by T F Muir
‘Nice little place.’
‘Emphasis on little?’
‘You should see mine. Robert and me stuffed into a box, more like. You’re quite the gardener. Hedges trimmed. Grass cut. Where do you find the time?’ she asked, then said, ‘You never told me you had a cat.’
Gilchrist glanced at her. ‘Is it black and scraggly looking?’
‘And looks like it’s been in a fight?’
‘That’s her. She’s not mine. She turned up a week or so ago. I think she was attacked by a dog, or a fox maybe.’ He looked out the window, beyond Jessie. By the open door of his shed at the far end of his narrow garden lounged a black cat, its fur clotted in scruffy tufts, its tail held low with an unusual kink that hinted of broken bones.
‘Have you considered taking it to the vet?’ Jessie said.
‘She won’t let me near her. All I can do is leave food and water out. But she’s coming round. Slowly.’
‘You got a name for it . . . for her?’
‘Not yet. But I’m thinking of Blackie.’
‘Well, I’ll give you ten out of ten for originality.’
‘Maureen’s first pet was a cat called Blackie.’
‘She’s just gone back into the hut. Must have seen me eyeballing her.’
‘She feels safe there. And I’ve laid out some blankets for her. Some food, too.’
With the cat no longer around to hold her interest, Jessie turned from the window and eyed an oil painting on the wall. ‘Is that an original?’
‘It is,’ he said. ‘Butter on your toast?’
‘As long as it’s light. Did Jack do this?’
‘One of his girlfriends.’
‘Impressive. Is she still with him?’
‘No. I might have put too much milk in your tea,’ he said, trying to change the topic.
‘And these photographs are nice,’ she said ‘Eye-catching. Jack’s, too?’
‘Mine,’ he said. ‘Before digital everything took over.’
‘Did you develop them yourself?’
‘No. I liked taking them, not developing and printing them. I’d thought of building a darkroom, the DIY I was telling you about. But I kept putting it off. Then when digital cameras arrived, I lost interest.’
‘They’re striking compositions. You’ve got a knack. Who would ever have thought?’
‘That I’m not just a pretty face?’
‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ she said, and took a seat at the table. She sipped her tea. ‘Not bad.’ She replaced the mug to the table, eyed the plate as he put it down. ‘Thought I was having half a slice.’
‘You can cut it in two and eat one piece.’
She did just that – cut it in two – but the second piece seemed too good to pass up, so she tackled that, too. ‘What’s with this Dougal Davis?’
‘I’d like to talk to him, see what he’s got to say for himself.’ His mobile came to life then, giving out a string of beeps as a number of text messages that had been suspended in the ether while his SIM card had been out of sync found their way to his message folder.
He was surprised to find three messages from Cooper, all within five minutes of each other, and just this side of midnight last night. He’d crashed out, and even if his phone had been working, he doubted he’d have had the mental wherewithal to carry on any sensible—
‘I’d like to challenge him on his TV appeal,’ Jessie said. ‘Maybe even threaten him with interfering in a police investigation.’
Gilchrist placed his mobile to the side. ‘You’d have the full rampant wrath of Simon Copestake LLB to deal with,’ he said.
‘Plonker.’
‘Plonker he might be, but from what I gather he’s got a reputation as a solicitor you don’t want to come up against.’
‘Eat up, and let’s get on with it,’ she said, and pushed her chair back. ‘That list of names that Liam’s uncovered,’ she added. ‘I’d like to hear what Baxter has to say about it sooner rather than later. It’s a pity we can’t ID that wee girl on the laptop.’
Gilchrist crunched into the last of his toast, swept it down with a mouthful of tea. The revolting image was likely only the first scratch at a filthy surface, and if there was one such image on Bell’s laptop, there would likely be hundreds, if not thousands, more.
‘Set up a meeting,’ he said, ‘and we’ll see what Liam’s got. In the meantime, I need a briefing on Katie’s abduction.’ He gathered their plates, placed them in the dishwasher, then removed a small jug of milk from the fridge. ‘Give me a couple of minutes,’ he said, ‘while I top up Blackie’s bowl. We’ll take my car.’
