’

‘Not my type,’ Gilchrist offered.

‘But you’d give her one. Right?’

Gilchrist lost his answer in a mouthful of beer. He was in no mood for Eddy’s sexual banter. Since his divorce, he could count on four fingers the number of women he had been to bed with. Not promiscuous by any stretch of the imagination, but he wondered if it had been his love for Gail, or his love of his work, that had kept him faithful. He tried to recall the last time he and Gail had laughed together, but the image failed. Gail was gone, and he was suspended once again, only one step away from losing it all.

He gripped his pint, took a sip. If he was off the official case, then that would give him the rest of the day to take care of the other one. He pulled out his mobile.

‘Anything new on Fairclough?’ he asked.

‘We’re still looking, boss.’

‘If Betson dies on us,’ he said, ‘we’re looking at murder.’

‘We think he might be in Rothesay.’

Rothesay?
‘What’s there?’

‘That’s where his secretary comes from.’

‘Keep going.’

‘Fairclough owes one of his subcontractors close to a hundred grand, and this guy’s been calling every day for the last six months, threatening to take legal action if he doesn’t cough up. He also knows Fairclough’s been boinking his secretary for years, and when neither of them turned up yesterday morning, he flipped.’

‘They could have gone anywhere,’ Gilchrist tried.

‘Not a chance, boss. Apparently it’s where they go. They’ve done it before.’

Still a long shot, but Stan’s positive manner had him struggling to maintain his composure. He managed to make Stan promise to call the moment he heard anything.

He closed his mobile, Fairclough once again in his sights.

The drive to SK Motors took fifteen minutes.

The garage was a converted barn that pulsed to the beat of music. Gilchrist located the culprit, a black box of a radio from the sixties that seemed to defy the laws of electronics with the power of its speakers. Shuggie gave a snarl for a smile, rubbed his hands clean with a filthy rag and shook Gilchrist’s outstretched hand. Gilchrist tried to say it was good to see him again, but he could not hear his own voice.

The MGB was already up on a ramp raised to shoulder height.

‘What’s it looking like?’ Gilchrist shouted.

‘It might look as if it’s in good nick,’ Shuggie replied. ‘But it’s a cheap rebuild. All fur coat and nae knickers.’

‘How can you tell?’ It was like trying to talk in a disco.

Shuggie lifted a hammer out of his toolbox, stuck his head under the ramp and hit the underside of the car with a blow that should have shattered the chassis. Bits of dirt fell to the floor. Shuggie picked some up and showed it to Gilchrist. ‘Rust,’ he said. ‘Big no-no when it comes to classics.’ He slapped the side of the car. ‘Heap of shite’s nothing but a rust bucket.’

Gilchrist eyed the paintwork, gleaming showroom-new in parts, black and blistered in others. Up on the ramp, the car looked more fire-damaged, the classic style more dated.

Shuggie removed a crumpled sheet of oil-stained paper from his pocket – Gilchrist’s handwritten instructions. ‘So what kind of stuff are we looking for?’ Shuggie asked him. ‘Something about the front panel and the nearside headlight?’

‘I believe this car was involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident in the late sixties,’ he began. ‘I need you to find something that might give credence to that theory.’

Shuggie snorted. ‘Like what? A body part stuck to the front grille?’

‘The victim was someone I knew.’

Shuggie looked at Gilchrist as if waiting for the punchline.

‘My brother,’ Gilchrist said.

Shuggie glared at the car. ‘Nearside headlight, you say?’

‘The headlights might have been replaced, and I suspect some damage to the front panel’s been repaired. But since the accident, it’s only had the one paint job.’

Shuggie ran a hand as big as a bear’s paw over the metal, scratched one of the bubbles with a fingernail as black and thick as a claw. ‘Cheap job, too,’ he said, then looked back at Gilchrist. ‘You got the accident report?’

Gilchrist shook his head. ‘Not on me. My brother was struck down crossing the road. His body was found straddling the pavement.’

‘How did he die?’

‘Bled to death. The femoral artery, that’s the one in his leg,’ he added, ‘was sliced open.’

‘Is that above or below the knee?’

‘Above.’

Shuggie palmed the front of the car. ‘Any broken bones? Crushed knees? That sort of stuff?’

Gilchrist recalled the details. Multiple breaks in the lower and upper right leg. Meniscus cartilage shattered. Bones poking through skin. Jack had not died immediately, but lain on the side of the road, probably unable to move. Assuming he had been conscious, the pain from his shattered bones would have had him clutching his leg. By the time he realized his artery was cut, the loss of blood would have had him in shock. With the drop in blood pressure he would most likely have passed out in less than a minute, been dead in two.

