by T F Muir
He nodded. ‘I see you still love the garden.’
‘It’s a mess.’
Gilchrist pressed on. ‘I don’t hear too much from Jack and Maureen.’
‘The phone works both ways.’
It doesn’t where you and I are concerned, he wanted to say, but instead said, ‘So, how is Maureen? I spoke with her last week,’ he lied. ‘She was going to call back.’
‘As well as can be expected.’
‘Jack phoned yesterday.’
‘I know. He told me.’
‘I had no idea,’ he said, and lifted a hand, ‘about ...’
‘No.’
He stared at his hands and realized he was twisting his fingers. Why did he always feel tense around Gail? Why would she never let him through to her? He flattened a hand on each knee and tried to keep his voice level. ‘Are you being well looked after?’
‘I have Harry.’
Hearing Harry’s name uttered by Gail in that way stabbed at his gut. He struggled to contain his frustration. ‘What I meant was – is there anything I can do for you?’
‘No.’
‘Well, if you think of anything, anything at all, I’d—’
‘I’m dying, Andy. Does that make you feel better?’
Her comment stunned him, and he struggled with the urge just to get up and leave. He bit his tongue for a few seconds to make sure he was in control, then said, ‘Jack said you didn’t want me to come.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Why?’
‘What’s the point?’ she clipped.
Gilchrist wondered if Harry could hear their discussion, and if so, was he proud of the way his wife was managing to diminish the feelings of her ex-husband? ‘I still care for you, Gail.’
‘Well, don’t. I have Harry.’
Gilchrist felt his face colour. Gail had succeeded in doing what she always could. Smother any remnant of whatever feelings he had for her. All the support and sympathy he had wanted to offer her, all the kindness he had felt toward her, all of it vanished like steam in fog. Even his frustration at her coldness evaporated. He watched a frown creep across her forehead, and a tiny crease pucker her lips.
He stood. ‘I’m sorry for troubling you. I thought, I thought ...’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what I thought. I’m sorry. I’ll let myself out.’
‘In six months I’ll be nothing but a memory to you and the children.’
He refused to rise to the bait, did not have it in his heart to be cruel at that moment. ‘We were happy once,’ he said to her. ‘That’s how I would prefer to remember us. Not like this.’ He thought he caught the glint of tears in her eyes and wanted to reach out to her and give her a hug.
As if sensing that possibility, she flapped a hand. ‘Go away, Andy. Please, will you do that for me? Just go away.’
Gilchrist shifted his stance as Harry stepped from the kitchen, a cup of tea in one hand, a plate of biscuits in the other. But Gilchrist ignored him and let himself out into air as damp and heavy as his heart.
He strode down the garden path, telling himself he would not look back. He knew she would not stand at the window to give a parting wave. So when he closed the gate and glanced back, he was not surprised. Gail had thrown him out of her life. Why could he not discard her from his?
By the time he reached the road junction, despite all he had seen in his career – the decapitated bodies, the crushed skulls, the gruesome autopsies, the drug overdoses – despite seeing walls and ceilings and floorboards splattered with blood, and flesh slashed and sliced and gouged and rotting, despite having witnessed the cruellest and most evil of human depravity and becoming inured to it all, despite all of that, he found to his surprise that he could still cry.
CHAPTER 15
Gilchrist spent the rest of the afternoon in the city centre trying to put his visit to Gail behind him, as well as clearing his brain of the alcohol he had consumed with Jack and Chloe. He wanted his mind to be firing on all six when he tied up this particular loose end.
Cockburn? Granton? One and the same?
He purchased two books in Waterstone’s and browsed a couple of hours in Slaters. At quarter past five the skies opened. Rainwater sluiced the streets in shimmering streams. Traffic shunted in stops and starts and pedestrians swelled through gaps in the flow. In the teeming rain, the city seemed stunned into sodden silence.
Gilchrist caught a taxi at Queen Street Station and gave the driver the address he had finagled through Stan’s computer the night before. By the time he was dropped off in Newton Mearns the storm had passed, his hair had dried, and his trousers had lost their crease.
