Hand for a Hand (13 page)

“Address?”

“Never met the guy.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know his surname, would you?”

“Sorry.”

“Thanks, Jack. You’re a great help.”

“Why don’t you try Mo on her mobile?”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” he said, and hung up.

He stared at his phone. When he had been Jack’s age, had he been as uninterested in family? He saw, as if for the first time, how like Gail Jack was. And Maureen, too. Had he contributed nothing to the gene banks of his children?

He struggled to refocus.

Despite the obvious, he tried Maureen’s mobile again, once, twice, then her home, counting twenty-two rings before hanging up. He glanced at his watch. Even if he jumped into his Merc at that moment, it would take him the best part of an hour and a half to drive to Maureen’s. But what would that achieve? And that thought made him realise that he had to place his trust in Dainty. Dainty would call as soon as he found Maureen. In the meantime, Gilchrist would do what he could to move his investigation forward, and pray that he had it all wrong.

But if his worst fears were realised, even God could not help him.

S
HE CAME TO
,
her face pressed against carpet pile as short and rough as sandpaper.

She opened her eyes, but in the darkness she could have been blind. She moved her arms, and realised with a spurt of panic that she was bound, her hands tied behind her back. She gasped, but a gag as tight as binding tape pressed her lips shut. She breathed in through her nostrils, hard, struggling to stay calm as other senses stirred awake.

The smell of dirt and petrol.…

The thrum of speeding tires.…

Her stomach lurched at that moment, from movement that told her she was in the boot of some car. And again, as they crested a hill at speed and another fear hit her in a cold wave as she fought off the dizzying sensation of motion sickness.

She could not throw up. Her lips were sealed.

If she vomited, she would choke to death.

No. Not this, not this. Concentrate.…

Her throat constricted as her stomach spasmed.

Dear God, no.…

Chapter 15

G
ILCHRIST CORNERED
N
ANCE
at Golf Place.

“Find anything?” he asked.

She opened her notebook to a tabbed page. “A Mr. Fraser Crowley, staying at the Glen Eden Guest House, saw a car race out of Golf Place at around 4:00 this morning.”

“Details?”

“Not a lot, I’m afraid.”

“Make? Model? Colour? Registration number? What?”

“Hold your horses. The elderly Mr. Crowley—”

“Elderly?” Gilchrist groaned.

“Fraser is seventy-two with a mind as sharp as a tack.”

“First name terms, are we?”

“He’s quite the lad.”

Even so, Gilchrist felt a rush of disappointment. The elderly often proved unreliable witnesses and could break down in court under relentless cross-examination. Just how sharp was a tack at seventy-two?

“He thought the car was being driven erratically,” Nance continued. “Before passing the R&A clubhouse it swerved across the road then sped uphill.”

Gilchrist eyed the lone stone building. The car could have crossed the road so the driver could throw the package beyond the footpath. Had Crowley witnessed the leg being dumped?

“A Jaguar,” Nance pronounced. “XJ-12 with silver paintwork.”

Gilchrist blinked once, twice. He had seen a Jaguar just like that. It took him several seconds to remember where. The
road-block in Cupar. He had walked past it, more focused on the Vauxhall Astra. Damn. Had that been
the
XJ-12? Was there any difference between the body of an XJ-12 and an XJ-6? If so, could Crowley have noticed it at that time in the morning? And from a hotel room window?

“Where was Crowley when he saw the car?” he asked.

“Martyrs’ Monument.”

“At four in the morning?”

“Said he had an upset stomach and went outside for a breath of fresh air.”

Martyrs’ Monument stood on the hill at the crest of the Scores. Which meant that Crowley would have been about a hundred yards away.

“Where is this Crowley?” Gilchrist asked.

L
IGHT EXPLODED, BLINDING
her.

Fingers as sharp as talons dug into her hair, pulled her upright, dragged her from the boot. The sudden movement, the brightness, the sense of freedom—

Her stomach pumped.

Vomit surged into her throat, choking her airways, squirting from her nostrils.

“Ah, fuck,” and a hand as hard as a board sent her tumbling to the ground.

Fingers tore the tape free, letting vomit splash from her mouth.