‘His right leg was a mess,’ Gilchrist said.

‘So he was walking on to the road, no off it.’

‘It looks that way.’

‘Back then,’ Shuggie continued, ‘these chrome bumpers and nifty-looking sidelights and stuff was as good as being hit with an axe. You don’t see them any more. Against the law. I remember seeing a Jaguar mascot once, you know, the one with the leaping cat on the bonnet? Well, this was covered in blood and stuff. The guy it hit went flying over the bonnet, but no before the mascot ripped a hole in his stomach. Guts and stuff everywhere.’

Gilchrist eyed the radio. It was difficult to think with all the noise. But he did know one thing. There had been no
guts and stuff
in Jack’s accident. A bone splinter that sliced the femoral artery had been his fatal injury.

‘I like this one,’ Shuggie said, and turned the radio up an impossible notch.

‘What is it?’ Gilchrist shouted.

‘Green Day.’

‘I meant, the radio.’

Shuggie gave a friendly grimace. ‘Brother’s into electronics and stuff. Jake put in new speakers. Small as shite and stuff. You should hear it at full blast.’

Gilchrist shouted, ‘It can go louder?’

Shuggie gave a proud grin that revealed broken teeth. ‘It’s idling, man. Just ticking over.’

Gilchrist choked back a cough. ‘How long do you think it’ll take?’

‘If I concentrate on the front panels, a couple of days, maybe less, maybe more. Depends on what kind of stuff I find.’ He scratched his beard with a grimy finger. ‘Want me to strip it down all the way?’ He seemed pleased with his question.

Gilchrist felt a clammy sweat grip the nape of his neck, whether from his fever or the thought of presenting Greaves with the bill, he could not say. Or maybe from the thought of uncovering proof of the hit-and-run. ‘Concentrate on the front end,’ he said. ‘If you find something, let me know, and I’ll tell you if I want you to dig deeper.’

Shuggie nodded, disappointed.

As Gilchrist walked from the garage, he hawked up a lump of black phlegm and spat it into thick grass at the base of a stone wall. In the car, he wiped his face of sweat and tried to ignore a shiver that flushed down his arms.

Back in town, he popped into Boots on Market Street for a box of Ibuprofen. He took two, had to work up spittle to swallow them dry. He clicked his remote fob and was about to step into his Merc when he saw old Donnie. He caught up with him as he was turning into College Street.

‘I got your records,’ Gilchrist said.

‘Were they any help?’

‘Too soon to say, but thanks for your trouble. I owe you a half or two.’

Donnie frowned. ‘It’s too early for me,’ he said. ‘I’d fall asleep in my soup if I had a half now.’

Gilchrist nodded. It was almost too early for him. ‘Do you remember any details of any of your female renters?’ he asked Donnie. ‘Back in the sixties, I mean?’

‘The sixties?’ Donnie frowned, as if stunned that all these years had passed. ‘What sort of details?’

‘Anything that might stick out in your mind. Such as an American accent . . .’

‘We had more than a few Americans renting the place over the years. Can’t you just look at the addresses on my records? That should tell you who’s American or not.’

‘I was hoping you might recall something that seemed odd at the time.’

Donnie shook his head. ‘They were just wee lassies giving me their names and addresses. That’s the only dealings I ever had with them. Sometimes I never even got to talk to them. Sometimes I got the information from the property manager, and just updated my records.’

Gilchrist nodded, not quite finished yet. ‘How about Mexican accents?’ he tried.

‘Mexican?’ Donnie shook his head. ‘Not that I remember. Which doesn’t mean much nowadays. But I’m sure I would have remembered a Mexican. Particularly if she was giving me the eye.’ His shoulders shuffled at his joke.

Gilchrist had known it was a long shot.

‘One thing I do remember about the sixties, though,’ Donnie added, ‘was the sexual promiscuity.’ He licked his lips, as if at the thought. ‘Used to make me wish I was young enough to join in. Musical fannies was what it was.’ His shoulders shrugged at the missed opportunities.

On his walk back to his Merc, Gilchrist well remembered the days before AIDS put the fear of God into unprotected sex, and the pill was a life-saver popped like sweeties. Gail had been on the pill when they first met. He had thought nothing of it at the time, instead had been swept off his feet and her on to her back by her air of sexual liberation. Had her carefree attitude been a precursor to her marital infidelity? Should he have noticed the warning signs, even way back then? But the thought that he sometimes sensed those same signs in his daughter’s recovery worried him.