by T F Muir
BLOOD TORMENT
Also by T. F. Muir
(DCI Gilchrist series)
The Meating Room
Life for a Life
Tooth for a Tooth
Hand for a Hand*
Eye for an Eye*
(DCI Gilchrist Short Story)
A Christmas Tail
*Written as Frank Muir
BLOOD TORMENT
A DCI Gilchrist Novel
T. F. Muir
Constable • London
CONSTABLE
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Constable
Copyright © T. F. Muir, 2016
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-47212-089-2
Constable
is an imprint of
Little, Brown Book Group
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
An Hachette UK Company
www.hachette.co.uk
www.littlebrown.co.uk
For Anna
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Acknowledgements
CHAPTER 1
7.18 a.m., Monday, mid-April
Fisherman’s Cottage
Crail, Fife
DCI Andy Gilchrist had just taken his first mouthful of sliced mango when his mobile rang – ID Jessie. ‘Morning, Jessie. Hungover, are we?’
‘Is that the pot nipping the kettle?’
He was indeed feeling a tad tender. Impromptu celebrations and a one-for-the-road deoch an dorus – or was it three? – in The Central had that effect on him now, but he said, ‘Never felt better.’
‘Cross your heart and hope to die? And I don’t think. Listen,’ she said, ‘I’ve just caught a message being passed out on the radio from Control. We’ve got a Grade 1 priority. Missing child. Katie Davis. Two years old. Mother put her to bed last night, checked on her this morning, and she was gone. Mother’s never married. Lives by herself.’
‘Name?’
‘Andrea Davis.’
The name meant nothing to him. ‘Who’s the father? Do we know where he is?’
‘Don’t know to both questions. But I’ll get on to that. The Duty Inspector’s getting a dog handler over to the house as soon as. Grange Road. You know it?’
‘Branches off before the Kinkell Brae?’
‘That’s it.’
Gilchrist pushed his fruit to the side. ‘Address?’
‘Grange Mansion.’
‘Mansion?’
‘Yeah. She’s well to do, by the sounds of it. Which might be a motive for kidnap. But there’s no ransom note. Nothing.’
‘That could come later.’
‘I phoned the Duty Inspector,’ Jessie said, her voice rushing, ‘and asked her to check ViSOR for any RSOs in close proximity.’
The Violent and Sex Offender Register was a police system that kept tabs on RSOs – Registered Sex Offenders. From the rush in Jessie’s voice, Gilchrist suspected they had their first solid lead. ‘Keep going,’ he said.
‘A nasty paedo by the name of Sammie Bell moved into the area about three weeks ago.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘Doesn’t ring a bell, you mean?’
‘Very funny.’
‘He’s just moved back from London.’
‘Back?’ he said. ‘So he used to live here?’
‘Family home’s in Crail. Not too far from where you live. Parents dead. No siblings. Mother passed away last month, which might explain why he’s returned.’
‘To claim his inheritance?’
‘Got it in one.’
‘Address?’
Jessie gave it to him.
Anstruther Road ran south from Westgate on the outskirts of Crail, and was bounded by some nice property. ‘Find out what you can on Bell, and get back to me.’
‘Want me to pick you up?’
‘I’ll meet you there.’
‘Oh, and one other thing,’ she said. ‘The Incident Officer’s been assigned.’
Something in the chirpy tone of her voice sent a warning through him. ‘Who is it?’
‘DI Walter MacIntosh.’ A pause, then, ‘Isn’t he a pal of yours?’
‘Bring the coffee,’ Gilchrist snarled, and killed the call.
DI Walter Tosh MacIntosh. It had been eighteen months since he’d last seen the man, the nastiest piece of police shit he’d ever tried to scrape off his shoe. After their last run-in, Tosh had been transferred to Lothian and Borders, then moved to Strathclyde HQ. But if he was now back with Fife Constabulary, he was too close for comfort. Gilchrist snatched his leather jacket from the back of a chair, and strode to the rear door.
Although his back garden was sheltered, it felt cold enough to have him blowing into his hands. By the wooden shed in the far corner, he checked the cat’s dish, but its food was barely touched. He peered inside – empty – and jammed a stone at the foot of the door to keep it open. At least it would have a safe place to hide, if it ever came back.
Out the front door, in Rose Wynd, a cold wind had risen. He tugged his collar tight around his neck, stuffed his hands into his pockets. An empty plastic bottle of Irn-Bru rattled across the cobbles. He swung a foot at it, but a sudden gust of wind swept the Wynd, and he missed. Overhead, gulls stalled mid-flight, then wheeled off in windswept free-fall.