He stepped onto the leaf-covered pavement and watched the taxi turn at the end of the road, then sweep past him, its tyres hissing over the wet asphalt.
The driveway was fifty yards long, if it was an inch. Two stone pillars, chipped from careless driving and tilted from settlement, defined the entrance. A knee-high wall stretched off on both sides into the darkness. The night air smelled of an abandoned forest whose damp scent seemed to come at him from the ground at his feet.
He reached the covered vestibule and rang the doorbell.
Thirty seconds later, a flicker of light at eye level told Gilchrist he had just been spied on through a peephole. Another flicker, then a key clicked, and the heavy weather-door was pulled open with a crack like splintering wood.
‘Alex,’ said Gilchrist. ‘Good to see you again.’
‘Fuck do you want?’
‘To come in, for starters.’
‘Got a warrant?’
‘Don’t need one. Been suspended.’ Gilchrist stepped into a hallway, rich with wood wainscoting. Intricate cornicing rimmed the high ceiling like frosting on a wedding cake. ‘This is nice, Alex. You’ve done well for yourself. Must cost a lot to maintain.’
The door slammed shut.
Alex Granton, also known as Alex Cockburn, alias ‘Fats’ Cockburn to Strathclyde Police and law-enforcement agencies throughout the nation, stood with his back to the door. The buttons on his white shirt strained to contain his belly. Black eyes blazed.
‘Bit far from home, Gilchrist. Take a wrong turn?’
‘Like I said, I’ve been suspended.’
‘Caught with your cock in someone’s mouth?’
‘This is a friendly call, Alex. Let’s keep it that way.’
Granton glared at him.
‘I didn’t know they paid male nurses enough to maintain a mansion in Newton Mearns.’
‘Fuck’s it got to do with you?’
‘Just asking.’
‘If you must know, I day trade.’
‘Expert with computers now, are we?’
‘Know enough to get around.’
‘I bet you do.’
‘Fucking fortune last year.’ Granton’s mouth twisted into an ugly sneer, then he gave a beefy chuckle. ‘Fuck did you take home?’
‘A lot less than you, I’m sure.’
Gilchrist slipped his hand inside his leather jacket, and Granton stiffened, as if expecting to find a handgun aimed his way. ‘Mind if I put this here?’ said Gilchrist, and placed his plastic bag of books on a hall desk inlaid with coloured wood.
In the lounge, a silver tray with handles curled like leaves sat on a trolley in the corner. Crystal decanters that glowed with the warmth of their contents stacked its shining surface.
Gilchrist removed the stopper from a ship’s decanter. ‘Mind if I have a drink?’ he said, and poured himself a hefty measure. The fiery liquid salved his throat. ‘Not bad.’ He held the glass to the light. ‘What is it?’
‘Bruichladdich. Twenty-five-year-old Special Reserve.’
‘Didn’t know you were a whisky connoisseur. Real ale’s more my style.’ He poured another glass and handed it to Granton, who downed half of it in one gulp. ‘You’re supposed to sip single malts, Alex.’
Granton finished it off, poured an even bigger measure, then eyed Gilchrist over the rim. ‘Fuck do
you want? I did my bit yesterday,’ he said. ‘ID’d the old man’s body. Here to get me to sign off on more fucking paperwork?’
‘Interesting choice of words.’
‘What is?’
‘I heard you didn’t like Bill, so I’m intrigued as to why you would elevate him to old man.’
‘She tell you that?’
‘She?’
‘Liz.’
Gilchrist waited a beat, then said, ‘Liz gave me the impression you loved her.’
‘Fuck’s that got to do with anything?’
‘I must say I was surprised when your mother told me her maiden name.’ Gilchrist took a sip of whisky, but kept his eyes on Granton. ‘Cockburn.’ He shook his head. ‘Took me a while to make the connection, but once the old wheels start turning they take some stopping.’ He looked down at the rug on which he stood, and flexed his legs. ‘Feels nice, Alex. This expensive, too?’
Granton polished off his whisky and returned the glass to the tray with a metallic smack that should have cracked it. ‘You’ve got ten seconds to tell me what the fuck you want,’ he growled, ‘then I’m calling the police.’
