Life For a Life (36 page)

‘Steady on, love,’ she said. ‘I’m still stitched up.’

Gilchrist’s mobile vibrated and he pulled it from his pocket – a number not logged in his system. He thought of just ignoring it, then said, ‘Duty calls,’ and nodded to Angie as he pushed through the door to take the call.

He did not give his name but said, ‘Hello?’

‘Mr Gilchrist?’ A woman’s voice, as rough as Glasgow gravel.

‘Who’s this?’

‘You don’t know me but we need to meet.’

Gilchrist stepped past the lift and headed for the stairs. ‘Why do we need to meet?’

‘Do you know the King’s Bar in Nethergate—’

‘You’re not answering my question.’

‘Meet me there in an hour and I’ll answer it then.’

‘And if I—’

‘And come alone or you’ll regret it.’

The line died.

Gilchrist tried calling back but the caller had powered down her phone. Although he had visited Dundee often in the past, he now found his way about town with only sightseeing familiarity. He had the vaguest recollection of the King’s Bar but no memory of ever having a pint there.

He phoned Nance as he walked to his car. Since their evening at the Dunvegan they had said no more than a dozen words to each other, as if Nance now regretted her invitation to him that night.

She answered as he slid behind the wheel.

‘Sir?’ she said, even making that single word sound cold.

‘The name’s Andy, Nance.’

‘I can’t really talk right now. I’m in the middle of stuff.’

Which sounded like the push-off it really was. ‘I’ll only take a minute, maybe less,’ he said. ‘Have you heard from John?’

Silence for several beats, then, ‘Look, Andy, I shouldn’t have mentioned—’

‘Because if you do, report him to DCI Tommy Coulson.’ He waited another couple of beats but silence seemed to be order of the day, so he added, ‘John is now officially walking on thin ice.’ He fired up the ignition, slipped into gear, giving Nance time to answer. But when the line remained silent, he said, ‘You still there?’

‘I’ve given this some thought,’ she said at length, ‘and I’ve decided to submit a formal request for a transfer.’

Out of the blue did not come close. Struck by a comet would be more like it.

He pressed his mobile hard to his ear, and said, ‘Can we talk about this . . . ?’ before realising she had hung up. He thought of calling back but common sense told him to wait a few . . . minutes, hours, days? With Nance, he could never say.

His mobile rang again – ID Stan.

Gilchrist tried to sound chirpy. ‘How’s the interview going, Stan?’

‘Frustrating, boss. He’s not coughing up.’

The battle for jurisdictional rights over Kumar was now in full flow, and it had taken the intervention of ACC McVicar to secure him in Fife, at least for the time being. Four of Greater Manchester Police’s CID were currently on their way to have an interrogation of their own, expected later that afternoon, and two senior detectives from the Metropolitan Police were scheduled for the following morning. Although Gilchrist had spent the best part of that morning questioning Kumar for the second straight day, an idea had since come to him.

‘I’ll be with you in fifteen minutes, Stan,’ he said.

‘Good. I need a break.’

‘But I can’t stay long,’ he said, adding, ‘I’d like you to check something out for me.’

‘Shoot.’

‘Can you find out who owns the King’s Bar in Dundee?’

Gilchrist closed his mobile and thought of the possibilities. He was stretching it too far, he suspected. Sometimes you have to. But if his idea had any substance, the day really had consisted of comet strikes.

And maybe even shooting stars.

One glance through the two-way mirror that looked into the interview room told Gilchrist that nothing had changed since he had left. He was about to enter when Stan walked in, waving a handwritten note.

‘Hot off the press, boss.’

Gilchrist read it. ‘The plot thickens,’ he said.

‘A finger in every pie?’

‘Something like that.’

It took Stan less than a few minutes to update Gilchrist on Kumar’s interrogation, the conclusion being that they were getting nowhere with him answering everything with a
No comment
. Still, Gilchrist thought it would be worth asking the question just to gauge a reaction. Even no reaction might give him an answer.

He re-entered the interview room, said, ‘DCI Gilchrist returning,’ and noted the exact time for the record. As he took his seat, Kumar raised his eyes and gave a dead-eyed stare, before returning his attention to some spot on the table between them.

