by T F Muir
‘Jessie.’
‘I know Tommy and Terry are criminals and that, but can you blame them? They had to stand up for themselves. Christ, they were beaten at home, and beaten at school. Terry used to come home from school with a black eye every week—’
‘Jessie.’
‘Every week. Christ on a stick, I mean, can you imagine putting up with that? And what comfort did he get when he got home? None from that bloody bitch. Just another smack across the head with that leather belt. I had to get away. That’s why I joined the police. Did I tell you that? No, I suppose not—’
‘Jessie.’
‘But I—’
‘Jessie,’ Gilchrist said, louder than intended. But it did the trick. The line went silent for several beats, making him think she had hung up, until he heard the scrape of a hand over the mouthpiece, thought he caught muffled mewing. He waited for her to come back to him, but realised she was through talking. ‘Are you OK, Jessie?’
Silence.
He thought of just hanging up, but how could he do that when she’d called to seek his support? And if not him, who else could she speak to?
‘Jessie,’ he said, ‘losing someone is never easy . . .’
‘But I hate the bitch.’ She sniffed, exhaled into the mouthpiece. ‘For crying out loud, what the hell’s wrong with me? Why am I crying over that fucking bitch?’
‘Because she was your mother.’
‘Who I hated.’
He let a couple of seconds pass, then said, ‘You’re upset over what could’ve been, Jessie. You had a rough start in life. And maybe your mother was to blame for that. But no matter how you remember her, she was the woman who brought you into this world, the woman who gave you—’
‘She gave me bugger all, the bitch.’
‘She gave you the chance to be a mother yourself.’
He waited for some cutting comment, but his words seemed to have settled her. So he pressed on. ‘You had a terrible relationship with your mother. But because of that, you know what doesn’t work, and you now have a great relationship with your son.’
She sniffed, cleared her throat, but said nothing.
‘Robert loves you,’ he said. ‘And you love him. And he loves you because you’re a good mother.’
Another sniff. ‘I’m sorry, Andy. I’m sorry . . . I shouldn’t have—’
‘Yes, you should. That’s what I’m here for.’
A pause, then, ‘I can’t believe how it’s affecting me. It’s just . . . it’s . . .’
‘It’s normal,’ he said.
‘Jesus.’
‘Your mother was a huge part of your life, without you ever realising it.’
‘I’m not sure what I’m going to do,’ she said, her voice stronger, more like the Jessie he knew. ‘I mean, whether I should go to her funeral.’
‘Sleep on it,’ he said. ‘You’ll know what to do in the morning.’ A few seconds went by, then he said, ‘How did you find out?’
‘Phone call from Strathclyde. A Detective Sergeant I used to work with.’
He thought silence as good a response as any.
‘I’m sorry, Andy. Sir. It’s late. I’ll talk to you in the morning.’
‘Take the morning off, Jessie.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You can.’
The line filled with the rush of digital silence, then she said, ‘G’night.’
‘Goodnight.’ He held on until the line clicked.
He switched off the TV and picked up his whisky. The mood for a nightcap had left him. Rather than decant it back into the bottle, he slid the tumbler into the fridge, the memory of his father’s fearsome words – whisky’s a warm drink – bringing a smile to his lips. He’d not had a good relationship with his father, far from it. Nothing like Jessie’s with her mother, but his father had governed his home with strict Presbyterian authority – and look where that had got him.
He stripped off his clothes and washed the day’s coldness from his skin with a stinging hot shower. He turned the heating down before slipping between the sheets, shivering at the smooth cotton coldness. He picked up a notepad and pen from his bedside table, to jot down a few ideas for tomorrow morning’s briefing.
But sleep pulled him down, and his last waking thought at the end of that long Friday was a memory of Jessie’s mother shouting down at him from her Easterhouse home, the air almost sparking from the language, and her brother, Terry, rushing at him, eyes wild with drink and anger, muscled body tattooed as if dipped in ink.
And of Jessie sitting quietly in his car, tears welling in her eyes.
