Life For a Life

by T F Muir

  Jessie pursed her lips, stared at some point high up on the wall. Tears squeezed from her eyes. She sniffed, wiped a hand across her cheeks.

  He waited a polite five seconds, then said, ‘You can’t keep running away.’

  ‘I will, if it keeps that heathen bitch from Robert.’

  ‘I spoke to Dainty,’ Gilchrist said. ‘He thinks highly of you.’ He thought she looked vulnerable as she stared up at him, as if he was seeing what she looked like as a young girl. ‘Dainty pulled in your brothers, Tommy and Terry, told them that if they concocted a story about you taking stolen goods, he would charge them both—’

  ‘Even if it’s true?’

  ‘It’s not true.’ He held up his hand. ‘No buts. That’s it.’ He thought it odd that she felt such a need to be punished for having broken the law, and he wondered if it had something to do with her recognition of her criminal heritage, or a desire to remove all trace of it from her family tree. ‘I understand now why you asked for a transfer,’ he said.

  ‘To keep Robert away from my bitch-for-a-mother and my mental brothers,’ she said.

  ‘Mostly,’ he agreed, then after a couple of beats, said, ‘But more significantly, you want to keep the identity of your mother’s father from him.’

  Jessie stilled, as if her heart had stopped. Then she glared at him. ‘Who told you?’

  ‘I read it in your mother’s police report.’

  She whispered a curse, then said, ‘It just follows me.’

  ‘It’ll go no further.’

  She shook her head. ‘And I don’t even know if it’s true, or just something that bitch dreamed up.’ Her look of disappointment held for a long moment, then shifted to panic. ‘You can’t tell anyone,’ she said to him. ‘You can’t tell Robert—’

  ‘No one will know.’

  She stared at him, her eyes searching his. ‘Not even Stan?’

  ‘It’s between us,’ he said. ‘Just you and me.’ He waited until he felt she believed him, then tried to change the subject with, ‘I’ve spoken to Mhairi. She told me what happened, how you put two and two together and—’

  ‘Mhairi took Kumar down single-handedly,’ she said. ‘Don’t let her try to tell you different. She saved my life. And Robert’s, too.’

  Gilchrist nodded. If not for Mhairi, Kumar could have bagged another few bodies, his own included. ‘But it was you who made the initial connection,’ he said, ‘then challenged Angus—’

  ‘And almost got us all killed.’

  ‘But you didn’t. And you saved my life too.’ He had seen the partial video recording of his execution-to-be, and watched with mesmerising horror how close he had come to being killed. ‘I haven’t thanked you for that,’ he added, removing an envelope from his pocket.

  He held it out to her.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s for you.’

  ‘I asked what it was, not who it was for.’

  ‘It’s a pity that bullet never nipped a bit of your tongue.’

  She shook her head. ‘Some habits die hard, I suppose. I’m sorry.’ She flinched as she shifted her elbow. ‘But this bloody shoulder still hurts.’

  ‘It’ll be sore for a while, so I’m told. But you’ll live.’

  ‘Regrettably, I hear you say?’

  He shook his head. ‘You’ve made a bit of a name for yourself. And Stan is worried I’m going to ease him out for you.’

  ‘Musical partners, is that the way it works up here?’ She nodded to the envelope. ‘Are you going to tell me what it is?’

  ‘It’s your Non-Harassment Order,’ he said. ‘Extended to cover Fife.’

  ‘How did you . . . ?’

  ‘Go on. Take it,’ he said, and flapped the envelope at her.

  She took it from him, nothing more than a handwritten note on sheriff ’s letterhead, a single piece of paper that looked at odds with its legal potency.

  ‘I got them to widen the scope, too,’ Gilchrist said. ‘No doubt your mother will try to challenge it in court, but with her record, she has next to no hope of having it overturned.’

  ‘The bitch’ll breach it.’

  ‘Then the bitch will go to jail.’

  ‘Here, what’s this?’ Jessie said, and removed a voucher. ‘The Doll’s House?’

  ‘One of my favourite restaurants.’

  ‘It’s for a hundred quid.’ She looked up at him.

  ‘Happy Christmas,’ he said. ‘It’s the least I can do.’

