by T F Muir
MacMillan shrugged. ‘Fifteen seconds. Maybe more.’
‘Maybe a minute?’ asked Sa.
‘I’m sure it wasnae that long, lass.’
‘Where were you standing when you last saw the Stabber?’ Gilchrist asked.
‘In The Pends. By the entrance arch.’
‘We’ll work it back,’ Gilchrist said to Sa. ‘Get some feel for how far the Stabber could have walked in the time it takes to reach the corner of North Street. Carry out door-to-door enquiries. Turn out every house in the street, if we have to.’
Sa leaned closer. ‘Maybe the Stabber ran,’ she said.
‘Why would he run, lass? He was walking. Fast, like. But just walking.’
‘Maybe he knew he was being followed.’
‘No, lass. I’ve told you.’
‘Did you see any cars?’
‘I didnae notice. I was looking for someone walking.’
‘So, you’re not sure?’
‘No.’
‘Maybe he just drove away.’
‘He would have had to have gone some to jump into a car, start it up and drive out of North Street before I reached the corner.’
‘Was he old enough to drive?’
‘I’d say so.’
‘Why would you say so?’
‘He didnae look like a wee boy. More like a young man with a baby face.’
‘But you never saw his face.’
‘No clear enough.’
‘And you never saw a car.’
‘I wasnae looking for a car, but with all these questions you’re firing at me, I’m no so sure any more. I just cannae remember.’
‘Perhaps he had a car parked down a side street,’ Sa pressed on. ‘Did you hear a car?’
MacMillan’s face clouded. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Gilchrist.’
Gilchrist stood up. The interview was over. ‘Your eyewitness account will be of great help to the investigation. I appreciate you coming in and talking to us.’
‘I’m sorry I never chased after him,’ MacMillan said. ‘That’s what Bill would have done.’
Something in MacMillan’s tone struck Gilchrist. The Stabber’s five previous victims had all been rough men, drinking men, and up until that moment he had no reason to believe Granton was anything other than a mild-mannered bank manager.
‘How was Bill with women?’ he asked.
MacMillan shook his head. ‘Bill might have looked like butter wouldnae melt in his mouth. But he could be a bad-tempered bugger when he put his mind to it.’
Gilchrist held MacMillan’s eyes and knew the old man’s words had just cast a different light on things.
CHAPTER 4
A bitter east wind sliced Sebbie to the bone as he walked through the West Port, pulling his tattered combat jacket tight around his shoulders. Damp seeped through the soles of his trainers and forced him to curl his toes.
He passed the blackened ruins of Blackfriar’s Chapel, its arched supports and vaulted roof a sixteenth-century work of construction ingenuity. He felt his stomach spasm and that familiar sickness seep through his guts like acid. He should find out what was wrong. But what could the doctors do? They had not been able to help his father. So how could they help him?
At Queen’s Gardens he crossed the street and sat on a wooden bench in the slabbed area that fronted the Town Kirk. From there he had a view along South Street and up Logie’s Lane through the covered walkway that led onto Market Street. Sometimes she would come that way, down through the alley and past his bench, then left onto South Street toward her shop. Other times she came from the West Port.
A man in jeans and a grey sweatshirt walked past, holding a tongue-lolling Alsatian by a leather leash. He had a sausage roll pressed to his mouth. Shards of pastry fell to the pavement like flakes of brown snow. Sebbie watched him strut along Logie’s Lane toward the covered walkway, the mouth-watering smell of cooked meat and onions enticing him like a Siren’s call. The Alsatian lifted a leg at the corner of the pend and Sebbie turned to—
Shit.
He shielded his face with a hand, but she walked past on South Street without so much as a tiny glance his way.
The stuck-up bitch.
He waited until she passed the corner of the Town Kirk before he followed. He hooked a thumb under the waist of his jeans and tugged them up. They seemed looser. Maybe they had stretched. Maybe they needed a wash. But the washing machine that was left in the house after his parents had ...
