by T F Muir
‘I don’t approve of drinking during working hours.’
Gilchrist thought of reminding her that the official working day was long over. But he chose to play safe, and stood silent.
‘OK, DCI Gilchrist. Bring me up to speed.’
Since attending the kick-off briefing, Smiler had made herself scarce. She hadn’t been seen in the incident room again, nor over lunch break, and failed to show for the debriefing at 7 p.m. Now she had asked, he wondered if he should give her the long version, or the short.
He went for the latter. ‘We have no formal ID yet, ma’am.’
‘What about leads?’
‘We’ve drawn a blank in St Andrews, but have reported sightings in St Monans.’
‘Where’s that?’
Her question surprised him for a moment. But her professional life had been spent in Tayside, so he should not have expected her to know every fishing village in Fife. ‘On the coast, south of Anstruther, ma’am.’ He didn’t want her to think that the entire day had been a waste of resources, so he said, ‘I’ve been in contact with the Anstruther Office, and they’re going to assist us in door-to-doors first thing in the morning.’
‘I understand she was throttled to death?’
Well, so much for leads. It seemed he had Smiler wrong. She might have stayed out of sight for the day, but she’d kept abreast of his investigation on the QT. All of a sudden, he saw this meeting as something more than a face-to-face debriefing; some personal test he had yet to pass. So he said, ‘Yes, ma’am,’ then expanded on his thoughts of a powerful male perpetrator, aware of her eyes holding his in an unblinking stare.
‘And she didn’t put up any struggle,’ she said.
‘We’re not sure about that yet, ma’am.’
‘That wasn’t a question, DCI Gilchrist.’ She slid a folder which he hadn’t noticed until then from the edge of her desk and removed from it what looked suspiciously like a PM report. She flipped through a couple of pages. ‘She’d been drugged. Rohypnol. Alcohol. Both in sufficient quantities to ensure she would’ve been unconscious and unaware of what was happening to her, thank God.’
‘When did you get that report?’
‘This?’ She held it up like a prize. ‘About two hours ago.’
He raked his hair. Jessie hadn’t mentioned anything about the PM report. Had she been sidestepped, too? ‘Why didn’t I receive a copy?’
‘Because I instructed Dr Cooper to email it to me directly.’
Being the Senior Investigating Officer, and having a PM report withheld from him by both the forensic pathologist and his Chief Superintendent, particularly after he’d pressed so hard for an early copy, was not only tantamount to betrayal, but to conspiracy against him.
‘And when were you going to let me see it?’ he asked.
She could not have missed the bitterness in his tone, but she kept her composure. ‘If it contained anything that required your urgent attention,’ she said, ‘I would’ve sent it to you immediately.’
‘That’s for me to decide.’
‘Not in this instance, DCI Gilchrist.’
He exhaled a gasp of frustration. ‘She’d been drugged unconscious – new information that you thought didn’t require my attention?’
‘Urgent attention, DCI Gilchrist.’
‘That’s not the point,’ he said. ‘As SIO, I need to be advised of any and all matters relating to my investigation as and when they are received. Ma’am.’
She held his look for several seconds longer than considered polite, then said, ‘I wanted to talk to the Chief Constable before we had this discussion.’
Forget the alarm bells. Klaxons were sounding.
‘By all accounts you tend to have an unhealthy disregard for police procedures.’ Her eyes flared as they focused on his. ‘I wanted to know more about your background, DCI Gilchrist. So I spoke to Chief Constable McVicar to ask his personal opinion.’
Gilchrist was still at a loss. ‘About . . .?’
‘About your aggressive side, DCI Gilchrist. The side of your personality that you only reveal when making an arrest.’
Gilchrist gave her his best blank look, but thought he knew where she was going with this. ‘Any arrest in particular?’ he said. ‘Ma’am.’
‘Blair Stevenson?’ Her eyes burned. ‘I’d like you to explain, DCI Gilchrist. From the beginning.’