‘I am the police.’
‘Thought you were suspended.’
‘Temporarily.’
‘You always were a smarmy bastard, Gilchrist. Time’s up.’
Gilchrist let Granton walk to the phone on the side table by the five-seater sofa and pick it up before he waggled a finger and said, ‘I wouldn’t do that, Alex, if I were you.’
‘You’re not me.’
‘No one knows I’m here.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘If you want the whole world to know where I am, just keep going.’
Granton slammed down the phone. ‘Fuck do you want?’
‘To talk about a couple of things.’
‘Fuck should I answer anything you—’
‘Let me ask the questions, Alex. All right?’
Granton’s face flushed. ‘Fuck don’t I just tell you to take a shit in the Clyde?’
‘Give it up, Alex. You’re beginning to piss me off. I should have put you away years ago.’
‘You had nothing on me.’
‘You were only a petty thief back then. But despite your failings, you had a good upbringing and a father with friends in high places who could pull strings behind everyone’s backs. Even mine.’ Gilchrist tutted. ‘Now he’s gone, who’s there to help you now?’
‘I don’t need help from anyone.’
‘Oh yes you do Alex old son. Oh yes you do.’
Veins bulged beneath Granton’s eyes like tiny worms.
‘Liz knows nothing about what you do, of course. That’s why she’s proud of you. You can see it in her eyes. She even thought you stood up for her against your father.’ Gilchrist shook his head. ‘Bill beat her throughout their married life. You knew that, though.’
Granton’s eyes looked like red slits.
‘Not that it mattered one iota to you. As long as you received your regular payments from your old man you couldn’t give a toss about Liz.’
‘Fuck are you talking about?’ snapped Granton. ‘What regular payments?’
‘Going to deny it, are we?’
‘Fucking planet are you on?’
‘Earth,’ said Gilchrist. ‘Same planet as you.’ He fought off the urge to deck the fat slob, and took a sip to keep his distance.
Granton reached for the decanter and poured another measure, and something in that movement told Gilchrist all was not what it seemed.
‘Should kick your fucking head in for what you just said.’
‘That would be silly, Alex.’
Granton parted wet lips that revealed tiny teeth. ‘Been sillier.’
Gilchrist finished his whisky with a gulp and held the glass, pleased at its empty weight. ‘Since your father packed you out of St Andrews all those years ago,’ he said, and returned an unpleased smile of his own, ‘you’ve developed quite a career for yourself.’ He shifted his glass to the flat of his hand, like a butcher guessing the weight of a cut of meat, and hoped Granton feared he might smash it into his face. ‘Illegal video distribution. Credit card fraud. Counterfeit passports. Fiddling tax returns. Buying and selling shifty goods. Nothing much to write home about. But all of it breaking the law.’
‘I’m clean now.’
‘Are you?’
‘Dead right.’
‘Prepared to go to court on that statement?’
‘Not a bit far from home to be making threats?’
‘Like me to move down here?’
Gilchrist’s question hung in the air. One of the crimes he had chosen not to mention was GBH. Granton had been charged in the past with grievous bodily harm against minors, the case against him being not proven in the end. Granton was a bully by nature and a coward by heart. But despite that, Gilchrist found his bulk intimidating.
Granton bristled. ‘Fucking cheeky bastard,’ he snarled. ‘Got fuck all on me. Never had. Never will.’
It pleased Gilchrist to see his words were stinging home, like pepper in the eye. ‘How about your latest venture?’ he asked, and caught a stiffening of Granton’s posture, a quick dunking of the Adam’s apple.
‘What venture?’
‘Blackmail.’
Granton’s fists clenched. ‘Repeat that in public, you smarmy fucker, and I’ll sue you for slander.’
‘It’s slander only if it’s not true,’ said Gilchrist. ‘The law’s a bit funny that way.’ But even as he spoke, a pinprick of anxiety nipped him. Granton’s reaction was not what he had anticipated. Did he have it all wrong? Or was Granton bluffing? Unsure of his reasoning all of a sudden, he took the top off another decanter. ‘Mind if I try something else?’
‘How about trying to fuck off?’
