by T F Muir
He ordered steak pie, chips and peas, and a chilled Guinness. A television set on the far wall showed blue lakes and tree-lined fairways, and he tried to work out which US PGA golf tournament was being played. It was only when he took a sip of his Guinness that he glanced over the rim and saw her.
Her short blond hair stood tight in tufts that looked wet. A white blouse hung loose beneath a dark blue cardigan that could have been mistaken for a man’s. Her muscle tone exuded a healthiness that seemed to make her gleam in the crowd. Lex Garvie was more than just attractive. But her companion intrigued him. The same woman he had seen with Maggie Hendren in Lafferty’s.
He carried his glass across to their table and said, ‘Can I buy you a drink?’
Garvie gave a smile as tight as a grimace.
‘Is that a gin and tonic?’ he asked the other woman.
She frowned, as if puzzling over his presence, or perhaps thinking as Gilchrist was, that they had met somewhere before. ‘Vodka and tonic, actually.’
‘Double?’
‘Thank you.’
Gilchrist detected a masculine hardness about her. A crumpled packet of Camel cigarettes lay in an ashtray on the corner of the table.
‘Ice and lime?’ he asked her.
‘Are you always this disarming?’
Gilchrist was not quite sure what to make of her comment. He turned to Garvie. ‘I’ve ordered some food,’ he said to her, and nodded to his table. ‘I don’t mean to interrupt your evening, just to offer a drink.’
‘Glenfiddich then,’ she said. ‘No water. Plenty of ice.’
He ignored her coldness. ‘Double?’
‘What’s the occasion?’
‘It’s my way of apologizing.’
‘For what?’
‘For poking and prodding.’
‘But not for thinking I could be involved?’
‘We have to be thorough,’ he said. ‘But if it helps, yes, that too.’
Garvie looked away.
Her bitterness puzzled Gilchrist. He was about to turn from the table when the woman by her side leaned forward and held out her hand. Nicotine tanned her fingertips. ‘We’ve never been introduced,’ she said. The strength of her grip surprised him. ‘Patsy,’ she offered. ‘Patsy Lynch.’
He nodded. ‘Andy Gilchrist.’
‘I know all about you, Andy.’
Hearing his first name spoken by a stranger sounded odd. He glanced at Garvie. Her eyes danced with anger. ‘I can’t help thinking we’ve met before,’ he said to Patsy.
‘You’ve probably seen me with Sa.’
‘I didn’t know you were friends.’
‘And Maggie. As you know.’
Gilchrist nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said, then fished up an image of Patsy driving off with Sa as a passenger. ‘Land Rover Discovery. Dark blue. Dent in the driver’s door.’
‘You’ll be telling me the registration number next.’
‘My memory’s not that good.’
Patsy gave a wry grin. ‘That’s not what Sa tells me.’
‘You still drive it?’
‘Sold it. Why? Looking to buy one?’
‘Just asking.’
‘That’s what he does,’ Garvie cut in. ‘Next thing you know he’ll be digging through your rubbish bin.’
‘Is that true, Inspector?’
‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘See?’
‘Why don’t I order your drinks?’ he said.
‘Good God. He even talks in questions.’
Gilchrist excused himself and pressed his way to the bar where he paid for their drinks.
When his steak pie arrived, he had to divert his eyes to avoid glancing over at Garvie. The attraction he felt toward her surprised him, and it puzzled him to hear that his visit to her home had upset her so much. He had been polite, not overly investigative, nor had he stayed too long.
So what was her problem?
On clearing his bill, he gathered his jacket and presents and stood up. A final glance toward Garvie and Patsy, faces fired with the heat of their conversation, had him thinking they would not survive the evening together.
Gilchrist walked up North Street to the Police Station and told the desk sergeant that he was back to clear his desk.
The back office had an eerie quietness about it, as if he had arrived seconds after some party had ended and left its echo in the walls. He found Stan behind a grey divider, sifting through a pack of files.
‘You look the way I feel,’ said Gilchrist.
Stan started. ‘Bloody hell, boss.’
