by T F Muir
‘Why didn’t you?’
‘I feared you might be stubborn enough to tender it.’
Gilchrist turned away from the window. Repairs to the rockery were on hold. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Before you thank me, Andy, I should warn you that Chief Inspector Patterson has applied for a warrant for your arrest on the grounds of sexual assault against Alexandra Garvie.’
‘I have heard, sir.’
‘Lord above us, is nothing sacred?’ Another pause, then, ‘I’m assuming there’s nothing in it, Andy.’
‘That’s correct, sir.’
‘I’ll be keeping a close eye on it, Andy. But I won’t be stopping the charge.’
Something sank to the pit of Gilchrist’s stomach. ‘Sir?’
‘I can’t be seen to stand above the law. If the chief inspector believes he has sufficient evidence to charge you, then charge you he must. Let the chips rest where they fall.’
Gilchrist held on to the phone. ‘I see, sir.’
‘Good luck, Andy. And do give our regards to Gail.’ With that, McVicar disconnected.
Gilchrist looked at his mobile and depressed the POWER button. For what he was about to do, he could not afford to be interrupted. He had until tomorrow morning to clear his name.
Sebbie looked down at Alice.
Her naked body lay spread-eagled on the bloodied sheet. He eyed the slit of her vagina and tried to recall what he had felt when he pushed his penis into her.
But he felt nothing. Not a thing.
Not even the anger that had boiled from deep within him when she had first stepped out of her panties. That was gone, too. He kneeled, ran the palm of his hand over what was left of her pubic hair, nothing more than a thin strip shaved to satisfy Dieter’s sexual longings.
He stared at her closed eyes. ‘Why did you shave it off?’ he asked, and poked a finger into the hard skin of her inner thigh. ‘Huh? Can you tell me?’
Silence.
‘Cat caught your tongue?’
He stood and pulled down his zip, took out his flaccid penis and pointed it at her stomach, his spray splashing off her hard skin. Midstream, he turned to Dieter’s body and sprayed his face. Yellow urine splashed into his open eyes and the black hole of his mouth.
‘Cat caught your tongue, too?’ Sebbie laughed.
CHAPTER 28
Gilchrist walked up to the bar. ‘I’m looking for a favour.’
Fast Eddy frowned at him. ‘Easy there, big feller. What’s the other guy like?’
‘All my own work,’ said Gilchrist, not wanting to get into it. ‘Had a fight with a cricket bat.’
‘Try to hit it for six?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Well, take my advice, mate.’ Fast Eddy shoved a pint glass under the tap. ‘Drink plenty of beer to ease the pain. This one’s on me.’
‘Can’t,’ said Gilchrist. ‘I’m on medication.’
‘Perfect. Twice the bang for half the price.’ Fast Eddy continued pouring. ‘Haven’t seen Old Willie since you were here last. You heard from him?’
Gilchrist shook his head. ‘Anyone call his home?’
‘Couldn’t tell you, mate. There you go, Andy. That should top you up.’
Gilchrist stared at his beer, its smooth head spilling down the side of the glass. It looked good enough to eat. He clasped the glass. He felt fine, a bit stiff, perhaps, but the pain had all but gone. He lifted the pint to his lips, took a mouthful, and returned it to the bar.
‘Now, was that not worth waiting for?’
‘Bloody marvellous,’ said Gilchrist.
Someone called out and Fast Eddy glanced to the end of the bar. ‘Two Bloody Marys, darling? That what you’re after? One of them a Virgin? Not many of those around.’ He gave one of his infamous chuckles and said, ‘Gotcha, darling. Coming right up,’ and jammed a glass under the vodka optics, removed two sticks of celery from the fridge and turned back to the bar. ‘You were saying something about a favour, Andy. What can I do you for?’
Gilchrist leaned closer. ‘I’m looking for Maggie. She still work here?’
Fast Eddy chopped one of the celery sticks. ‘Not for much longer,’ he growled. ‘Stuck her head in here first thing and told me she was chucking it.’
‘Handing in her notice?’
‘What notice?’
‘Do you know where’s she going?’
