by Muir, T. F.
He brushed his fingers across the monitor.
‘What d’you think, boss?’
He had carried her skull, lifted it with his bare hands, held it close to his face, trying to develop a feel for the young woman behind it, never knowing that—
‘Boss?’
Gilchrist tilted his head to Stan, but he could not peel his gaze from her eyes.
‘You all right, boss?’
‘Kelly Roberts.’
Stan looked to the screen, then back at Gilchrist. ‘You know her?’
Gilchrist let out a rush of breath. ‘She used to go out with my brother Jack.’
Stan pulled a hand over his mouth, down on to his chin. ‘Shit.’
‘They split up not long before Jack was killed.’
Stan frowned. ‘I’m sorry, boss. I never knew your brother had . . .’
Gilchrist nodded. ‘I never saw her again. Now I know why.’
Stan pulled out his notebook. ‘What was she like? As a person, I mean.’
‘Friendly. Vivacious. Confident. She was American. A student at St Andrews University.’ He eyed the screen again. ‘She worked part-time in Lafferty’s, The Criterion back then, which was where he went for his underage drinking. He said she fell in love with St Andrews on one of her father’s golfing trips.’
‘Were her parents alive back then?’
‘I’ve no idea. But Jack never said they weren’t.’
‘Any reason why he would keep it from you if they were dead?’
Gilchrist shrugged. ‘None that I know of.’
‘So why didn’t they report her missing?’
‘Maybe they did. But in the States.’
Stan scribbled in his notebook.
‘The relationship was serious,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Jack once told me she was special.’
At that, Stan faced the screen, raised his eyebrows.
‘He used to bring her round to our home on Friday nights,’ Gilchrist pressed on, ‘before they went out to the cinema. I was twelve, Jack was seventeen, but mature way beyond his years. When he first introduced Kelly to our parents, I remember our old man couldn’t keep his eyes off her legs.’ Gilchrist shook his head at the memory. ‘Back then, the girls used to wear skirts as short as wide belts.’ He nodded as another memory came back to him. ‘And she never wore jewellery, Stan. I remember that, too. Only a watch.’
‘No watch was found, boss.’
‘Taken off and thrown away,’ Gilchrist said. He studied the screen, thought her image no longer looked as familiar, as if she had morphed to a sister lookalike. The shape of her mouth seemed wrong to him now, tighter where he recalled her lips being fuller. Her cheeks, too, more rounded where they should have been sculpted. But if he narrowed his eyes, let the image fade out of focus, her likeness returned to the beautiful woman his brother Jack had called special.
‘See if you can dig up her records from uni,’ he said to Stan. ‘That should give us her home address. If her parents are still alive, I’d like to talk to them.’
Gilchrist had just taken a sip of his Eighty when Gina Belli said, ‘A man of habit, I see.’
Defeated, he gestured to the seat opposite. ‘Why don’t you join me?’
She did, lighting up another Marlboro before nodding to his plate of bridie, chips and beans. ‘That’s bad for your cholesterol.’
‘It tastes good.’ He spread his palms. ‘Would you like some?’
‘I don’t do lunch.’
He eyed her through a fog. ‘They say the smoking ban will soon be passed into law.’
‘That’ll do wonders for morale.’ She tossed her head, blowing smoke from the corner of her mouth. ‘I spoke to Linda Melrose,’ she said. ‘She seemed upset.’
‘She should be. She’s remained silent for thirty-five years about a murder to which she was the only witness.’
‘Will she cooperate?’
‘Eventually.’
Gina nodded, took another pull. ‘And Fairclough? Did you find him?’
He noticed a tremor in her fingers, the tiniest of shakes, as if the nicotine had not yet worked through her nervous system. Or maybe her psychic reputation was at stake. Or her bestselling status. ‘Different animal altogether,’ he said.
‘Did he deny it?’
‘All knowledge.’
‘Do you think he’s the one?’
‘I’m working on it,’ he said, then added: ‘Before I forget. Do you have Jack’s lighter with you?’
‘It’s in the hotel room.’