He beeped his remote fob, and his BMW winked at him.
The lease on his Mercedes had expired, so he’d gone for a BMW this time. His son, Jack, who’d never owned a car, never even taken a driving lesson – Automation’s what’s wrong with the world now, we should all go back to shanks’s pony – had gifted Gilchrist four thousand pounds in recognition of being an arsehole of a son for all these years. It had taken much drunken persuasion for Gilchrist to accept, recognising that his persistent refusal would be seen as offensive. On one hand, Jack throwing money to the wind in defiance of materialism was a no-brainer. On the other, it worried him that Jack’s sculptures and paintings were being priced so
highly now – or, more to the point, what the hell was he doing with the surplus cash?
Gilchrist was about to turn into Westgate when a tradesman, clambering into his van with a sausage roll spilling crumbs, took his attention. The thought of a roll and bacon had his mouth watering, and on impulse he pulled left and parked.
He was crossing the road when his mobile rang – ID Force Control Centre.
‘DS Janes asked me to call you about Mr Bell, sir.’
‘Let’s have it.’
‘His full name is Samuel Johnson Bell, aka Sammie Bell, aka Jimmy Bell, aka Ding, born in ’66. Has a string of offences from the age of thirteen – up in front of the sheriff for shoplifting, petty theft, card fraud; then moved to London in ’85 and was prime suspect in a series of rapes in and around Romford from ’87 through ’95, underage girls – fifteen years, thirteen, and one twelve year old – but his alibis were bombproof. Then we move to the serious stuff, sir.’
Something clamped Gilchrist’s gut. As if underage rape was not serious enough.
‘Was charged by the Met in ’98 with the kidnap and murder of two children from a council house in Dagenham. Never recovered the bodies, but was found guilty and sentenced to twenty years. But he served only six and was released on appeal in 2004. No other reported incidents since. A marker was added to ViSOR three weeks ago on his return to Crail.’
‘How old were these children?’
‘Two, sir. Both girls.’
Same age as Katie Davis. Gilchrist cursed under his breath. How anyone could harm a child, or take sexual satisfaction from someone little older than a baby, was beyond him. He stepped aside as an elderly lady exited the shop, gave her a grim smile and a good-morning nod, then pushed through the door.
‘Anything else?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir. He’s been given an interim SOPO, but his solicitor’s applied to the court to have that lifted on the grounds that he was wrongly convicted in London, and is no danger to any child. It also prevents him from working near children.’
Gilchrist ordered a bacon roll while his mind worked through the logic. With Bell just back from London, an interim Sexual Offences Prevention Order would have been granted within a few days of his return, notwithstanding his alleged innocence. But he worried that Bell’s appeal had been successful. Here was a career sexual offender with a smart brain, or good legal advisors, or both.
‘What did he do for a living?’
‘School janitor.’
Bloody hell. Like giving a fox the keys to the henhouse.
‘He’d been employed in a number of primary schools in and around Romford, sir. After his release he lived in rented accommodation in London, but never stayed in any place longer than six months. He returned to Crail when his mother passed.’
‘Email me a copy of your report,’ Gilchrist said. ‘And copy Jackie Canning in on it.’ He rattled off his and Jackie’s email addresses, then ended the call.
Back outside, he bit into his bacon roll, its crisp, salty meat setting his saliva glands on overload. It was the first bacon roll he’d had in two weeks since Maureen had urged him to eat more fruit and veg. You’re eating all the wrong stuff, Dad. Your cholesterol must be through the roof. He had reciprocated by urging her to eat bigger portions of what he ate – steak pie, chips, pizza – so that she might put weight back on. Three years earlier, she’d lost forty pounds in four months, and had not fully recovered. He often wondered if she ever would.
He dialled her number.
‘Morning, Dad.’ She sounded tired, but not disgruntled like Jack first thing in the morning. ‘Why do you always call so early?’
‘Because it’s the best part of the day, and you shouldn’t miss it.’
‘What time is it anyway?’
‘Close to eight.’
‘Which puts it at about seven,’ she said, ‘if I know you.’
‘Thought we could meet up during the week. Maybe share a fish supper, or two.’
‘So the diet’s taken a dive?’
‘Wouldn’t want to call it a diet, more like a change of subject matter.’ He bit into his roll, as if to make his point.
‘Let me get back to you, Dad. Got some finals coming up. I need to study.’
‘Play catch-up, you mean?’
‘You need to be more trusting,’ she said. ‘But I still love you.’
