Life For a Life Read online

Christ, it didn’t bear thinking about.

  CHAPTER 3

  Tuesday night

  The Stand Comedy Club

  Woodlands Road, Glasgow

  Gilchrist thought she looked small on stage, not diminutive – her baggy top suggested otherwise – more like she was out of her depth, in unsafe waters, a swimmer struggling against a rip current that changed direction without warning.

  The rough Glasgow accent cut through the ambient din once more.

  ‘Is that the best you can dae?’ someone roared. ‘C’mon, it’s time to get aff.’

  ‘Isn’t it past your bedtime, sonny?’ she railed back at him.

  ‘Goin’ to bed? Are you interested?’

  Pint glasses chinked in drunken victory.

  ‘Only if your old man’s at home,’ she retaliated. ‘But if he looks anything like you, I wouldnae let any of my sheep near him.’

  A surge of laughter, a ripple of hard applause, drowned out the man’s response. For a moment, it looked as if he would rise to his feet and stagger to the stage, but a hand on his shoulder from a man as wide as he was tall and a whisper in his ear suggested otherwise.

  ‘And talking about sheep,’ she went on to mild laughter, ‘how many of you here like your whisky?’

  Several hands lifted in unsteady embarrassment.

  She spread one arm wide in mock surprise. ‘Is that the best youse can dae?’ she mimicked. More arms lifted.

  Gilchrist noted that the loudmouth now sat silent, a scowl on his face, his mates subdued beside him, half-empty pints perched on the table, behind which the oversized man in his oversized suit stood guard.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘I know youse like your whisky. You’re Scottish. Right?’

  She waited a beat for a non-response. Beads of sweat glistened on her top lip. She was struggling to win the crowd, maybe losing more than she was winning over.

  ‘And we all know what whisky’s made from,’ she went on. ‘And it’s mostly water.’ She strode across the stage, then back again, as if she had now discovered the power in her legs. ‘And where does the water come from?’ she shouted. ‘The hills,’ she answered, then stopped and faced the audience. ‘And what’s in these hills?’ A pause, then, ‘Yes, you’re allowed to say it,’ she egged on an elderly couple at a front table. ‘That’s it, dear. Sheep,’ she concluded for them. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘The hills are alive with the sound of . . . ?’

  A woman near an Exit sign chuckled, more in sympathy, Gilchrist thought.

  ‘Sheep shagging.’ A voice from the back.

  ‘Close,’ she said. ‘Try sheep shitting, and sheep pissing.’ She faced the audience, and nodded to a table by the corner of the stage. ‘So next time you take a sip of the amber nectar,’ she said to them, ‘give a thought to all those sheep.’

  The audience laughed. Someone shouted, ‘Go, Jessie,’ and Gilchrist noticed the fat man was clapping the loudest. Jessie looked out across the pond of faces, as if imagining she was in the London Palladium, or maybe wishing she was somewhere else, somewhere far from that night’s thankless audience. Then she smiled as her gaze settled on a young man – more boy than man – standing alone at the rear of the hall.

  A quick wink, then back to the audience. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘You’ve been a fantastic crowd.’ A wave of her hands. ‘Thank you, thank you. And good night.’

  Gilchrist clapped as well, a grin tugging his lips, as she strode off the stage as if she had just been called back for her third encore.

  She almost bumped into a man in denim jacket and jeans, who spread an outstretched arm behind him as they passed on the stage. ‘Give a big hand, ladies and gentlemen, to Jessie Janes,’ he shouted. ‘Gun-toting, joke-toting Jessie Janes.’

  Gilchrist watched Jessie step from the stage and work her way along the edge of the room, applauded by some as she passed their tables, ignored by others. As she neared, he stepped from the shadows.

  ‘DS Janes?’ he said.

  ‘And you are?’ But before Gilchrist could respond, Jessie shifted her stance, almost turning away from him, and half-whispered, ‘Shit. Here comes Jabba the Hutt.’

  ‘Problems, Jess?’ said the oversized man.

  ‘Just having a chat.’

  The man nodded, gave Gilchrist a hard stare. ‘You look familiar,’ he said. ‘We met before?’

  Gilchrist shook his head. ‘If we had, I’m sure I would have remembered.’

  Jessie coughed, put her hand to her mouth.