After they had ...
Even now, three years later, he still found the correct expression confusing. After his parents had died. Or after his parents had gone. Neither was strictly correct, since only his father’s body had been found, shifting along the West Sands on the incoming tide, skin as white as porcelain, a red slash like shocked lips on his neck. Sebbie’s mother disappeared that day, too, and when no trace of her was ever found, the police named her as prime suspect, convinced she had slit his father’s throat then fled the scene, maybe even the country. But without any physical evidence, no one knew for sure. Two years later to the day, the case had been closed. That was a mistake. And now that useless detective, the skinny one with the white teeth and the good looks, was going to pay.
Sebbie ground his teeth. Payback time. He walked along South Street, eyes glued to the wobble of her rump. Something warm and cosy settled in his stomach and pressed its way to his groin. He almost smiled.
Payback was going to be fun.
Beth put a fresh filter in the coffee machine, topped the water reservoir, then chose five CDs for the shop’s player. Her customers often complimented her on her choice of music – often little-known jazz bands, singers, pianists, music every bit as accomplished, if not more so, than commercially successful artistes. She switched the player onto SHUFFLE.
Loston Harris sang mellow in the background as she turned her attention to the countertop. It always annoyed her that customers pressed their fingers to the glass when pointing at something they wanted to buy. She gave it a short squirt of Windolene and a stiff rub with a paper towel then walked round to the customer side and did the same with the front panel.
Something caught her eye. She turned.
He stood with his face pressed against the door. Both hands capped his eyes, restricting her view of his features. She thought he was checking to see if the shop was open, so she tapped her wristwatch and mouthed, We don’t open until nine.
He lowered his hands and twisted to the side. For one confusing moment, Beth thought he was going to slam his shoulder against the door. Then a clenched fist thudded against the glass, and the panel rattled as if about to burst from its frame.
She rushed behind the counter and lifted the phone from the wall. She had the police on speed dial and was about to press the number when the man ran off. She held on to the receiver, her heart fluttering.
What was that all about?
She eased the phone back onto its cradle and almost tiptoed to the door. She scanned South Street but saw only couples window-shopping, a small boy kicking a ball across the road, an old lady searching her opened handbag.
It struck her then that she had not even noticed what the man had been wearing. If she was ever asked, all she could say was something dark. Perhaps an anorak. And that he had looked young.
She glanced at her wristwatch: 8:55. Cindy would be along any moment. She flipped over the closed sign and unlocked the Yale. She opened the door as she always did, to make sure the handle worked from the outside. Last year it jammed and the shop had been open for an hour before she realized customers were turning away.
She gripped the outside handle then let go with a squeal of disgust. She looked down at her hand in disbelief then rushed through to the back of the shop and vomited into the wash-hand basin.
At the conclusion of MacMillan’s interview, Sa handed the micro-cassette tape over for transcription. Once it was in report format, MacMillan would be asked to review it then sign it as his formal statement.
&
nbsp; Meanwhile Gilchrist checked with the CCTV officer, only to be told that the system had blacked out during last night’s electrical storm. Gilchrist wondered, as he made his way to DCI Patterson’s office, if that was one reason the Stabber attacked only during wild weather.
‘The ACC’s been on the blower,’ Patterson told him. ‘And the shit’s piling up, Gilchrist. McVicar doesn’t want to hold a full press conference yet. In the meantime you are to make a preliminary statement to the media. They’re waiting in the car park. With me so far?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘You are to feed them crumbs, Gilchrist. Teeny-weeny crumbs. You got that?’
‘Will you be present, sir?’
‘Only you.’ Patterson’s lips almost pulled into a smile, and Gilchrist felt as if he was being set up. ‘Tell them a full press conference will be held in the lecture theatre at HQ this afternoon. And try not to fuck up this time. Oh, and Gilchrist ...’
Gilchrist raised an eyebrow.
‘... see me when you’re finished. There’s something we need to discuss.’ And with that, Patterson returned his attention to a file on his desk.
