Hand for a Hand (12 page)

Gilchrist opened his mobile phone and punched in 141, which prevented the recipient from tracing the incoming call, then tapped in the number. He pressed the phone to his ear, not wanting to miss the slightest sound.

Fifteen rings later, he hung up.

He checked the print-out and tried again. He counted twenty rings, then hung up.

He could think of any number of reasons why the call would not be answered, but he worried that a sequence had to be followed, that perhaps it had to ring an agreed number of times, then hung up and tried again. If that was the case, then he had already blown it, and Watt was being warned off at that moment.

Gilchrist dialled the Office. “Put me through to Dick,” he ordered.

Several seconds later, an upbeat voice chirped, “Hey, Andy. Long time.”

“Can you do a reverse number check on a mobile phone number for me?”

A sharp intake of breath, then, “Could do. But it depends on which company. Some of them spring up out of nowhere, do the biz, then pow, just evaporate. Sometimes you can’t get a damn thing. But I’ll give it a go. Looking for a name and address?”

“At least.”

“Need bank account details, driver’s licence?”

“Give me what you can.” Gilchrist recited the number, and said, “And as soon as.”

“You got it.”

Working back from the most recent date, Gilchrist looked for numbers he recognised. On the page that listed Watt’s outgoing calls the day before he returned to Fife Constabulary, he came across a number that reverberated in the depths of his memory banks. He had seen that number before, but could not recall whose it was. He opened his mobile and ran through its memorised numbers.

Thirty seconds later he had a name.

His lips moved in silence as he compared the number, one digit after another, taking care to make sure it was correct, then failing to understand how it could be on Watt’s records in the first place. He checked other pages, flipped the records over and over
then back to the beginning to make sure the number on Watt’s record, the number that should not be there, was the number he was reading.

But he was not mistaken. The number was right.

Starting with 0141, the code for Glasgow.

He ran through every page, but found it recorded only once. As if that would lessen the anger that swelled in his throat and stifled his breath. The call, the one call, the only call to that number he could find, had lasted all of sixteen minutes.

Which could mean only one thing.

She had answered. And Watt had spoken to her.

For sixteen minutes, a full sixteen minutes, DS Ronnie Watt had spoken to Maureen Gillian Gilchrist.

An image of Watt’s bloodied face flashed into his mind with the force of a lightning strike. Then Maureen, face tearful and twisted with anger, burst through. He remembered how they had argued and, after calming down, how he thought he had talked sense into her. She promised she would never speak to Watt again. But now her promise had been broken.

And by Christ, she would tell him why.

He dialled Maureen’s number, and counted ten rings before it struck him that he had checked Watt’s records for her home number only, not her mobile. He hung up and searched his memorised numbers again until he found her mobile number. Then he searched Watt’s records and found Maureen’s number on five separate dates and circled every one of them. The calls ranged from twenty-six minutes, to the shortest at two minutes, three weeks ago, after which Watt had not called her mobile number again.

Did that mean Maureen and Watt had an affair that ended? That she wanted nothing more to do with him? Or was it worse than that? Was she calling Watt? Again, thoughts of having it out with her fired through his mind, until he saw that it was not his daughter he needed to talk to.

He crumpled the print-out into a ball, and threw it into the passenger seat.

“You bastard,” he hissed, and thudded into gear.

The Merc’s tires cut into the asphalt with a tight squeal. Only once before had his control failed him. And that was against Watt. He had almost lost his job over that incident. But back then, he’d had two children and a wife to consider. Now none of that mattered.

He had heard criminals say they would swing for the bastard.

Now he knew how they felt.

S
HE KICKED OUT
,
thought she hit a thigh, and tried again.

“Fuck—”

Another pair of hands gripped her ankles, and a man’s voice, damp with spittle and stale with the smell of cigarette smoke, hissed in her ear.

“Steady, steady.…”

Already her peripheral vision was dimming. She tried to shake her head, break free from the rough hand that pinched her nose and pressed as hard as wood across her mouth. She screamed, but could only mumble, and knew she was using up the last of her breath.