  ‘How about putting me forward for a salary upgrade, then?’

  ‘Already have. Of course, CS Greaves is as tight as they come but once he takes the credit for bringing Kumar to justice, his purse strings will loosen up a bit.’

  She stared at his neck, scrunched her eyes to focus, and said, ‘Is that a dressing?’

  Gilchrist tapped a finger to his neck, to the cut where Kumar’s blade had pressed too hard. No sutures required, but it had bled heavily, and still stung. ‘Had a close shave with a carving knife,’ he said.

  ‘Jesus,’ Jessie said, as if realising the seriousness of it all for the first time. ‘I thought we were too late.’

  ‘You almost were.’

  She gave that comment some thought, then said, ‘What about Angus?’

  ‘It’s not looking good. He’s been charged as an accessory, and Mhairi has contacted Patterson and McLeod’s head office. They’re thinking of taking legal action against him for fraud. She’s also dropped him in it with the taxman.’

  ‘Ouch. Remind me never to get on that woman’s bad side. So, she’s not getting back with him, is what you’re telling me?’

  ‘She’s well shot of him,’ Gilchrist confirmed. ‘And Mhairi spoke highly of you.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything.’

  ‘Modesty doesn’t suit you.’ He turned as the door opened.

  Robert walked in, and hesitated for a moment when he saw Gilchrist, or perhaps at the look of panic on his mother’s face. But Gilchrist smiled at Jessie, and winked at her, and Robert stepped round him and leaned down to his mum in bed, to give her a hug.

  ‘Steady on, love,’ she said. ‘I’m still stitched up.’

  Gilchrist’s mobile vibrated and he pulled it from his pocket – a number not logged in his system. He thought of just ignoring it, then said, ‘Duty calls,’ and nodded to Angie as he pushed through the door to take the call.

  He did not give his name but said, ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mr Gilchrist?’ A woman’s voice, as rough as Glasgow gravel.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘You don’t know me but we need to meet.’

  Gilchrist stepped past the lift and headed for the stairs. ‘Why do we need to meet?’

  ‘Do you know the King’s Bar in Nethergate—’

  ‘You’re not answering my question.’

  ‘Meet me there in an hour and I’ll answer it then.’

  ‘And if I—’

  ‘And come alone or you’ll regret it.’

  The line died.

  Gilchrist tried calling back but the caller had powered down her phone. Although he had visited Dundee often in the past, he now found his way about town with only sightseeing familiarity. He had the vaguest recollection of the King’s Bar but no memory of ever having a pint there.

  He phoned Nance as he walked to his car. Since their evening at the Dunvegan they had said no more than a dozen words to each other, as if Nance now regretted her invitation to him that night.

  She answered as he slid behind the wheel.

  ‘Sir?’ she said, even making that single word sound cold.

  ‘The name’s Andy, Nance.’

  ‘I can’t really talk right now. I’m in the middle of stuff.’

  Which sounded like the push-off it really was. ‘I’ll only take a minute, maybe less,’ he said. ‘Have you heard from John?’

  Silence for several beats, then, ‘Look, Andy, I shouldn’t have mentioned—’

  ‘Because if you do, report him to DCI T
ommy Coulson.’ He waited another couple of beats but silence seemed to be order of the day, so he added, ‘John is now officially walking on thin ice.’ He fired up the ignition, slipped into gear, giving Nance time to answer. But when the line remained silent, he said, ‘You still there?’

  ‘I’ve given this some thought,’ she said at length, ‘and I’ve decided to submit a formal request for a transfer.’

  Out of the blue did not come close. Struck by a comet would be more like it.

  He pressed his mobile hard to his ear, and said, ‘Can we talk about this . . . ?’ before realising she had hung up. He thought of calling back but common sense told him to wait a few . . . minutes, hours, days? With Nance, he could never say.

  His mobile rang again – ID Stan.

  Gilchrist tried to sound chirpy. ‘How’s the interview going, Stan?’

  ‘Frustrating, boss. He’s not coughing up.’

