Tooth for a Tooth (32 page)

‘Didn’t you go out with him?’

‘Oh. Now I remember. Are you talking about Wee Johnnie?’

Her response seemed too fast, too glib, but he scribbled down the name. ‘Could be,’ he said. ‘What’s his surname?’

‘Walker.’

For someone who had denied knowing Lorena’s boyfriend two breaths ago, Megs displayed remarkable recall. ‘Aren’t you getting his name confused with a whisky?’

‘That’s why I remember it. His name was Wee Johnnie Walker. And
wee
fitted the bill, if you get my meaning.’

‘What did Lorena do when you started going out with Johnnie?’

‘Do?’

‘You’d moved into her flat, stolen her boyfriend—’

‘Is that what she told you? Well you can tell that little tramp that Johnnie wanted a woman, not a Mexican bimbo.’

Megs had never been a mincer of words. He remembered that, too.

‘Did your relationship with Johnnie last long?’

‘Long enough.’

‘For what?’

‘Use your imagination.’

Gilchrist did, but it was not a pleasant image. ‘It sounds to me like it was an acrimonious ending.’

‘Not for me. I was glad to see the back of him.’

Gilchrist wondered if it wasn’t the other way around. ‘How long did you stay in the flat?’ he asked.

‘End of the year. Then I left.’

‘Graduated?’

‘That’d be the day.’

‘You jacked it in?’

‘Couldn’t stand it any more.’

‘Where did you go?’

Megs seemed to give his question some consideration. ‘What’s my leaving uni got to do with Kelly?’ she finally asked.

He thought the first-name familiarity odd. But Megs had already shown how good her memory could be. ‘Just wondering if you ever saw Wee Johnnie again?’

‘Not a chance. Wasn’t interested.’

‘I think you’ve been helpful in answering my questions,’ he said. ‘If I think of anything else, I’ll give you a call.’

He was about to hang up when Megs said, ‘Are you looking for Wee Johnnie?’

‘Do you know where he is?’

‘Haven’t a clue. But would a photograph help?’

Gilchrist pressed the phone to his ear, intrigued by her sudden enthusiasm. ‘Do you have one?’

‘I’ll have a look-see,’ she said, and gave him her address. ‘If you want to come by and pick it up.’ Before he could tell her to deliver it to the office, she said, ‘See you soon, Andy.’

Gilchrist hung up to what sounded like laughter. He picked up the photograph of Lorena with her boyfriend. Was that Wee Johnnie Walker? Maybe Megs’ photograph would confirm that.

Somehow, the thought of visiting Megs for an ID did not appeal to him, but if doing so could clear Jack’s name, then what choice did he have? A face-to-face with her might reveal some more of the past, but having Stan do more legwork for him could give him a heads-up for the visit. He flipped open his mobile.

‘Long time,’ joked Stan.

‘As well as Brian Fletcher,’ Gilchrist began, ‘I need you to track down Johnnie Walker.’

‘Any clues?’

Gilchrist gave Stan what little he had, and surprised himself by not mentioning Megs. But a thought had struck him during his call to Stan, that if Megs could identify the person standing next to Lorena, could she identify those Gilchrist did not know in the other photographs? A visit to Megs was fast becoming a must.

He placed Lorena and Wee Johnnie to the side, and spent the next three hours going through every photograph, numbering them lightly in pencil on the back, making notes against each, cataloguing them in order of names he knew and those he did not. By the time he finished, it was almost five o’clock. The thought of a beer and a bite almost had him wrapping the lot up and heading to Professor Moriarty’s. Instead, he called Kelly’s mother, told her he was flying back to Scotland the following afternoon and asked if she would be interested in accompanying him to the Wishing Well.

‘That would be wonderful,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been back since Tom died. Why don’t I make a reservation? It sometimes gets busy.’

‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘I’d like to return your photographs. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to borrow a few.’

‘Of course, dear.’