Gilchrist needed to keep the momentum going, see if he could confirm his theory. He poured a generous measure and slipped the stopper back into the decanter with a careless clatter. He took a slow sip, caught a hint of peat and smoke. ‘Think I prefer this,’ he said. ‘Don’t you?’
‘You’re something else, Gilchrist.’
‘If you say so.’
‘Fuck am I supposed to have blackmailed?’
‘Past tense, Alex ...’
‘Do what?’
‘... which tells me you know damn well who you’re supposed to have blackmailed.’ Gilchrist decided to dig deep. ‘Sam told me,’ he said.
Granton grimaced in disbelief. ‘Sam MacMillan?’
‘The very same.’
‘Sam knows fuck all.’
‘That’s not what Sam tells me.’
Granton stared hard at Gilchrist, as if trying to read his thoughts, and for one awful moment, Gilchrist had the feeling he could see right through his bluff.
‘Sam’s ex-army,’ said Granton.
‘Ex being the operative word.’
‘Wouldn’t be scared shitless talking to a skinny-arsed runt like you.’
‘Why would Sam be scared shitless, Alex? Does he know something I’m not supposed to?’
‘Stop twisting my words, you pompous prick. All the fucking same, you lot.’
‘You think so?’ said Gilchrist. But the discussion was not going at all as he had hoped. He tried his final bluff. ‘How often did Sam deliver the money, Alex? Twice a month? Once a week?’
‘What money?’
‘Bill’s been a bit naughty. Embezzling from the bank. Took me some time to work out why.’
‘And you think he was passing it on to me?’ Granton laughed, a belly-rumble that shuddered his jowls. ‘Crack me up, so you do. Bill might have battered the old dear around a bit, but when it came to business he was as straight as they come.’
‘You deny it, then?’
‘Fucking right, I deny it. You’ve got the wrong bloke, Gilchrist.’ Granton smirked. ‘Fucking plonker. That the best you can do?’
Gilchrist turned away. Doubts about his hunch scalded his thoughts. He pretended to study an oil paint
ing mounted in an ornate gilt frame, then beyond, a tall vase that looked as if it was Ming. Surely not. His insides churned. He had it wrong. A good hunch, perhaps, but wrong. He worked through his logic once more, the memory of his conversation with MacMillan, the sound of Granton’s simple response an echo of his mockery. That the best you can do?
He had convinced himself that Bill Granton had been embezzling money not to line his own pockets but to keep some secret that could destroy him. Gilchrist had figured either homosexuality or domestic abuse. But as Granton’s wife had refused to report him, Gilchrist had reckoned homosexuality. But MacMillan was a closet homosexual, so how could he blackmail Granton? As he led such a modest lifestyle, the money had to be going somewhere else. But where? Then up popped Alex ‘Fats’ Cockburn, a petty criminal with an eclectic record, including blackmail, who knew all about his father’s physical abuse.
It sounded a complicated theory, but it wasn’t really. And until a few moments ago, it had been a theory in which Gilchrist believed. Now he knew he was wrong. Not about Bill Granton being blackmailed, perhaps, but about where the money was going.
Gilchrist stood by a grand piano near the bay window. An overgrown cheese plant reared up from the side, its leaves stooping over a gallery of framed photographs that littered the piano lid.
‘Didn’t know you were into photography, Alex.’
‘Presents from the old dear.’
Gilchrist palmed the piano’s polished surface, fingers sliding along wood as smooth as glass. ‘You play?’ he asked.
‘’S just furniture.’
Gilchrist pressed a finger to one of the keys, held it down as the note resonated then faded, leaving nothing but an echo. He tried another, then another, each time listening to the note evaporating as he studied the images before him.
A young Bill Granton in a short-sleeved shirt on the steps of the Sea Front Hotel, bespectacled, squinting against the sunlight. A woman verging on the skinny hooked to his arm, unsmiling. A photograph to the side showed the same couple, older this time, a row of shops in the background. Again, the same hooked arm, the same tense look. Gilchrist now understood that the look was not one of scorn but of repressed fear, the images black-and-white reflections of how Granton had tyrannized his wife all their married life.