So he told her, explaining how he’d noticed what appeared to be a domestic dispute while driving, and how he’d stopped to intervene. He emphasised how drunk Blair had been, and how he’d attacked Gilchrist for no reason other than the fact he’d interrupted his verbal abuse of his partner, Jehane Marshall.
‘And you used no force in making the arrest?’ Smiley said.
‘No more than necessary, ma’am.’
‘His skull was split.’
‘Self-inflicted, headbutting my car’s rear wheel.’
‘I don’t follow.’
He described it to her.
‘His face and mouth were also grazed and cut,’ she said.
‘That happened in the scuffle to arrest him.’
‘And you don’t consider any of that excessive force, DCI Gilchrist?’
‘No, ma’am. Only sufficient force to overpower him.’
‘That’s not what his girlfriend says.’
‘His girlfriend was in the front garden in tears, and in no fit state to witness anything. I helped her to her feet and led her back indoors.’
‘Did you take her statement?’
Bugger it. He’d taken notes, but hadn’t asked Jehane to sign off on them because PC Tomkins had arrived and would take over. Or more correctly, because he’d been shivering from the cold and wet, and all he’d wanted to do was drive home, have a hot shower and change into dry clothes. Again he chose a safe answer. ‘No, I didn’t, ma’am.’
‘Why not?’
‘The van crew arrived within seconds of me calling it in, and they took over.’
‘Really?’
He could tell from the glint in her eye that he was wading deeper. But now he’d started, he couldn’t retreat.
‘Within seconds, you say?’
‘Minutes, more like.’
She took a sheet of paper from the files and said, ‘Six minutes, to be exact.’
‘If that’s what PC Tomkins says, then I wouldn’t want to argue with that, ma’am.’
‘I’m not asking you to argue with it, DCI Gilchrist. What I am asking is for you to be honest and forthcoming when you answer my questions.’ Another glare that reminded him of being pulled into the headmaster’s office. If he’d been wearing short trousers, he could be there right now. ‘Is that understood, DCI Gilchrist?’
‘It is, ma’am. Yes.’
‘Six minutes is not six seconds.’
‘What I meant to say was that it seemed like—’
‘After some consideration, I’ve decided not to assign a new SIO to this investigation, DCI Gilchrist. Chief Constable McVicar holds you in high regard, it seems.’ She scowled at the file on her desk. ‘But do I believe you? Or do I believe Blair Stevenson?’
He banked on it being a rhetorical question, so said nothing.
‘Well I can tell you that I certainly don’t believe Blair Stevenson.’
Not quite the affirmation he was looking for, but it was probably as close as he would come to receiving one from Smiler.
‘Stevenson sees his threat of legal action as an easy way to make a few quid.’ She lifted her eyes, and turned her hateful look his way. ‘And I don’t want him to succeed in that, DCI Gilchrist. Is that clear?’
‘It is, ma’am, yes.’
She slapped the file shut. ‘That’ll be all for now, DCI Gilchrist.’
He thought of asking for a copy of the PM report, but it had been a long and tiring day, and there was nothing more he could achieve – with or without the report. Jessie could follow up with Cooper in the morning.
Without a word, he turned and strode to the
door.
Outside, the car park at the rear of the Office sparkled with frost. Clouds had cleared to expose a gibbous moon more orange than white. The wind had dropped to little more than a breeze, as if that morning’s storm had only been imagined.
He clicked his remote fob, and his car winked at him.
Seated behind the wheel, he thought over the events of that day.
Although his relationship with Chief Superintendent Tom Greaves had deteriorated, at least Greaves had known the physical difficulties that often had to be overcome when making an arrest. But Smiler seemed interested in doing things only by the book. Rules of arrest were all well and good, but in the heat of the moment when you were dealing with a threatening and overpowering drunk, you didn’t hang around. You had to take the initiative.
Had he been too tough on Blair Stevenson? He hadn’t thought so. But he would have to find out. Fife Constabulary’s CCTV control centre was based in Glenrothes HQ, and headed by Mac Fountain.
