Gilchrist felt a shiver tingle his spine. The thought of a convicted criminal talking about his daughter meant only one thing. Bully had been plotting his revenge for years.
Topley glanced at Gilchrist then grinned at Nance. “He told me how he’d love to tie her father down, nail him to the floor, then fuck her in front of him.”
“Anything else?”
“Then he said he would make her watch while he did him in.” Topley grinned. “He’s a bit sick that way, is Bully.”
“Charming, is he?”
“Charming isn’t what Bully’s about, darling.”
They sat tight-lipped while another waitress topped up three more champagne flutes. Liquid frothed over the rims, puddled on the tablecloth. To the side, a table-dancer straddled the thigh of a bleary-eyed businessman and bunched her breasts together, nipples as large and flat as saucers.
“He’d never seen Maureen, though,” Nance said. “Right?”
“He had a photograph of her.”
Gilchrist almost jolted. “Where did he get that?”
Topley shrugged. “You’d be surprised what you can get inside. Nude books. Porno videos. The real thing if you know who to ask and have the dosh to pay for it. A photo of your favourite Detective Inspector’s daughter is a piece of piss to these guys.”
“Would he still have the photograph?” Gilchrist asked.
“He wanked that much over it, it would have dissolved into spunk by now.”
Nance shook her head, and Gilchrist could tell she was having a tough time keeping her tongue in place. “What else did he say about my daughter?” he tried.
“That she was the way to get back at you for putting him inside, the way to make you suffer for what you did to him.”
Being beaten up by Bully was something Gilchrist could handle. It would not be the first time he’d taken a beating. But having Maureen’s life threatened was a different matter altogether. He bristled, struggled to stay calm, took a sip of champagne. It tasted sweet. He gulped a mouthful.
Topley chuckled. “Bully had it in for you. I can tell you that much.”
Gilchrist thudded his glass to the table. The champagne bubbled and fizzed. “Other than shooting his load over Maureen’s photo and nailing me to the floor,” he growled, “did he ever tell you how he would make me suffer?”
“Can’t say that he did.”
Something in the way Topley quipped the denial told Gilchrist he was lying.
“Or when he planned to do it?” Nance added.
“No.”
“He wouldn’t want to do in someone the instant he came out of prison, would he?” Nance continued. “He’d be straight back inside.”
“Bully’s not scared of prison.”
“But he likes his freedom.”
“We all do.”
“Did he tell you he wanted his brother, Jimmy, to do it?”
“No.”
“So, he told you nothing?”
“About that subject. Yes. He told me nothing.”
Nance sat back. Gilchrist leaned forward. “How about Robert Burns?”
Topley seemed puzzled by the question.
“What’s Bully’s obsession with Robert Burns?” Gilchrist asked.
“Never knew he had one.”
“Come off it,” Gilchrist snapped. “He’s got an epitaph on his father’s grave that’s a direct quote from Burns. And he did nothing but quote Burns to me. He even rewrote one of his opening lines: “Oh princess, by thy watchtower be.”
At first he thought the change in Topley’s face was anger, then realised something was working through the man’s mind. He glanced at Nance and saw she had seen it, too.
“You’ve remembered something,” Nance said.
Topley frowned, as if puzzled at finding himself in the company of two detectives. Then he said, “Bully read a lot of stuff. Jimmy would bring it in for him—books, tapes, CDs. And he was always writing poems. He let me read some of them.”
Bully as a poet did not fit Gilchrist’s image. “Can you remember what any of them were about?” he asked.
Topley shook his head. “Mostly about killing and raping and stuff like that.”
Now they were getting back on track.
“But he did mention a watchtower,” Topley added.
Gilchrist pulled himself forward. The bulging breasts on display over Topley’s shoulder shifted from his peripheral vision. “I’m listening,” he said.
“About a week before I got out.”
Gilchrist held his breath.
“Said I should keep my eyes and ears open. That one of those days I was going to read about a killing. The watchtower killing, he told me.”