She spat it out, gulped in lungfuls of cool clean air. But any thoughts of calling for help thudded into darkness as a fist as hard as stone cracked the side of her head.

I
T TOOK THEM
two hours to find Crowley by the rocks that fronted the Scores, kneeling by one of the sea pools, nothing more than puddles of seawater trapped by the receding tide.

Crowley looked up as they approached, then stood with barely
a grimace. “Ah,” he said with a grin. “The lovely Nancy Wilson.” He came towards them, stepping over rocks with the sure-footed agility of a man half his age. Sunlight sparkled in eyes as blue as bleached denim. His teeth were gap-spaced, long and white. “We meet again,” he said.

“This is DCI Gilchrist,” Nance said. “My boss.”

Crowley nodded, as if he was a competitor about to post a challenge for Nance’s hand. “A pleasure,” he said.

“You don’t wear glasses,” Gilchrist said.

“I’m a retired pilot. My eyesight has always been excellent.”

“The Jaguar,” Gilchrist went on. “You sure it was an XJ-12?”

“You can tell from the front grille.”

“Expert on cars, are you?”

“Cars no, Jaguars yes.”

“Own one, do you?”

“I own several. The pride of my fleet is a ’73 convertible E-type V12. Rarely drive the thing, of course.”

“Of course.” Gilchrist felt a smile tug at his lips. Crowley looked like one of those individuals with a panache for life, who earned big money, drank fine wine, made love to beautiful women. And drove fast cars. “It was silver,” he said to Crowley. “What else can you tell me about it?”

“1988-ish, I’d say. Run down. Not well looked after. Original paint job. Could do with a respray.”

“And all this at 4:00 in the morning?”

“Not at all. I’d seen it before.”

Nance pressed forward. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“You never asked, dear Nancy.”

Nance glanced at Gilchrist. He took over. “Where exactly did you see it before?”

“Market Street. By the fountain. Last Tuesday.”

“You’re clear on that?”

“I visit the bank every Tuesday.”

“What time was this?”

“Around 2:00 in the afternoon.”

“Did you see the driver?”

“No.”

“Any passenger?”

“Couldn’t say.”

“Eighty-eightish?”

Crowley’s eyes creased, and Gilchrist caught an image of the younger man as a dashing pilot. “About that, I would say.”

“Did you see the registration number?”

“I’m hopeless now with numbers,” Crowley said. “Memory’s not as good as it used to be.”

“But you might have seen the number and associated that with a year of registration, then forgotten the number?”

Crowley shook his head.

“We’ll run a search on PNC,” Gilchrist said to Nance. “Every silver Jaguar XJ-12 from ’86 through ’90.”

Nance scribbled it down.

“Would you recognise it again?” Gilchrist asked.

“Absolutely.”

“When you saw it at that bank, how close were you?”

“Close enough to see the tax disc had expired.”

“Did you note the month?”

“Now you’re asking.”

“See anything on any of the seats?”

Crowley shook his head.

“Papers? Documents? Umbrellas? Jackets?”

“Anything?” Nance chipped in.

“I wasn’t looking.”

“Spotless, was it?” Gilchrist tried.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“What would you say?”

“Once I saw it was run down, I didn’t give it too much attention. That’s a big no-no for a Jaguar enthusiast.” Crowley grimaced. “Tires were worn. Blisters of rust on the wheel arches.
The whole thing needed a good wash, wax and polish. Inside and out. It’s a disgrace that a car so majestic could be treated with such disdain—”

“Any stickers? Aerials? That sort of thing?”

“The boot lid had been patch-painted.”

Gilchrist stiffened. “Painted?”

“With red lead. Poorly, I might add.”

Red lead. An undercoat used as rust prohibitor on metal. Gilchrist remembered the Jaguar in the roadblock, its boot as dark as spilled blood. “How long do you intend to stay in St. Andrews?” he asked Crowley.

“Until the end of the month.”

“Then?”

“Spring in upstate New York with my brother.”

“No Mrs. Crowley?”

“She passed away six years ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Gilchrist said, regretting having raised the subject of wives. Time to leave. “Give your full contact details to DS Wilson,” he added. “And don’t leave town without letting us know.”