He reached for his mobile. Said, ‘Sorry to disturb you, Mac. But I need your help.’
CHAPTER 6
Fourteen years earlier
Portree, Isle of Skye
They didn’t normally take a walk the other side of midnight, particularly when it was early March and raining, and certainly never when it rained as heavily as it was doing at that moment. In fact, when Norma thought about it, she and Bobby rarely walked anywhere together any more.
Which was so sad, as they used to be so much in love.
And not so long ago, either.
Had it been only eighteen months since she first thought she’d found the man of her dreams, the man she used to call the love of her life, her best best-friend ever, her soulmate? But something had changed in the last couple of months, or perhaps more correctly, Bobby had changed. And could she blame him? She had put weight back on, all the weight she’d lost for the wedding, and because of that, Bobby no longer found her attractive, she was sure.
But in her defence, she had never been a slim person, had always tended towards the tubby side of the equation. She’d told Bobby when they first met, that she was as slim as she’d ever been, that she’d forced herself on a diet of fruit and veg only, and small portions. But it was so hard to keep up – impossible to maintain, as it turned out – and when Bobby encouraged her to forget her diet, she jumped at the chance. You only live once, he’d said to her, and the first time they made love – for Norma it was the first time in four years, the main reason she’d gone on a diet – Bobby had told her that he much preferred a man’s woman, a woman with a bit of meat in the right places.
Oh, how she had fallen for him.
But it turned out he had lied to her. Started complaining about cellulite on her thighs, and telling her to cover up her arms, wear this instead of that. After a while it began to affect her confidence, so much so that she stopped going out shopping. She would just phone the Co-op and have their weekly shopping delivered. Clothes, too, were ordered online, and mailed back when she found they didn’t fit, or made her look too fat – nothing at all like the models in the ads. And nothing like some of the wives around the fishing village, who would give Bobby looks that could turn the head of a blind man.
That was when she decided to change her life, and reclaim the man of her dreams.
She bought herself an exercise bike and one of these skiing machines that toned the muscles on the arms and legs. She hired an architect to design an indoor gym – either knock down the walls between one of the six bedrooms, or add an extension. In the end, she decided to settle for extending the house, which was when Bobby learned of her plans.
And she had to say that his reaction surprised her. Instead of shouting at her, telling her she was wasting money, he warmed to the idea. In fact, he warmed to her, reminding her of how much he loved her and saying there was no need to spend all that money on a subcontractor to do the work. With him being a handyman, he would do most of the work himself. In the meantime, she could begin to recover some of her muscle tone by taking long walks.
Bobby was so encouraging, and so helpful, working around the house, buying in the food and drinks, preparing meals, serving up gin or vodka cocktails even when she thought she’d had one too many – you only live once, seemed to be his mantra.
Take tonight for example.
They’d shared a bottle of wine – well, somehow she had ended up having the bigger half – before Bobby made her one of his special cocktails. A Miami Whammy was what he called it. And she had laughed at that name. God knows what was in it, but it packed a punch for sure, and made her feel all wobbly and unable to think straight.
Chunks of her memory seemed to slip from her being, too. One second she was there, the next she was somewhere else without the faintest idea of how she’d got there. She could remember Bobby suggesting that they go for a walk together, that much was clear to her – but she had no recollection of putting on her raincoat and wellingtons, or leaving the house.
It just seemed as if she woke up from a dream, and . . .
Here she was.
‘I’m tired,’ she said.
‘Just a few more steps, my dearest, and we can rest over here.’
His arms were around her shoulders, pushing more than helping her. She stumbled as she lifted her face into the hard rain, but Bobby was there to catch her. Oh my, what a storm it was tonight. She should never have agreed to go for a walk on a night like this. But Bobby said the rain would clear her mind – she had a vague memory of him saying that. The stiff wind felt good, so maybe Bobby was right. She took deep breaths, tried to clear the cobwebs from her mind, shift that darkening veil of sleep that threatened to overpower her.
But it all seemed beyond her.