  The fat man squared up to Gilchrist, eyes twin raisins in a suet pudding. He wore his clothes well for a big man. His grey suit looked brand new, his white shirt starched and large enough to limit neck folds at the collar. An aromatic fragrance spilled off him.

  ‘Fancy yourself as laugh-a-minute?’ the fat man asked. ‘Want five seconds of fame behind the stage?’

  ‘Steady on, Lachie, he’s only—’

  ‘I know what he’s only doing.’

  Gilchrist recognised him then – DI Lachlan McKellar of Strathclyde Constabulary, plus ten stones of flab – more tubby than fat when they first met fifteen years earlier. He must have spent the bulk of these years stuffing his face with lard.

  ‘Andy Gilchrist,’ he said, offering his hand. ‘DCI. Fife.’

  McKellar ignored Gilchrist’s hand. On the stage behind him, the next act, a skeletal man with stick legs and hands of bone, was fiddling with the mic to a wave of light applause. Movement to the side distracted Gilchrist, and a young man with dirty-blond hair – the boy at whom Jessie had winked – nudged into Jessie’s side for a quick hug, then shrugged her off and mouthed in silence as his fingers flicked and his hands moved with the speed of an expert sign linguist.

  Jessie responded with signs of her own, then faced Gilchrist and held out her hand. ‘Didn’t expect a welcoming committee to come and fetch me,’ she said.

  Her hand felt warm and dry, despite the flat act on stage. ‘Thought I’d come down and take a look,’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘To see what making a fool of yourself looks like, you mean?’

  Something in the tone of her voice warned Gilchrist not to challenge her. ‘I’m also a part-time scout for the Byre Theatre,’ he joked, and pushed past the moment with a smile.

  But Jessie’s face deadpanned, and she turned to the boy. ‘What d’you think of my new boss?’ she asked him. More signing that coughed up a raspy chuckle from her. ‘Robert says he likes you,’ she said to Gilchrist.

  ‘Nice to meet you, Robert.’ Gilchrist held out his hand.

  Robert touched it, then stuffed his hands into his pockets.

  McKellar slid an arm round Jessie’s shoulder, his grip tight enough to prevent her wriggling free. ‘Nice talking to you again, DCI Gilchrist. But we have a reservation at the Park.’

  Gilchrist nodded, was about to walk away, when Jessie shrugged McKellar’s arm from her shoulder and grumbled, ‘Give me a minute.’

  Robert seemed to understand before McKellar, who paused for a moment, then brushed past Gilchrist with a move so sudden that he bumped him against the wall.

  When McKellar and Robert were out of earshot, Jessie said, ‘Sorry about that. Lachie can be a nasty shite when he puts his mind to it. Gives me the creeps when he acts like that.’

  ‘Seems possessive,’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘He’s looking to trade in his wife for a younger model.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘I heard you were good.’

  ‘And you don’t have it in you to tell him you’re not interested?’

  ‘Oh I’ve got it in me, all right,’ she said. ‘Don’t you worry about that. But Jabba doesn’t understand English. Maybe I should tell him to fuck off in Huttian, or whatever the hell they talk in.’

  ‘Which is the reason you’ve transferred to St Andrews?’

  ‘One of them.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  Gilchrist nodded as her eyes darted left and
right, as if expecting some ghost from her past to manifest from the shadows. But he guessed it was more basic than that.

  ‘It’s no-smoking,’ he tried.

  ‘Don’t rub it in. I’m trying to give up.’

  ‘Join the club.’

  ‘A right fine pair we’ll make,’ she said, then gripped his arm. ‘Look. I’m not always this dizzy. Just not feeling right at the moment. With the move and . . .’ A glance at McKellar. ‘It’s important for me, for Robert, that this new job works out. I won’t fuck it up. I mean, I won’t let you down,’ then added, ‘sir.’

  ‘Trust is important,’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘You can trust me, sir.’

  ‘And honesty.’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to die.’

  Gilchrist let several beats pass. ‘What did Robert really say?’

  ‘Thought you looked a bit of a plonker,’ she said.

  ‘Plonker?’

  ‘Well, wanker.’

  ‘That’s better. No more lies?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, and smiled. ‘We’ll make a right fine pair indeed, then.’

