Life For a Life

by T F Muir

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll catch you next time.’ She grinned at Jackie, stabbed an imaginary key into an imaginary lock, then gave a twist followed by a thumbs-up. ‘Toodle-do.’

  Jackie chuckled, gave a thumbs-up in response.

  As Jessie squeezed her way towards the Market Street door, Nance whispered, ‘What a bitch,’ causing Jackie to look to the floor.

  Like the others, Gilchrist chose not to say anything.

  McCauley and Baxter stayed for only one more, and Jackie hobbled off after finishing her double Cointreau. Rennie had gone to the bar to order a round, where he now stood, deep into an argument with someone over the rise in transfer fees – where’s it gonnie end? – how sports agents were lining their pockets – they’re ruining the game – what a season ticket for Dundee United would cost next year – fucking out of order, so it is.

  Seated alone at the table with Nance, he found it odd that she had nothing to say to him. Where they had once shared more than casual conversation, she now seemed intent on avoiding eye contact. Her attention was focused on her mobile, texting a message. He was nursing his second pint, taking his time, catching snippets of Rennie’s argument, when he heard, ‘Any room in there for me?’

  He had not noticed Cooper enter, and as she leaned forward and placed her glass on the table – a surprising filled-to-the-brim whisky and crushed ice – loose curls swirled by her shoulders like a shampoo ad. Her eyes were darkened with a touch of kohl – another surprise – and when she gave a hint of a smile and a flicker for a wink, they sparkled with a blue fire. Nance shifted her chair, an invitation for Cooper to sit next to her. But Cooper ignored the gesture and squeezed between the tables, and took a seat next to Gilchrist.

  That close, her presence felt like electricity that pulsed the air. A fragrance – soap and shampoo with a hint of some perfume he had smelled before, but could not place – filled his senses with the freshness of a spring morning.

  She lifted her glass, chinked it against his.

  ‘Welcome to Saturday night in the Central,’ he said to her.

  ‘Busy little place.’

  ‘You should see it when it’s full,’ he joked, strangely relieved to see her return his smile. He took a sip of his beer, conscious of Nance watching them, like a student checking to see if her teacher is going to try the same old tricks on someone new. He was aware, too, of Cooper’s closeness as she searched her purse and sidled closer, not much, but enough to let him feel the press of her thigh against his.

  ‘What brings you here?’ Nance said to her.

  Cooper gave a narrow smile. ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I haven’t seen you here before.’

  ‘Me neither. So tell me, Andy, anything new on the case?’

  Gilchrist thought he had never seen Nance look so put out. He sipped his pint, and from the corner of his eye watched Nance ease her seat back and, with a ‘See you Monday,’ push to her feet and slide into the throng. Rennie glanced at her as she bumped past, and gave a belated, ‘See you.’

  ‘So where were we?’ Cooper said to him.

  ‘I think I was about to order a drink,’ he said.

  ‘Put it on my tab. And I’ll have another one of these.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Rusty Nail.’

  ‘Would you like to see a menu?’

  ‘I’ve booked a table for two at the Doll’s House.’ She glanced at her watch, which hung on her wrist as loose as a bangle. ‘Which gives you about thirty minutes to finish your pint.’

  ‘Ah. Right.’

  He ordered the round, handed over a tenner, niggled by the thought that Cooper had assumed he would go along with whatever she planned. He was happy enough to have a pint with her in a busy bar, but somehow the thought of being caught in the more intimate setting of a restaurant irked.

  ‘There you go,’ he said to her, placing her Rusty Nail on a coaster, while she returned her mobile to her handbag. He took a quick sip of his Deuchars, then said, ‘I think I’m more of a pint and a pie kind of a guy. So you might want to cancel that table.’

  ‘Already done that.’ She patted her purse.

  ‘You have?’

  ‘You’re an easy man to read, Andy.’

  He lifted his pint and took another sip. Any libidinous thoughts he had about that evening’s liaison evaporated in the Saturdaynight hubbub.

  CHAPTER 27

  His escape came by mobile phone.

