Dead Catch Read online

  Gilchrist cocked his head. This was Cooper at her worst, and best, drip-feeding him information piece by teasing piece. Somehow it reminded him of their foreplay, years ago it seemed now. ‘So you must’ve found a bullet wound,’ he said.

  She chuckled. ‘Through and through. And from the angle, I’d say he was lucky not to have been hit in the femoral artery. He could’ve died from loss of blood. Of course, the bullet could have ricocheted off the femur, shattering it in the process.’

  Gilchrist thought it odd using the word lucky to describe anything about the dead man. What on earth was lucky about surviving being shot in the leg, only to be wired to nails in the hold of some godforsaken fishing boat, and tortured to death? Make that, choked to death. He couldn’t imagine the pain the poor soul must have gone through before letting Death carry him away. It might be argued that it would have been luckier if he’d simply died from being shot in the leg in the first place.

  Just then, another thought struck him.

  ‘So, with the bone shattered, the operation was performed to screw it together?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘Which would show up in X-rays.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘From which we could determine exactly what kind and how many screws or plates or whatever were used.’

  Silent, she smiled at him.

  ‘So there would be a record of that operation somewhere.’

  ‘But in which hospital is anybody’s guess.’

  This had Gilchrist thinking they could start with local hospitals, then spread farther afield until they found the one they were looking for. But doing so could be man-hour intensive. Still, the end result could be worth it.

  ‘How old is the bullet wound?’ he asked.

  She shrugged. ‘Difficult to say, given the conditions in the hold.’

  ‘Best guess?’

  ‘Within the last couple of years. But I’ll be better placed to advise you after the PM.’

  ‘Let’s get his DNA analysed as a priority. And if you find a match, get on to the SCRO.’ He stepped away from the stern. If the victim had a criminal record, the Scottish Criminal Records Office would have a number for him, and all his crimes recorded. ‘Get back to me as soon as you have something.’

  ‘Do you know what the boat was used for?’ she called out after him.

  He stopped, and faced her. Silhouetted against the dark sea, hair blowing around her face in golden waves, he thought she looked striking. As if knowing that, she tucked a thick wave behind her ear. He said, ‘As in – what was he doing in the hold in the first place?’

  ‘Check the galley. I’d say the white powder in the cracks isn’t flour.’

  He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

  Rather than struggle up the rope ladder to go back onboard, he found Colin near the water’s edge, smoking a cigarette – Marlboro. Silent, they stood together looking out over the North Sea. The storm could have been a dream. The wind had stilled, the rain stopped, and he enjoyed the peaceful moment breathing in the acrid warmth of second-hand smoke. He could still remember the day he gave up smoking – 13 September, sixteen years ago, the day of his mother’s funeral. It had been several years since he’d last bought a packet of cigarettes. He had succumbed more than once to the irresistible pull of that residual habit, of course. But even so, he liked to believe he was more or less done with it now.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ he said to Colin.

  Colin’s cheeks sunk as he inhaled. ‘That I’ve just about had it with the day job.’

  ‘Getting to you?’

  Colin exhaled, as if emptying his lungs for good. ‘And then some.’

  Gilchrist thought silence was as good an answer as any.

  Colin drew his cigarette down to the filter, and crushed it between his thumb and forefinger. He flicked the dout at the sea, gave a sideways nod to the boat. ‘I don’t know how anyone could do that to another human being. I mean, what kind of nutters are out there?’

  ‘All kinds,’ Gilchrist said. ‘But it’s our job to find them, and bring them to justice.’

  ‘Aye, sure we will. It’s like an incoming tide. It just keeps coming.’ He gritted his teeth, shivered off the chill.

  Gilchrist put his hand on Colin’s shoulder, gave a fatherly squeeze. ‘You can’t look at the big picture,’ he said. ‘It’s too overwhelming. All you can do is take each one as it comes. Consider that poor soul in the hold. He might have had a wife, a child, someone who loves him and is wondering what’s happened to him. As bad as the job might seem, think of what you’re doing for them – the wife, the children. They need you. They need us. Someone to account for that man’s life, and give closure to it, in whatever form that takes.’