‘Have you mentioned what I told you about the nicks?’
She took another draw, blew it out with a gush. ‘Give me some credit, for crying out loud.’
‘I take it that’s a no.’
She scowled at him.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Let’s keep it that way.’
She took another draw, which seemed to kill her anger. ‘Be careful, Andy.’
He eyed her over a mouthful of beer.
‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘I’m getting bad feelings about this.’
He returned his pint to the table. ‘Voices in your head again?’
She stubbed her cigarette into the ashtray, as if trying to grind it through the glass. Then she pushed her chair back, and stood. ‘You know, you can be a real bastard at times,’ she hissed, then strode from the bar.
No sooner had she left when a voice to his side said, ‘I see you haven’t lost your charm with women.’
DI ‘Tosh’ MacIntosh stood at the bar, no more than four feet from the back of Gina’s chair. How long had he been there? But, more worrying, had he overheard any of his conversation with Gina?
Gilchrist tilted his pint. ‘Up yours,’ he said to Tosh, and took a sip.
‘Not going to ask me to join you?’
‘Just leaving.’
‘I’d buy you a pint, Gilchrist, but I might have to piss in it first.’
Gilchrist pushed from the table and, without a word, walked from the bar.
By two that afternoon, Stan had retrieved Kelly’s records from the university. ‘She seemed to have it all,’ he said. ‘Beautiful and smart.’
Gilchrist scanned her records. Eighty-six per cent in English, her best subject. He remembered Jack telling him that Kelly lived somewhere north of New York City. He pulled her home address from the records, and a search on Google Maps confirmed that Wilton was a small town about eight miles north of Saratoga Springs in upstate New York. Several phone calls later, State records confirmed that Kelly’s father had died five years earlier. The US Postal Service verified that a Mrs Annie Roberts lived at the given address. This troubled Gilchrist. If both of Kelly’s parents had been alive at the time of her murder, why had they not reported her missing?
One way to find out.
He clicked on the recorder, introduced himself and Stan, then placed the call to the States.
‘Mrs Annie Roberts?’
‘Yes?’
‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Andy Gilchrist from Fife Constabulary in Scotland. I have you on speaker phone with Detective Sergeant Stan Davidson. We’re recording this call. Can you spare a few minutes to talk to us?’
‘Who did you say you were?’
Gilchrist repeated his introduction a little slower, more emphatic. ‘We’d like to ask you a few questions about your daughter.’
‘My daughter?’
‘Yes.’
‘My daughter Kelly?’
Gilchrist raised a hopeful eyebrow at Stan. ‘Yes.’
‘Have you found her?’
Gilchrist frowned at Stan, who eyed the phone with an intensity that almost burned. ‘Why do you ask that?’ Gilchrist tried.
‘Kelly’s been missing for thirty-five years.’
‘Did you report her missing?’
‘We did.’
‘Who to?’
‘The police, of course. But nothing ever came of it. Have you heard from her? Is she . . . is she all right?’
‘Mrs Robert
s, we’re looking into Kelly’s disappearance, and need to ask you a few questions that might help us with our . . . enquiries.’ He had almost said investigation and was already regretting calling. He should have flown out, had a face-to-face.
‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘From Scotland, did you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why Scotland?’
It was Gilchrist’s turn to be confused. ‘I’m not sure I follow.’
‘What was she doing in Scotland?’ she asked. ‘She disappeared in Mexico.’
Mexico? Gilchrist leaned forward, placed his hands on the table. ‘We have records of Kelly living in Scotland.’
‘She took a short-term course in English at St Andrews University, but she left there and went to Mexico.’
Stan spoke into the phone. ‘When was that?’
‘When she finished her studies.’
‘Yes, but which year?’
‘Sixty-nine.’
‘Month?’
‘She said her last exams were in January. She flew to Mexico not long after that.’
‘When did you last see Kelly, Mrs Roberts?’
‘Christmas sixty-eight. Tom and I flew over for a week.’
‘To St Andrews?’
‘Yes. Tom loved to golf.’
