Life For a Life (14 page)

‘Perfect.’

‘Cash only.’

‘What other way is there to do business?’

The line died.

Jessie let out a rush of air. ‘Jeez-oh. That was worse than a Saturday night gig in the students’ union.’ Then she said, ‘You’d better get hold of Angus. That bitch’ll call him to check my story.’

Gilchrist poked at his mobile, held it to his ear. ‘Mhairi? Have you got Angus’s mobile number?’ He repeated it out loud as she read it off, then he hung up, and dialled. He gave Jessie a wink of reassurance, then said, ‘Angus? DCI Gilchrist. You might get a call from your friend Caryl. If she does, here’s what you’re going to tell her . . .’

Without complaint, Angus listened to Gilchrist tell him about Jessie’s imaginary man-friend, and how he and Angus were good mates, close enough to exchange mobile numbers. When he hung up, Jessie said, ‘What now?’

‘We need to find a six-month-old silver Mercedes 350
SLK
,’ he said, emphasising the initials. ‘You had them the wrong way round. It’s an SLK, not an SKL.’

‘Bugger off.’

They cleared the town of Auchtermuchty in silence, and Gilchrist pushed the speed up to seventy, before he said, ‘I thought you handled it well.’

‘I thought I kind of fluffed my way through it,’ she said, then asked, ‘So where are we going to find a 350 . . . a silver Mercedes?’

‘That could be a bit of a problem,’ he said at length. ‘We’re going to be hard pressed to set this up.’

‘
We’re
going to be hard pressed. You’re the one getting paid the big bucks.’

‘Clearly you’ve never seen my payslip.’

A visit to a dealership in Cupar and four phone calls later warned Gilchrist that he might have overstepped his act – until the fifth call. He gave Jessie a victory smile, and said, ‘Shuggie’s going to pick one up in Perth and trailer it over. It’ll be in St Andrews this evening. But it needs to be back in the dealership tomorrow night, or it starts costing us. I’ll have Nance work out its safe return.’

‘Why trailer?’

‘It’s brand new.’

‘So how much does a brand new SKL thingie cost, anyway?’

‘You’ve still got it the wrong way round. It’s an SLK. And for a 350 . . . ? Upwards of thirty thousand.’

‘And that cheeky bitch offered me ten?’ Jessie gasped.

‘That would have been the deal of the decade.’

‘How about the deal of the century? Who did she think she was talking to?’ She looked at her watch, then said, ‘Can you run me to a mobile phone shop, then drop me at home? I need to give Robert his lunch.’

From anger to concern in zero seconds flat. As if she clicked a switch. ‘What age did you say he was?’ he asked.

‘Old enough to masturbate, and young enough to need his mum to cook his meals.’

‘Well, let’s hope you never get
that
the wrong way round.’

Jessie glared at him.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘A joke that came out—’

‘The wrong way round?’

‘Exactly.’

He double-parked while Jessie ran in and out of Orange on South Street.

Then he drove her home, and agreed to pick her up after three o’clock.

Back at the office, he checked his emails, saw he had another one from Cooper – Can you call? Not urgent. R xx. Back to the two kisses, which meant . . . ?

He waded through the rest of his emails, stopped at one from Jackie, and skimmed through it – Galyna Grabowski. Polish citizen. 19 years old. A year ago in March, failed to turn up for her job as a waitress in Trattoria Guidi, Airdrie. Reported missing by her two flatmates. Her body was found in Clydebank, Dunbartonshire, six months later, severely emaciated, with evidence of drug abuse . . .

He clicked on the jpeg attachment.

An image of a young woman, as blonde as a Scandinavian, with the glazed stare of the dead, looked out at him. He would have put her in her mid-thirties, not twenty. Her skin reflected her poor diet and health – pockmark scars and the roseate glare of infected spots. A dark bruise tinted her right cheekbone and dulled the skin under her eye. Here was a young woman who had ended at the bottom of the drug pile and died before she ever had the chance to live. She had been attractive too, with eyes set wide apart and a face that narrowed to . . .

He leaned closer, enlarged the image.

It was her jaw that intrigued him, how her face had an almost triangular shape that led the eye to a small chin verging on the pointed.

He pulled up Jackie’s email again and continued reading.