  ‘Got a few names and numbers for you,’ Dick said. ‘Five in total. But a couple she called several times. I can email them to you.’

  ‘I’m not in the office.’

  ‘I’ll send them to your mobile.’

  ‘I’m hopeless with that stuff, Dick. Just read them out to me. I’ve got an old-fashioned pen and paper.’ He slid a pen and notepad from his pocket and, with his mobile tucked under his chin, scribbled as fast as Dick could recite them.

  ‘Couldn’t put a name to the last number,’ Dick said. ‘Probably one of those dodgy SIM cards, prepaid. They’re almost advertising them in the supermarkets down south. Buy your SIM, slot it in, use it until the credit runs out, then throw it away and slot in the next one. By the time you trace the call, the punter’s on his way to France or wherever.’

  ‘Untraceable?’

  ‘You might be able to locate the source, but these guys are in the moving business. One day here, another there. You’d never pin it to anyone. I checked the transmission data and was able to get a bearing on it. It’s local.’

  Gilchrist pressed his mobile to his ear. ‘St Andrews?’

  ‘Dundee,’ Dick said. ‘And another further south.’

  ‘Kingsbarns?’

  ‘Could be. I’ll keep looking, and get back to you with anything new.’

  Gilchrist thanked Dick and hung up, his mind firing with possibilities.

  Dillanos was calling someone in Dundee? Was that where the rat’s nest was? If so, renting a cottage in Kingsbarns made sense. Not exactly shitting on your own doorstep but Dundee was close enough to keep an eye on it, and far enough away to deny any connection.

  He eyed his scribbled notes, and scanned through the names and numbers. He thought he understood a couple – Dexter Murphy, an address in Greenock, could be Megan Murphy’s callme-Caryl brother, or father; Siobhan Murphy, an address in Altrincham, could be her sister; Murdock and Roberts, her accountant, in Glasgow. Why call them? Oh, and here’s a surprise, McKinlay Iqbal Solicitors, an address in St Vincent Street, Glasgow, which told him that she might have reported that morning’s incident, no doubt exaggerating the way she had been treated by the local constabulary, and in particular by a certain DCI Gilchrist.

  And finally, the number with neither name nor address – just Dick’s confirmation that it was local. Gilchrist toyed with the idea of calling it. But would doing so only alert them that someone could be on to them?

  He checked the details of the calls, and saw that Dick had read out the list to him in chronological order. Caryl Dillanos had called Dexter Murphy first – 3.24 minutes – short and to the point. Which meant . . . ? Could mean anything. Then Siobhan Murphy for a shorter 0.37 minutes – left a message on an answering machine? – followed by another 0.29 minutes call – to leave another message? Then a longer 6.22 minutes call some twenty-five minutes later – sisters’ heart to heart? Somehow, an image of Dillanos taking solace from anyone, let alone a sibling, failed to materialise. Murdock and Roberts were next – 1.43 minutes – which had Gilchrist thinking she had called to set up a meeting. But that call niggled him. A call to an accountant after being grilled for a couple of hours by the police was out of place.

  Would she not have called her solicitor first?

  He picked up his pint, took a sip, and wondered if the call to Murdock and Roberts was about the twenty thousand, or rather the eighteen thousand, she had brought with her. Who had that amount of cash just sitting around? Caryl Versace Dillanos had, of course.

  But the calls to McKinlay Iqbal, al
l three of them, held his attention.

  In his haste to scribble them down he had not picked up their significance, and he now saw a certain sense in their order – a short call of 0.54 minutes to ask to speak to her solicitor; two minutes later, almost to the second, another short call of 0.38 minutes to be told that they had not yet found him; followed by the final call another two minutes later, which lasted all of 15.29 minutes, long enough to give a detailed account of her grilling in the office, and to receive legal advice in return?

  It seemed as good an explanation as any.

  Then the final call, the one with no name and address, that lasted all of 2.31 minutes.

  And that was it—

  ‘Should I book a table for one?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s just . . .’

  ‘To do with the case we’re working on?’

  ‘In a way, yes.’