‘Do I look like I give a toss? Left me in a right old stink, so she did. Had to promise her time and a half just to persuade her to stay on for two more nights while I try to find new staff.’ He sprinkled several drops of Worcestershire sauce into each glass. ‘What about your week’s notice? I asked her. What about it? she said. I’m not a happy camper, Andy, let me tell you. There you go, darling. One Bloody. One Virgin. Now let me guess which one is for you.’ Another chuckle, accompanied by a high-pitched giggle.
Gilchrist sipped his beer, while Fast Eddy wrapped up the order with some more banter.
‘Maggie’s supposed to be coming in tonight, Andy, but I’m not holding my breath. Donno what the world’s coming to. Nobody gives a toss any more.’
‘She have a new job?’
‘Don’t think so. Said she was moving off south.’
‘Come into some money?’
‘Couldn’t say, mate.’
‘Know where she lives?’
‘Sure.’
Gilchrist made a mental note of Maggie’s address and left his pint unfinished. ‘Catch you later, Eddy.’
‘Gotcha.’
The door paint was dull as rust and flaked around the trim. Gilchrist pressed the bell. Sing-along chimes rose and fell like a musical echo, then died.
He tried again.
A crack from an upstairs sash window startled him. The window slid up, then Maggie’s head squeezed through the gap.
‘I’m in the shower,’ she said. Then her face deadpanned. ‘Oh, it’s you.’
‘I’d like to talk to you.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
‘You work in Lafferty’s. We could talk there.’
‘I’ve left.’
‘I heard you had two more nights.’
‘What d’you want?’
‘A word.’
‘Not interested.’
‘We can talk from here, if you like.’
‘You heard.’
Gilchrist watched her head withdraw back into the room. ‘I know you lied,’ he shouted up to her. ‘What I don’t know is why.’
The window slammed shut.
Gilchrist knew then that Maggie had no intention of returning to Lafferty’s. And being suspended, he could not force her to talk to him. He strode onto Market Street and ran through his mind the little he knew of her. She seemed nice enough. Attractive, too, if on the heavy side. One of those women who had a problem keeping her weight down. Seldom smiled, as if she had trouble finding pleasure in life. A friend of Sa’s. Although Sa offered nothing of her private side. And that was about it.
Ten minutes later, he turned into Alfred Place, stopped at the fourth door, and tried the handle. Locked. He rang the doorbell twice without any response, then took out his mobile and phoned Old Willie’s number.
Again, no answer.
He crossed the road for a better angle.
The second-floor curtains were open. On the window ledge sat Tyke, looking down at him, unperturbed. Without wasting any more time, Gilchrist rang the emergency services.
Then waited.
Beth opened the front door to her flat, flapped her umbrella and poked it into the old wooden rack in the vestibule. Then she opened the inner door.
Her olfactory sense took in the subtle changes to the smell of her home. Something chemical tainted the air, a faint antiseptic aroma. And the stale smell of sweat. She shivered at the thought of the sanctity of her home being violated and wondered if she would ever again feel safe and comfortable here.
The gold-framed wall mirror, the one she had inher
ited from her mother and had reframed, hung at an angle, the glass shattered. She looked at the carpet, but someone had cleaned up the mess. She righted the mirror and noticed a tear on the wallpaper where the corner of the frame had caught it. The hall would need to be stripped and the wallpaper replaced.
Ornaments on the shelf above the radiator had been moved. She tried to return them to their original positions, but the head of her Lladro clown figurine toppled to the carpet. She kneeled, noticed blood smears on the pile, a missed shard of glass, biscuit crumbs. She stood and placed the figurine’s head on the shelf.
Outside the spare bedroom, she felt loathing shudder through her. She would have to replace the sheets, the pillows, the quilt, maybe even the bed itself, the curtains, the wallpaper, too. But even that might not be enough.
Her mind flashed up an image of dark eyes looking at her from between her parted thighs and she strode to the kitchen and over to the sink, where she filled the kettle. Although she had eaten little that day, she did not feel hungry. After her examination by Mary Girvan, she had been offered biscuits and tea, but the police niceties had done nothing to diminish the feeling of personal violation that clung to her. Under the even-toned spell of Girvan’s voice, she had been asked to strip, her pubic hair combed and samples clipped off. Her vagina had been swabbed, as had her mouth, which was when she had broken down.