. . . evidence of drug abuse, and vaginal infection. She died from a single stab wound to the heart. Suspected weapon an ice pick. Her body had a total of seventeen tattoos, ranging from a pair of wings that spread across her shoulders to a tiny number eleven in her left armpit, less than half an inch in size . . .

Two tattoos in particular caught his attention – the pair of shoulder wings and the number eleven in her left armpit. He opened the jpeg again, placed one hand over the left side of her face. He would not bet on it, but was he looking at the sister of the woman on the Coastal Path?

He printed out the image, pushed from his chair and walked along the hall to Jackie’s room. He held up the photo. ‘Galyna Grabowski,’ he said. ‘What drew you to her?’

Jackie opened her mouth, then raised her left arm and patted her armpit.

‘The number eleven tattoo?’

She nodded.

‘Did you find any others with the same tattoo?’

She moaned a No, and shook her head.

‘OK, get me a copy of her full report, post-mortem, investigation file.’

She tried OK, but nodded instead.

‘Great work, Jackie. Keep me posted.’

Back in his office, he found Cooper’s mobile number, and dialled it.

‘So you got my email?’ she said.

He kept her on track with, ‘I might have a lead that could help us ID our Coastal Path woman. I’ll have Jackie send you DNA from another victim—’

‘You think they’re related?’

‘Could be. They have similar facial features. So it’s a long shot.’ He gave her Jackie’s email address, then said, ‘You wanted me to call?’

‘Yes, I thought you might consider letting me buy you a pint tomorrow night. It is Saturday, after all.’

Gilchrist thought of just saying he was busy. But despite his workload, he always tried to keep Saturday night open. ‘Where did you have in mind?’

‘Somewhere noisy and full of students, like the Central. Isn’t that your local?’

‘One of them, but . . .’

‘So we have a date?’

‘A date?’

‘Yes, boy meets girl, girl meets boy.’ She chuckled, a throaty growl that sent a signal to his groin. ‘Bring others along, if you’d prefer. Safety in numbers. We’ll probably all want to talk shop anyway. Say, seven o’clock? I’ll contact you when I get there.’ The line died.

Gilchrist returned his mobile to his jacket, trying to shift the feeling that he had just been manipulated, and resisting the petty urge to call back and cancel their date. But just the sound of that word – date – pulled a wry smile to his face. It would be Saturday, after all.

Before leaving the office, he made another copy of the photograph.

He collected Jessie from her home, and said, ‘How is he?’

‘He didn’t masturbate, if that’s what you’re asking.’

‘Jesus, Jessie, it was a slip of the—’

‘Lighten up, Andy. Where’s your sense of humour?’

‘That was a joke?’

‘Dry delivery. So, where are we off to?’

Again, her change in tack almost threw him. He showed her Galyna’s photo, but she was unable to help. She remembered the body being found in a back street on the outskirts of Clydebank, a stone’s throw from Duntocher and the Krukovs’ barn. But she could not recall a tattoo in the shape of an eleven.

‘I’d need to revisit Strathclyde’s records,’ she said.

‘Jackie’s already ordered them.’

‘If she was found in September last year, that was before we raided the Krukovs. Which might explain why we never picked up on the significance of the tattoo.’

Gilchrist nodded. How often were clues not noticed through poor timing? ‘Do you think we’re missing something?’ he said. ‘I mean, we look at the tattoo and the first thing we see is the number eleven. Then bones. But maybe it’s not bones or the number eleven we should be concentrating on. Maybe it’s something else,’ he said.

‘Like what?’

He chewed through his rationale, but could not push it forward. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Therein lies the problem.’

‘Indeed.’

Gilchrist spent the next ten minutes contacting each member of his investigation team and asking them to report for debriefing for 5.00 p.m. The occasional early night was good for morale, particularly at the start of the weekend. Besides, they were beginning to make some real progress. They had Dillanos driving up to St Andrews tomorrow morning, which could give them their first lead to the renter of the cottage. They had a possible connection to the girl on the Coastal Path, with a DNA comparative sample ordered, which might – and it was a big might – ID her. But one thing still worried him, which was not related to any crime.

His
date
with Rebecca Cooper.

Having an affair with a married woman was one thing. Flaunting it in a busy pub for all to see was something else entirely. Not that it was unusual for work associates to share a drink after work or on celebratory occasions. That went on all the time the world over. He was about to drive off when his mobile rang – ID Nance.