‘Where did you stay in St Andrews?’
‘I can’t remember the name of it now. Some hotel that overlooked the sea.’
The Scores, thought Gilchrist, an address for a number of hotels with sea vistas.
‘And after Kelly left St Andrews,’ Stan said, ‘when did you next see her?’
‘We didn’t.’
Gilchrist leaned forward, almost pushed Stan away from the phone. ‘Then how do you know she went to Mexico?’ he asked.
‘She flew there. Straight from St Andrews.’
Flying straight from St Andrews to Mexico was not possible, of course. But a flight from Edinburgh or Glasgow could connect to anywhere in the world. The rationale puzzled him. Kelly was killed in St Andrews. So where and how did Mexico fit in? It made no sense.
‘When we reported Kelly missing, the Sheriff ’s Office checked the flight manifesto and confirmed she’d been on it.’
Kelly had been on it? A flight to Mexico? Gilchrist frowned. What was he missing? ‘But you never saw her again,’ he said. ‘How do you know she actually stayed in Mexico?’
‘She sent us a postcard from Mexico City.’
Gilchrist leaned closer, lips almost at the phone. ‘Let me make sure I understand,’ he said. ‘Kelly sent a postcard from Mexico saying she had flown there from St Andrews?’
‘No. The one from Mexico said she would be home in a month.’ On the end of the line, she stalled. ‘That was the last Tom and I heard from her,’ she breathed.
The one from Mexico? ‘Did Kelly send you another postcard from somewhere else?’ he asked.
‘She sent one from St Andrews saying she was flying to Mexico.’
‘Did she always send you postcards?’
‘No. She usually wrote on an airmail letter. One of those lightweight blue envelopes that no one uses any more.’
‘So how many postcards did she send you?’
‘Only two.’
Gilchrist scowled at the phone. Had the postcards been written by the person who murdered her? That would explain the change in writing material. Was it as simple as that? A thought struck him. Perhaps a mother might have held on to the last keepsake from her missing daughter . . .
‘Do you still have the postcards?’
‘No.’
Gilchrist felt himself deflate. With today’s advancement in forensic science, what might he have been able to recover from—
‘Saratoga County Sheriff ’s Office has them.’
‘What?’
‘And the letters.’
Gilchrist almost punched the air. ‘All of them?’
‘Not all of them. I didn’t give them every one.’
Gilchrist pulled himself upright. He took a deep breath. Something was still not right. Surely a mother would have recognized her own daughter’s handwriting. Unless . . .
‘How were the postcards written?’ he asked.
‘They were typed, not written.’
‘Did Kelly sign her name?’
‘She did, but it wasn’t her normal signature.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She hurt her hand and couldn’t hold a pen. She said so in the postcards. I didn’t think anything of it. Should I have? Have you . . . have you . . . found her?’
Stan returned Gilchrist’s gaze, and Gilchrist shook his head. This was not the kind of news to drop on someone over the phone. He tried to keep his voice level. ‘Mrs Roberts,’ he began, ‘we are trying to identify the remains of a young woman found in a cemetery on the outskirts of St Andrews. If Kelly had flown to Mexico, the remains are unlikely to belong to her.’
‘Oh.’
‘For completeness of our records,’ he rushed on, ‘would you have any objection to giving a sample for DNA analysis? I could arrange for someone from your local police to visit you at home and take a sample. Just a mouth swab. Some saliva would do. Just to be sure.’
‘I’m . . . I’m . . .’
‘It would really help us with our enquiries,’ he pressed.
‘Well, if it will help, then I don’t see why not.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Roberts. You’ve been extremely helpful. And I’m sorry to hear of Kelly’s disappearance.’
‘Thank you, Mr . . . ?’
‘Gilchrist.’
‘Gilchrist?’ She repeated his name twice more, then said, ‘Thank you, Mr Gilchrist.’
From the muffled sounds on the phone, Gilchrist knew she was crying. ‘Our lives were never the same after Kelly disappeared,’ she said. ‘I’m sure if Kelly had been around, Tom would still be alive. He lost something when she disappeared. We both did.’