  CHAPTER 4

  Wednesday morning

  St Andrews, Fife

  Gilchrist had Nance chase up Donnelly’s missing associate.

  When the call came into the office at 10.13 a.m., Nance was no further forward.

  ‘Whereabouts on the Coastal Path?’ Gilchrist asked, and jotted it down. ‘Are they still there?’ He flagged Jessie, and she caught his eye, puzzled. ‘Tell them to stay put. We’re on our way.’ He pushed to his feet, pulled on his leather jacket, Jessie by his side as they swept through the office, and out the door into North Street.

  ‘What’s the rush?’ Jessie gasped, as she struggled to keep up with him.

  ‘A couple walking their dog found a woman’s body,’ he said.

  ‘Dead?’

  Gilchrist glanced at her. ‘A woman’s body usually means she’s dead. Yes.’

  ‘So she’s not going to get up and run away, then?’

  Gilchrist eased back on his stride. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Force of habit.’

  ‘Habit? Sounds like the East Neuk’s the murder capital of the world.’

  By the time they reached Gilchrist’s Merc, Jessie was breathing heavily. She stood back as he pressed the remote, then opened the door for her.

  ‘Thought the last of the gentlemen vanished with the cowboys,’ she said, sliding into the passenger seat.

  ‘You look as if you could use a hand,’ he said, and closed the door on her.

  Jessie fiddled with her iPhone while Gilchrist worked his Merc on to Abbey Walk, and neither of them spoke as he powered through the double roundabout and accelerated on to the A917. Gilchrist waited until he passed Kinkell Braes Caravan Park before flooring it to seventy, then said, ‘Hard night last night?’

  ‘Does it show?’

  ‘I’d say you’re looking a tad rough around the edges.’

  ‘Where’s a cowboy when you need him?’

  He gripped the steering wheel and eyed the road ahead. ‘You found a place yet?’

  ‘Nothing permanent. A friend, Angie, is putting me up.’

  ‘Robert too?’

  ‘No, I stuck him in a bin back in Glasgow.’

  He glanced at her.

  ‘Of course Robert too. He’s my son, for God’s sake. You can’t just wake up one morning and throw him away.’

  ‘Although sometimes you’d like to?’

  ‘Speak for yourself.’

  ‘Just asking,’ he said.

  ‘Well, ask something sensible.’

  Gilchrist chose silence, and nudged the Merc up to eighty.

  ‘You’re not convincing me she’s not going to get up and run away,’ Jessie said.

  Gilchrist eased his foot off the accelerator. ‘So, after your night out with Slim at the Park, when did you get up here?’

  ‘In time to make it to the office for eight.’

  ‘You always like to cut it that fine?’

  ‘Only when I can’t get rid of Jabba.’

  Gilchrist glanced at her. ‘Sounds like he stayed the night.’

  ‘Yeah, he did. First I went on top, then he went on top. What is it with all the grilling? My personal life’s personal. So why don’t you stick to solving murders and mind your own business?’ She grasped the dashboard as the Merc powered through a bend. ‘And slow down, will you. You’re making me feel sick.’

  Through the village of Boarhills, the road turned into a single-lane dirt track. Gilchrist followed it all the way to the seafront. He parked on the grass verge, and pulled up his collar. Hands of ice slapped his face from a bitter east wind. He trudged towards the Coastal Path in silence, Jessie breathing hard behind him.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You heard.’

  He stopped then, and faced her. She pulled to an abrupt halt, eyes wide, like a deer trapped by spotlights. She looked not only cold and tired, but something else that he could not quite put his finger on. ‘It’s your first day in a new job,’ he said, ‘and I’m giving you the benefit of every doubt.’

  Silent, she nodded.

  ‘But I’m curious as to why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  ‘Why you’re behaving the way you are.’

  Her lips tightened, and her eyes creased. She blinked once, twice, and he thought he caught a flicker of fear shift across her face. Then she shook her head.

  ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ he said, then strode towards the waiting couple.

  The SOCOs had not arrived yet, and Gilchrist flashed his warrant card.

  ‘Clive Watkins,’ the man said. ‘My wife, Jayne.’

  Gilchrist nodded. ‘Who called it in?’

  ‘I did,’ said Mrs Watkins. She fingered her hair. ‘But it was Skip who found it, the woman’s body, I mean.’