With grim resolve, Gilchrist walked along the narrow hallway to a door that opened onto the car park. Patterson wanted to discuss his resignation, he was sure of it. But first, he had to fight off a pack of hyenas with teeny-weeny crumbs.
Gilchrist hated press conferences, hated being centre-stage, a problem that first developed at school. At thirteen he had towered above his classmates, a gangly pimpled youth with bony shoulders stooped in a constant battle to avoid standing out. Girls giggled and whispered whenever he walked into class and, convinced he was a freak, he could not look anyone in the eye without blushing. He grew only one more inch, to hit six-one by fourteen. And that was it. No more growth spurts. As his friends caught up, his embarrassment eased off. But even now, thirty-one years later, he still suffered from the occasional flush.
He stepped out into a drizzle as fine as mist and scanned the sea of faces. Portable lights were set up by the entrance archway, where four cameramen balanced mobile cameras on their shoulders. Gilchrist repressed a grimace as the unkempt figure of Bertie McKinnon wriggled to the front of the crowd. A local journalist renowned for his fiery polemics on anything he regarded as abuse of public office or waste of public monies, murder investigations were not his forte, but that had done nothing to stop him pouring vitriol on the perceived shortcomings of Fife Constabulary.
Gilchrist avoided McKinnon’s feral stare, mounted the makeshift podium, braced himself and started to speak. He confirmed that a body had been found by the harbour and that the Stabber was a suspect, then parried a barrage of questions that demanded gory details, reporting only that the MO was indeed that of the Stabber. He fought off the persistent clamour for the victim’s name, refusing to reveal the identity until the family had been notified.
Then he heard McKinnon’s voice, harsh and rough as a smoker’s bark.
‘If you can confirm nothing else, Inspector, can you at least confirm that you are no closer to catching the Stabber than you were when his first victim was found in Thistle Lane?’
‘Every day brings us closer,’ Gilchrist replied.
‘Four months later and you’re no further on.’
‘I can assure you he will be caught.’
‘But when, Inspector? The public need an answer.’
‘We’re doing everything in our power to—’
‘Everything?’ Cruel eyes grinned back at him from above a dirty beard that bushed to the neck of a threadbare sweater. Grey hair slicked back in a greasy ponytail. Blackened teeth parted beneath a moustache yellowed from forty years of sixty a day. ‘Have you given any thought to turning the case over to someone who could deliver results?’ Before Gilchrist could respond, McKinnon added, ‘Have you been asked to step down?’
Gilchrist caught the gleeful tone of victory and in that instant knew that Patterson had confided in McKinnon, had told him he was about to be kicked off the case.
Gilchrist tried a wry smile. ‘Not yet,’ he said.
Laughter fluttered into the damp air.
‘Are you saying you expect to be removed from the case?’
‘I haven’t heard anything to suggest that. Have you?’
‘We understand St James’s Palace has expressed concern about the lack of progress.’ A woman’s voice from the back.
Gilchrist looked up, thankful for the respite from McKinnon. The American accent did not surprise him. Ever since Prince William had commenced undergraduate studies at St Andrews University, the town had become a haven for royal-watchers. With the young royal residing in the same town as a rampant serial killer, this made for international news.
‘What are you doing to reassure the Palace of Prince William’s safety?’ she asked him.
‘Prince William has nothing to fear from the Stabber.’
‘How can you say that?’ Her voice snapped with such emotion that heads turned. ‘This town is gripped by fear,’ she continued. ‘A fear that grows each day the Stabber is allowed to roam the streets. Any one of sixteen thousand residents will tell you they’re afraid to go out at night. How can you possibly say Prince William is not in danger?’
Gilchrist tried to keep his tone even. ‘Firstly, Miss ...’
‘Reynolds,’ she hissed. ‘Jennifer Reynolds of Newsweek. And it’s Ms.’ The word buzzed.
