Tooth for a Tooth (21 page)

Gilchrist felt deflated.

As he watched the SOCOs manhandle the mattress and photograph the stains, he felt a lump swell in his throat. Had this old house, this bedroom, been the place where Kelly’s life had been taken, ended by a blow that had crushed her skull and spilled her lifeblood? Why had she been killed? What had happened? But more troubling was the question that kept resurfacing in his mind.

Where had Jack been when Kelly was battered to death?

At that question, a shiver as cold as an Arctic wind ran the length of his spine. The thought was almost inconceivable. But Gilchrist knew anything was possible. The cigarette lighter, Kelly’s disappearance, Jack’s emotional crash, his out-of-character mood swings and vocal ragings in the weeks before his hit-and-run accident – were all of these connected, somehow? Gilchrist had always believed that Jack had been pining for his lost American girlfriend. Now more crippling thoughts wormed to the fore. Had Jack killed Kelly? If he had, could he have lived with the burden of what he had done? Had Jack committed suicide by stepping in front of a speeding—

‘Sir?’

‘Yes?’

‘I was asking if you remembered which way the bed faced.’

Gilchrist pointed to the wall opposite the door. If anyone rushed through that door and projectile-vomited, the bed would be the unlucky recipient. ‘This way,’ he said.

‘So the pillows would be at this end? About here?’

Gilchrist nodded. ‘Give or take. Does it matter?’

‘Just a thought, sir. But if the mattress was turned this way, and her head was on the pillows, then the bloodiest stain would be closest to the wall.’ He kneeled on the floor and fingered the wallpaper where it overlapped the skirting board. ‘See here, sir?’

Gilchrist kneeled beside him.

‘Several layers of wallpaper. See? No one does a proper wallpapering job any more. My old man used to strip the walls back to the plaster before papering. Then he’d rub them down and fill the cracks before sizing the walls. Nowadays, they just plaster new paper over old, which got me thinking, just how many layers could have been put up in thirty-five years?’

He gripped the edge of the paper between thumb and forefinger, eased it from the skirting board, pulled it back to reveal a white layer underneath. He continued to scrape until he loosened another layer. Then he grunted. ‘Looks like there’s three layers. Could be one more. Maybe multiple coats of emulsion in between, depending on the damage left by the students. What do you think?’

Gilchrist nodded. ‘It’s worth a try.’ He stepped back as the other two SOCOs brought the bed frame back into the room, laid the mattress on top and adjusted it as if readying to make the bed.

Colin removed a pencil from his pocket and drew a rectangle on the wall, from just beyond the head of the bed to about three feet along its length, and four feet above the level of the mattress. Then he manhandled the bed away from the wall, pushing it into the middle of the room.

‘Right, Joe,’ he ordered. ‘Set it up.’

One of the SOCOs spent the next two minutes setting up the camera on a tripod, and once done, pressed the shutter. The room flashed.

‘OK, here we go.’ Colin sprayed Luminol within the rectangle on the wall.

Gilchrist counted a full minute before Colin clicked on the black light.

Nothing.

‘Keep going,’ Colin said.

The other SOCO stepped up to the wall with a pail of warm water, and painted over the rectangle with a pasting brush. Another minute passed before he looked at Colin for his nod of approval, ran the sharp edge of the scraper along the pencilled lines and eased the wallpaper back.

‘One layer at a time,’ Colin said.

Gilchrist watched the top layer peel back to reveal white woodchip. Strips of the first layer remained, half-peeled slivers as drab as pith.

‘Joe?’

The camera flashed once, twice.

Colin pointed his arm to the wall and sprayed the woodchip with Luminol.

After another minute, the black light revealed nothing.

Silent, Gilchrist watched them peel back two more layers, until a series of luminescent spots glowed.

‘Well, well, well,’ Colin said, peering closer. ‘What have we here?’

The room flashed as the camera clicked, then Joe unscrewed it from the tripod and moved closer, capturing the spatter pattern on the wall. In his mind’s eye, Gilchrist watched Kelly lying in bed facing the wall, defenceless, as the killer struck down at her, crushing the right side of her skull, spattering blood and brain matter on to the wall. And no matter how he tried, in his mind’s eye flickered an image of Jack in a rage.

‘Let’s try for some DNA,’ Colin said.

‘We should cut the lot out,’ Joe said, ‘and take it back to the lab.’

‘Let’s do that. But first shoot off some more, Joe. Make sure we’ve got it covered from all angles.’

Gilchrist slipped from the room.

In College Street, the air felt cold and damp, the wind fresh and lively. He breathed it in, felt its chill bring life back into his lungs. He walked towards Market Street and turned right. He had no destination in mind, no idea where he was walking to, knowing only that he was walking away from something, some terrible event in the past.

Perhaps the scene of his brother’s murderous crime.

CHAPTER 16

Gilchrist was nearing the arches of the West Port when his fingers found Nance’s note.

He unfolded it. At the top, in her neat printing, was
MGB
, and beneath,
John Betson
, followed by an address in Edinburgh, a phone number and a note that John Betson was the last recorded owner of the MGB GT that Fairclough had once owned.

The call to Betson put Gilchrist through on the first ring. Without introducing himself, he said, ‘I understand you own an MGB GT.’ Betson paused long enough to make Gilchrist think he had lost the call. ‘Do you still have it?’ he tried.

‘You
are
joking, right?’

Gilchrist frowned. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘Some other punter called me first thing this morning and asked if I still had the GT. I mean, I’ve had it for over twenty years, and in the same day I get two calls about it. Is that crazy, or what?’

Excitement surged through Gilchrist. Had his surprise visit to Fairclough flushed him out? Was he now too late? ‘Have you sold it?’ he asked.

