The Killing Connection Read online

  Also by T. F. Muir

  (DCI Gilchrist series)

  Blood Torment

  The Meating Room

  Life for a Life

  Tooth for a Tooth

  Hand for a Hand*

  Eye for an Eye*

  (DCI Gilchrist Short Story)

  A Christmas Tail

  *Written as Frank Muir

  THE KILLING

  CONNECTION

  A DCI Gilchrist Novel

  T. F. Muir

  Constable • London

  CONSTABLE

  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Constable

  Copyright © T. F. Muir, 2017

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-47212-090-8

  Constable

  An imprint of

  Little, Brown Book Group

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK Company

  www.hachette.co.uk

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  For Anna

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Acknowledgements

  Author’s Note

  CHAPTER 1

  7.35 a.m., Thursday

  Last week in November

  St Andrews, Fife

  ‘Watch your feet there, sir, it’s slippery.’

  DCI Gilchrist could only nod, his concentration focused on picking his way with care across the rocks towards the body. From where he stood, or more correctly stooped, his hands palming slime-covered rocks as he worked around a particularly tricky outcrop, he could tell the woman had been dead for several days, maybe a week. But rain hammering his face at the insistence of a gale-force wind – in Scotland, a stiff breeze – was not making his task easier. And windswept waves pummelling the rocks were only aggravating conditions.

  If they’d had any sense, they should all have stayed in bed.

  ‘Watch yourself, sir.’

  But a wave exploded at his feet before he could react, drenching him waist-high, and it took all his strength to avoid being sucked seawards. ‘Bloody hell,’ he gasped. ‘I don’t know if this is a good idea.’

  ‘You all right, sir?’

  He nodded to Detective Constable Mhairi McBride, who seemed to have found her sea legs without any effort, even though, strictly speaking, they were still on dry land – if it could be called that. ‘I’m fine, Mhairi,’ he shouted, thankful for her outstretched hand as she pulled him up to a higher level.

  ‘There you go, sir. It’s a bit safer here.’

  Gilchrist sucked in the damp morning air, surprised to find himself struggling to catch his breath. At the end of next month he would turn fifty. Who would have thought he would have let himself become so unfit? Maybe all those pies, chips and beans were catching up on him. He hooked his fingers under his belt and gave an upward tug. Still thirty-two-inch waist and weight steady at 70 kilos – about eleven and a half stone in old money – although he had the uneasy sense that his body was taking up more space than it used to.

  ‘Nearly there, sir.’

  He followed her, relieved that the rocks provided a greater foothold at that level. To his left, the stone ruins of St Andrews Castle reared sixty feet into the dark morning sky, looking perilously close to collapse. He had to shield his face as another plume of spray burst landwards, breakers thundering the rocks with a force he could feel through his shoes – his soaked shoes, soaked everything, for that matter.

  A burst of rain whipped his face with a force that stung; he tugged up the collar of his leather jacket and tightened his scarf. With the sea being so rough, he’d been in two minds whether to inspect the body in situ or not, but you never could tell what a first-hand examination might uncover. Although, as he now looked down at the woman’s face, blonde hair flattened across her eyes – nature’s attempt to cover the grotesqueness of fish-nibbled eyes – he wondered what on earth he could achieve.

  Maybe drown himself?

  ‘She must’ve been swept up here at high tide, sir.’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  ‘Then been trapped in the rocks.’

  He eyed the dead woman at his feet, feeling an odd reluctance to take a closer look, now he had worked his way here. She lay supine, feet crossed at the ankles, as if she’d settled down for a nap. But her left arm lay at an unnatural angle flat to her stomach, palm skywards, as if double-jointed. Her skin was scuffed and scraped and alabaster white, although it struck him that if the body had been submerged for more than a day or so, he might expect to see more damage from the thrashing it must have received from being thrown on to the rocks.

  He lifted his gaze up the height of the castle wall, trying to work through the logic of the woman having leaped to her death, rather than being drowned. ‘What d’you think, Mhairi?’ He nodded skywards. ‘Could she have jumped?’

  Mhairi frowned, as if suicide by leaping off a cliff had not occurred to her. Then she slipped on a pair of latex gloves and took hold of the woman’s hand. ‘Don’t think so, sir. I’d say she’s been in the water for a couple of days or so and was swept on to the rocks overnight. If she jumped during the night, I’d expect to feel some rigor.’ She flexed the hand to make her point. ‘Skin’s wrinkled, too. And waterlogged. Definitely come in from the sea, sir.’

  Gilchrist agreed, but didn’t want to sound too eager to concur. ‘I’m thinking that it’s too cold to have come out without a jacket or a coat at this time of year. Of course, I suppose it wouldn’t really matter if your intention was to commit suicide, would it?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘But still,’ he said, ‘you’d wrap yourself up. At least I think I would.’