She tried to force the memory from her mind and put a slice of wholemeal bread into the toaster, removed a tub of hummus from the fridge. She pulled a bottle from the wine rack and filled a glass to the rim then gulped it back, almost emptying it straight off.
She spread the toast with hummus, but her hands shook when she lifted it to her mouth and she returned it to the plate and gripped the corner of the work surface. She counted to ten before releasing her grip. But the shaking started again, a tremor that seemed to take hold of her. She felt the hot nip of tears and lifted her fingers to her cheeks. Her sobs, quiet at first, hardened with each intake of breath, until she sank to the floor and let the tears flow.
Gilchrist was first into Old Willie’s flat.
He walked through to the front room, Tyke trundling around his feet, and found Old Willie seated in his favourite armchair, his mouth and eyes open as if Death had stalked into his home and caught him by surprise.
A paramedic brushed past and pressed the back of his hand against Old Willie’s neck then looked up and shook his head. Gilchrist said nothing as the paramedic kneeled on the threadbare carpet and pushed up the old man’s trouser legs. He squeezed the right leg first, then the left, then moved to the right arm and slid up the shirt sleeve.
Old Willie’s arm looked like bone clad in skin. How anyone could find a muscle, let alone determine if it was slack or tight, defied the imagination.
‘Looks like he just slipped away,’ said the paramedic. He leaned forward as if to stare into Old Willie’s eyes, then pressed the lids down. But Old Willie remained as stubborn in death as he had been in life. His lids refused to close, settling into a heavy-lidded stare like a stunned drunk.
‘Would anyone like a Highland terrier?’ Gilchrist asked. ‘Goes by the name of Tyke. And house-trained.’
‘Sorry, mate. Four kids is enough for me.’
Gilchrist turned to the others. ‘Anyone?’ he asked.
No one took up the offer.
In the kitchen, the smell of faecal matter was thick enough to taste. He raised the sash window and let fresh air waft in. He found the source of the smell under the work surface in a space that had once housed a washing machine, but in which now lay a shallow-lipped plastic tray. Old Willie had been proud of having house-trained Tyke. That dog’s got mair sense o’ hygiene than some o’ thae mucky louts that roam the streets, he had once told Gilchrist.
Gilchrist removed a plastic bag from the cupboard under the sink and tipped Tyke’s litter tray into it. He twisted the top of the bag and sat it beside the hall doorway. From there, he listened to the metallic clatter of a gurney being unfolded and wondered if Old Willie’s body would oblige them by straightening out from its seated position.
No one in the front room seemed to notice Gilchrist’s absence, so he closed the kitchen door. To the side of the kettle, tucked underneath the wall cabinets, sat three white ceramic pots. Embossed lettering on each cracked lid led Gilchrist to the sugar container.
He removed the lid, tipped the sugar through his fingers into the sink. A plastic bag fell into his waiting hand. He shook it, scattering trapped sugar crystals, then removed the tight roll of twenty-pound banknotes and slipped it into his pocket. Next, he turned on the tap, returned the emptied pot to its spot, and popped the lid back on.
Fifteen seconds later, he had the sink cleaned.
As he made his way along the hall, Old Willie was being gurneyed from the front room inside a black body-bag, zipped up and strapped down. From the angular protrusions, he saw the team had been unsuccessful in unfolding him.
In the front room, Tyke sat on the window ledge, nothing more than a wooden shelf Old Willie had mounted level with the bottom of the window so that his tired old dog could look out at the activity on the street below. But now Tyke had no interest in the outside world and eyed his master’s empty chair with a cataract look of uncertainty.
Gilchrist leaned down and smiled as Tyke’s tail squirmed. ‘There’s a good boy,’ he said, scratching the dog behind its ear. The fur was thick and matted and had about it a smell of old age and oily clothes. He dug his fingers deeper. Tyke twisted his head and grumbled with pleasure, and together they watched the ambulance take Old Willie’s body away.