‘No. And that’s another funny thing,’ Betson said. ‘We talked money, but he sounded disinterested. Like he didn’t want to buy.’

‘Did you get his name?’

‘He hung up before I could ask.’

It had to have been Fairclough, and for a moment he thought of telling Betson that he was with Fife Constabulary. But Betson seemed so loose and ready with his words that he worried that doing so might clamp him up. Instead, he said, ‘Has anyone come round to have a look at it?’

‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve just got back.’

A thought hit him. ‘Is it still there? The car, I mean. It’s not been stolen—’

‘Not a chance,’ Betson said. ‘It’s under six feet of rubbish in the garage. Tell you what, though, I could do with selling it at the moment. It’s up on blocks, and the engine’s filled with oil, so it should be spotless. Are you interested?’

It occurred to Gilchrist that Fairclough might already be on his way over with a tow truck and a pile of cash that Betson could not resist. That could be Fairclough’s style. Which also meant that, after all these years, time might now be running out. ‘I might be,’ Gilchrist said. ‘Can I see it?’

‘Sure. But it’s buried in my garage.’

Which should keep it safe and secure for a while longer. ‘Did the man who called earlier say anything that seemed odd? Did he say how he knew you had the car?’

‘No.’

‘Did he just ask if you had it, then hang up?’

‘He asked if it was roadworthy, and I told him it was in my garage.’

‘Then he hung up?’

Betson paused, then said, ‘You know, come to think of it, he did ask one question I thought was odd.’

Gilchrist pressed the phone hard against his ear.

‘He asked if I’d stripped the front end or changed the headlights.’

The headlights?
‘Both of them?’

‘I assume that’s what he meant, yes.’

Gilchrist stared off to the distance, to a bank of clouds as dark as his mood. An image of a body being thrown over a car like a stringless marionette hit his mind, the same image he had dreamed ever since entered brother’s death – always the same – Jack’s body tumbling and hitting the ground, to be left bleeding and dying.

And the only damage to the car, a broken headlight. Or was it?

‘And had you?’ he asked.

‘No. There’s nothing wrong with the headlights. I’ve done nothing to the car since I bought it, except keep it clean and in storage. And when I told him that, he swore, which I thought was odd.’

‘At you?’

‘No. Just a
fuck
, then click.’

Why had Fairclough asked if the headlights had been changed or the front end stripped? He would have repaired the broken headlights himself before selling the car on. But had the front end been damaged in the accident as well?

All of a sudden, he saw other possibilities.

‘What year is the car?’

‘Sixty-eight,’ said Betson. ‘And in great nick,’ he added, and launched into his sales spiel.

Silent, Gilchrist listened to Betson quote brake horsepower, engine size in cubic inches and cubic centimetres, length of wheelbase, turning circle and a litany of other things that Gilchrist could not care less about. He could hardly wait to call Stan, get him to check something out for him.

And all the while the Mercedes was eating the miles to Betson’s home.

Stan called Gilchrist back before he reached Edinburgh.

‘You were right, boss. McKinley, who bought the car from Fairclough, said it had a dent in the front end, which he patched up himself.’

‘Patched up?’

‘Hammered out, buffed down, repainted. His own words.’

Gilchrist gripped the steering wheel, eyed the road ahead.

Was it possible? After all these years?

By the time Gilchrist reached his destination, night had fallen.

Betson’s garage was remote from the house, one of a row of identical lock-ups that lined a cobbled lane at the back of the tenement building. Light from the kitchen windows cast a dim glow over parts of the lane. Each lock-up seemed too narrow to park a car in, the turning circle too tight. A number on a metal plate screwed into the frame above double wooden doors matched Betson’s home address.

‘Here we are.’ Betson inserted a key into a rusted padlock. ‘Haven’t had a look at it for some time, but back here’s as safe as houses. We’ve lived here for over thirty years and never had a spot of bother. Not even any graffiti. Amazing, when you think about it.’

Gilchrist eyed the narrow lane. The lock-ups extended in a row to a high stone wall that bordered the back gardens of houses one street over. On the opposite side of the lane, a wall as high as the other bounded Betson’s building. The lane faded to a dark mouth as it kinked on a forty-five-degree bend out of sight to the main road. Betson’s garage sat at the farthest end, where the lane dead-ended against the back of a brick building. No matter how skilful the driver, manoeuvring in and out of any of these garages had to be a feat in itself.

Most of the lock-ups were secured with rusting padlocks and wooden doors that seemed to have taken root among the weeds. Paint and slivers of wood had flaked off at the foot of Betson’s garage door, but the cobbles fronting it had the worn pattern of wood scraping stone.

Someone could die back here, and remain undiscovered for days.

‘When did you say you were last down here?’ Gilchrist asked.

‘Months ago. Just after Easter, I think.’

‘Looks like these doors have been opened recently.’

‘That would be the wife. She’s forever stacking stuff down here.’

Betson hooked the opened padlock on to the clasp, the key dangling from it like an earring, and eased one of the doors open. The strangely pleasant smell of petrol and oil mixed with ageing leather hit Gilchrist.

‘There’s a light switch in here,’ Betson’s voice came back at him.

The inside of the garage opened up to Gilchrist like Aladdin’s cave.

Folded tables, chairs, cardboard cartons stacked with comics, books, children’s toys, lined both sides of a grey tarpaulin stretched across the ghostly outline of some low-slung vehicle. Framed pictures and posters wrapped in tissue paper perched on the tarpaulin, as if placed there as an afterthought.

Betson pushed his way through the muddle like a man wading through water, to squeeze past a rusted barbecue stand, a bag of golf clubs, then step over what looked like a chaise longue, its yellow fabric spotted with oil or mould. A gunmetal toolbox sat in the mildewed folds of a garden umbrella that lay like a quilt over boxes of comics.

Gilchrist followed.