CHAPTER 12
Saturday
North Street police station
By mid-morning, Gilchrist’s investigation was stalling. As predicted, checking manifests for flights to Tenerife and other destinations was proving to be a waste of manpower. Even though he had managed to pull in IT support from Anstruther and Cupar, the task of searching hundreds of holiday flights to hundreds of destinations seemed endless.
His first break came a few minutes before 1 p.m., when PC Sweeney took a call on the hotline number, and signalled for Gilchrist to pick up the other line.
‘She kept saying, I know who she is, I know who she is, then she broke down. I’m sorry, sir, I can’t make her out now.’
Gilchrist picked up his landline to the sound of a woman sobbing. ‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Gilchrist,’ he said. ‘Who am I speaking to?’ But the caller continued to sob. He asked again, more forcefully, but the woman was beyond listening. Then he turned to Sweeney. ‘Can we get a fix on this number?’
‘Already got it, sir. It’s a mobile.’
Back to the phone. ‘I want you to hang up,’ he said. ‘Do you hear me? I’ll give you a call back in exactly ten minutes. Ten minutes. You got that?’ He thought he heard her gasp something, but the connection was poor. Then the line died.
He replaced the handset in its cradle and faced Sweeney. ‘Let’s have it.’
‘She said she picked up a British newspaper in a grocery store in Xàbia, saw the picture and recognised the woman. I know who she is, she kept saying. I know who she is.’
‘So who is she?’
‘I couldn’t make her out.’
‘And where’s Xàbia?’
‘Spain, sir. Mediterranean coast. North of Benidorm. Here, let me play the tape back for you.’
A woman’s voice burst from the speaker – Scottish, was about all he could tell – and by the time his own voice cut in, he was none the wiser. He switched it off and said, ‘Give me that number, including the international dialling code.’
Sweeney jotted it down.
Gilchrist pushed from his desk. He found Mhairi in Jackie’s office.
‘Xàbia, in Spain,’ he said. ‘Where’s the nearest international airport?’
‘Alicante, sir. My parents have been there.’
It seemed that everybody had been to Xàbia bar himself. ‘See if Kandy Lal was on any flights to Alicante from Edinburgh or Glasgow. Start off with budget airlines. Let me know as soon as you have a hit.’ It was a long shot, he knew, but he needed something to be done while he watched the clock tick off ten minutes.
He returned to his desk, sat down – six minutes to go – then got to his feet again. He filled a paper cone from the water cooler, drained it, then scrunched it up and threw it into the wastepaper bin. A quick look into Jackie’s office offered nothing new, and he walked back to his office, where he flipped through a file. But his eyes scanned the words, while his mind took nothing in.
One minute to go – close enough. Making sure the recorder was on, he picked up his landline and dialled the international code, followed by her mobile number. He fretted as he listened to a phone ringing. Had he been too hasty in hanging up? Should he have stayed on the line until she pulled herself together? The line clicked as the connection was made . . .
To voicemail, and an automatic recording.
‘Shit.’ He killed
the call and tried again.
Same result.
‘Third time lucky?’ he muttered, and hit the redial button.
The call was answered on the first ring. ‘Hello?’
The connection was strong, her voice clear. ‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Andy Gilchrist of Fife Constabulary,’ he said. ‘You called the hotline number. You can remain anonymous if you’d like, but it would be helpful if you could give me your name.’
‘Manikandan Lal.’
He almost punched the air. ‘How do you spell that?’
She rattled it off with a thick Scottish accent – Glaswegian, he thought.
‘And your home address?’
She gave it to him – Manderley Cottage in St Monans. So far, so good. ‘You were upset on the phone earlier,’ he said. ‘Can you talk now?’
‘I think so, yes.’
He caught a slight tremor in her voice. He would have to stay in control, keep her talking, prevent her breaking down. ‘You recognised the woman from a newspaper, you said. Do you know her name?’
‘Alice Hickson,’ she said, and spelled it out for him.
He pressed the phone hard to his ear. All the pieces were clicking into place. ‘And how do you know Alice?’