“Were those his exact words?” Nance again.
“Can’t remember. Bully ranted on about a lot of stuff. His mind was getting fucked with the drink and drugs and revenge and stuff.” Topley fixed a dead-eyed stare on Gilchrist. “Told me you were going to rue the day you ever had a daughter. I remember that much. I remember thinking the two were linked. You know? Watchtower killing. Your daughter. Because he said he would send you a blank postcard and you would know it was from him.”
“Why would I know?”
“Because it would have a watchtower on it.”
“What kind of watchtower?” Nance asked.
“Like the old watchtowers in cemeteries.”
Gilchrist felt his blood turn to ice. There, he had it. He’d been right all along. But was he right about the Auld Aisle? And what did it mean? Then a thought hit him, and he wondered if he was stretching his rationale too far.
“Did he ever tell you what he would do with the body?” he asked Topley.
Topley frowned. “What body? Bully wasn’t going to kill her. He wanted to bury her alive. That’s what he told me. He wanted you to know he had buried her alive.”
Gilchrist stilled, as if every molecule of muscle and fibre and sinew in his body was about to coil in, then unfold in fury against Bully.
“And he said something else I thought was odd,” Topley added. “I never gave it a thought. Not one. Until you mentioned watchtower.”
Gilchrist’s lungs seemed to stop. His heart, too.
“He said that it was all ready, just waiting for her, as soon as he emptied it.”
“Emptied it?” Nance asked. “The watchtower?”
“The coffin.”
All of Gilchrist’s senses fired alive, as if his mind and body were acting as one. He heard the breathing of the dancer as she writhed her sexual dance to his side, the soft shuffle of her shoes as she turned and shifted across the stage. The music seemed clearer, too, as if the instruments were whispering in his ear.
Buried alive. The coffin was ready. Those were the key words.
“The drug shipment,” Gilchrist said. “When was it to be moved?”
Topley’s face deadpanned, as if his dreams of sex with a full-chested policewoman had just evaporated. “I thought we agreed not to talk about that.”
Gilchrist leaned closer. “I’m not interested in your drug-shipping empire,” he said, and prayed Topley would believe him. He would get down on his knees and beg if that was what it would take. “Was it soon? Were the drugs to be moved in the next couple of days?”
Topley turned away, offered his heavy-lidded gaze to Nance.
“St. Andrews,” she said. “One hundred North Street.”
Gilchrist held his breath. Would Topley recognise the address of the Office? “She could still be alive,” he urged.
Topley glanced left and right, as if to ensure no one was listening. “Rumour has it something was going to happen tomorrow night. But I wouldn’t know about that, of course.”
Gilchrist pushed his chair back and stood. The coffin. They were not supposed to find it. But they had. Which could mean only one thing.
Maureen was no longer going to be buried alive.
She was going to be killed.
Chapter 39
GILCHRIST ENTERED THE Auld
Aisle Cemetery from Woodilee Road.
He accelerated through the iron gate, sending it crashing to the side. He raced along asphalt pathways wide enough to accommodate a hearse. In the darkness, headstones passed in a shadowed blur. When he thought he was close enough, he veered onto the grass.
He left the engine running, the lights on, and stepped into the silence of the cemetery.
His feet slipped on the damp grass as he crossed beds of graves.
Nance reached him by the time he stood at Topley’s grave.
“She’s here,” he said to her. “I know it. I feel it. She’s here.” He lifted the yellow police tape and peeled back the tarpaulin that covered the excavated pit. The coffin was gone, but the SOCOs had left the grave open for the cemetery staff to repair.
Gilchrist jumped into the grave. He stood waist deep. He stamped on the bottom, but the soil was firm. The coffin containing the body of John Topley would be a couple of feet beneath him. He kicked the sides of the grave, but they were solid.
Nance eyed him from a safe distance, as if watching the antics of a madman.