‘DeFiore giving you grief?’
‘And then some.’ Stan shook his head. ‘You’d think we’d done bugger all for the last four months except sit on our arses and wait for the bloody Crime Squad to drive in and save our souls.’ He slapped the files onto the desk as if he was throwing in a hand of cards. ‘I tell you what, boss, you’re well out of it.’ Then he frowned. ‘What are you doing here anyway? Patterson will have you.’
‘I need to use your computer to check out a few things.’
‘Tell me you’re kidding.’
Gilchrist shrugged.
Stan stood. ‘Well, I’m out of here. It’s your head, not mine. I’ll deny all knowledge. All right?’
‘Sounds fair.’
Gilchrist waited until Stan closed the door before slipping behind the divider and taking his seat. He keyed in Stan’s password and set about clearing some niggling thoughts. When he next looked at his watch, it was 11:20.
No one paid him any attention as he left the building.
Stars glittered in a black sky. The night was north wind cold.
Muttoes Lane led onto Market Street. A couple tottered arm in arm from the direction of the Central Bar, the man in short sleeves, drunk, oblivious to the cold, the woman grumbling beside him.
At PM’s Fish and Chip Shop, the main thoroughfare narrowed to a lane wide enough for only one car. His footfall echoed off the walls on either side. He had almost purchased a house here, when he and Gail first married. But she had proclaimed the street too dingy, the house too dilapidated. As he recalled the ensuing arguments, he realized with a spurt of sadness how early he and Gail had started growing apart.
He found himself slowing down as he came to the spot where the Stabber’s fourth victim had been found. He cast his gaze into the darkness beneath the open pend and wondered for the umpteenth time what the victim, Johnny Gillespie, had been thinking as the Stabber attacked. Had his mind, sodden with whisky, worked out in those final seconds of life as the stave popped his left eyeball, always the left, and plunged deep through the soft mass of his brain that he was about to die? And dead before his body thumped onto the cobbles. Had he let the Stabber walk up to him? And if so, why?
Again an image of the Stabber as a woman, muscles hidden beneath her feminine façade, flooded his mind’s eye. And it livened him to see how well Lex Garvie fitted the role.
Then he passed the spot, cut onto South Street, then left toward The Pends and Deans Court. As he neared the Roundel, the skeletal ruins of the Cathedral’s spires braced the night sky like Siamese twin rockets waiting to be launched.
He checked his watch.
11:44. Plenty of time.
He sheltered behind the support column of the archway to The Pends. His breath puffed white in the frigid air as his thoughts drifted to Gail. It still surprised him how upset he’d been at losing not only his wife and lover of eighteen years, but his stone-built home in Windmill Road. Years ago, before their relationship soured beyond repair, he would often imagine the two of them walking the West Sands together, grandchildren in tow, an elderly couple still deeply in love.
What had marriage meant to him? Loyalty, he supposed. And understanding, too. Being a policeman’s wife required considerable understanding. And trust. Definitely trust. But he had found out, almost by accident, that Gail was having an affair with an administrative manager in the hospital where she worked. Sev
eral days later, when he finally found the courage to challenge her, her response had been to file for divorce. Six months later, he lost his home, his furniture, his wife, both his children, and thirty-plus years of living in St Andrews. It seemed as if he had wakened one morning to find his past had evaporated.
The pain he now felt at the news of Gail’s illness reminded him that their relationship had not always been bitter. Far from it. When he first met her, in the Whey Pat Tavern, drunk and loud on the second night of her summer break, up from Glasgow for the week, her libido surprised him. That first night, after a walk through the darkness of the West Sands, they crossed the first and eighteenth fairways of the Old Course. As they neared the last green the other side of midnight, Gail said, ‘I know all about golf. I’ve heard about this hole.’ She tottered off to the side, pulling Gilchrist with her. ‘There’s a dip in the green called the Valley of Sin.’
She led him straight to it, and together they stood in its lowest spot, the night-lights of St Andrews twinkling all around them, it seemed. With the salty smell of the cold night air, they could have been on a ship at sea, looking at lights on the shore.