Five minutes later, at the top of Rose Wynd, he beeped his remote fob.
Jessie reached for the door handle. ‘Are you thinking that Dougal Davis could be the reason for the dysfunctional family?’
‘He was bombed out of the Scottish government for marital abuse,’ Gilchrist said. ‘So if I was a betting man . . . ’ He fired the ignition, eased his car forward. ‘ . . . I’d say the odds are on that.’
‘He was brought down by his third wife,’ Jessie said. ‘Even though she didn’t press charges. I’ve checked out her home address. It’s upmarket Aberdeen. She’s never remarried, but she’s doing all right for herself. You think Davis paid her off to keep her sweet?’
‘Possible,’ he said, and eased along High Street. As he turned on to St Andrews Road, the Golf Hotel on his right, he glanced towards Tolbooth Wynd, the memory of last night’s attack still fresh in his mind. He hoped CCTV footage would help identify his attackers, and answer—
‘So what do you say? You think we need to talk to her? Wife number three?’
‘About what? We need to stay focused on Katie.’
Jessie stared through the window, as if snubbed, then said, ‘Wife number two remarried, and lives in Glasgow. But she wants nothing to do with the man.’
Gilchrist powered up to fifty. The hard sound of the BMW’s engine reverberated off the stone walls either side. ‘Let’s talk to Dougal Davis first. After that, we might want to talk to all of his exes and check out his story.’
‘Make sure he isn’t lying, you mean?’ Jessie turned away and glared at the passing countryside, as if willing it to burst into flames. ‘I hate bastards like that.’
CHAPTER 13
At the entrance to Grange Mansion, the scrum of reporters had thinned – yesterday’s news of a missing child being trumped by today’s of a battered body on a beach no more than ten miles away. But those who remained fired a barrage of questions at Gilchrist as he drove through the gateway in closed-window silence.
The white Lexus still sat at the side of the main residence. Curtains were drawn in all the windows, giving the aura of the mansion being closed for the day. Together, he and Jessie strode to the Mobile Incident Room,
The briefing brought nothing new to the case, other than the miserable fact that the Chief Constable, Archie McVicar, had made an impromptu early morning appearance and left ten minutes later, unimpressed by the investigation’s progress, or lack thereof. By 10.30 a.m., Gilchrist had heard from neither Greaves nor McVicar, and every bit as worrying was the fact that his investigation was turning up more dead ends than a maze.
In an intensive effort by his team, everyone who had visited Grange Mansion in the last eight weeks had been interviewed – surprisingly few, as it turned out. A pair of plumbers to repair a blocked kitchen drain. A number of delivery services: postal, fast food, laundry, and Co-op. A taxi driver who had delivered four tartan shawls from a kilt-maker in St Andrews – which all turned out to be genuine.
Friends seemed few and far between, with Andrea having been visited by a Mr Mark Davidson, who’d recently been laid off from the green-keeping staff at Crail Golfing Society, and who told the police that Andrea had just shouted at him one night to fuck off and never come back, for reasons he could not explain – Fucking weirdo’s what she is. I was just trying to chat her up, like, be nice to her. One visit from Vera Davis and
her husband, Sandy Rutherford, tied in with what they’d been told in Perth. But it seemed that Andrea rarely left the house, which had Jessie asking, ‘Who looks after the fields?’
DS Curry looked up from his monitor. ‘She rents the fields out, so I’d say it was one of the local farmers.’
‘Let me repeat the question. Who looks after the fields? I want a name, and I want to know how much she gets paid for them.’
‘Is that going to help us find Katie?’
Gilchrist stepped in with, ‘We won’t know until we get an answer. So, anything you can drum up would be helpful.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Jessie glared for a long moment at the back of Curry’s head, then turned to Gilchrist, and said, ‘Are we about done here?’
‘You got that address for Davidson?’
She tapped her mobile. ‘Let’s go.’
Outside, Gilchrist noted the curtains in the upper window of the mansion were open. He thought he glimpsed a woman’s face through the pane, before it settled into the reflection of a passing cloud. The white Lexus was still parked at the gable end. Dog-tired Chivas was nowhere to be seen.