Gilchrist pulled himself from the pit. “She’s here, Nance. I know it. She’s here.” He brushed soil from his clothes and scanned the dark shadows.
“Maureen?”
Nance shuffled her feet.
“Maureen?” Gilchrist cupped his hands to his mouth. “Maureen?”
“Andy.”
Gilchrist faced her. His breath panted in the cold air. He had tried to explain his rationale on the drive from the city. But she seemed unconvinced. Did she not understand? Maureen was here. Here. In this cemetery. She had to be. That’s what Bully had been telling him. It was simple.
“The coffin,” he said.
“I know. You told me.”
“That’s why they moved her from Glenorra. To bring her here. Closer to the coffin.” He lifted the yellow tape, stepped across the grass, marched along the pathway. “Maureen?”
The moon broke through the clouds and cast a ghostly glow across the cemetery. Headstones stood like silent bodyguards. A cold wind stirred in the passing, like the chilled breath of wraiths wakened by his calling.
“Maureen?”
Nance followed him through the opening in the stone wall that separated the old cemetery from the new. There, the headstones were larger, more ominous, the sky darker, too, as the moon settled behind a band of clouds.
“Why bring Maureen here?” she asked.
“It’s closer to the coffin.”
“I know that. But why here? Why not keep her in a house somewhere, and when they empty the coffin bring her then?”
“Why move her at all?” he replied. “Have you asked yourself that?”
“The neighbours were becoming suspicious? The hut in the back was becoming a liability? How would I know?”
“And from one house to another house?” Gilchrist shook his head.
“Maybe she’s in a house nearby,” Nance suggested.
“Maybe.” Gilchrist marched on.
“You could be wrong, Andy.”
Gilchrist stopped. “I’m not wrong, Nance. I know I’m not. I feel it here. Right here.” He thumped his chest with a force that should have stopped his heart. “Bully might be a murdering psychopath, but he’s not stupid. He had it planned. It was all ready. That’s what Topley said. Maybe Bully’s getting out in two years. Maybe sooner. Who knows? But with Jimmy dying, he couldn’t wait. He needed Jimmy to do his dirty work. So he started the ball rolling.”
“That’s all very well,” she said. “But—”
“Help me, Nance.” He gripped her arms. “Help me find Maureen.”
“Okay. Okay, Andy.” She stared at him. “Okay.”
Gilchrist released his grip. He knew from the tone of her voice that he was scaring her. If she did not want to help him he would find Maureen by himself. He stepped up the hill towards the oldest part of the cemetery, reached the old gate and pushed through. The watchtower stood like a miniature cathedral, an eerie grey in the moonlight. He reached its steps, bounded up them two at a time.
She was here. She had to be. Not here exactly. Not at the watchtower. But in this cemetery. Somewhere here, she was alive. Not buried. Not yet. But alive. Bully wanted to bury her alive in a coffin he had prepared for her, that would be ready after the drugs were removed. But with the coffin gone, Bully would now order Maureen to be killed instead of being buried alive.
If she was not already dead.
“Maureen?” The sound of his voice settled over the graveyard. High in the branches behind him, he heard the flutter of wings, the harsh caw of a crow. He cupped his hands again. “Maureen?”
Nance stared up at him from the bottom of the stone stairway.
Oh princess, by thy watchtower be.
He gripped the cold stone. His breath clouded the night air. Christ, it was so cold. Who could survive in cold like this? Was he already too late? But Bully had not wanted her dead. He had wanted her alive.
To bury her.
“Maureen?”
Princess. Watchtower.
She was here. By the watchtower—
He stopped, frozen by a sudden thought that blew into his mind.
The poem. Mary Morison. Why that poem? Why not some other poem?
Had Bully left clues in the other verses? But they had not been changed.
He removed the crumpled sheet from his pocket, flattened it as best he could, and tried to read it from the light of the moon. Movement by his side startled him.
“Here,” Nance said, and fingered her keyring. A weak light lit up the page.