  She smiled then, and chinked her glass to his. ‘Don’t let me keep you,’ she said. ‘It’s lovely to watch.’

  ‘What’s lovely to watch?’

  ‘You on the job. You light up. Your whole being becomes energised. Has anyone told you that?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, I really do have—’

  ‘Don’t be sorry, Andy. Go. I can find my own way home.’

  He thought it strange how quickly emotions can change. Ten minutes earlier he had felt irritated at being expected to wine and dine to order. Now he felt regret at leaving. On the spur of the moment, he leaned over and pecked her on the cheek. ‘I’ll call later.’ He prepared to stand, but her hand gripped his arm.

  ‘I’ll call you,’ she said.

  Outside, the cold hit him anew, a bitter chill that flapped at his scarf and had him bowing his head as he strode into it. Snow now covered the cobbles and drifted over the stones in flurried gusts. He walked down College Street and into North Street. He thought of driving home, but he was a couple of pints over the limit, and he had a few things to check at the office, which would help him work the alcohol from his system.

  Or so he told himself.

  Back at his desk he powered up his computer, and googled McKinlay Iqbal Solicitors. Their office was a corner building in the city centre, which looked as if it could do with a coat of paint, maybe three, not exactly the way to advertise legal services. He checked his watch – 19.53. No one would be at work on a Saturday night – well, if you did not include DCIs who’d had a couple of pints, that is. He was about to dial the number on his screen when he paused. He removed his notebook from his pocket, checked the website number against the number Dillanos had called, and confirmed they were different.

  Which meant . . . ?

  Had Dillanos called a direct line to her solicitor?

  He dialled that number.

  He counted six rings, expecting it to shunt him into voicemail, but it kept ringing on to ten, fifteen, then twenty before he hung up. He stared at the phone, then dialled again, and after ten rings was about to hang up when—

  The ringing stopped.

  Someone had picked up.

  He held his breath, thought he caught muffled breathing on the other end, nothing definitive, more like a palpable sense that someone was listening. Should he say nothing, or could he persuade whoever was on the other end to say something?

  But before he reached a decision, the connection died.

  He dialled back, but the line was engaged.

  He tried the main switchboard number – the one on the website and was put through to voicemail on the second ring. He returned to the original number.

  But the line was still engaged.

  He replaced the handset to its cradle, and stared at his phone. Someone had picked up. But why had they not spoken? Had his number come up on their phone screen? Were they already checking out the source of the persistent caller?

  Which would not be good. On the other hand, it could be.

  Out of nothing, comes something?

  He googled Murdock and Roberts and checked the main number against that in his notebook. Well, would you look at that. Different, too. Was this a direct line to Mr Murdock or Mr Roberts? Gilchrist dialled it, but it rolled over to voicemail on the fifth ring, and a man’s voice with an accent telling him he had reached the desk of Osgar Murdock. He hung up, not sure if he had caught the name correctly, then tried again.

  Sure enough, Osgar Murdock.

  Osgar? Middle Eastern? Turkish, perhaps?

  He found it interesting that he was uncovering some foreign connection – Kumar, Osgar, Iqbal – names with a Middle Eastern ring to them. And his mind replayed his earlier calls to McKinlay Iqbal. Had Dillanos’s number gone straight through to the desk of Iqbal? Had it been Iqbal on the other end of the line? But more troubling, by calling had he set in motion some reaction to find out who the caller was?

  And with that thought, he decided to take a chance.

  He dialled the last number, the mobile number with no name or address. It rang out to twenty, which he thought was odd – no voicemail. He hung up, dialled it again, and again counted to twenty. He dialled the number four more times, before replacing the handset, then stared at the phone and smiled.

  If they would not speak to him, then maybe his calls would flush them out.

  CHAPTER 28

  Sunday arrived with a fog as fine as haar.

  Snow covered the ground in a thin blanket of white.

  Rather than walk straight to the newsagent’s, Gilchrist decided to jog, take a long road for a shortcut – down by the harbour, out to the end of the pier, then back up Shoregate on to High Street. He slipped on his tracksuit and trainers and wrapped up well, winding a scarf round his neck and tucking it in. He pulled on a pair of gloves, then stepped outside, into Rose Wynd.

