Life For a Life (31 page)

Somehow, Stan’s response flattened her. ‘Any luck with CCTV footage on the white Transit van?’ she asked.

Stan shook his head. ‘Nothing.’

‘We’re not doing too well, are we?’ Jessie said.

Nance said, ‘Well, as soon as you come up with something useful, why don’t you let us know.’

‘I didn’t mean it that way,’ Jessie said.

Nance pulled out her mobile and turned away.

Jessie watched her leave, and was about to return to her car and take Robert home when she noticed WPC Mhairi McBride standing at the back of an SUV with its hatchback open. A large map lay unfolded and spread open across the back floor.

As Jessie approached, Mhairi grimaced. ‘I can’t believe it. He could already be dead.’

‘Don’t think like that,’ Jessie said. ‘Andy’s alive until we find him otherwise. And it’s up to us to figure out where he’s at.’ She nodded to the Ordnance Survey map. ‘Where are we on this?’ she asked.

Mhairi pointed to it.

Jessie stared at the map, not really knowing what she was looking for. What did strike her, though, was how vast and empty Fife looked. Miles of open land seemed to separate towns and villages. Long stretches of coastline lay uninhabited. All of a sudden, the enormity of the task that lay ahead seemed insurmountable, her words –
it’s up to us to figure out where he’s at
– ridiculous.

Andy could be anywhere. But he had to be
some
where.

She pressed a finger to the village of Tayport. ‘Bill and Eilidh’s bodies were found here, right?’ She leaned closer, ran her finger along the road towards Leuchars. ‘Bowden’s cottage is here,’ she said. ‘Show me where Stewart Donnelly’s body was found.’

It took Mhairi a few seconds to find what she was looking for. ‘Strathvithie Country Estate,’ she said. ‘Here it is.’

‘And Kingsbarns is here.’ Jessie poked her finger at it and stared hard at the map. ‘So if you drove from Kingsbarns to the Strathvithie whatsit, which way would you go?’

Mhairi ran her finger along Station Road to its connection with the B9131, then along that road until she reached the Country Estate. She looked up at Jessie, and said, ‘So what does that tell us?’

Jessie puffed out her cheeks, raised her eyebrows, and exhaled. ‘That there’s a lot of ground to cover,’ she said. ‘And a hundred different roads to take. Kumar’s not from this area, and with the shit hitting the fan, he won’t have gone anywhere near his home. So he would have gone somewhere else, somewhere where nobody knows him, someplace that’s safe. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘So if you didn’t know your way around, where would you go to find someplace safe?’ Jessie asked.

Mhairi stared at the map, shook her head. Then something seemed to dawn on her. ‘I would need help.’

Jessie smiled. ‘You most definitely would,’ she agreed. ‘And we know just the boy to help us. Don’t we?’

Mhairi pursed her lips and her eyes danced with some inner rage.

‘Come on,’ Jessie said. ‘Phone that conniving fuck and tell him we’re on our way.’

Gilchrist held his breath.

He thought he caught the faintest crunch of shoes in snow. But he could have been mistaken. Then a scraping sound that had him peering through the darkness at the door to the barn. Every nerve in his body tensed as he caught the unmistakable sound of metal on metal – a key being inserted into a lock.

He held his breath as the wooden door creaked, then had to close his eyes and turn his head away from a burst of white light that blinded him.

Then the barn settled into darkness again. He now knew it was a barn, because even in that most fleeting of flashes of light he had caught the shape of farm tools hanging on the walls. A torch beam wavered towards him, then steadied as it found him, only to blind him again.

‘You are awake, I see.’

Gilchrist faced away from the glare, and mumbled, ‘Water.’

A deep chuckle. ‘I am sure you must be thirsty.’

Then the beam left Gilchrist’s face and danced across a dusty concrete floor where it settled on a spot in the corner of the far wall – to the left of where the tripod and its camera stood. The beam shortened as the man walked to the corner, then was lost for a flickering moment as he leaned down and fiddled with something on the ground.

Gilchrist heard a click as the barn opened up to him in a weak yellowish light.

The man pushed himself to his feet and turned to face Gilchrist.

‘Well, Mr Gilchrist. We meet at last.’