‘I think I’d like to go back home.’
‘Here we go, my dearest. Just a couple more steps . . .’
Norma had no feeling of falling, only a distant sense of Bobby’s arms no longer being there, and of the world tipping on to its side. Even her cry for help came out soundless, at the same instant she hit the water. The shock from the sea’s ice-coldness struck her like a hammer blow, injecting her with a flurry of panic that had her struggling against the sodden weight of her raincoat and swamped wellington boots that as good as sucked her down into the mud slurry of the harbour floor.
Her last conscious thought as her brain began its terminal shutdown was a question.
Only one word.
‘Bobby . . .?’
7.18 a.m., Friday
Crail, Fife
Snow had fallen overnight, a light coating that clung to Gilchrist’s car like icing to a cake. He had no ice-scraper handy, so he fired up the engine and let it idle with the heater on while he returned indoors for a pair of gloves. When he sat behind the wheel again, the screen had defrosted enough to clear with a couple of sweeps of the wipers.
He slipped into gear and eased forward.
This was the time of year he disliked the most – dark mornings becoming darker as winter solstice neared. And this year, winter seemed to have kicked off with a vengeance. As he turned on to High Street South, the gauge on his dash read −5 degrees Centigrade, which only added to the feeling that it was time to have a holiday in the sun, time to soak up the heat in some quiet place where you could wear shorts and a T-shirt in the evening, without a shiver running through you. The thought that the middle of winter was still four weeks away had him cursing under his breath.
He had just cleared Kingsbarns when his mobile rang – ID Jessie.
‘How’s your flu coming along?’ he asked.
‘No worse than a hangover.’ She coughed, and said, ‘Just been reading the PM report emailed from Her Majesty. You seen it yet?’
‘I’m heading to the Office right now.’
‘I’m betting she was raped.’
The nape of Gilchrist’s neck turned cold. Smiler had made no suggestion of sexual intercourse, even though Rohypnol was a known date-rape drug. ‘Why do you think that?�
�
‘Bruising of the buttocks, inner thigh and vagina, even though vaginal swabs showed no traces of semen. Of course, he could’ve worn a johnny’, or the sea could have flushed it all out. Either way, there’s nothing available for DNA.’
‘Bruising of the buttocks?’ he said. ‘Like . . .?’
‘Getting screwed from behind?’
‘Well . . .’
‘Rough doggie-style, you’re thinking?’
‘Well . . . no. I was thinking more of a beating, a kicking maybe, and not sexual.’
‘Oh it’s sexual all right,’ Jessie said. ‘No doubt about that.’
Something in the tone of Jessie’s voice warned Gilchrist that he might not like what he was about to hear. He gripped the steering wheel. ‘I’m listening.’
‘Bite-marks. A nice set either side of the labia majora – or piss-flaps in layman’s terms – as if he’s taken a full mouthful and just . . . I don’t know . . . tried to bite it off.’
‘What?’
‘Some serious bruising there, Andy.’
Gilchrist felt his breath leave him in a hard gush. ‘Oh for fuck sake,’ he said. ‘She was alive when he did that?’
‘Clearly yes, but from the levels of alcohol and Rohypnol in her blood, she was likely unconscious. At least I hope to God she was.’
Gilchrist reduced his speed and indicated left. He pulled off the road, bumped on to the verge and stopped. He checked the heat control – set at medium – but the cabin felt too hot. He took off his gloves and tore at his scarf, then opened the window and breathed in cool fresh air. He’d seen a lot in his time as a detective – battered faces, bloated bodies, writhing maggots – more than any one person should ever be exposed to, but rather than becoming inured to it all, he found it was affecting him now. The thought of some demented killer taking sexual pleasure from biting a woman’s genitalia was beyond him.
Six cars passed by before he realised Jessie had gone quiet on him.
‘You still there?’ he said.
‘You know, Andy, I hope to hell we catch this sick bastard, because I’m going to make sure I have the biggest set of secateurs money can buy, and I’m going to sneck his dick off at the roots.’