“Is that necessary?”

But Gilchrist was walking up the path towards Martyrs’ Monument.

Crowley’s sighting of the Jaguar last Tuesday troubled him. If it was the same Jaguar used to dump the leg, why had it been in town then? On the other hand, why not? The killer could have driven from Glasgow for a number of reasons. And Gilchrist felt something jar at that thought. The killer knew Gilchrist. Did he also know Watt?

When he thought about it, it seemed odd that on the day Watt returned to St. Andrews the hand was discovered. And Watt was first on the scene. First day on the job, first on the scene? Was that coincidence? But Gilchrist did not believe in coincidence. When things happened together they were connected. Believe that, and everything else fell into place.

He now saw the flaw in his earlier rationale. The killer had known Gilchrist would solve the cryptic clues. It then followed that Maureen would be taken long before the last body part turned up. Leaving it any later would risk Gilchrist’s securing her safety. Maureen lived in Glasgow. And the Jaguar would be registered in Glasgow. On that he would bet his life. But he had taken no action. How could he have been so stupid? He looked down at the black rocks, at Nance still in conversation with Crowley, and saw he had to take action now.

He shouted, pointed to Golf Place, then ran.

He ran in that long-legged stride of his that had served him well on cross-country runs at school, and in later years through days of personal training. His gangly build would never permit him to be a sprinter, but he could jog at a steady pace for hours.

He had the Merc’s engine started and the gear lever slotted before he closed the door.

He floored the pedal, reversed into Golf Place, and skidded to a halt.

Nance grabbed the door handle and jumped in as the tires squealed. The quick dash and the urgency with which Gilchrist had rushed into action had her breath pumping with excitement. She clicked on her seatbelt as the Merc accelerated up the hill. She knew him well enough not to press for details, and quipped, “Forgot a clean pair of underpants?”

Gilchrist turned right, raced across oncoming traffic.

Tires screeched. Horns blared.

Two pedestrians jumped back as if the road surface had scorched their feet.

Nance pressed her hands against the dashboard as the Merc tore across the roundabout at Pilmour Links and City Road. She had heard of Gilchrist’s relentlessness on the job, but never experienced it first-hand. Now the set of his jaw, the look in his eyes, told her just how focused he could be.

“Call the Office and have someone check up on Jack,” he ordered.

Nance put two and two together, and gasped, “First Chloe, now Jack?”

He shook his head. “Maureen.”

The reality of Gilchrist’s dilemma hit her like a punch to the chest. The case had just turned personal in a major way. She stared at him, watched him eye the road ahead with cold determination, but thought she caught the look of something else in his face—fear.

“Start praying,” he said to her, as he pulled out and overtook three cars.

“For good brakes?”

“That we’re not too late.”

Chapter 16

O
N THE OTHER
side of Cupar, Dainty called Gilchrist.

“Maureen’s slipped us.”

“What about your man—”

“That’s another bloody matter,” Dainty growled. “Followed her from her flat. On her way to work, he assumed. And lost her. In the city centre? It beggars fucking belief.”

Gilchrist gritted his teeth. All his senses were screaming at him.

Too damn late. And stupid. So fucking stupid
.

“Do you know where she works?” Dainty asked.

“Let me get back to you.”

Gilchrist twisted his hands on the steering wheel. The problem was that he did not know where she worked. He’d never had a reason to call her at work, called her only on her mobile or at home. Wouldn’t any normal father know where his daughter worked? Had he failed his family so completely that Maureen could not discuss her life with him? And it struck him that Jack might know.

He caught him on his mobile phone.

“Hey, Andy. How’s it going?”

Jack’s upbeat tone surprised Gilchrist, until he caught the hubbub in the background. “Which pub?” he asked.

“Quit playing Sherlock Holmes, Andy,” Jack said. “But if you must know, it’s the Whey Pat.”

The Whey Pat Tavern
. The pub where he and Gail first met. He had not set foot in it since Gail left, as if to do so was a violation
of his memories of her, of his family, of how it used to be when they were in love, before his career and her infidelity destroyed what they had.

“You don’t know where Maureen works, do you?”