Gilchrist needed no introduction to know who the man was. Jet-black hair combed back in a thick slick, and eyes as black as the River Styx in a swarthy complexion, told him he was looking at Kumar. Even bound and taped as helpless as he was, he could not help but marvel at how handsome he looked, and well dressed, too, with a tweed jacket and waistcoat, and pleated trousers, nothing at all like the mind’s vision of a cold-hearted killer. A solitary ring sat on Kumar’s little finger like a bauble, the only jewellery on display.

‘My name is Kumar,’ the man said, leaning down to open a case by his feet. When he stood up, a knife that Gilchrist recognised from Gordie’s beheading glinted in the dim light.

‘And you, Mr Gilchrist, are about to feature in your own video.’

Mhairi rang the doorbell, Jessie by her side. Robert sat alone in the Fiat 500, his whole being absorbed with his iPhone, it seemed.

Angus opened the door and stood back with grim resignation.

Jessie pushed past him and said, ‘Table?’

‘Second door on the left.’

Jessie followed the directions and entered a small kitchen that smelled of cooked food tainted with the acrid hint of burnt toast. The sink and draining board stood elbow-deep in dishes that could overload her dishwasher. The kitchen table’s wooden surface was littered with newspapers, magazines, envelopes, and she swept her arm across it to clear a space.

Mhairi entered, followed by Angus.

‘Put it here,’ Jessie ordered, and waited while Mhairi unfolded the Ordnance Survey map and patted it flat on the table.

For all the attention Mhairi was giving Angus, he could have been invisible. From the domestic dilapidation around them, Angus seemed to be missing a woman’s touch, maybe Mhairi’s in particular. Several days’ worth of stubble dirtied his face, and the skin under his eyes was swollen. He could have been on the bottle for years.

Jessie spread her hands across the map. ‘Right, Angus. No messing. We need your assistance, and we need it now. You showed your blonde bimbo Caryl—’

‘I should throw you out right now for what you said, you wee fat tramp.’

Jessie glared at him. ‘It’s been a while since I’ve been called wee.’

‘Yeah, well, show some respect for the deceased,’ Angus grumbled.

‘Sorry,’ Jessie said. ‘You showed your
deceased
blonde bimbo Caryl a number of properties.’ She slapped the map. ‘Show me where they are.’

‘You’ve already got the addresses—’

‘I don’t give a fuck what we’ve already got. I want you to show me where they are on this map. And I want you to show me how you got there—’

‘By car. How else?’

Jessie pushed herself to her feet and confronted Angus. She stood a good six inches shorter than him, but as she pressed herself forward she could have been looking him in the eye. ‘Keep acting the dumb fuck that you are, and I swear, Angus, I really do, cross my heart and hope to die, I will set my brothers on you. And believe me, they will give you a different definition of mincemeat.’ She stepped back to clear the way for Angus to stand at the table. ‘Now let’s try this once more, and show me on this map which way you drove your fucking blonde bimbo around all day before she was deceased.’

‘Anything to get rid of you lot,’ Angus grumbled, and stepped to the table. ‘First one here, and the—’

‘Describe it.’

‘What?’

‘You thick or what? Describe the property to me. What the fuck does it look like? Ten storeys, twenty bedrooms, four swimming pools, or what?’

‘Three-bedroom two-bathroom bungalow on an acre of land. Fully modernised to the highest specifications,’ he said, settling into his sales pitch. ‘New PVC facia; double-glazing in all windows; new combi boiler and radiators throughout; master bathroom with the latest in power showers—’

‘Neighbours?’

‘Identical bungalows either side—’

‘I can see that from the map. How nosey?’

‘How would I know? They’re elderly, I think. I don’t know.’

‘Does it have a garage?’

‘Garage has recently been extended to take two cars,’ he said, getting back into his sales rhythm, ‘with a door leading into the kitchen utility room—’

‘Any other structures outside? Huts, sheds, chicken coops?’

Angus shook his head.

‘Is it vacant?’

‘They all were. That’s what Caryl was looking for.’

Mhairi shuffled her feet, tugged her jacket.

‘Next one,’ Jessie ordered.

Angus pointed to the map. ‘This one,’ he said, and gave the address.

‘Let’s have it.’

Angus described that, and another two properties, none stirring much interest until he said, ‘This one here. Smallholding on two acres. On the downside, needs work done to it, but they’re not asking as much as the others—’

‘Neighbours?’ Jessie asked again.

‘A farmhouse across the road.’

‘How about next door?’

‘Another smallholding about a couple of hundred yards away.’

‘Huts, etc.’

‘A steading.’

‘What’s that?’