‘We’re friends, she’s a journalist . . .’ a pause, then ‘. . . was a journalist.’
He carried on, keeping her focused. ‘When did you last see Alice?’
‘Monday night. We’d had a few drinks at my place, then she walked home. We were flying to Spain the following morning, and sharing a car to the airport.’
‘Sharing a cab?’
‘No. A car.’
‘A friend’s car?’
‘Yes. Scott Black. Alice knows him. But I got a text from her in the morning, saying she’d make her own way to the airport and just meet me there.’
‘Did you ask her why?’
‘No. She’s independent that way. I thought nothing of it.’
‘And she didn’t show up at the airport?’
‘No.’
Something didn’t fit. ‘So you just flew off on holiday by yourself?’
‘What could I do? I had my ticket. And she texted me again at the airport to tell me she’d fly out later that day.’
‘Did you get any other texts from her?’
‘No. That was the last one. I texted her, phoned her and emailed her, but I got no reply. I was worried sick. And then, when I saw her photo in the newspaper . . .’
He could sense she was about to lose it. ‘That last time you saw her,’ he said quickly, ‘you’d had a few drinks, then she walked home.’
‘Yes.’
‘By herself?’
‘Yes.’
‘So she has a place of her own?’
‘She rents.’
‘Do you know where she lives?’
She gave him an address, which he jotted down, scribbled search warrant next to it, and passed to PC Sweeney.
‘Was Alice married?’
‘No.’
‘Next of kin?’
A pause, then, ‘I don’t know.’
‘No brothers or sisters?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Parents alive?’
‘I don’t know.’
His rapid-fire questions were keeping her mind in focus. ‘Was Alice in a relationship with anyone?’
‘I don’t know if you’d call him a boyfriend,’ she said, ‘but Scott sometimes did some work for her.’
‘Scott Black?’
‘Yes.’
Now he was getting somewhere. ‘Do you have an address for Scott?’
‘Not off the top of my head.’
‘OK. You texted and phoned Alice. Can you give me her mobile phone number?’
‘Oh no.’
‘What’s up?’
‘My battery’s low. I don’t know how long I’ve got.’
Oh no indeed. ‘Where are you staying? I can call your hotel.’
‘I’m flying home tonight. I can meet you tomorrow if you’d like.’
‘You got a pen and paper?’
‘No.’
He rattled off the address anyway. ‘It’s the only police station in St Andrews,’ he said, ‘so you can’t miss it.’ He didn’t want to mention the possibility of her ID-ing the body in case that set her off again, so he agreed a time of 11 a.m. the following day – Sunday – at the North Street police station.
The phone beeped.
Then the line died.
He pushed his chair back and smiled. He’d had more questions, but they could wait until the morning. At last he felt positive about his investigation, and he spent the next ten minutes replaying the recording, jotting down more notes in preparation for their Sunday-morning meeting.
He walked to Jackie’s office, surprised to see Jessie, elbows on the desk, face to the monitor. She seemed her normal self, nothing like the woman on the phone last night. Catching his puzzled look, she said, ‘Can’t keep me away,’ then nodded to Mhairi who handed him a printout.
‘We got a hit on Manikandan Lal,’ Mhairi said, ‘on a return flight to Edinburgh from Alicante on easyJet.’
‘She’s flying back tonight,’ he said.
Mhairi’s smile evaporated. ‘You already knew that, sir?’
‘Just off the phone with her. We’ve got a meeting set up for tomorrow. She’s ID-ed our woman as Alice Hickson. So well done, everyone. I’ve also got Alice Hickson’s address, and have applied for a search warrant. We should have it later today.’ He turned to Jackie. ‘I want you to do a search for a local handyman. Scott Black. Start in St Monans. Then spread out if you have to. Work and home address, mobile number, the lot.’
‘And Scott Black is who?’ Jessie asked.
‘Alice Hickson’s . . .’ He clawed the air. ‘Boyfriend?’
‘And the last person to have seen her alive?’