  As if on cue, the black Labrador lifted his eyes and gave a tired wag of his tail.

  ‘Where is she?’ Gilchrist asked.

  ‘This way.’

  Mr Watkins led them along the Coastal Path, nothing more than a foot-worn grassway that looked icy enough in white stretches to demand crampons, until they reached a point where the trail narrowed.

  Watkins faced Gilchrist and said, ‘She’s down there.’

  Gilchrist glanced at his feet, at black leather shoes in need of a polish, and stepped into long grass whitened with snow and frost, Jessie close behind him.

  They found her about twelve feet from the path, face down, bedded in snow. Skip’s paw prints trailed across her back. From the path, unless you knew the body was there, you could pass it every day until spring. It had snowed the last four nights but one, and even from where he stood, Gilchrist could tell the body was days old, maybe even a week.

  Watkins looked down at them from the edge of the path.

  ‘Do you take Skip for a walk daily?’ Gilchrist asked him.

  ‘We do, but we haven’t been along this path since November.’

  Christmas was less than three weeks away. Only someone walking a dog would have any chance of finding the body. ‘End, middle, beginning of November?’ Gilchrist asked, just to test the possibilities.

  ‘Twenty-third. Jayne’s birthday.’

  Gilchrist nodded, turned away.

  ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ Jessie asked him.

  ‘Depends what you’re thinking.’

  ‘That she could have been lying here for a couple of weeks?’

  ‘Somebody would have reported her missing.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Jessie said. ‘Maybe not.’

  Gilchrist frowned at the body. Even with her face hidden, he could tell she was a young woman, no more than a girl, early to mid teens. Could a teenager be dead for a couple of weeks without anyone noticing her missing?

  ‘She could have tripped and fallen,’ Jessie said to him.

  Gilchrist looked back up at the path
, at Mrs Watkins turning away, as if embarrassed to be caught talking on her mobile. He estimated the drop in elevation to be ten feet, the spot where the body was found to be distant enough from the path to lie unseen, and far enough from the water’s edge to be untouched by even the highest tides and the wildest seas. He eyed the path again, and in his mind’s eye watched a young girl trip, roll down the hill and . . .

  ‘Running along in the dark,’ Jessie said. ‘Then you trip all of a sudden. Crack your head on the way down.’ She looked across the rocks to the sea, gave a shiver against a sudden breeze. ‘Knock yourself unconscious,’ she said, ‘and you’d freeze to death out here in less than two hours.’

  ‘Running?’ Gilchrist said to her. ‘Why running?’

  ‘Check the heels.’

  Gilchrist bent down, brushed snow off the woman’s feet. Not running shoes, but red high heels without the heels, evidenced by a square base where the fall had torn them free. Or had they been ripped off to make running possible? And bare legs, too, no tights, woollen or otherwise. Behind the left knee, the blue-black stain of a tattoo in the shape of a broken heart could have been mistaken for a bruise. He noticed, too, that the skirt was short, halfway up her thighs, and finished off with a red belt as shiny as plastic to match. And her white blouse, thin enough to raise goosebumps in the summer, did little to hide the stain of a larger tattoo that spread across her shoulders like a pair of wings. He pushed himself upright.

  ‘What do you think?’ he asked Jessie.

  ‘How does the East Neuk shape up for prostitution?’

  ‘It happens.’

  ‘I’ll bet it does.’ She sniffed, rubbed a hand at her nose. ‘Is it always this cold?’

  ‘An east wind,’ he said, then stared off along the Coastal Path. ‘What was she doing here?’

  ‘Any brothels close by?’

  ‘In St Andrews?’

  ‘I’d say that’s where she was running to. Wouldn’t you?’

  Gilchrist tried to visualise the body falling off the path, rolling down the slope. But tumbling head over heels did not compute. Her body was lying in the direction she had run. He looked back along the path as it trailed the coast, back towards Kingsbarns. Although he had walked the Coastal Path several times when he first married, he had never travelled its full length – from Newporton-Tay to North Queensferry on the Firth of Forth. He pulled his collar tight to his neck. Gusts of wind raised spindrift from the sea like mist. Christ, it was cold out here. Too cold to survive in a summer blouse and bare legs.