Authors: T F Muir
Gilchrist stared out over North Street. Benzodiazepines, more commonly known as date-rape drugs – sleep-inducing, hypnotic, muscle relaxing, all of the above – Rohypnol, Dormicum, Hypnovel, GHB; cheap, easy to find, and just as easy to administer.
‘It’s how he kept them captive,’ he said at length. ‘How he controlled them.’
‘It also might explain how one of them managed to flee.’ A pause, then, ‘Any names yet?’ she asked.
‘We’re working on it.’
‘Let me know when you do. It’s bad enough that they were kidnapped, raped and killed, without them having to be buried anonymously.’
‘You’ll be the first to know.’
‘I’ll send images of the tattoos to you,’ she said, ‘and I won’t embarrass you by asking if you’d like to come to another small gathering tomorrow evening. You have my number.’ She paused for a couple of beats, as if to give him time to agree, then said, ‘
Ciao
.’
He held on to his mobile for a long second, before breaking the connection.
The way Cooper teased him told him she knew he was smitten. He would be lying if he said he was not. Having once given in to her seductive charms, he found himself thinking of her at the most inappropriate of moments. But Cooper was married, and had been for seven years, and that single night brought back memories of his own failed marriage.
Having lost Gail first to her infidelity and finally to cancer, Gilchrist never remarried. Not that he mourned Gail – he had done enough mourning for several Gails – rather, he did not want to become involved again. It seemed as simple an explanation as any. And on top of his work, and the never-ending maintenance of his cottage, he seemed to—
‘Sir?’
Gilchrist jolted. ‘Yes, Mhairi.’
‘Brain’s fried,’ she said. ‘Going to call it a day. Angus passed on all of them. He’s still sitting with the artist, but he’s gasping for a pint.’
‘Can’t blame him,’ Gilchrist said, pulling out his wallet. He peeled off a twenty. ‘Tell Angus to stick it out for a wee bit longer. He’s nearly done. Then why don’t you go and have a pint with him. On me.’
Mhairi took the twenty and pocketed it with a sleight of hand that could be the envy of any self-respecting pickpocket. ‘Thanks, sir. We’ll be in Lafferty’s later, if you’d like to join us.’
‘Once I battle my way through some more stuff,’ he said. ‘And tell Angus I’m grateful for all his effort.’
Back at his computer, Gilchrist made a mental note to follow up with Angus. He did not normally hand out cash to potential witnesses but Angus might have spoken to Kumar in person, and could possibly give a positive ID. He clicked the mouse and opened his mailbox, to find one from Dainty: Subject Heading – DS Janes; Attachment – one scanned pdf file with an incomprehensible file name.
He read Dainty’s message –
Info on JJ call if need more
– short and to the point, just like the man, he thought. He sent the file to the printer, resigned for some bedtime reading.
Dainty’s attachment was being printed when Cooper’s email arrived.
He read her message –
Call with questions. RC
– no kiss this time. Maybe she was beginning to see that small gatherings could be problematic professionally.
He opened Cooper’s file attachments, photographs of the left underarm of each of the three women, and printed them out. The three sets of tattooed bones intrigued him – neat, tiny, identical. But the more he looked at them, the more he came to see that although they might be a pair of bones, he was looking at the number eleven—
Jessie pushed through the door. ‘He could talk for Scotland, that Alex could. And walk away with the gold every time.’ She leaned over his desk. ‘Cooper send them to you?’
Gilchrist shoved the printouts across his desk. ‘Any ideas?’
She gave them a cursory scan. ‘None that can’t wait until tomorrow.’ She frowned, then said, ‘I know we’re at the start of an investigation, and I’ve been off all afternoon filling in stupid forms, but I’ve hardly spoken to my wee boy since I’ve been here and I’m planning to take him out to the Grill House, they do an early-evening meal for two, less than twenty quid, which is a good deal, I think.’ She grimaced. ‘D’you mind if I head off ?’
Gilchrist pushed his chair back and reached for his leather jacket. ‘Only if you can squeeze in a pint at Lafferty’s.’
‘I’m always up for a quickie,’ she said, then added, ‘A quickie drink, I mean. Sir. Andy. Sorry. Shit. You know what I mean.’
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’d like you to meet Angus.’
‘Angus who?’
‘Exactly.’
Lafferty’s bustled with a festive season buzz. Glasses chinked, voices rose, seemed to hang for a moment, then burst into laughter. TV screens, tucked high in the ceiling corners, flickered sports images in muted silence. Gilchrist managed to claim a spot at the bar by squeezing in between two couples.
‘Busy little place,’ Jessie said to him.