‘That’s what I’m thinking.’ He brought them up to speed with his phone call with Kandy, ending: ‘Alice was alive on Tuesday morning, because she sent Kandy a couple of texts.’
‘Or someone sent them using Alice’s mobile,’ Jessie said.
‘If they did, then that’s our killer. But until we find that phone, we won’t know.’
‘You don’t have a number for it, do you?’
‘We got cut off before I could ask.’ He raked his hair in frustration. ‘Flat battery.’
‘It’s a woman thing,’ Jessie said.
‘Right,’ he said, as Jackie waved at him. Her printer clicked alive and spewed out a single sheet.
He picked it up, a single mobile phone number for Black and a couple of addresses, one physical, the other a website for SB Contracting. ‘Can you access the website, Jackie?’
She grinned, and nodded to her monitor.
‘You’ve already got it up?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Well done,’ he said, and squeezed her shoulder in appreciation. Then he leaned down to the screen and tapped About on the bar menu at the top of the page. ‘Can you open that page for me?’
The screen shifted to half a page of text.
He ran his eye down it – generic contracting language: fences, walls, flooring, tiling, renovation – you name it, SB Contracting did it. He had Jackie access every page on the bar menu, but the website was basic, nothing but text in poorly written English, no hyperlinks, no photographs of previous work, and no images of the owner, Scott Black.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked Jessie.
‘Good enough to kick some contractor’s arse.’
He handed Mhairi the printout. ‘Chase up that search warrant, and contact me the instant you get it.’ Then he walked to the door, Jessie beside him.
‘I’m giving you directions again?’
‘Got it in one.’
CHAPTER 13
Once Gilchrist hit the A915, he upped his speed to eighty.
Hedges, fences, grass verges whipped past in a dizzying blur.
Jessie sat s
ilent, staring out the window, for once seemingly oblivious to the speed.
Gilchrist hadn’t yet told her that he’d phoned DCI Peter ‘Dainty’ Small of Strathclyde Police first thing that morning. Not a big man – five six as best Gilchrist could recall – Dainty had gone on to carve out an impressive career for himself. He’d joined Fife Constabulary at the same time as Gilchrist, but then moved to Glasgow. They’d kept in contact, exchanging information as the need arose. And after Jessie’s phone call last night, the need most definitely had arisen.
According to Dainty, Jessie’s mother was a known user, and fresh needle-marks in her arms suggested hard drugs had caused her to overdose. Toxicology results to confirm exactly which drugs had not come back yet.
‘But the fucking question is,’ Dainty had said, ‘were they self-administered?’
‘You’re thinking she was murdered?’
‘The way she was found? One breast hanging out, underwear down to her fucking knees. I’m thinking she’d been posed to make it look like a sexual attack gone wrong.’
‘What about CCTV?’
‘Fucking everywhere. But half the bastards are battered to fuck. We’re doing the necessary, calling in favours, checking out what’s what.’
‘Any suspects?’
Dainty lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘Our difficulty is that Jeannie Janes was on closer than speaking terms with big Jock Shepherd, if you get my meaning. If she’s been dumped in the lane to get back at Jock, we could be filling up the morgue by the middle of next fucking week.’
‘What about Tommy and Terry?’ Gilchrist had asked, and been assured that Jessie’s criminal brothers were under the watchful eye of Strathclyde Police. He had ended the call by asking Dainty to contact him if he found anything. Another look at Jessie warned him it was best to keep quiet about his call to Dainty.
At least for the time being.
They had just passed the turn-off to Cameron Reservoir when Jessie turned from the window. ‘Life’s just like one never-ending uphill struggle,’ she said.
‘And then you die?’
She coughed out a laugh, a bit forced, he thought. ‘My family’s fucked up, and I’ve done what I could to keep them away from Robert. My bitch for a mother tried to contact him when I first came up to St Andrews. Nothing to do with wanting to see him, more wanting me not to have him. That’s the twisted rationale of a psychopath. But it was always at the back of my mind that Robert might meet her somehow, and she’d get her hooks in.’