‘And you mentioned letters you and Tom received from Kelly. I think you may have forgotten to let me see the last one you received.’

‘Did I? I’ll look it out and bring it along.’

The bar at the Wishing Well was unavoidable. Patrons had to walk past it to enter the restaurant beyond. Gilchrist escorted Annie by the arm, and she surprised him by saying, ‘Do you mind if we have a cocktail at the bar?’

‘Not at all.’ Gilchrist pulled out a stool and helped Annie to sit.

‘Thank you,’ she said, as he pulled his stool beside hers. ‘Tom and I always had a cocktail before we ate. Sometimes we never even made it to the restaurant. We would just start talking and before we knew it we were on our third cocktail and ready to go home.’ She shook her head with a sad smile. ‘I miss Tom.’

Gilchrist surprised himself by squeezing her hand.

‘I miss Kelly, too,’ she said.

Gilchrist felt his lips tighten. The thought that he had held Kelly’s skull in his own hands only two days earlier, had watched Dr Black build virtual skin and tissue around it, while this woman seated beside him had longed for some sight of her daughter for over thirty years, had him not trusting his own voice.

Annie forced a smile at the bartender. ‘I’d like a vodka martini, Gray Goose, and go light on the martini. With extra olives.’

‘Certainly, ma’am. And you, sir?’

‘Sam Adams.’

The bartender placed two coasters on the bar and removed a frosted glass from the fridge. As Annie leaned closer, Gilchrist thought she looked troubled.

‘I was so sorry to hear about Jack,’ she said to him. ‘Tom and I met him once, that Christmas we visited. Such a nice young man. So handsome, too.’ She looked at him then, her eyes a cold blue. ‘Can you tell me what happened, Andy?’

So Gilchrist did, eking out details in a level monotone, as if the person he was talking about was someone he did not know. He did not mention that Jack was fast becoming the prime suspect in Kelly’s murder, or that his hit-and-run driver was now being sought for a recent arson attack, and more. When he finished, Annie gripped both his hands in hers.

‘Such a tragic story,’ she said. ‘Two young lives lost. With so much to live for.’

Gilchrist nodded, not trusting his voice.

‘You still miss him,’ she said.

‘I do.’ It was all he could manage to say.

Annie pulled back and smiled. ‘I think Kelly and Jack would have kept in contact after she left Scotland. And I think Jack would have visited her in the States. Who knows?’ she added with a wink. ‘He might even have emigrated.’

‘Why do you think that?’

She delved into her handbag and removed an envelope. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Kelly’s last letter. This might help you understand how she felt.’

Gilchrist took it, resisting the urge to read it there and then.

‘When you’re done with your investigation, I would like you to send it back to me. It’s all I have left of her.’

‘Of course,’ he said, and slipped the envelope into his jacket pocket.

Their drinks arrived, and Annie lifted her glass and forced a smile. She chinked her martini against Gilchrist’s frosted beer and said, ‘To the memory of Kelly and Jack,’ and took a sip that made her face crinkle with pleasure. She replaced her glass on the bar and licked her lips. ‘That tastes wonderful. I can’t tell you the last time I had a vodka martini. Tom usually had Scotch. They used to keep a bottle of Glenfiddich in the gantry, just for him. That was before the previous owner passed away.’

Gilchrist waited for some more history, but Annie seemed content to stir her olives. He felt hesitant to press on with the morbid subject, but after a few beats said, ‘What are
your
memories of Kelly?’

Annie looked into his eyes for a long second, then her gaze shifted and settled over his shoulder, focusing somewhere in the distance. ‘The blondest hair,’ she said, ‘and baby’s tears. I can still see her in her little swimsuit, running across our backyard, her arms sticking through those life-ring things you used to see. Tom bought one of those plastic swimming pools and set it up in the backyard, just for Kelly. We have albums of photographs of her. Hair so blonde it was almost white. She got that from Tom, not me. I’m fair, but nowhere near as fair as Tom was.’