‘St Andrews is a student town.’
‘Aren’t students supposed to be skint?’
‘Not here, they’re not.’ Gilchrist spotted Mhairi and Angus at a table in the back, but they were too deep in conversation to notice him. He caught Fast Eddy’s eye behind the bar and said, ‘Deuchars IPA, Eddy.’
‘One Deuchars IPA for the lady,’ Fast Eddy said. ‘And a pint of Eighty for—’
‘The Deuchars is for me,’ Gilchrist corrected.
Fast Eddy raised both eyebrows as he shoved a mug under the tap. ‘Is the Pope a Catholic? Will the sun rise in the morning? Will Andy have a pint of Eighty? I could have bet my life savings on any one of these bankers. Now you’ve rocked my world to the core. Are you not well, Andy?’
‘Thought I’d try a change, Eddy.’
‘A change? At your age? That’s sacrilege.’
While Fast Eddy pulled the Deuchars, Gilchrist turned to Jessie. ‘What are you having?’
‘Deuchars sounds good.’
‘Make that two, Eddy.’
‘Another Deuchars for the lovely lady, and are you not going to introduce me?’
‘Jessie,’ Gilchrist said, ‘I’d like you to meet Fast Eddy. Eddy, meet Jessie.’
‘I’d shake your hand, darling, but from the look of those wonderful brown eyes of yours, I don’t think I could ever let go.’
Jessie laughed. ‘The time you’re taking to pull two pints makes me wonder why you’re called Fast Eddy.’
‘You can never rush a good pint, darling, now can you?’
‘So why the Fast?’
‘You’d have to come out on a date to find out,’ Fast Eddy said. ‘So, tell me, darling, what are you doing tomorrow night?’
‘You’re not that fast, Eddy. What’s wrong with tonight?’
For once, Fast Eddy seemed lost for words. ‘Well . . . in that case—’
‘Too slow. I’m already booked.’
Fast Eddy chuckled. ‘Ah, you’ve a heart of steel,’ he said, ‘and a wit as fast as an arrow through it.’ He slid two Deuchars across the counter. ‘There you go, my darling. On the house, for the beautiful woman with a lovely smile, and eyes that could break a lonely Irishman’s heart.’
Jessie lifted her pint, tilted it to Fast Eddy, and received a wink in response before he moved to the end of the bar with, ‘Same again, my lovely?’
She turned to Gilchrist. ‘Quite the charmer.’
‘He’s certainly that.’
‘Genuine compliments I can take. But bullshit flattery . . . ?’ She lifted her glass to her lips, then smiled. ‘I can take that, too. Cheers,’ she said, and took a long sip.
Gilchrist did likewise.
‘Bloody hell,’ Jessie said. ‘I was ready for that. But that’s me blown my calorie intake for the day.’ She glanced beyond him. ‘Shoes are killing me. Fancy a seat?’
‘This way,’ he said, and walked to Mhairi’s table.
Mhairi and Angus were huddled close, all the better for arguing out of earshot, it seemed. Gilchrist interrupted with, ‘Mind if we join you?’
Mhairi’s flicker for a smile did little to shift the transparency of her mood, but she introduced Gilchrist to Angus as
the boss
, and Jessie as
the new girl in town
, and grimaced as Jessie squeezed in beside Angus, splashing drink on to the table as she tried to shake his hand.
Angus tilted his glass to Gilchrist. ‘Thanks for the drinks.’
‘So I would know where to find you.’
Angus sipped his pint, his gaze shifting from Mhairi to Gilchrist, and back again.
‘So, you spent the day with our artist?’ Gilchrist began.
‘Wasted the day, more like. You see it on the telly, these artists sketching faces as someone describes them. And out they come, the perfect lookalike.’ He shook his head. ‘Bloody hopeless at it, so I was.’
‘Did you try Mr Potato Man?’ Jessie quipped.
Angus guffawed, as if he was already on his way to a full house. ‘I think that’s who I ended up with. A man with a face like a well-skelped tattie. If you come across him, wrap him in foil and stick him in the oven.’ Mhairi chuckled to accompany him.
Gilchrist leaned closer. ‘Sometimes it’s better not to think about features at all,’ he said. ‘Tell me how the cottage came to be on the market.’
So Angus did, in his roundabout way, interjecting details of the housing market, how rentals were on the uptake, and how he was going to start his own business. Gilchrist nudged him back on course, and livened when Angus mentioned that first call from the tenant-to-be.
‘Did he give a name?’ Gilchrist asked.
Angus sneered. ‘Mr Smith.’
‘Did he say who he was with? Name of a company? Anything like that?’