‘You’d think she’d take the dog outside for a walk,’ he said to Jessie.
‘What does it do all day?’
‘Eat and sleep, from the looks of things.’
‘But is it house-trained, I ask myself?’
‘I’m sure she must let it out to do its business,’ he said.
‘Hah. It’d probably fall asleep in its own shite.’
‘Has anyone told you you’ve a way with words?’
‘Talking of which,’ Jessie said, ‘I’m interested in hearing what shite this Davidson guy’s going to cough up.’
They managed to track Mark Davidson down to a dishevelled cottage on the A917, north of Kilrenny, with an overgrown lawn that looked more like an abandoned scrapyard than a residential garden. Stripped washing machines, refrigerators, microwaves, parts of car engines, rusted wheels, all balanced in piles of ready-to-topple stacks next to sodden cartons of newspapers, magazines, books, that seemed to sprout from the grass like papiermâché shrubbery.
Gilchrist parked in the short driveway, behind a tidy van with chrome bumpers that gleamed with polish and looked at odds with the ambient disrepair. A young man in his late twenties, who matched the description of Mark Davidson, was kneeling among the refuse, stripped to the waist despite the cold air.
He pushed himself to his feet as Gilchrist called out his name. ‘That’s me,’ he said.
Gilchrist and Jessie showed their warrant cards, and Gilchrist realised that Davidson was in the process of trying to tidy the place up. ‘You’ve got your work cut out for you,’ he said, nodding to the mess.
‘It’s a toughie. Should ’ave it cleared by tomorrow night, though,’ he said, and tugged his jeans up. Broad shoulders topped a lean body and pinched waist. Wide eyes that sparkled with intelligence stared from a handsome face spoiled by a flattened nose. ‘So how can I help yous?’
‘You know Andrea Davis?’ Jessie asked.
‘Are yous with the same crowd that talked to me last night?’
‘Fife Constabulary, if that’s who you’re talking about.’
‘Well, yeah, as I told them last night, I visited her a couple of times.’
‘We have it down as four times in total.’
‘Whatever.’
‘What did you think of Chivas?’ Gilchrist said, just to gauge a reaction.
‘The dog?’
Gilchrist nodded.
‘Could sleep for Scotland, is what I think.’
‘And Katie?’
Davidson lowered his head, narrowed his eyes. Muscles rippled across his chest as he stripped off his working gloves. ‘I’d nothing to do with her disappearance. I told yous lot I was working in Upper Largo. Building a garden wall. Never knew nothing about it until I seen it on the news.’
‘And what about Andrea Davis?’ Jessie asked.
‘What about her?’
‘Why’d she tell you to fuck off? Were you giving her one?’
Davidson’s face grimaced in anger. ‘Never touched her. I told them that. Never even shook her hand. No physical contact of any sort. None. Period. End of.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Fucked if I know. One minute she’s smiling away, and the next she just flips and tells me to leave. I thought she was kidding at first, you know, having a joke—’
‘So what had you done?’ Jessie pressed.
‘Nothing. That’s what I’m saying.’
‘Maybe it was the way you looked at her tits, the way you’re looking at mine right now.’
Davidson blinked, then said, ‘No way. She’s a weirdo. I’m telling you.’ He stabbed a finger to the side of his head. ‘Loop-de-fucking-loop. Crazy as they come.’
‘And where did you get your degree in psychology?’ Jessie said.
‘I know a nutter when I see one.’
‘And so do I,’ Jessie said.
Gilchrist stepped in with, ‘How did you first meet her?’
‘I knocked on her door and asked if she needed any work done around the place. It looked like it needed it. But she said she didn’t. I thanked her, apologised for troubling her and left. When I got to my van, she shouted me back, and asked if I could come around the next day, she might have something for me. So I did.’
‘And . . .?’
‘And she did the same again – told me she had nothing, and asked me to come around the following week.’
‘Did she invite you inside?’
‘Not that time. But the following week she did.’
‘Did you see Katie?’