  ‘I think so too, sir.’

  ‘So we both agree her body’s likely been washed ashore.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  He pulled on a pair of latex gloves. They could conjecture all they liked, but it would be up to the forensic pat
hologist – Dr Rebecca Cooper – to determine cause and time of death. He kneeled on the wet rocks, leaned closer, checked her outstretched hand. No rings. He slid her sweater’s sleeve up. No watch or bracelet. He did the same with the other hand, taking care not to disturb the arm in case the bone was broken. Same result. He then eked her sweater’s roll-neck collar down a touch. No necklace. Next, he eased his hand into the left pocket of her jeans, then the right. Both empty.

  He pushed to his feet.

  He felt puzzled by the way her sleeves hung on her arms – maybe the material had stretched. He didn’t want to pull up her sweater to check, but her chest looked flat enough to suggest no bra. Her jeans, too, had the zip partially undone, permitting a glimpse of white skin where he thought he should see underwear. And no shoes, her painted toenails looking remarkably unscathed around the scraped skin of her feet.

  All of which meant . . .?

  That she had dressed in a hurry – jeans, sweater, nothing else? – and scurried down to the castle to jump off the cliff? He thought not. Nor was it appropriate attire in which to take to the seas, other than in a luxury yacht or ocean liner, of course.

  He turned his face into the full force of the wind, squinting against the spindrift and breaker spray. If the seas had not been as rough, or the winds as strong, would the body have turned up on these rocks when it had? Maybe not, but this spell of bad weather was now on its third day, and who would venture out to sea in conditions like these? Maybe that could be a starting point – check local harbours for anyone crazy enough to take a boat out in such a wild November swell.

  With that thought, he felt a shiver course through him.

  Bloody hell, he was cold. And wet.

  He looked back across the rocks over which they’d scrambled. The tide might be on the ebb, but the crashing waves would make the trip for suited-up SOCOs hazardous at best – look how he’d almost been swept away. He couldn’t imagine them erecting a forensic tent here either. What evidence could they possibly gather from rain- and sea-battered rocks? Everything would have been washed away. And transporting a bagged body off the rocks would be no easy task.

  Was the wind slackening, or was he just imagining it? He pulled his scarf higher up his neck and blew into his hands. A bitter cold was working through his sodden clothes and doing its best to take hold of him. A cup of tea back in the North Street Office was not going to cut it. He would need to drive back to his cottage in Crail, have a piping hot shower and a change of clothes. Mhairi, on the other hand, was jotting down notes and seemed in her element. Maybe he was becoming too old for this any more.

  Back to the dead woman.

  What age was she? If asked, he would put her somewhere in her thirties, maybe forties, although the length of time she’d been in the sea made it difficult to say for sure. Now out of the saltwater, the body was already showing signs of bloating: skin less wrinkled, face more swollen, a general taking up of more space – a bit like himself, come to think of it.

  How had she died? And what had she been doing in her final moments? Struggling against drowning seemed the obvious answer, although he knew from experience never to rely on the obvious. But why out at sea?

  Fishing? Sailing? Swimming?

  Her sweater and jeans told him No. But the more he thought about her attire, the more he came to see that this was no simple case of falling overboard, or taking her life by walking half-clad into the North Sea. In weather like this, you would not go out half-dressed, but what if she had stripped off her outer clothes before wading into the sea, then swam out until she tired and drowned . . .

  A blast of wind whipped breaker surf into the air. He turned to shield his face from the ice-cold spray and found himself looking at the woman’s hands again, puzzling over the way the sleeve of her left arm rested on her stomach. Which was when he saw what he hadn’t picked up earlier.

  ‘Is she wearing a bra?’ he asked.

  Mhairi slipped her notebook into her pocket, then lifted the hem of the woman’s sweater. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Knickers?’

  She unclipped the top button, slid the zip down a touch more. ‘No, sir.’

  He waited until she re-zipped and re-fastened the button before saying, ‘So sweater and jeans, nothing else?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘In weather like this? Why would she go out like that?’

  Mhairi shook her head. ‘I have to say it is a bit odd.’

  Gilchrist paused, as the tumblers of logic dropped into place. ‘She didn’t drown.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘She was killed, then dumped in the sea.’

  ‘Why do you think that, sir?’

  ‘No underwear,’ he said. ‘Someone else put her clothes on.’ He nodded to the body. ‘Check out the neck of her sweater. Roll it down.’

  Mhairi did so.

  ‘What do you see?’

  Mhairi mouthed a perfect Oh, and said, ‘The label. It’s on back to front, sir.’

  Gilchrist removed his mobile from his jacket and stepped closer to the cliff face, searching for a sheltered spot to make the call. His in situ investigation might not have told him all he wanted to know.