Gilchrist felt the dry warmth of a flush creep into his face. Focus, he heard his mind order. Focus on a response. He stared at her. ‘Prince William in no way fits the profile of the Stabber’s victims,’ he said. ‘Quite apart from that, he is protected by his own security personnel at all times.’
‘How does that fact help the other sixteen thousand residents of this town?’ she persisted. ‘Is it or is it not safe for people to walk the streets at night? Especially during a thunderstorm?’
Gilchrist felt his face grow hotter and decided to be non-committal. ‘On the whole,’ he said, ‘the streets of St Andrews are as safe at night as those of any other town.’
‘But this isn’t any other town,’ sniped Reynolds. ‘This is the town in which the future king of England is attending university.’
Gilchrist felt his flush evaporate, as if a wind had risen from the East Sands and chilled the air. ‘Britain,’ he announced.
Reynolds frowned.
‘St Andrews happens to be in Scotland,’ he said.
Someone whistled the opening bars of ‘Flower of Scotland’ and Gilchrist decided to draw the conference to a close.
‘One last question.’
He turned his body to shield his face from the cameraman by his side and nodded to a grey-haired man in a dark blue suit, white shirt and bold red tie.
‘Can you confirm the rumour that the Stabber is a young man, perhaps even a student?’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Do you deny it?’
‘No comment.’
‘From that response, can we assume the rumour is true?’
‘No comment.’
McKinnon’s gravelly laugh rasped.
‘No further questions,’ said Gilchrist, and stalked from the podium, ignoring the cries that erupted in his wake.
He slammed the door behind him.
How the hell could he control his murder investigation when one of his own team was talking to the press?
CHAPTER 5
My father hit my mother.
I was five years old when I first saw him hit her, too young to understand why she was lying on the kitchen floor, crying and screaming with her legs curled up into her stomach, arm flailing while my father pounded away at her with his black boots, white spittle drooling from his bristled chin, eyes red and wild and crazed as a raging bull.
I now recognize that single point in time as the moment when the hatred first began, like some cancer seed that floats in on a cold wind and settles deep in the soul to germinate into something foul and evil.
Nothi
ng ever seemed the same after that. My father never lifted me and spun me around any more. I never saw my mother smile again. And my brother, Timmy, developed a stutter that stayed with him the remainder of his short life. As for me, I started punching and kicking Sandy, my one-eyed teddy that had been passed down from Timmy.
When Sandy stared at me dead-eyed, the way my mother did, I battered him the way my father battered her. When Sandy stared back at me still, I took a kitchen knife and stabbed out his other eye. I cried when Sandy had no eyes. Until I realized that, without eyes, Sandy could not watch my hatred grow, or see the pain spread like a fungus over my mother’s wrecked face.
Poor old blind old Sandy.
Three weeks later, I stabbed out his brains.
Gilchrist burst into the main office and stomped to his desk.
He faced his team.
‘Everybody,’ he shouted.
He waited until the group formed a loose scrum in front of him, then stared at each of them in turn. Young eyes gleamed back at him. ‘Someone’s been talking to the press,’ he said, ‘and I don’t like it.’
Eyes shimmied to the side. Someone coughed.
‘Let me make this crystal clear. No one is to discuss this case with anyone outside this room. And that includes all senior officers, no matter who.’ He caught DS Nancy Wilson frowning. ‘Got a problem with that, Nance?’
‘Does that include DCI Patterson?’
‘You’re not listening.’
Nance looked to her shoes. Someone chuckled – Baxter, perhaps. Stan almost smiled. Sa raised an eyebrow.
‘Every single scrap of information that leaves this office will leave this office through me,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Even if the ACC himself asks you about the case, you will direct him to me. You are following orders. Plain and simple. Is that clear?’
The group gave a collective mumble of confused consent. His orders violated police protocol, but he had made his point. Any more leaks and he would go nuclear.
‘All right,’ said Gilchrist, ‘let’s move on.’ He turned to Baxter. ‘Has Traffic done its bit?’