‘A stone-built barn that was once used for keeping chickens.’

‘As big as the barn at Bowden’s cottage?’ Jessie asked.

‘About two-thirds the size,’ Angus said. ‘But as I said, it needs work done to it.’

‘Only this one and Bowden’s has a barn or steading?’

Angus nodded.

‘Why would Dillanos take Bowden’s and not this place?’

‘Bowden’s was better maintained, and the barn was larger, too.’

Jessie glanced at Mhairi. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think the steading’s the key. I think that’s what he needs to imprison the girls.’

‘Keep them out of the house but close enough to check up on them, you mean?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Anything else?’ Jessie asked her.

Mhairi glanced at Angus, and said, ‘I feel as if my skin’s crawling.’

Jessie nodded. ‘That makes two of us.’

Angus stepped towards Mhairi and said, ‘Come on, Mhairi. Don’t be like—’

‘Get your filthy hands off me,’ Mhairi snapped, then turned and left the kitchen.

‘That’s you been told,’ Jessie said to Angus. Then she shook her head and gave him a grim smile. ‘You messed up, Angus. Big time. So take your medicine and move on. Got it?’

Angus stared at her in silence.

Jessie had her mobile in her hand by the time she reached the end of the hallway. She thought of calling Stan and asking for backup, but she knew it was such a long shot that she might be seen as some panic merchant. Mistakes with police resources were expensive and could stay with you for the remainder of your career. But Andy’s life was in danger, so what choice did she have? And delays could be deadly. She knew that from experience.

So she decided to follow her hunch and check it out first.

She slid in behind the wheel and signed Robert in the back,
Are you doing OK
?

Can I have something to eat
? he signed in reply.

She thought of driving him home, dropping him off and ordering a chippie. But that would take her on a detour, cost thirty to forty minutes of time. Besides, she was only going to check the place out, not break in, and she could always call for support if her long shot paid off, and if she needed it.

She signed,
I’ve got to take care of something first, OK
?

Her heart sank as Robert returned his sullen attention to his iPhone.

In the passenger seat next to her, Mhairi sat with her lips pursed in angry silence.

Without another word, Jessie pushed into gear and set off towards the cottage with the steading.

Kumar fiddled with the video, adjusted the focus, then frowned at the screen, as if unhappy with the image Gilchrist was portraying. He switched on a pair of spotlights that stood on either side of the chair, which Gilchrist had not noticed until that moment.

Light bathed both sides of Gilchrist’s face, and brought the barn walls and floor into bright view. Overhead, wooden rafters faded into the shadows of the barn’s roof, like ship’s ribbing. Fluorescent lights dotted every other beam, their metal casings speckled with rust and covered in spider webs as thick and grey as wash-worn rags.

But Gilchrist was now able to confirm the helplessness of his predicament.

If he had any thoughts of being able to wriggle free from the tape that bound him, they were dashed there and then. The chair to which he was tied was made of wood and metal – wooden seat curved to the shape of your behind, so you could be decapitated in relative comfort; and metal legs bolted to the floor, to avoid the risk of hurting yourself if you happened to topple over in your final frantic moments.

If only hangmen could be as considerate.

The matt black finish on the video and spotlights made the equipment look at odds with the barn’s tired finishings. Whitewashed walls, blistered from lack of care, had peeled back in spots to reveal mortar as grey as ash. Light switches, plug sockets, wall-mounted shelves, even an opened tool kit looked as if they had not been touched for years.

And Kumar looked at odds with his surroundings too, as he shuffled around the video recorder, adjusting this, twiddling that, polished shoes losing their shine as he kicked up dust. That alone gave Gilchrist hope, for he reasoned that someone as well dressed and meticulous as Kumar would surely not want his clothes ruined from the unavoidable blood spurting from a manual decapitation.

Gilchrist struggled to make sense of that logic.

Maybe he was going to be videoed tied and bound, and the recording used as some bargaining tool. What would Kumar hope to gain? Money? Safe passage? A plea bargain deal with the procurator fiscal? But the worry that Kumar might have an associate – yet to make his appearance – who would handle the messy business of sawing through his neck while Kumar recorded the event from a spatter-free distance, stifled Gilchrist’s hope. But it was his recognition of the long carving knife that lay on top of the case by the video, its blade reshaped into a worn curve from repeated sharpenings – the same one used to cut off Gordie’s head – that smothered Gilchrist’s hopes altogether.