  The battle for jurisdictional rights over Kumar was now in full flow, and it had taken the intervention of ACC McVicar to secure him in Fife, at least for the time being. Four of Greater Manchester Police’s CID were currently on their way to have an interrogation of their own, expected later that afternoon, and two senior detectives from the Metropolitan Police were scheduled for the following morning. Although Gilchrist had spent the best part of that morning questioning Kumar for the second straight day, an idea had since come to him.

  ‘I’ll be with you in fifteen minutes, Stan,’ he said.

  ‘Good. I need a break.’

  ‘But I can’t stay long,’ he said, adding, ‘I’d like you to check something out for me.’

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Can you find out who owns the King’s Bar in Dundee?’

  Gilchrist closed his mobile and thought of the possibilities. He was stretching it too far, he suspected. Sometimes you have to. But if his idea had any substance, the day really had consisted of comet strikes.

  And maybe even shooting stars.

  CHAPTER 52

  One glance through the two-way mirror that looked into the interview room told Gilchrist that nothing had changed since he had left. He was about to enter when Stan walked in, waving a handwritten note.

  ‘Hot off the press, boss.’

  Gilchrist read it. ‘The plot thickens,’ he said.

  ‘A finger in every pie?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  It took Stan less than a few minutes to update Gilchrist on Kumar’s interrogation, the conclusion being that they were getting nowhere with him answering everything with a No comment. Still, Gilchrist thought it would be worth asking the question just to gauge a reaction. Even no reaction might give him an answer.

  He re-entered the interview room, said, ‘DCI Gilchrist returning,’ and noted the exact time for the record. As he took his seat, Kumar raised his eyes and gave a dead-eyed stare, before returning his attention to some spot on the table between them.

  Handcuffed, no longer in his bespoke suit, and with a couple of days’ worth of salt and pepper stubble on his face, Kumar looked less the businessman that he once purported himself to be and more the paedophilic pimp and serial killer that he indisputably was – still to be proven in a court of law, of course.

  Numerous cuts and bruises added to the change in image.

  His forehead sported two bruised lumps that peaked in crusted grazes, and the swollen bridge of his nose was as thick as a boxer’s. A nasty-looking cut sliced through his upper lip. He could have gone five rounds against Vitali Klitschko and looked better. Mhairi had denied using unreasonable force making her arrest, maintaining that Kumar slipped in the snow. Her story had been confirmed by Jessie, and Robert had been too traumatised to witness anything. Kumar also denied the charge of attempting to murder Gilchrist, but the half-finished video recording told a different story and nailed him to the wall – not to mention the carving knife with its razor-sharp blade, and the Makarov with its suppressor and half-spent magazine.

  Although the Makarov had been handled by both Kumar and Mhairi, forensics had lifted a perfect set of Craig Farmer’s fingerprints from the barrel of the suppressor from his having screwed it on. The bullets in the magazine matched those retrieved from the bodies of Caryl Dillanos, Jana Judkowski and Stewart Donnelly, laying these murders at Farmer’s feet, but with the finger of suspicion pointing to Kumar as the man who gave the orders.

  But trying to obtain any confession from Kumar was as good as talking to a rock.

  Kumar’s solicitor – Matthew Johnson of Johnson Petrie and Associates, Edinburgh – sat next to him, fresh-faced and oil-haired, wearing a suit that had to have cost the best part of one thousand pounds, maybe two. Perhaps they shared the same tailor.

  Gilchrist faced Johnson. ‘Your client has not been forthcoming in his answers.’

  Johnson said, ‘That’s his prerogative under the law.’

  ‘Under the law,’ Gilchrist said, and gave Johnson a dry smile. ‘Right.’ Then he faced Kumar. ‘Are you a religious man?’

  ‘No comment.’ Kumar’s voice sounded strong. No sign of any nerves there.

  ‘I’m not going to ask what religion you believe in, although I think voodooism might be close to the bone.’ Kumar seemed not to notice his emphasis on the word bone, or appear insulted by his reference to witch doctor magic. Johnson appeared to take more offence, and stirred in his seat. So Gilchrist pressed on with, ‘But my question is, when did you last pray to your God?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘A couple of days ago, you told me you were always amazed that people turned to their God in their darkest hour.’

  Nothing.