Her lips felt as if they could burst under the pressure. Her lungs burned.

She tried another kick, but her legs could be wrapped in lead. She snapped her head back, thought she connected, but her heart felt as if it was about to explode. She thought she heard a voice mumble, “No,” but it could have been the rush of blood in her ears.

The room darkened, the walls tilted, and the floor came up and pressed its woven carpet against her back.

Chapter 14

A
s G
ILCHRIST NEARED
the Old Course Hotel, all thoughts of choking the truth from Watt were put on hold. Two SOCOs were erecting an
Incitent
on the other side of the stone wall that bounded the hotel grounds. Had they found another body part? But no one had called him. As he reached for his mobile phone it rang. He expected it to be the Office, but it was Mackie.

“They said they couldn’t find you.”

“I’m almost with you, Bert. What’ve you got?”

“The other leg.”

“And a note?”

“Cut into the flesh. Gouged out more like.”

Gilchrist slowed down. Up ahead, the
Incitent
shivered in the breeze. Would this note confirm his theory? If the order was wrong, the cryptic message might not make sense.

“What word this time?”

“Matricide.”

Gilchrist took a few seconds to go through the letters, then felt something heavy slap over in his gut.
Murder. Massacre. Bludgeon
. And now
Matricide
.

He hung up, stared off to the horizon, pressed his mobile to his lips.

He had his message.

He had known. He had known as soon as he had the third word.

And he had failed to act.

Two hands. Two legs. Four body parts. Four notes.

And he saw how the order could not be mistaken.

Left hand, right hand. Left leg, right leg.

The notes were being delivered in a specific order so the message was clear, with the simplest of codes so that he could not fail to work it out. He now knew he would be given three more body parts, all the killer would need to send his entire message. But it was worse than that. Much worse. If the killer planned on Gilchrist solving the puzzle, then he reasoned that it would be too late for him to be able to do anything about it when he did.

He parked on the expanse of grass that separated the Old Course Hotel from the main road, tried Maureen again, and cursed when it rang out. He should have been shunted into voice mail. He tried her mobile, but again could not get through.

Christ, it was happening. It was really happening.

He punched in the number for Strathclyde Police Headquarters and asked for Dainty.

“DCI Small speaking.” The voice sounded thin, just like the man.

“Pete, it’s Andy Gilchrist. I need your help.”

“If I can, Andy.”

“It’s Maureen.” He tried to sound calm, but could not control a quiver that seemed to catch the back of his throat. “Did you assign someone to watch her?”

“PC Tom Russell. He’s a good guy.”

“Can you have him bring her in?”

A moment’s pause, then, “Care to explain?”

Gilchrist did, and Dainty reassured him that Maureen must be all right, or he would have already heard from PC Russell. But when he hung up, Gilchrist could not rid himself of the gutsinking feeling that he was too late. It was her answering machine being switched off that worried him. Whenever Maureen was out, her answering machine was always on. It seemed to be how they communicated.

Now he was too late. And seventy miles too far north.

But Dainty was a good detective, and a good man, and Gilchrist took comfort from the thought that he would treat Gilchrist’s request as if Maureen were his own daughter. And maybe, just maybe, Gilchrist could do something at this end.

Mackie greeted him with a hardened face and a spare set of coveralls and gloves.

Gilchrist pulled them on and entered the SOCO tent.

A faint yellow light spread over the scene, making the leg look as if it was made of plastic. Gilchrist kneeled. MATRICIDE was cut along the length of the inner thigh and calf. Although the curves of the R, C and D looked irregular, he thought the word had been formed with some care. The leg had been amputated at the top of the thigh, with a clean cut. But the cut had been made too high, and a thin strip of pubic hair trimmed the edge like the beginnings of a weak moustache.

Gilchrist felt his throat constrict. This was the leg of a young woman he had spoken to, laughed with, had a drink with, someone who shared a life with his son with all the youthful aspirations of the future.

What could he tell Jack?