  But it did tell him the woman had been murdered.

  CHAPTER 2

  By the time Gilchrist clambered back to the safety of the steps leading from the beach to The Scores – the road that fronted the cliffs – he’d called the Force Contact Centre in Glenrothes and logged the discovery of the body as a suspicious death. The Procurator Fiscal had been notified, too, as had the forensic pathologist, although Gilchrist couldn’t see Dr Rebecca Cooper leaping across slippery rocks, and suspected that the body would need to be moved before she could officially confirm life was extinct – one of those odd requirements of the investigative process, even though it was often more than obvious to everyone standing around that the body they were all looking at was indeed a corpse.

  Still, you had to tick all the boxes.

  The SOCO Transit van was pulling up to the kerb on the East Scores behind Gilchrist’s BMW as he reached the top of the steps. First out was Colin, the lead SOCO, scrubbing his chin as if to confirm he needed a shave. Gilchrist could not remember the last time he’d seen Colin clean-shaven, and could never tell if his face was sporting a couple of days of absent-minded growth or trimmed designer stubble.

  Colin’s eyes widened as Gilchrist approached. ‘Bit cold for a swim, isn’t it?’

  ‘Your turn next,’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘At least the rain’s stopped.’

  Gilchrist felt so cold and wet he hadn’t even noticed. Looking down on the beach and the rocks beyond, the sea looked half as wild and nowhere near as dangerous as it had close up. Even the wind felt as if it had dropped to a mild breeze. For all he knew, it could be blue skies and calm seas in an hour, even less.

  ‘So who’s with the body now?’ Colin asked.

  ‘DC McBride.’

  Colin smiled, flashing a set of perfect teeth. ‘You’ve just made my morning.’

  ‘Well, keep your thoughts on the job.’

  Colin winked, then set off down the path to the beach, seemingly oblivious to the cold and the wind, as if his body had just been energised.

  In the morning darkness, Gilchrist could just make out Mhairi’s figure as she crouched and prodded about the rocks. He didn’t expect she would find anything, but you had to admire her tenacity. On the other hand, he was thinking no further than getting home and changing before he froze to death. With a briefing in the North Street Office scheduled for 9 a.m., he could be back in plenty of time for that.

  He clicked his remote. His car flashed its lights at him.

  It didn’t take long for the heater to blow hot air – past the cathedral ruins and left into Abbey Street – by which time the shivering had reached his teeth. He turned the fan to high, and put a call through to DS Jessie Janes on his car’s system.

  She answered on the third ring. ‘I thought you told me to take a day
off.’

  ‘You sound as if you’re still choked up.’

  ‘Lemsips morning, noon, and night. Already had one for breakfast. Don’t know what they put in that stuff, but it’s not working.’

  ‘You should try a hot toddy with a spoonful of honey.’

  ‘I should cut through the chaff and go straight for the whisky.’ She let out a muffled sneeze. ‘Although I wouldn’t expect Smiler to approve. Come to think of it, I can’t imagine Smiler approving of anything that came close to pleasure.’

  Gilchrist chuckled. Chief Superintendent Tom Greaves had retired unexpectedly a month ago. Health reasons were rumoured, although Gilchrist suspected that a heated run-in with big Archie McVicar, the Chief Constable, over budget cutbacks had paved the way for a quick and silent exit. Greaves’s position had been filled at short notice by Tayside’s Diane Smiley, whose surname was already being proven to be the opposite of her personality.

  Jessie said, ‘But you’re not calling to ask how I’m keeping. So, what’ve we got?’

  ‘A woman’s body at the foot of the Castle rocks. We think she’s been murdered.’

  ‘Pushed over the cliffs?’

  ‘We don’t think so.’

  ‘Floated in on the tide?’

  ‘More like thrown on to the rocks by storm breakers.’

  A pause, then, ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘Me and Mhairi.’

  ‘How’s she coming along?’

  ‘Mhairi?’

  ‘No, Queen Elizabeth.’

  ‘Showing promise, taking the initiative, observant, too.’

  ‘It’s good she’s fitting in,’ Jessie said. ‘I like her a lot. After what she’s been through, the least we can do is give her a leg up every chance we get. Oh no, hang on.’

  Gilchrist drove on while a series of hacking coughs barked from the speakers.

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Jessie came back, and snorted a sniff.

  ‘That’s why you should stay in bed.’

  ‘I’m not in bed. I’m up and about. Fresh air is what I need.’

  ‘There’s plenty of that about,’ he said, then stamped his foot on the brake and skidded to a halt. ‘Let me get back to you.’ He slammed into reverse and backed up, engine whining, and parked askew to the kerb – not quite as good as he used to be.