Stan sat tight-lipped, scratching his pen on his notepad.
Gilchrist felt his own lips tighten. If Mrs Roberts had been in the interview room, he would have put his arms around her, but he could do nothing for her now, other than find the person who had killed her daughter.
‘One final question,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘Did Kelly ever receive any letters after she left for Mexico?’
Stan stopped doodling.
‘She had her monthly statements from the bank. Tom closed her account a year or so after she disappeared. The statements were just a reminder.’
‘What did you do with her mail?’
‘After a while, we just boxed it all together and put it in the attic.’
‘Is it still there?’
‘It is. Yes.’
‘Can you remember if she ever received any mail from anyone in Scotland?’
‘I’m not sure. I was always looking out for another postcard. But none arrived.’
Of course not, thought Gilchrist. He thanked her and, as her voice broke again, pressed the button to end the call.
He raked his hair. Kelly’s mother had kept her hopes alive for all these years. Even her voice at the beginning of their call had soared with hope.
Have you found her?
Yes, he should have said. Yes, we’ve found her and I regret to inform you . . .
Stan switched off the recorder and closed his notepad. ‘What’s with the mail from Scotland?’ he asked.
‘Just a thought,’ Gilchrist said. ’Email a copy of the computer image to Saratoga County Sheriff ’s Office, and have them visit Mrs Roberts for an ID and a DNA sample. Put some heat under them. Tell them it’s urgent, and that we need to move fast.’
‘Got it.’
‘And find out where Rita Sanderson lives.’
‘Who?’
‘Jack’s flatmate.’
When Stan left the room, Gilchrist played the recording back. He paused it when he came to the postcards. Postcards? Two of them? Sent by the killer to make Kelly’s parents
believe their daughter was still alive, doing well, learning more about life by flying to Mexico? Even though she had not been on the flight, the manifesto confirmed otherwise. Which meant that whoever had taken the cudgel to the side of her head was not a crazed killer but someone with a clever mind, smart, devious.
Intelligent enough to be a doctor?
His earlier worries as to how Jack’s lighter had found its way into Kelly’s grave could now be readily answered. Jack could have given it to her, or Kelly could have taken it from him and forgotten to return it. Now that conundrum was out of the way, Pennycuick’s face shimmered once again in his mind’s eye. Calm, controlled, with the foresight, mental acuity and brazen nerves to write two postcards to Kelly’s parents. But how could he have faked the flight manifesto? Could that have been done back in the sixties?
All of a sudden, Gilchrist’s mind filled with an image of Pennycuick’s wife taking her seat on a plane. Could she have flown to Mexico under Kelly’s name? Was that possible?
Gilchrist clicked on the recorder and listened to some more.
Did Kelly ever receive any letters after she left for Mexico?
Stan had seemed puzzled by that question. But Gilchrist knew Jack had written to Kelly. He had seen him in his bedroom, eyes red-rimmed, hair ruffled, unkempt, a student struggling with the difficulties of imminent exams. But Gilchrist had known, even at the age of twelve, that Jack was pining for his lost love, his special girl, his lost American girlfriend. Were Jack’s letters to Kelly now lying in the box in the attic? What would the local police make of them if they found them? Kelly’s disappearance had been reported by her parents, and nothing had come of it. If the local police had taken on the case with any determination and had contacted Fife Constabulary with their suspicions, they might now find something in the local files. But so far, they had not.
So, what had happened?
Was the answer to Kelly’s murder in her mail?
We just boxed it all together and put it in the attic.
Which really left Gilchrist with only one option.
He would have to fly out and see for himself.
CHAPTER 14
After checking flights to the States and hotel vacancies in Saratoga Springs, Gilchrist decided to tie up some loose ends in the morning, then fly to the States the following day. He tried calling Nance about Fairclough’s car, but ended up leaving a message on her mobile telling her to meet him in Lafferty’s. By the time she arrived he had finished his burger and was on his second Eighty-Shilling.