  Colin ran a hand under his nose. ‘It still doesn’t make it any easier.’ He flickered a smile. ‘Which I suppose is why we drink whisky by the gallons.’

  ‘That, and the weather,’ Gilchrist said.

  Colin glanced at the sky. ‘You think it’s going to clear up?’

  ‘That’s anybody’s guess. But before you head out to the golf course, could you have your guys check the galley for drugs? I’m thinking along the lines that the Golden Plover’s changed its name for a good reason.’

  ‘Running drugs?’

  ‘It’s early days. But it’s a thought.’

  Colin nodded. ‘I’ll get back to you,’ he said, then walked off up the beach.

  Gilchrist removed his hands from his pockets, and saw that he’d been nursing Tommy Janes’s pocket diary. He turned it over in his fingers. No matter what he thought of Jessie and her brother, Jessie was right. These names had to mean something to someone.

  He would pass them on, just the one phone call.

  And he knew who that someone could be.

  CHAPTER 7

  Gilchrist phoned DC I Peter ‘Dainty’ Small of Strathclyde Police HQ, Glasgow. He and Dainty had joined Fife Constabulary around the same time, but even though Dainty had since moved to Glasgow, they still kept in contact, exchanging information on cases from time to time.

  Dainty answered in a large voice that belied his size. ‘DCI Small speaking.’

  ‘It’s Andy Gilchrist, Dainty. How are you?’

  ‘Fighting off alligators and fuck knows what else. What can I do you for?’

  Typical Dainty. Busy and straight to the point. ‘I’d like to run some more names past you.’

  ‘Hope they’re less fucking troublesome than that last lot you sent. Fuck sake, Andy, I had to come to the Office wearing a fucking crash helmet. Didn’t know from which side the flak was going to come. Maxwell tried it on with me, but I told him to fuck off. After that, he backed off. But I couldn’t do a thing with them. No incriminating evidence of any kind. Zip. Nada. Fuck all. How’s Jessie doing?’

  ‘As good as,’ Gilchrist said.

  ‘Good. Maxwell had it in for her at one time. But I’m glad the shit passed.’ A grunt for a cough, then, ‘So these names, what about them?’

  ‘We hand-delivered the last ones to you. Are you OK to speak?’

  ‘Got all that sorted, so yeah, let’s have them.’

  ‘Chippie Smith?’

  ‘Oh, for fuck sake. Fucking wanker of the first order. What’s he done?’

  ‘I was hoping you could tell me.’

  ‘He’s into everything, Chippie is. Can you give me a clue?’

  ‘How about I give you the other names?’

  ‘Shoot.’

  Gilchrist ran them off, one by one, without any comment from Dainty. When he had gone through the short list of six, he said, ‘Anything?’

  ‘Here’s what I can tell you, Andy. And you didn’t hear this from me, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘They’re all snitches. Every one of them. They all take a bit here, a bit there, from whichever hand will feed them.’ His voice lowered to that of a co-conspirator. ‘But what they all have in common is that they’re all allegedly, and I’m fucking emphasising allegedl
y here, they are all allegedly on the payroll of Jock Shepherd.’

  Just the mention of that name had a queasiness stirring in Gilchrist’s stomach with the speed of a triple dose of liver salts. As Scotland’s alleged – there was that word again – crime patriarch, he was reputed to have a finger in every pie going, sometimes as much as the hand and the arm all the way up to the elbow, maybe even the armpit. If it was illegal, then big Jock Shepherd was bound to have some involvement in it. He should have been put away years ago, but not only did he have the brightest – and most expensive – legal team in the country, it was generally accepted that he ran his family business the old-fashioned way, with a gentleman’s unspoken code of conduct. If you crossed big Jock, well, that was the end of it. But if you played the game, and acknowledged that in the world of crime someone had to be king, who better to have than big Jock who would be happy to shop lesser criminals to the police if he thought his business enterprises were being encroached upon. In exchange for a certain level of lassitude with respect to prosecution, of course.