‘Love you, too, Mo,’ he said to a dead line.
Back in his car, he thought of his children. Now they were both living in St Andrews again, he had hoped to spend more time with them. But the sad truth was that they had their own lives to get on with, and being a DCI with Fife Constabulary did not exactly lend itself to knitting to pass the time.
Jack was doing well, showing his art in a gallery in South Street, making a name for himself in circles that mattered, or so he said. Which was always a worry. Gilchrist continued to have difficulty believing Jack. On the other hand, Maureen was as straight as the road was long, and told the truth, whether it cut him to the bone or not.
But it troubled him that he had not been entirely honest with them, and had yet to tell them he was about to become a father again. After much soul-searching, Forensic Pathologist Dr Rebecca Cooper had decided not to have a termination, despite protests from her soon-to-be-ex-husband, Max, who was now regretting his own infidelities and wanted to start afresh – without someone else’s bastard child. Not that Max had any say in the matter, Gilchrist thought he understood that much, only that guilt was playing a part in the man’s remorse.
He slowed down as he located himself from the street addresses, then pulled on to the pavement opposite Bell’s property. The house surprised him, a substantial two-storey stone property that looked as if it had been maintained to within an inch of its life. Vinyl windows glistened like paint. Spotless slates reflected a grey sky. Only the garden looked unkempt, the lawn still stunned from its winter hibernation, and shrubs in need of a pruning, an indication as to how the house would decline now it was being looked after by the Bells’ criminal son.
He dialled Jessie’s number. ‘Where are you?’
‘Hold your horses. I’ve just got the coffee. You want to have it before or after you grill Bell’s arse?’
‘Before,’ he said.
‘That’s better. I’ll be there in ten.’
The line died, leaving Gilchrist to shake his head.
In the five months he had been partnered with Jessie he had come to understand that ‘morning’ and ‘Jessie’ were two words that should never be together. She had a bright mind and a quick wit, but personal problems with which she refused to let him help, and a driven desire almost as fierce as his own to bring criminals to justice.
So he waited for her arrival, and eyed Bell’s house.
Had the upstairs curtains opened since he’d parked? He couldn’t say. As if to reassure him, slatted blinds in the lower right front window flashed open, revealing the silhouette of a man’s figure.
A pair of slats at head height widened as someone peered through them. Then they flicked shut, and the blinds rose with the steadiness of a stage curtain lifting, the windowsill low enough to reveal a naked man, arms blackened with tattoos for sleeves, thighs coloured like a Chinese painting, head shorn like a polished newel.
The man seemed unconcerned by his nakedness. But it was the manner in which he stood that Gilchrist found unsettling. He was being stared down, no doubt about it. ‘That’s the way to do it, sonny Jim,’ Gilchrist whispered. ‘You’re trying to wind up the wrong guy.’
CHAPTER 2
Jessie parked her Fiat behind Gilchrist.
When she slid into his passenger seat, he said, ‘You look flushed.’
‘And you look like you’ve been out on the binge. Here.’ She handed him his coffee. ‘You’d better drink that before it gets cold.’ Then her eyes widened as her gaze shifted over his shoulder.
Gilchrist followed her line of sight as he took a sip of coffee. Sammie Bell – if that’s who the
man was – had returned to stand at the window, still naked.
‘Is that Sammie Bell?’
‘That’s his address,’ he said, and took another sip.
‘Swallow up,’ she said. ‘This I’ve got to see,’ and stuffed her cup into the holder in the centre console.
He followed her as she took the garden steps two at a time. She’d been exercising, which he had to say was working, and her once chubby figure was beginning to recover its shape. By the time they reached the door, the man hadn’t moved, just stood there, watching them with a dead stare. Jessie rang the doorbell, hardly out of breath, while Gilchrist flashed his warrant card at the window.
It worked. The man lowered the blinds.
Several seconds later, the door opened wide, releasing a waft of warm air and a heavy guff of stale food. The man stood before them. An open-mouthed red dragon entwined itself around and up his left leg, while an iridescent wide-fanged python squeezed his right, as if both creatures were striving to reach the easy prey of the man’s penis – the effect striking enough for Gilchrist to have difficulty diverting his eyes. The man’s arms were sleeved so thickly with tattoos that it looked as if he’d worn gloves and dipped his arms up to the armpits in tar. A pair of diamond studs pierced his right ear. His feet sported hairy toes and nails in need of a cut, and stood atop a carpet of unopened envelopes, brochures, spam mail, with Bell in the first line of the address.