He read out the verses. “Oh princess, by thy watchtower be, it is the wished, the trysted hour. Those smiles and glances let me see, that makes the miser’s treasure poor.” And underneath the first line, the original words printed in Jack’s sprawling hand.
It took Gilchrist a full five seconds to realise what he had missed, what they had all missed, the one word that Bully had slipped in unnoticed. Until now.
He read the original line. “Oh Mary, at thy window be.”
He read it again. “Christ,” he whispered.
At. Not by.
It meant something. It had to. Why else would Bully have changed it?
He scanned the other lines, his gaze settling, then fixing on the words … and glances let me see …
Let me see. By thy watchtower.
At thy watchtower. By thy watchtower. Did it matter?
Let me see. Was that the key? He peered into the darkness, caught the frames of iron cages and lonely headstones that guarded graves targeted by nineteenth-century grave robbers on their nightly plunders—
He caught his breath. Was that it?
Nightly plunders. The graves were robbed at night.
When the guards were in the watchtower.
… let me see …
At night? From the watchtower?
What could he see from where he stood?
He scanned the graveyard, kept his focus on the wall within view, the headstones closest to him. But he saw nothing in which a body could be kept until the coffin was ready. He turned to the gate, the main entrance to the original cemetery, next to the caretaker’s house—
Christ. The house. Why had he not noticed before?
Why had it taken until that moment for him to notice the house was derelict?
He ran down the steps and reached the front windows. A metal grille of sorts had been installed over them. He gripped it, but it was solid. He turned to the front door and shouldered it.
Solid, too.
He walked around the side, down a narrow alley that bordered the cemetery, and came to the back door. The air smelled of dampness and rotten leaves.
He gripped the door handle.
“What are you doing?”
Nance’s voice jolted him. “She’s here,” he said.
“Andy, I think you need to consider what you’re doing.”
Gilchrist shouldered the door. The fra
me splintered.
“Andy.”
He shouldered it again.
The door burst open. The shattered frame clattered to the floor as Gilchrist stumbled into a dank hallway of bare floorboards and blistered walls.
“Maureen?” He ran into the first room, an empty room to the right. “Are you here?” He kicked something on the floor, almost tripped, but in the dark could tell only that it was low and wooden. A coffee table? A packing box?
The next room yielded the same result.
His shouts echoed off the walls. “Maureen?”
He tried another room.
Nothing.
Nance almost bumped into him in the centre of what Gilchrist took to be the living room. The realization that he had failed locked his breath in his throat. He felt a stab of pain in his chest, thought for one frightening moment that he was going to black out.
“Andy?”
“It’s.…” He spun around, stared at the dark walls, the boarded windows. “It’s.…” It’s useless, he wanted to say. All around him only walls, stark and bare and black as night. It was useless. He was too late. Too late. He cupped his hands, screamed at the top of his voice. “Maureen?”
“She’s not here, Andy.”
The strength in Nance’s voice hit him. “Maureen,” he whispered to her. “Dear God, Maureen,” then covered his mouth with his hands, felt his breath rush through his fingers, warm and wet. Jesus, how could he be so wrong? Why had he let himself believe in the slimmest of hopes?
Nance tugged his sleeve.
“No.” He shook free, stepped to the side. “Maureen?” His breath came at him in waves that hit his lungs in gulping sobs. He felt his legs give out.
“Andy?”
He grunted as his knees hit the floor. He pressed his hands to his face, fought back the bile in his throat, felt Nance’s hand on his shoulder, her fingers flex. He said nothing as she stood beside him. He had lost her. He had lost his daughter.
“Andy.”
“I can’t lose her,” he gasped. “I can’t, Nance. I just, I can’t.…”
Nance’s fingers tightened.
He looked to the floor, heard her shoes shuffle, except.…
Except.…
Except Nance had not moved.
He lifted her hand from his shoulder. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Hand for a Hand Page 27