  In short, better the devil you know—

  ‘But two weeks ago,’ Dainty said, interrupting Gilchrist’s thoughts, ‘Cutter Boyd was found with his throat cut in a construction skip at the back of the King’s Theatre. And rumour has it that Stooky Dee’s gone and vanished. There’s some serious shit going on in the local underworld at the moment. The lads are expecting Stooky to turn up any day now, probably in bits.’

  Cutter Boyd and Stooky Dee were two of the names on Tommy’s list, so Gilchrist said, ‘If they’re both on Shepherd’s payroll, what’s he saying about that?’

  ‘Allegedly on Shepherd’s payroll, Andy. Allegedly. Big Jock’s keeping a low profile. It’s what he does when some turf gets overturned. Lies low until the dust settles, then pokes his head over the parapet and sends his boys in to clear up the mess.’ A pause, then, ‘Where did you get these names from anyway?’

  That was the question Gilchrist didn’t want to have to answer. He’d been hoping that Dainty would just take the names on board and leave it at that. He was only passing them on to keep Jessie safe, maybe even get Tommy out of her life for good.

  ‘They were written in a diary,’ he said.

  ‘And the diary belongs to …?’

  ‘Couldn’t say. It just turned up.’

  ‘Like turned up in the mail?’

  ‘No. Like left in the back seat of a car.’

  ‘Don’t keep me guessing here, Andy. This could get me burned big time.’

  Gilchrist decided to come clean – well, sort of. ‘Jessie got a call from her brother, Tommy, telling her where the diary was—’

  ‘You do know we’ve got half the fucking force looking for that bastard, don’t you?’

  ‘I do, yes, but she didn’t meet him, just got some cryptic phone calls.’

  ‘Were you able to trace the calls?’

  ‘We’re working on it.’

  ‘And where was the car?’

  ‘We’re checking CCTV footage, too. Give me some credit, for crying out loud.’

  ‘Sure, Andy. Sorry. But keep me posted.’

  To get off the subject of Tommy Janes, Gilchrist said, ‘A fishing boat washed ashore last night with a body on board. Haven’t yet confirmed cause of death, but it looks like the poor guy went through the mill. Beaten up pretty badly, but here’s the thing, we found a fiver stuffed into his mouth. Any ideas?’

  The line fell silent for a few seconds, then Dainty said, ‘Years ago, and I’m talking twenty-plus years here, the first murder I was ever involved with in Glasgow was a junkie who’d been beaten to a pulp. Every bone in his body broken. Like a fucking teabag he was. We found a fiver stuffed down his throat. We were never able to charge anyone, but it all pointed to it being one team squaring off with another for fucking grassing.

  ‘Back then,’ he continued, ‘a fiver was almost worth something. Now it barely buys you a pint. Looks like the cost of living’s affecting everyone. I’m surprised they never put it in a self-addressed stamped envelope.’ He tried a laugh, but he seemed not to have the spirit for it. ‘What I’m saying, Andy, is that your man looks like he’s been done in by the pros. I don’t mean hitmen, I mean he’s been killed by someone with a criminal record.’ A pause, then, ‘It did occur to me that that fucker Tommy Janes fits the bill.’

  Gilchrist had already thought of that, but Tommy seemed more interested in passing the diary to Jessie than trying to distance himself from the body on the fishing boat. He explained that to Dainty, then said, ‘Let me know what you come up with on any of the other names.’

  ‘Will do, Andy.’ And with that, the line died.

  Gilchrist stared out across the North Sea. Something in the conversation with Dainty niggled. Or maybe it was just the mention of big Jock Shepherd. Gilchrist had confronted the man once before, in a face-to-face meeting that had him fearing for his life, after which he’d brought a cruel criminal to justice, someone who’d overstepped the unmarked boundaries of the criminal world and encroached on Shepherd’s enterprises. And just as Dainty had said, big Jock Shepherd had provided the vital evidence that enabled the police – Gilchrist – to put the man away for life, and thus end any interference in Shepherd’s businesses – the criminal version of quid pro quo, it might be called.

