‘In what way?’
‘If you can’t answer that, Mr Gilchrist, how do you expect me to?’ His eyes narrowed and his stance widened, and again Gilchrist had the impression that MacMillan had once been a tough guy to face down.
He held out his hand. ‘Binoculars?’
MacMillan slid them from his shoulder and handed them over. Gilchrist focused on the gable end of the building where Granton was killed.
‘Did you spy on him from here?’ he asked.
‘On who?’
‘Don’t play buggerlugs with me, Sam.’
MacMillan inhaled, then let it out in a defeated rush. ‘Next one back,’ he grumbled.
Gilchrist walked toward the second cutback. ‘Here?’
MacMillan nodded.
Gilchrist raised the binoculars and scanned the harbour, shifting his view along the harbour building, the entrance to The Pends, the bridge, the black expanse of the East Sands, then back again. ‘It’s a bit far, Sam.’
Another grunt.
‘I said, it’s a bit far.’
‘I didn’t want anyone to see me.’
‘No one would see you from here, I grant you that.’ Gilchrist lowered the binoculars and handed them back. ‘And even with these, you wouldn’t see much of Bill. If you get my meaning.’
MacMillan retrieved his binoculars, flung the strap over his shoulder, and looked back at the harbour. Gilchrist did likewise, sensing that MacMillan was reliving the events of the previous night.
Out here on the promontory, the waves would have crashed over the wall, the spindrift icy, the rain horizontal. MacMillan’s binoculars would have been useless. What could he have seen? And it was easy to lose your footing and stumble into the harbour. Why would he have put his life in danger?
‘What’re you thinking, Sam?’
‘Not a lot,’ he growled. ‘How about you?’
‘I think you’re in trouble, is what I think.’
MacMillan glared at him, and Gilchrist had a real sense of the brute strength of the man. All of a sudden, being alone with him out there at midnight did not seem a sensible place to be.
‘Granton had two hundred quid on him,’ Gilchrist said. ‘All brand-new notes.’
‘So?’
‘So what was he doing carrying that kind of money around with him at night in the middle of a storm.’
‘How the fuck would I know?’
It was the first time Gilchrist had heard anger seep into MacMillan’s voice, and he was aware of standing with his back to the harbour. It would not take much for MacMillan to push him over.
‘We know Bill was embezzling from the bank,’ he said.
MacMillan pressed closer, as if willing Gilchrist to take a step back. But Gilchrist held his ground until MacMillan’s face was inches from his own, the sour stench of whisky warm on his breath.
‘What are you implying, son?’
‘I’m asking if you knew about it.’
MacMillan’s eyes flared for an instant. ‘I know bugger all about that,’ he growled, and adjusted the strap of his binoculars with an angry snap. ‘You’re fishing, son. You know nothing. I can read it in your eyes.’
‘You think so?’
‘I know so.’ MacMillan straightened, as if readying to face the firing squad. ‘Are you going to arrest me, or what?’
Surprised by the question, Gilchrist said nothing.
MacMillan snorted again. ‘I thought so. Now if you’ve nothing more to say, sonny Jim, I’m going home to bed.’
Gilchrist stood silent as MacMillan’s broad back slipped into the darkness and faded to a hulking shadow.
Then he faced the sea and took a deep breath. Air rushed into his lungs, as clean and clear as his thoughts. The faintest of ideas was manifesting in his brain. In all the years he had known Old Willie, his snippets were never wrong. If his latest one was correct, then Granton was an embezzler and sexual deviant who got his thrill from flashing his cock at an old friend for two hundred quid a pop. But what happened to the money once it was handed over? From his appearance, Sam’s standard of living was far from extravagant.
So, what did he do with it?
Gilchrist stared into the dark expanse before him, his thoughts riding the wild waves, fighting the cold wind.
After another minute, he thought he knew.
Sebbie pushed through the shrubbery onto the pavement. He had wanted to use a kitchen knife, the black-handled one with the serrated blade that could cut through tin and still be sharp enough to slice tomatoes and slivers of paper. But he decided against that as being impossible to explain if he was stopped by the police. In the end, he chose a Swiss Army knife that doubled as a key ring.
He reached the car, knife out, blade open, pressed it along the side, from front to rear. Then blade folded, and into his pocket. He walked on and stopped at the corner by the mini-roundabout.
The street was deserted. He waited two minutes then retraced his steps, this time stopping at the boot. The knife bit into the polished paint and screeched like chalk on a blackboard. He dug deeper and finished off with an artistic flourish.
One minute later, he was jogging down Lade Braes Lane, a smile on his lips. His act of vandalism gave him a sense of power that cleared his mind and soothed his thoughts.
Already, he was thinking ahead.
Next time he would use the kitchen knife.
The big one.
CHAPTER 13
The total is six now. But six is not a lot.
Six is only the beginning. I have always known that.
What I hadn’t known until now was that my modus operandi would change. I had thought the killings would be controlled by the weather. Nothing else.
I am puzzled by this misplaced feeling, like a smile that tickles your lips at a funeral. Like the vagaries of life, the reasons for death are every bit as whimsical. Before each of the killings my libido peaked, and I wonder why I never noticed before. Are the storms nothing more than weather patterns that coincide with my increase in sexual desire?
I see now that the killings have changed me. I feel my hate swell, my anger rise, the need for release as relentless as a sexual stirring. Something grips me, and I hear a quiet hiss that repeats itself like a sibilant echo. I wonder where it is coming from, until I recognize it as a voice.
‘Seven,’ it whispers. ‘Seven. Seven.’
Tomorrow night I will kill again.
Beth wakened to a dark morning, the streets black from a pre-dawn squall. She had not slept well and longed for another thirty minutes in bed. But she had a busy day ahead, stocktaking.