“Same method of amputation,” Mackie mumbled. “Some sort of saw. See here?” He pointed at the cut through the bone. “You can see the curved marks on the femur. See? And where it cuts into the skin. Here.” He ran a pointed finger along the edge.

Gilchrist nodded.

“I would say circular saw. We may be looking for a workshop of sorts.”

“Like a home workshop?”

“Could be.”

Gilchrist frowned. He was looking at too wide a target. Anyone could install a workshop in their attic, garden shed, or God only knew where. He needed to refine it. “How about the saw marks?” he said. “Can we tell the size of the blade from the curve?”

“Might do,” said Mackie. “But I wouldn’t want to bank on a high level of accuracy.”

“You might be able to define some diametrical limits.”

“Possible.”

Gilchrist eyed the leg, resisted touching the skin. “Why the different techniques?” he asked. “The first two notes were printed. The next two by mutilation.”

“To make us think there’s worse to come?” Mackie offered.

Gilchrist grimaced. Mackie had a point. If each body part was presented with a hand-printed note, where were the scare tactics? The purpose was to frighten him, let him solve the cryptic clues, so he would know revenge was being sought. He swallowed the lump in his throat, dabbed at the cold sweat on his brow. The tactics were working. He knew what the killer had planned, and now he needed a break in his investigation before, before.…

Jesus. It didn’t bear thinking about.

Think. Damn it. Think
.

But his mind refused to work.

“This guy’s one sick bastard,” he said, and pushed past Mackie, out into the open.

He freed his hair from the coveralls and peeled off the gloves. The cold air carried the tangy taste of kelp. He breathed it in, almost revelled in the light-headedness of the moment. He unzipped the coveralls, removed his phone to try Maureen again, and was about to punch in the number when Mackie said, “Andy?”

Gilchrist snapped his phone shut and faced Mackie. Deep intelligence hewn from a lifetime of pathology shifted like a shadow behind the old man’s eyes.

“You know,” Mackie said. “You know what the killer is saying.”

Gilchrist felt his lips tighten.
Did
he know? Did he
really
know? He could be wrong. He hoped to God he was wrong. But every nerve in his body told him he was not. He shook his head. “I’m not sure, Bert,” he said. “It’s just a thought.”

“Share it with me.”

Gilchrist stared off past the hotel, across the fairways to the grass-covered mounds of the dunes where they had sat on the windswept sands drinking ice-cold champagne.

First Chloe. And now.…

“I think Maureen’s next.”

Silent, Mackie returned his stare.

“I think that’s what the notes are trying to tell me.”

“Why do you think that?” Mackie’s voice resonated deep and calm. He placed his hand on Gilchrist’s shoulder, and squeezed. “Run it past me.”

“First note, Murder. First letter,
M
.

“Second note, Massacre. Second letter,
A
.

“Third note, Bludgeon. Third letter,
U
.

“Fourth note, Matricide. Fourth letter,
R
.”

Gilchrist watched the meaning of his words work through the old man’s mind.

“M, A, U, R,” Mackie said.

“E, E, N,” added Gilchrist. “Three more body parts.” He watched Mackie’s head turn to the side and his eyes stare at the tent, as if trying to imagine how he would feel if that leg belonged to his own daughter.

“I don’t want anyone to know, Bert.”

Mackie turned back to him, eyes creased against the sunlight. “Can I ask why?”

“I want whoever’s doing this to think we don’t know what’s going on.”

“Playing for time?”

Playing for time
. What a way to put it. It sounded like a game. But it was no game. And Gilchrist saw then how he had run out of time. He should have had a couple of minders watch her round the clock earlier. But maybe he had it wrong. He stepped away from Mackie and opened his mobile. But he could still not get through.

He tried his cottage.

Three rings and he was through. He could not mention the latest leg to Jack. “I need to get hold of Maureen.” He struggled to sound calm. “Do you know where she is?”

“Probably with Chris.”

Gilchrist’s hopes soared. “You have a number for him?”

“Sorry.”

“Home number?”

“No.”