Handcuffed, no longer in his bespoke suit, and with a couple of days’ worth of salt and pepper stubble on his face, Kumar looked less the businessman that he once purported himself to be and more the paedophilic pimp and serial killer that he indisputably was – still to be proven in a court of law, of course.

Numerous cuts and bruises added to the change in image.

His forehead sported two bruised lumps that peaked in crusted grazes, and the swollen bridge of his nose was as thick as a boxer’s. A nasty-looking cut sliced through his upper lip. He could have gone five rounds against Vitali Klitschko and looked better. Mhairi had denied using unreasonable force making her arrest, maintaining that Kumar slipped in the snow. Her story had been confirmed by Jessie, and Robert had been too traumatised to witness anything. Kumar also denied the charge of attempting to murder Gilchrist, but the half-finished video recording told a different story and nailed him to the wall – not to mention the carving knife with its razor-sharp blade, and the Makarov with its suppressor and half-spent magazine.

Although the Makarov had been handled by both Kumar and Mhairi, forensics had lifted a perfect set of Craig Farmer’s fingerprints from the barrel of the suppressor from his having screwed it on. The bullets in the magazine matched those retrieved from the bodies of Caryl Dillanos, Jana Judkowski and Stewart Donnelly, laying these murders at Farmer’s feet, but with the finger of suspicion pointing to Kumar as the man who gave the orders.

But trying to obtain any confession from Kumar was as good as talking to a rock.

Kumar’s solicitor – Matthew Johnson of Johnson Petrie and Associates, Edinburgh – sat next to him, fresh-faced and oil-haired, wearing a suit that had to have cost the best part of one thousand pounds, maybe two. Perhaps they shared the same tailor.

Gilchrist faced Johnson. ‘Your client has not been forthcoming in his answers.’

Johnson said, ‘That’s his prerogative under the law.’

‘Under the law,’ Gilchrist said, and gave Johnson a dry smile. ‘Right.’ Then he faced Kumar. ‘Are you a religious man?’

‘No comment.’ Kumar’s voice sounded strong. No sign of any nerves there.

‘I’m not going to ask what religion you believe in, although I think voodooism might be close to the bone.’ Kumar seemed not to notice his emphasis on the word
bone
, or appear insulted by his reference to witch doctor magic. Johnson appeared to take more offence, and stirred in his seat. So Gilchrist pressed on with, ‘But my question is, when did
you
last pray to
your
God?’

‘No comment.’

‘A couple of days ago, you told me you were always amazed that people turned to their God in their darkest hour.’

Nothing.

‘Your darkest hour is almost upon you,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Do you not feel a need to turn to your God now?’

‘No comment.’

Johnson stirred again, and Gilchrist held up his hand in a stayout-of-it gesture. Then he said to Kumar, ‘The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the—’

‘Is there a question in there? Or does my client have to listen to your ridiculous religious soliloquy all day?’

Gilchrist ignored Johnson, kept his focus on Kumar’s eyes. He did not want to miss any reaction, no matter how slight. ‘He leadeth me beside the still waters,’ he continued. ‘He restoreth my soul.’ He waited a couple of beats. ‘The Twenty-Third Psalm,’ he explained. ‘The Lord is my shepherd. Do you know it?’

‘No comment.’

‘So, you don’t know it?’ Gilchrist said.

‘No comment.’

‘We’ve identified you and Craig Farmer from CCTV footage of your car crossing the Tay Road Bridge. Although you’ve already denied it, I’m ready to put a bet on that you live in Dundee, or in the outskirts.’

‘No comment.’

‘That wasn’t a question.’

Kumar said nothing, moved nothing. He could have been a cardboard cut-out.

‘But this is,’ Gilchrist said, ‘and it’s associated with a somewhat buggered version of the Twenty-Third Psalm. Do you know the words to this?’ He leaned closer, focused hard on Kumar’s eyes. ‘Shepherd is my Lord,’ he said.

Kumar blinked once, twice, then lifted his gaze to hold Gilchrist’s eyes for one dark moment, before looking away.

Gilchrist had his answer.

He pushed himself to his feet and excused himself from the interview.

Gilchrist arrived in Dundee with less than ten minutes to spare. But by the time he found a parking spot and walked to the King’s Bar, he was just over five minutes late.