It felt odd being alone there with Tyke. This had been Old Willie’s home for as long as Gilchrist had known him. As if sharing his concerns, the old building creaked. At the sound, Tyke lifted his head and peered glassy-eyed at the empty chair, then gave a whimper and returned his head to his paws.
Sadness swept through Gilchrist at the thought of having to take Tyke to the vet. But in his chirpiest voice, he said, ‘Walkies?’
Tyke’s head lifted and his ears tweaked up. Then he jumped from the ledge, ran across the room and sat under a leather lead on a hook behind the door.
Gilchrist kneeled and attached it to Tyke’s collar. ‘We could both do with a bit of fresh air, Tyke. What do you say?’
Tyke trundled along the hallway, Gilchrist behind him, the old dog coming alive with the promise of a walk into a world of different smells. And Gilchrist wondered when his own life had last been as unencumbered. He called the vet to confirm the surgery was open, and to explain about Tyke. The receptionist told him to come whenever he was ready. An idea struck Gilchrist then, and he decided to take Tyke for a long walk first, before darkness fell.
On the grassy slopes by the West Sands, Tyke scratched the ground with grumpy growls, as if he knew his time to kick up clawfuls of sand was coming to an end. On the return journey, Gilchrist visited each of the spots where the Stabber’s seven victims had been found. Not that he expected to uncover anything new by doing so, but the Stabber’s case had become such a force in his life that it seemed he might suffer withdrawal symptoms if he did not think about it. He puzzled that Tyke livened at each infamous location, as if his canine senses picked up the scent of their brutal history.
By the time they reached the vet’s, Tyke’s fur smelled like damp wool. Gilchrist handed him over, and his parting image of Old Willie’s dog was of sad eyes looking up at him, fearful of what was about to happen.
CHAPTER 29
Something in his walk with Tyke fired Gilchrist’s mind, and being the stubborn fool Gail had always taken him for, he determined to give Maggie one more go.
Back at her cottage, he tried the doorbell, once, twice, then wondered if she had decided to work her last two nights at Lafferty’s after all. He was about to turn away when a movement on the high stone wall that bordered the cottage caught his eye.
A black-and-white cat, more white than black, eyed him from the top of the
wall, its coat glistening in the light from a coach lamp on the gable end. Gilchrist held out his hand, intrigued that the cat’s markings seemed oddly familiar.
‘Here, puss, puss,’ he whispered. ‘Here, puss.’
The cat arched its white back in a slow stretch and let him chuck it under its chin. Gilchrist smiled as it purred. ‘There’s a good puss,’ he said, and felt his fingers catch on the cat’s collar. He tugged at the name tag and in the light from the coach lamp read the name etched into the disc.
Patter.
Gilchrist pulled the tag closer, felt the cat resist, but held on and read it again. He was not mistaken. Patter. Pitter patter, he heard Garvie’s voice whisper in his mind.
Patter. Pitter’s twin. If cats had twins, that is.
‘I know your sister Pitter, Patter,’ he said, and smiled at the formation of the words. ‘I know where she lives.’ He chucked Patter under the chin some more, then stopped, his mind all of a sudden firing with something improbable.
I know where she lives.
Pitter? Patter? Two cats in two homes?
Connected by a common thread?
I know where she lives, his mind echoed.
Wild thoughts flashed through his brain, the logic trying to spin away from him. He pulled out his mobile phone and called Terry Leighton.
Four rings, and he was through.
‘It’s Andy Gilchrist here. I left a message.’
‘Oh yes yes. Sorry I never got back to you.’
Gilchrist ignored Leighton’s apology. ‘Beth gave you a photograph. Were you able to determine what was wrong with the cat’s face?’
‘Oh yes yes. It’s a scar from a cut. Quite a horrific cut. You can see it quite clearly using a magnifying glass.’
‘Were you able to digitally enhance the image?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Leighton. ‘The poor creature appears to have suffered a severe injury. It has a scar running from above its left eye, down through the eyeball. It must have been completely blind in that eye. The scar misses the nose and splits the lip. Judging from the shape of the cat’s face, it must have been quite deep. Particularly around the nose. I suspect, with such a deep cut, considerable force was used.’