‘The Valley of Sin,’ she repeated, then dipped forward. One step, two steps, and her knickers were in her hand. ‘Such an appropriate name,’ she whispered, as she lay down on the grass, her right arm reaching up for him. Even now, the memory of that moment could bring a smile to his lips.
MacMillan came into view, walking past Deans Court. And sure enough, a pair of binoculars dangled from his left shoulder. Gilchrist waited until the old man was only a few yards from the corner of South Street, then crossed, unnoticed.
‘Sam.’
MacMillan stiffened, almost backed away.
‘DI Gilchrist,’ he said, making sure his voice gave off the authority it had once possessed before Patterson emasculated it.
‘Buggeration, son.’ Sam slapped a thick hand onto his chest. ‘For a nasty moment there, I thought it was my turn.’
Gilchrist stepped up to MacMillan, close enough to see the moisture in his eyes. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’
MacMillan’s lips almost pouted. ‘Well, you’re going about it the wrong way.’ He tightened his grip on the binoculars and Gilchrist had an image of Sam as a younger man, tough and tight and a fearsome adversary.
‘Would you like to take a walk, Sam?’
‘I’ve just had one.’
‘It won’t take long.’
‘Where to?’
‘This way.’
Down by the harbour, a stiff wind blew in from the sea, carrying the smell of salt and seaweed and the distant sound of surf crashing over rocks.
Gilchrist walked along the stone promontory that sheltered the entrance to the harbour from northerly gales. Spray, fine as mist, drifted on the air. He looked up at the sky.
‘Sometimes I think Scotland’s the most beautiful place in the world,’ he said. ‘Other times I wish I was any place else.’ They reached the first of four breaks constructed in the wall, the stones inset to form a seating area. ‘What do you think?’ Gilchrist asked.
‘About what?’
‘About anything.’
‘I think you’re an odd sort.’
‘In what way?’
‘If you can’t answer that, Mr Gilchrist, how do you expect me to?’ His eyes narrowed and his stance widened, and again Gilchrist had the impression that MacMillan had once been a tough guy to face down.
He held out his hand. ‘Binoculars?’
MacMillan slid them from his shoulder and handed them over. Gilchrist focused on the gable end of the building where Granton was killed.
‘Did you spy on him from here?’ he asked.
‘On who?’
‘Don’t play buggerlugs with me, Sam.’
MacMillan inhaled, then let it out in a defeated rush. ‘Next one back,’ he grumbled.
Gilchrist walked toward the second cutback. ‘Here?’
MacMillan nodded.
Gilchrist raised the binoculars and scanned the harbour, shifting his view along the harbour building, the entrance to The Pends, the bridge, the black expanse of the East Sands, then back again. ‘It’s a bit far, Sam.’
Another grunt.
‘I said, it’s a bit far.’
‘I didn’t want anyone to see me.’
‘No one would see you from here, I grant you that.’ Gilchrist lowered the binoculars and handed them back. ‘And even with these, you wouldn’t see much of Bill. If you get my meaning.’
MacMillan retrieved his binoculars, flung the strap over his shoulder, and looked back at the harbour. Gilchrist did likewise, sensing that MacMillan was reliving the events of the previous night.
Out here on the promontory, the waves would have crashed over the wall, the spindrift icy, the rain horizontal. MacMillan’s binoculars would have been useless. What could he have seen? And it was easy to lose your footing and stumble into the harbour. Why would he have put his life in danger?
‘What’re you thinking, Sam?’
‘Not a lot,’ he growled. ‘How about you?’
‘I think you’re in trouble, is what I think.’
MacMillan glared at him, and Gilchrist had a real sense of the brute strength of the man. All of a sudden, being alone with him out there at midnight did not seem a sensible place to be.
‘Granton had two hundred quid on him,’ Gilchrist said. ‘All brand-new notes.’
‘So?’
‘So what was he doing carrying that kind of money around with him at night in the middle of a storm.’
‘How the fuck would I know?’