  But it had been the fiver stuffed down the junkie’s throat that intrigued Gilchrist, and although he hadn’t mentioned it to Dainty, he decided to send crime scene photographs to him, just to cover all the bases. He slipped the diary into his jacket pocket, then set off along the beach, following Jessie’s footprints in the damp sand.

  CHAPTER 8

  He found Jessie in her Fiat 500, seated behind the steering wheel, mobile to her ear. When she saw him approaching, she raised a couple of fingers – two minutes, he would like to believe she was telling him, rather than giving him the Vicky.

  Instead of waiting for her to finish her call, he phoned Cooper.

  ‘I haven’t started the PM yet, if that’s why you’re calling.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll jump on it just as fast as you can,’ he said, not rising to her quip. ‘I need you to email photographs of our man in the hold to DCI Peter Small of Strathclyde Police. He might be able to ID him.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘I doubt anyone could.’

  ‘It’s a long shot, I know. But it’s still a shot.’

  ‘You seem to have forgotten that I’m a forensic pathologist, not a photographer.’

  ‘The body’s on its way to Bell Street. I can have someone pop over within the hour if you can’t afford the time.’

  ‘Do that,’ she said, and hung up.

  He cursed under his breath, struggling to stifle his anger. Since ending their affair, Becky had become unreachable. He had hoped they might continue to show fondness for each other, but it was becoming clear to him that she wanted him out of her life. He would like to believe he had managed to maintain a professional relationship, but in truth, once the rules had been broken, nothing he could do or say would ever repair them.

  His anger had settled to irritation by the time Jessie emerged from her car.

  She held up a hand in mock surrender as she walked towards him. ‘You were right to give me a ticking off,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry for doing what I did this morning. From now on I’ll make sure I’m contactable 24/7.’

  ‘You said that last time.’

  Her confidence evaporated, but only for a second. ‘But I don’t take kindly to being chewed out in front of Becky-are-we-having-a-tiff-Cooper. God, she’s such a condescending bitch. No wonder she gets on my nerves.’

  Gilchrist waited a few seconds while Jessie settled down. ‘In case it slipped your notice,’ he said, ‘Rebecca was nowhere in sight when you arrived.’

  ‘But she was when I left.’

  He nodded. ‘Which brings me to my next point.’

  Jessie seemed to square her shoulders, as if ready for the onslaught.

  ‘Next time
you walk away from me like that,’ he said, ‘I’ll expect your request for a transfer on my desk within the hour.’

  Something went out of Jessie then, and her body seemed to slump. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.’

  He held her eyes for a few beats longer, before saying, ‘Right. Let’s get on with some work.’

  He spent the next several minutes bringing her up to speed – bullet wounds on the body’s leg; possible shattered bones; scar from an operation; possible evidence of drugs on board; passing Tommy’s list of names to Dainty; Chippie Smith and the others allegedly on the payroll of big Jock Shepherd; and, ‘Oh, one final thing, there’s no boat from St Combs registered under the name Golden Plover. Mhairi’s been tasked with finding out the original name. Give her a call, and see if she’s getting anywhere with that.’

  While Jessie accessed her phone, he decided to shelter from the wind. He pressed his remote fob, and his BMW winked at him. Inside, he switched on the engine, turned the heater to full. It took less than a minute for the cabin to warm up, when his mobile announced the arrival of a text – Hi dad can you call?

  His daughter, Maureen, was having a tough time since returning to St Andrews last November after a short trip to Australia. The planned emigration to Perth on the west coast to begin a new life with her fiancé, Tom, had been a disaster. Rather than take up his position with an IT company as planned, for some inexplicable reason Tom abandoned his job almost before it began, and embarked on a spontaneous trans-Australian trip expecting Mo just to tag along. But Mo’d had other ideas, and Tom’s persuasive skills had fallen on deaf ears. Which put an end to that – possibly the shortest engagement on the planet.

  He got through on the second ring. ‘Hi, princess. You wanted me to call.’

  ‘I need to see you,’ she said.

  Need, not would like, which warned him that something had come up. Maybe Tom had decided to come back from Australia, and she needed fatherly advice. But he thought her voice sounded … what? … unsteady?

  ‘Is everything all right?’ he said.