  The fog had thinned, exposing a winter sun that sat low on the horizon, a watery pink that threatened to peel back a sky as white and fine as gauze. A cold wind carried the promise of a white Christmas, and had his breath gusting in visible puffs as he got into his stride.

  By the harbour, he slowed down to a walk, and breathed in the smell of salt and kelp. Sheltered by the pier walls, the harbour lay as flat and motionless as slush, as if the cold had frozen it into immobility. He eyed a flock of raucous gulls on the hunt for food, and watched a couple fight over a scrap, a dirty rag by the looks of it, then tumble over the harbour’s edge only to be beaten to the winnings by a herring gull that flew in and caught it, then let it fall mid-flight into the black waters. As he strolled seaward, fishing boats in need of a good painting and a better gutting floated in cold silence by his side.

  At the end of the pier, Gilchrist faced the wind, breathed it in.

  Beyond the stone walls, the sea heaved and swelled like some beast stirring awake. Terns skimmed the dark surface in synchronised flight. Waves rose as if to peak, then settled again as if overcome by the effort. His mobile rang, its electronic call out of place, like modern day interfering with the timelessness of nature.

  He eyed the screen. The incoming number meant nothing to him, and he puzzled as to who would call at this time on a Sunday morning.

  ‘Hello?’

  The line disconnected.

  He dialled back and, phone to his ear, turned from the end of the pier.

  Where Shoregate met the harbour he caught the burst of exhaust from a white car – a ubiquitous lookalike – and a man slide into the passenger seat. He heard the door slam, the soft roar of the engine as the car slipped from view.

  A recorded voice told him the person he was calling was unavailable.

  More from instinctive curiosity, he started back along the pier, walking quickly to begin with, then breaking into a jog. He tried the number again.

  No answer.

  He reached the harbour front and managed to catch the tail end of the white car as it rounded a corner, too far away to identify the make and model but close enough to make out a dent in the back bumper.

  On impulse, he dialled Dick.

  ‘
Bloody hell, Andy, what time is it?’

  ‘Early. Got another number for you.’

  ‘You sound like you’ve been running.’

  ‘Morning exercise.’

  ‘Let’s have it,’ Dick said, wide awake now.

  Gilchrist recited the number. ‘And if it’s one of these untraceable ones, get me a location on it, will you?’

  ‘I’ll get back to you.’

  Gilchrist ended the call, then put his head down and gritted his teeth as he ran up Shoregate. If he was quick enough, he might catch another glimpse of it.

  But by the time he reached High Street, the car was gone.

  The hard jog had his heart racing, and despite the cold wind, sweat warmed his brow. He walked along the pavement, and by the time he entered the Cooperative, his breathing had returned to normal.

  He bought a Mail on Sunday, half a dozen large eggs, bacon and four morning rolls – brown for a change. The jog to the seafront had done wonders for his appetite, and the thought of grilled bacon and a poached egg on a fresh roll had his mouth watering.

  As a child, Sunday had always started with a full cooked breakfast, as if that was the only morning his father had time to eat instead of having to rush off to work. But back then, everything was cooked in lard, served up swimming in fat, eggs fried hard, not soft-poached or scrambled, and bacon strips from which you could wring your weekly intake of oil. And in true Scottish fashion – waste not, want not – bread slices fried to soak up the remains of the frying pan, served dripping with fat hot enough to blister your lips. And they wonder why Scotland was the heart-attack capital of the world?

  On the walk back to his cottage, he held his shopping in a plastic bag with one hand while he did what he could with the other to flip through the newspaper – Dundee United lost 0-1 away to Livingstone; both Bush and Blair were standing by the decision to invade Iraq.

  He stepped off High Street and walked into Castle Street.

  A glance downhill to a row of parked cars, and not one of them white. What was he expecting? But over the years he had come to trust his gut. Which was why he stopped, his back against the wall of the corner building, plastic bag at his feet, newspaper opened, and pretended to be caught up in some interesting article.