She chuckled then. ‘The first time Kelly went into the pool with all her life-rings on and flippers, too, it was so funny. She was scared she would drown. But the water was too shallow. Tom made sure of that. Once she got more confident, he put more water in it. But that first time, she splashed in the pool all day long like she never wanted to come out. And that’s when the tears came, when I brought her in. She cried for hours. She could be quite stubborn when she put her mind to it, Kelly could.’ She took another sip of martini, almost finished it. ‘Would you mind if we just ate here? At the bar?’

‘Not at all,’ Gilchrist said, and asked for the menu.

‘That’s what Tom liked to do. Sit at the bar. Don’t get me wrong, Tom wasn’t much of a drinker. He preferred the informality of sitting at the bar. I liked that about him. So down to earth. But he could wear a business suit as well as any man.’

Gilchrist noticed Annie’s drink was almost done, and his Sam Adams had helped lift his spirits, so he ordered another round.

When the menu came, Annie selected a fish sandwich, fries on the side and hold the bun. Gilchrist chose a chicken sandwich with fries, and what the hell, ‘Hold the bun,’ he ordered.

They chinked glasses again, and Gilchrist found himself warming to Annie, catching glimpses of Kelly in the way she laughed – plenty of teeth, pleasing eyes, an almost beguiling innocence in her manner that could have men misinterpreting her meaning.

‘Are you married, Andy?’

‘Divorced.’

‘Any children?’

‘Two.’

Annie seemed to give that some thought. ‘Kelly was an only child. I wanted more. We both did. But that was God’s will. Only the one. Which I suppose made it all the more painful when we lost her.’

Gilchrist tried to hide his feelings in his beer. It felt surreal sitting in a bar in the States, talking to Kelly’s mother about the past, about Kelly and Jack, about their families, after all these years, as if two individual yet separate parts of his memory had been released to hit him with their joint demands.

Kelly. Jack.

Could he ever put them to rest?

And he realized the only way to fight those demons was to find their killers.

CHAPTER 25

Back at his hotel, he pulled Kelly’s letter from his jacket, not an airmail envelope but a business envelope with two blue
par avion
stickers straddling either side of the address. He eyed her handwriting with its curling tails to upper-case letters and tidy, almost individual letters throughout. He removed a single A4 sheet with floral borders, a daughter’s letter to her parents, and read the date:

January 30th 1969

About three weeks before she would be murdered.

He read on.

Dear Mom and Dad:

Happy New Years (sorry it’s a bit late). It was so lovely to see you both at Xmas. I promise I’ll be back in the States for Xmas next year. How is life in good old US of A? Life in sunny Scotland is so much fun. I am sad that my stay is nearly at an end, and I will be sad to leave. I have loved every minute of my time here, even the weather. Everybody complains about the weather, especially the rain, but it is the rain that makes the countryside so beautiful. And I am going to miss St Andrews with its cathedral ruins and cobbled streets and all these old stone buildings. I am going to miss university life and all things Scottish, like fish and chips, and pints of beer, and driving on the wrong side of the road, not that I’ve driven much. But most of all I am going to miss Jack. He has been so kind to me. He brought me flowers yesterday to tell me he loved me, and to tell me he didn’t want me to go. He is soooooooo sweet. But if the truth be told it is me who should be saying sorry. I can be such a b**** at times. I was so pleased you got to see him at Xmas. He doesn’t know it yet, but I’m going to invite him over for the summer (if I can wait that long). I have enclosed some more photographs. In case you’ve forgotten, Jack is the tall handsome man standing beside the good-looking blonde (ha ha). He is so sad that I’m leaving. One part of me is sad that I’m leaving, too, while another part is looking forward to coming home. I can’t hardly wait. Do you know if I received any response to my job application? If not, I’ll give them a call on my return. See you soon. Tell Scamp I’ll be back soon. I’m going to bring her some Scottish treats and some tartan catnip.

Love you both,

Kelly xxxxxxx