  ‘Your darkest hour is almost upon you,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Do you not feel a need to turn to your God now?’

  ‘No comment.’

  Johnson stirred again, and Gilchrist held up his hand in a stayout-of-it gesture. Then he said to Kumar, ‘The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the—’

  ‘Is there a question in there? Or does my client have to listen to your ridiculous religious soliloquy all day?’

  Gilchrist ignored Johnson, kept his focus on Kumar’s eyes. He did not want to miss any reaction, no matter how slight. ‘He leadeth me beside the still waters,’ he continued. ‘He restoreth my soul.’ He waited a couple of beats. ‘The Twenty-Third Psalm,’ he explained. ‘The Lord is my shepherd. Do you know it?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘So, you don’t know it?’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘We’ve identified you and Craig Farmer from CCTV footage of your car crossing the Tay Road Bridge. Although you’ve already denied it, I’m ready to put a bet on that you live in Dundee, or in the outskirts.’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘That wasn’t a question.’

  Kumar said nothing, moved nothing. He could have been a cardboard cut-out.

  ‘But this is,’ Gilchrist said, ‘and it’s associated with a somewhat buggered version of the Twenty-Third Psalm. Do you know the words to this?’ He leaned closer, focused hard on Kumar’s eyes. ‘Shepherd is my Lord,’ he said.

  Kumar blinked once, twice, then lifted his gaze to hold Gilchrist’s eyes for one dark moment, before looking away.

  Gilchrist had his answer.

  He pushed himself to his feet and excused himself from the interview.

  Gilchrist arrived in Dundee with less than ten minutes to spare. But by the time he found a parking spot and walked to the King’s Bar, he was just over five minutes late.

  Inside, the ambient din from around the bar made ordering a shouting match. But he managed to buy himself a pint of Deuchars IPA and find a seat that backed against the wall, one that gave him a good view of the interior of the bar – well, as clear a view as the hubbub would allow. He picked up a discarded Daily Record from the seat, flipped it open to the back page, and watched the bar’s clientele from behind the sports news.

  No ban
kers or businessmen here, mostly working men in their twenties to sixties, who stood or sat in groups of threes, fours, or more around the bar. In the tight space behind the counter, three barmen slipped past each other with the artful grace of dancers, intent on not spilling a drop. Gilchrist noticed a woman sitting by herself at the opposite end, in an alcove as tight as a snug.

  He retrieved his mobile, recovered the phone number from its memory, and dialled it. His gaze never moved from the woman’s face but the number was still powered down, or the phone disconnected, and the woman never so much as blinked.

  Twenty minutes later, he downed his pint. He walked up to the bar, having made the decision on a deadline. If the woman did not appear by the time he finished his second pint, he would call it a day. But even so, that made no sense. She had not arranged to meet him in Dundee so she could have a chat with him. No, he had been summoned to meet someone else, the man who ran Kumar. He was sure of that.

  At the bar, several groups had dispersed, and the general noise level had dropped a touch. Ordering was no longer a shouting match, but the scowl on the barman’s face did not encourage striking up conversation. Even Gilchrist’s Thanks on receipt of his pint seemed as good as an insult.

  Back in his seat, he resisted the urge to text Stan. If the woman was going to turn up and take him to her leader, she might have someone watching him, to make sure he really was alone. Better to read his paper, sip his beer, a lonely man waiting for someone to join him – or stand him up.

  The crowd in the bar continued to thin, the noise level dropping from the party din of thirty minutes earlier. Two of the barmen had finished their shift, or had stepped out the back for a smoke, and a few stragglers ignored the scowls of the remaining barman, intent on finishing their pints before heading back to work, or off to some other bar.

  Gilchrist glanced at the alcove.

  The woman was no longer there.

  Not long to go now?

  He was almost halfway through his second pint when he realised that he was alone in the bar – well, other than the barman who appeared to find interest in cleaning glasses all of a sudden, and the two hardmen who stood facing him from opposite ends of the counter. The bar’s entrance was blocked by two more hardmencum-bodyguards who twitched their muscled shoulders, as if in pre-fight anticipation, under black leather jackets that hid the odd weapon or two.