‘He didn’t, and I didn’t ask. I should of I suppose.’
‘Any accent?’
‘English. The plonker.’
‘Any dialect? Cockney? Brummie?’
‘Upper class. Posh. Almost like it was put on.’
Gilchrist caught Jessie’s eye, and she nodded.
‘And then what?’ Gilchrist pressed Angus.
‘Said he would mail a cheque if I sent him the keys. I told him that’s not how we do business.’ Angus finished his pint as if to emphasise that point.
‘And?’
‘So I met him. I insisted.’
Sometimes the way to get answers was not to ask questions, so Gilchrist held Angus’s gaze and nodded at his worldly wisdom.
‘Met him only the once,’ Angus continued. ‘At the cottage. Showed him around, but I got the feeling he wasn’t interested. Kept looking out the window. I figured he liked the open view, so I focused on that. Told him the view was great, all the way to the sea, beyond the golf course.’ He tried a smart smile, but it came off as more of a scowl. ‘So I jacked up the price, just enough not to scare him off, like, and he went for it.’ He nodded, to show how clever he was.
‘Ethnic background?’ Gilchrist asked.
‘I thought he was from India or Pakistan, at first. Or maybe an Arab. In the end, I just put him down as foreign looking, maybe even Spanish. I don’t know.’
‘Who spoke perfect English,’ Jessie confirmed.
‘Yes.’
‘How tall?’ Gilchrist asked.
Angus frowned. ‘Average height. Look, I’ve given all these details to the—’
‘As senior investigating officer, I like to check facts first-hand.’ Gilchrist nodded to Angus’s empty glass. ‘What is it? Fosters?’
‘Why not?’
‘Mhairi?’
‘Go on then. G and T. Slimline tonic.’
Gilchrist walked to the bar and placed the order.
When he returned, he said, ‘Did he wear any rings?’
‘Like a wedding ring, or something?’
‘Something like that.’
Angus shook his head. ‘I didn’t notice.’
Gilchrist said, ‘The strange thing is, no one we’ve spoken to remembers seeing the cottage up for rent. Did you place an ad in the
Courier
?’ He thought he sensed the first ripple of unease. ‘The reason I ask,’ he added, about to pry deeper by lying, ‘is that we couldn’t find a copy of an ad in any of the local newspapers.’
‘I don’t think we placed an ad.’
‘You don’t think?’
‘No. I’m sure we didn’t.’
It struck Gilchrist that the property could have been advertised on the office window, the same way other estate agents did around town. But his question seemed to have thrown Angus. ‘So how did you manage to rent the property?’
‘Word of mouth.’
Gilchrist took another sip of his beer. ‘So how does that work?’
‘How does what work?’
‘Word of mouth.’
Angus laughed, alone as it turned out. ‘Exactly like it says on the packet. We were going to place an ad. But I suppose we just never got around to it.’
‘We?’ Jessie said.
‘Well, me.’
‘Did you forget, like?’
‘I suppose I must of.’ Angus beamed, rescued by a fresh pint of Fosters, which he grabbed with both hands. He took a hefty swallow. ‘Anyway, we need to put it back on the market,’ he said to Gilchrist. ‘So once you’ve completed your investigation, let me know when.’
‘What about the existing agreement?’ Gilchrist pried.
‘That’s null and void, that is. And he can pish in the wind for his deposit. From what I’m hearing, we’ll need to gut the place. New linoleum, carpets, paint throughout, which won’t be cheap. I might need to think about suing him for the balance.’ Angus nodded, all businessman once more.
Gilchrist took another sip, returned his glass to the table. ‘Whose mouth?’
‘What?’
‘Word of mouth,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Who started it?’
‘I don’t know. It just starts. And spreads. You know, by word of—’
‘So who did you talk to?’
‘No one.’
Gilchrist sensed Mhairi’s unease. Jessie was all ears. Gilchrist pressed on. ‘But you must have spoken to someone. You had a property to rent. It’s money lost if you don’t rent it out. You didn’t place an ad. You never put up a sign.’
Angus hid his response in his beer, draining it halfway.
Gilchrist took that moment to glance at Mhairi, relieved when she got his message.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, pushing herself to her feet. ‘Nature calls.’
Gilchrist waited until Mhairi squeezed past him and was out of earshot, before saying, ‘So what did you tell her?’
‘Tell Mhairi?’
‘No, Mr Businessman,’ Jessie interrupted. ‘The woman whose name you don’t want to mention in front of Mhairi.’ She slid closer. ‘Are you giving her one?’
‘Giving who one?’
‘Is that butter I see melting in your mouth?’