As she soaked in the bath, the previous day’s events hung in her thoughts like smoke in wool. She had arrived at the West Port Café on time but had to wait half an hour before Tom turned up. She might have forgiven him his tardiness if her day had gone better, but not after everything that had happened. The man in her shop, Andy showing up, then Tom being late had her thinking it all happened for a reason.
‘Got held up,’ Tom had said as he pulled out the seat opposite. ‘You know what it’s like.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘What’s that, pet?’
‘I don’t know what it’s like to get held up.’
He picked up the menu. ‘Fancy a starter?’ he asked, and flagged down a waitress. ‘Double Grouse, miss. No ice. No water. And a bottle of Chianti.’ He eyed the tight fit of her skirt as she walked away. ‘What a day I’ve had. It’s dog eat dog out there.’
Beth stared at him.
‘How was your day?’ he asked. ‘Busy behind the counter?’
From his glazed look Beth could see he’d already had a few. Maybe more. ‘Not good,’ she said, and tried to catch the waitress’s attention.
‘Did you want something else, pet? Why didn’t you say?’
‘I’m saying now.’
‘Same again?’ He nodded to her glass. ‘What’s that?’
‘The usual.’
‘White wine?’
‘Dry white wine. With soda. And a slice of lime. Not lemon.’ The waitress caught her eye, and Beth tapped the rim of her glass and mouthed,
Same again
.
‘Mind if I smoke?’
‘We’re in the non-smoking area.’
‘Had a meeting with the bank this afternoon,’ he said, lighting up. He took a deep draw then exhaled. ‘Talk about tough.’
All of a sudden, the futility of it all overwhelmed Beth. ‘I’ve had enough,’ she said.
‘What? You look fine. Have another wine.’
‘No, Tom. I’ve had enough of us.’
He blinked, took another heavy pull.
‘I’m sorry, Tom. It’s not working.’
Smoke powered from his nostrils. ‘Have another wine,’ he said again. ‘You’ll feel better.’
Beth looked down at her handbag, stunned by the gap between them. She snapped the clasp shut then, as if seeing him for the first time, took in his ruddied face, his blotched skin, his shirt collar that seemed too tight for his thick neck.
‘I don’t want another wine,’ she said as she pushed back her chair. Her parting memory was of hairy fingers crumpling a long stub into the ashtray.
Refreshed from her bath, Beth had a bowl of bran flakes with home-made tropical fruit salad. The forecast was scattered showers, so she grabbed her umbrella from the stand in the entrance porch.
Outside, she took four steps and stopped.
At first she thought the scratch on her car was a chalk mark, then she placed her hand to her mouth and whispered, ‘Oh, my God.’
Up close, she saw the cut had not just scraped the surface of the paint, but had gouged exposed metal. She read the writing scratched on the boot.
The hot sting of tears nipped her eyes as she dug into her bag for her mobile. It barely registered with her that she had not forgotten his number.
‘Andy?’
‘Beth? What’s up?’
‘He’s come back.’
A frisson of ice ran the length of Gilchrist’s spine.
‘Where are you?’
He had his leather jacket over his sleeve and his car keys in his hand by the time she told him.
‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’
He found Beth still standing by her car, and was surprised when she hugged him. Her body shivered, from cold or fear, he could not say. ‘Tell me what happened,’ he whispered.
She did, then he called the Office and listened to Stan tell him that every man, woman and child who worked in Fife Constabulary and beyond had been assigned to the Stabber case. All leave had been cancelled, and DeFiore was really a slave-master in disguise who loved to whip his staff to death.
And he’d been there only one day.
As Stan moaned on, Gilchrist studied the passers-by on either side of the road. They all seemed oblivious to the act of vandalism on Beth’s car. In the end, all Stan could promise was to run a quick computer check on the Sex Offenders Register.
Gilchrist slipped his mobile into his jacket and held Beth’s hands. She seemed unable to hold his gaze.
‘It’s him,’ she whispered. ‘He’s come back.’
He had nothing with which to contradict her. He did not believe in coincidence. If two seemingly disparate events occurred within a short period of time, they were connected. Simple as that. All he had to do was work out how, why and who. But first, he had to help Beth.
‘Give me your car keys,’ he said, ‘and I’ll get an estimate for your insurance.’ He took her by the arm and opened the Merc’s passenger door. ‘Come on. You’ve got a business to run.’
‘I know it was him,’ she whispered to him. ‘I knew he’d come back.’
Gilchrist shook his head. ‘It’s more likely an act of random vandalism,’ he assured her, ‘completely unrelated to the incident in your shop.’ But as he said his silly words of comfort, he knew that her prediction had come true.
Gilchrist spent over an hour obtaining estimates for the repair to Beth’s car, which ranged from £1200 to a more reasonable £450 at a small garage next to a betting shop, then returned the car to the open area at the side of her flat. By the time he pulled up at Jack’s it was two minutes before midday.
He stepped into the damp Glasgow air, overnight bag in hand. The sandstone tenement building stood timeworn grey in the dull city light. The front door had been painted since he’d last been there six – or was it nine? – months ago. The wood shone black and wet. Grey city. Black door. No wonder Jack’s art was morbid.
He buzzed the entrance intercom, and Jack’s voice said in quick response, ‘Hey, Andy. In you come.’
The door clicked, and he entered a cold stone close with green and red tiles like glossy wainscoting that ran all the way to the concrete staircase. His footsteps echoed like hammer hits in a tunnel.
Jack’s flat was on the third floor. A shape as grey as a ghost moved beyond the frosted glass. Then the door opened.
‘Andy, hey, man. In you come, in you come.’
Jack surprised Gilchrist by giving him a hug that crushed the air from his lungs. Then Jack looked him up and down, arms out by his sides, and Gilchrist feared he was going to be crushed again.