He shook his head. ‘Never even knew she had a kid. Thought she just lived by herself. She didn’t look like a mother, you know what I’m saying?’
‘No,’ Jessie said. ‘Tell me.’
‘She just seemed spaced out. But I didn’t think she was on drugs, just acting stupid.’
‘Did she come on to you?’
Davidson hesitated for a moment. ‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Just giving me the eye. But I was having none of it.’
Jessie tutted.
Gilchrist said, ‘Did you see anyone else when you were there?’
‘No.’
‘See anything that you thought was odd?’
‘Odd?’
‘Unusual,’ Jessie said. ‘Strange. You know, odd.’
He shook his head. ‘I was just surprised when I heard on the news that her daughter had disappeared,’ he said. ‘That’s what I thought was off. I never even knew she had a kid.’
‘So what happened the last time you saw her?’ Gilchrist asked.
‘I thought I was being asked inside to fix a lock on one of her doors. I brought my toolbox along—’
‘I’ll bet you did.’
He looked at Jessie for a cold moment, then said, ‘You know, maybe you’re right . . . about the . . . the tits thing. She showed me the lock, but it seemed to be working fine. It was only after I told her that it was working okay that I noticed . . . ’ He placed his hand to his chest. ‘I don’t think she was wearing a bra.’
Jessie burst out laughing. ‘Get real.’
Davidson gritted his teeth, and a flush of sorts coloured his neck. ‘You asked if I seen anything odd,’ he said. ‘And when I say I seen something odd, yous laugh. How about yous go and take a fuck to yoursels?’
‘What’s odd about not wearing a bra?’ Gilchrist asked.
Davidson seemed surprised by the question. ‘I didnae think she was that kind of a woman. I thought she was upper-class, yeah?’
‘A lonely woman?’ Jessie said. ‘No man about the house? And in you come – ’ she coughed – ‘carrying your toolbox . . .?’ A pause, then, ‘So why don’t you tell us what really happened?’
‘Nothing happened. She told me to fuck off—’
‘Exact words?’
‘Yeah. That’s what I keep telling yous. So I fucked
off out of it.’
‘And . . .?’
‘And nothing. That’s it. I’ve never went back.’
‘Not even to get paid?’ Jessie said.
‘Paid for what? I done nothing.’
Gilchrist held out a business card. ‘If you think of anything, give me a call.’
Davidson snatched the card from him, glared at Jessie, then stuffed it into the back pocket of his jeans. ‘Aye, sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll let yous know.’
Jessie stared at him for five hard seconds, then turned and strode off.
CHAPTER 14
Gilchrist reversed from the driveway, eying the lone figure of Davidson in his rear-view mirror as he accelerated away.
He waited until he hit sixty. ‘You think he’s lying?’
‘All the way to the bottom of his toolbox,’ Jessie said. ‘Did you see the guy? Flexing his pecs like Mr Universe. And the way he kept looking at my tits?’
‘Why, what’s wrong with them?’
‘Nothing’s wrong with them,’ she said, then chuckled when she got his joke. ‘I tell you, Andy, that nose of his was probably flattened by some husband giving him a Glasgow kiss for nailing his wife.’ She tutted. ‘I mean, he comes round to her house on four separate occasions, then leaves without fixing a thing? Get real, for crying out loud.’
‘Okay,’ Gilchrist said. ‘So, he’s giving her one—’
‘Giving her four, you mean.’
‘So what does that do to help us find Katie?’
‘Not a thing. But I tell you what, it makes me want to take that Andrea bitch down to the Station and cuff her to the wall until she tells us the truth.’
Gilchrist eyed the road ahead. In the five months he’d worked with Jessie, he’d come to understand that her volatility was her way of expressing herself. Although her words were spoken with anger, she rarely lost her temper. But she seemed particularly riled by Davidson. Sometimes difficult to understand, she was a solid detective with an intuitive sense second only to his own, and he thought of that now.
‘So you think Andrea was having it off with toolbox Mark, then tired of him, and told him to eff off?’
Jessie snorted. ‘I think we need to double-check the stories of every delivery man that visited the place, starting with the plumbers.’