It was the first time Gilchrist had heard anger seep into MacMillan’s voice, and he was aware of standing with his back to the harbour. It would not take much for MacMillan to push him over.
‘We know Bill was embezzling from the bank,’ he said.
MacMillan pressed closer, as if willing Gilchrist to take a step back. But Gilchrist held his ground until MacMillan’s face was inches from his own, the sour stench of whisky warm on his breath.
‘What are you implying, son?’
‘I’m asking if you knew about it.’
MacMillan’s eyes flared for an instant. ‘I know bugger all about that,’ he growled, and adjusted the strap of his binoculars with an angry snap. ‘You’re fishing, son. You know nothing. I can read it in your eyes.’
‘You think so?’
‘I know so.’ MacMillan straightened, as if readying to face the firing squad. ‘Are you going to arrest me, or what?’
Surprised by the question, Gilchrist said nothing.
MacMillan snorted again. ‘I thought so. Now if you’ve nothing more to say, sonny Jim, I’m going home to bed.’
Gilchrist stood silent as MacMillan’s broad back slipped into the darkness and faded to a hulking shadow.
Then he faced the sea and took a deep breath. Air rushed into his lungs, as clean and clear as his thoughts. The faintest of ideas was manifesting in his brain. In all the years he had known Old Willie, his snippets were never wrong. If his latest one was correct, then Granton was an embezzler and sexual deviant who got his thrill from flashing his cock at an old friend for two hundred quid a pop. But what happened to the money once it was handed over? From his appearance, Sam’s standard of living was far from extravagant.
So, what did he do with it?
Gilchrist stared into the dark expanse before him, his thoughts riding the wild waves, fighting the cold wind.
After another minute, he thought he knew.
Sebbie pushed through the shrubbery onto the pavement. He had wanted to use a kitchen knife, the black-handled one with the serrated blade that could cut through tin and still be sharp enough to slice tomatoes and slivers of paper. But he decided against that as being impossible to explain if he was stopped by the police. In the end, he chose a Swiss Army knife that doubled as a key ring.
He reached the car, knife out, blade open, pressed it along the side, from f
ront to rear. Then blade folded, and into his pocket. He walked on and stopped at the corner by the mini-roundabout.
The street was deserted. He waited two minutes then retraced his steps, this time stopping at the boot. The knife bit into the polished paint and screeched like chalk on a blackboard. He dug deeper and finished off with an artistic flourish.
One minute later, he was jogging down Lade Braes Lane, a smile on his lips. His act of vandalism gave him a sense of power that cleared his mind and soothed his thoughts.
Already, he was thinking ahead.
Next time he would use the kitchen knife.
The big one.
CHAPTER 13
The total is six now. But six is not a lot.
Six is only the beginning. I have always known that.
What I hadn’t known until now was that my modus operandi would change. I had thought the killings would be controlled by the weather. Nothing else.
I am puzzled by this misplaced feeling, like a smile that tickles your lips at a funeral. Like the vagaries of life, the reasons for death are every bit as whimsical. Before each of the killings my libido peaked, and I wonder why I never noticed before. Are the storms nothing more than weather patterns that coincide with my increase in sexual desire?
I see now that the killings have changed me. I feel my hate swell, my anger rise, the need for release as relentless as a sexual stirring. Something grips me, and I hear a quiet hiss that repeats itself like a sibilant echo. I wonder where it is coming from, until I recognize it as a voice.
‘Seven,’ it whispers. ‘Seven. Seven.’
Tomorrow night I will kill again.
Beth wakened to a dark morning, the streets black from a pre-dawn squall. She had not slept well and longed for another thirty minutes in bed. But she had a busy day ahead, stocktaking.
As she soaked in the bath, the previous day’s events hung in her thoughts like smoke in wool. She had arrived at the West Port Café on time but had to wait half an hour before Tom turned up. She might have forgiven him his tardiness if her day had gone better, but not after everything that had happened. The man in her shop, Andy showing up, then Tom being late had her thinking it all happened for a reason.