Inside, the ambient din from around the bar made ordering a shouting match. But he managed to buy himself a pint of Deuchars IPA and find a seat that backed against the wall, one that gave him a good view of the interior of the bar – well, as clear a view as the hubbub would allow. He picked up a discarded
Daily Record
from the seat, flipped it open to the back page, and watched the bar’s clientele from behind the sports news.

No bankers or businessmen here, mostly working men in their twenties to sixties, who stood or sat in groups of threes, fours, or more around the bar. In the tight space behind the counter, three barmen slipped past each other with the artful grace of dancers, intent on not spilling a drop. Gilchrist noticed a woman sitting by herself at the opposite end, in an alcove as tight as a snug.

He retrieved his mobile, recovered the phone number from its memory, and dialled it. His gaze never moved from the woman’s face but the number was still powered down, or the phone disconnected, and the woman never so much as blinked.

Twenty minutes later, he downed his pint. He walked up to the bar, having made the decision on a deadline. If the woman did not appear by the time he finished his second pint, he would call it a day. But even so, that made no sense. She had not arranged to meet him in Dundee so she could have a chat with him. No, he had been summoned to meet someone else, the man who ran Kumar. He was sure of that.

At the bar, several groups had dispersed, and the general noise level had dropped a touch. Ordering was no longer a shouting match, but the scowl on the barman’s face did not encourage striking up conversation. Even Gilchrist’s
Thanks
on receipt of his pint seemed as good as an insult.

Back in his seat, he resisted the urge to text Stan. If the woman was going to turn up and take him to her leader, she might have someone watching him, to make sure he really was alone. Better to read his paper, sip his beer, a lonely man waiting for someone to join him – or stand him up.

The crowd in the bar continued to thin, the noise level dropping from the party din of thirty minutes earlier. Two of the barmen had finished their shift, or had stepped out the back for a smoke, and a few stragglers ignored the scowls of the remaining barman, intent on finishing their pints before heading back to work, or off to some other bar.

Gilchrist glanced at the alcove.

The woman was no longer there.

Not long to go now?

He was almost halfway through his second pint when he realised that he was alone in the bar – well, other than the barman who appeared to find interest in cleaning glasses all of a sudden, and the two hardmen who stood facing him from opposite ends of the counter. The bar’s entrance was blocked by two more hardmencum-bodyguards who twitched their muscled shoulders, as if in pre-fight anticipation, under black leather jackets that hid the odd weapon or two.

Gilchrist returned his pint to the table, slid his hand into his inside jacket pocket, which had the nearer of the two hardmen taking a step towards him. He removed his mobile and placed it on the table, face up, and gave the hardman an innocent smile.

Then he sat back.

The Lord is my shepherd . . .

Gilchrist almost smiled. Maybe he needed to pray – well, at least pray that he had not miscalculated. He bounced a look off the hardman on his left, and received a cold-eyed stare in return. Any thoughts of chickening out and leaving were wiped out there and then. Part of him wished he had never been so foolish, while another part assured him that he needed to do this to get to the truth. He had to know.

On a positive note, he did not have long to wait.

Forty seconds, in fact, forewarned by the door bodyguards stepping to the side as if to clear space for a bull to barge through. Behind the bar, the barman gave Gilchrist a parting scowl then slipped off to join his work associates for a smoke.

The sound of hard heels announced the man’s arrival.

All six foot six of him, with shoulders widened by the raglan style of his black woollen coat, stood silhouetted for a long moment in the doorway, as if to give Gilchrist time to shit himself.

It almost worked.

The Lord is my shepherd . . .

Gilchrist reached for his pint and took a sip, not surprised – rather, disappointed – to find his hand shaking. He had every reason to, of course. If a killer like Kumar flinched at the mention of the big man’s name, then Gilchrist should not be ashamed of his own rising fear.

The Lord is my shepherd . . .

As the man approached his table, both hardmen stepped back in criminal deference.

And Gilchrist came to see that Dainty had been correct in all he said.

Big Jock Shepherd really was the Lord.

Shepherd pulled out the chair opposite Gilchrist, tugged his black coat around him, the woollen material swinging from the weight of something in the inside pocket – a gun? No doubt a man of Shepherd’s standing and reputation would come equipped to protect himself, whether or not he was protected by a team of heavies.