‘Let me guess,’ he said. ‘You’ve finally got something on Craig Farmer?’

‘Not quite.’

The tone of her voice had Gilchrist pressing his mobile to his ear. ‘I’m listening.’

‘Donnelly’s dead. Shot through the back of the head.’

Gilchrist stared out of the window. On the other side of the road, two women in heavy overcoats, shopping bags clutched in fingers chaffed and reddened by a cold Scottish wind, conversed with each other, unaware of the criminal mayhem around them.

‘Where is he?’ he asked Nance.

‘In an abandoned car at the entrance to Strathvithie Country Estate.’

‘No witnesses?’

‘It’s a professional killing.’

‘I’m on my way.’

By the time Gilchrist arrived, the SOCOs were already there.

Not yet 4.00 p.m., and dragonlights lit up the scene.

He pulled off the B9131 and parked behind two police vehicles.

The wind had risen, whipping the fields with an Arctic chill.

‘It’s not pretty,’ Nance said, leading Gilchrist and Jessie to a white Ford that had reversed through a field entrance, now blocked off by crime scene tape. Nance held up the tape to let Gilchrist and Jessie slip under.

The driver’s door and the passenger back door on the same side lay open. At first glance, the shattered windscreen looked as if it had been smeared with paint, but as they neared, Gilchrist prepared himself for the worst.

Not pretty
was an understatement.

The entrance wound in the back of the head was clean enough a tidy hole that could have been made by a surgeon’s drill – with scorch marks to the hair and surrounding flesh that confirmed the muzzle had been pressed to the skin.

The exit wound was another matter. Donnelly was almost unrecognisable.

The bullet – SOCOs’ best estimate was 9 mm calibre – had taken most of Donnelly’s nose and one of his eyes with it, splattering flesh and blood over the windscreen in a mess like curried vomit. Donnelly’s body lay slumped over the steering wheel, his lifeless fingers still clutching a mobile phone.

‘You think they’ll have a closed coffin?’ Jessie said.

‘Give it up,’ Gilchrist said.

Even though he recognised Donnelly’s clothes – the same light denim jeans, black V-neck sweater – the tattoo on the nape of his neck confirmed ID. Gilchrist leaned into the back seat of the car. It smelled fresh, suggesting it had been cleaned recently, but not by Donnelly – he had looked too rough to show interest in maintaining appearances.

‘The car’s a rental, right?’ he asked.

Nance said, ‘Enterprise in Dundee. Already called. They’ve confirmed it was rented to a Stewart Donnelly this morning for a week. Paid cash in advance.’

‘Thought he’d just been released,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Where’d the money come from?’

‘We’ll check local banks.’

‘Maybe we need to be asking why he came to St Andrews in the first place. I mean, there are plenty of pubs in Dundee. Why here? Can we check the mileage?’

‘Already done that,’ Nance said. ‘He’s clocked up a total of sixtytwo miles.’

Gilchrist did a quick mental calculation. ‘The shortest drive from Dundee is twenty miles, so it’s forty there and back. As he’s still on the St Andrews side of the Tay, he must have driven around here for a bit.’

‘Maybe he drove around Dundee.’

Gilchrist grimaced. His gut was telling him that Donnelly rented the car to cross the River Tay and come to St Andrews. If he had wanted to see Dundee, he could have walked around the place. No, the car was rented for travel. He felt sure of that.

‘See if we can find any CCTV on the car,’ he said to Nance, and returned his attention to the back seat. From the direction of the blood and brain spatter, and the clean entry wound, the killer must have been seated directly behind Donnelly.

‘What do you think?’ he asked Jessie.

‘I’d say there had to have been at least two of them,’ she said. ‘A passenger in the front to keep his attention, and another in the back to shoot him.’

Gilchrist nodded. ‘What about his mobile? Why didn’t they take it?’

‘Maybe he was calling for help.’

‘Or someone called as a distraction?’

‘Which would mean there was a third involved,’ Jessie said, and walked to the front of the car.

‘Not necessarily.’

‘We’ll get our technicians on to it,’ Nance said.

Gilchrist thought the mobile could give them a lead. At the very least, they should be able to retrieve Donnelly’s contacts, view records of his last phone calls. But as he worked through the logic, he came to see that the killers had not taken Donnelly’s mobile because they had known it could offer nothing—

‘Check this out,’ Jessie shouted from the other side of the car.