“And a wit as matchless as her eyes,” said Fast Eddy. “How do you stand it, Andy?”
Gilchrist pulled out his wallet, removed a twenty.
“I’m getting these, Andy.”
“I owe you, Nance.”
“Since when?”
“Since teaming you with Watt.”
Her face hardened. “In that case, you owe me more than one.”
Gilchrist tried a smile, not sure he pulled it off. He pressed the twenty across the bar. “One for yourself, Eddy.”
“Now that’s what I call a gentleman.” Fast Eddy pushed two pints across the bar, heads settling on a rising creamy base. “There you go,” he said. “That’s one for the lady, and another for the gentleman.”
A woman sidled up to the far end of the bar. Fast Eddy flashed a smile. “With you in a sec, love.”
Gilchrist tapped his pint against Nance’s. “How’d it go with Watt?”
“One guess.”
“Don’t tell me he tried it on.”
Nance screwed up her face. “Not a chance.”
Gilchrist hoped she read the plea in his eyes. Let me know the instant he does, he willed her. Like a leopard could not change its spots, Watt could not change his personality. He looked to his pint. “Well, keep me posted.”
“You wanted me to join you,” Nance said. “Let’s have it.”
Gilchrist twisted the pint in his hand. “You know how sometimes you get a feeling that something’s not right and you can’t quite put your finger on it?”
“Every paycheck.”
He smiled as Nance took a sip and, as if for the first time, noticed how dark her eyes were, almost black, how little make-up she wore. Maybe Fast Eddy’s patter was not just patter, but a genuine attempt to find a date.
“And?” she said.
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “It’s like a sixth sense.”
“I know all about that sixth sense of yours,” she said. “It’s not to be scoffed at.”
He tried a smile, but felt tired-tired of the endless pursuit of criminals, the pointless aim of it all, the charging, the sentencing, the jailing, then the early release so they could go out and do it all over again. The futility seemed overwhelming, like trying to stop the rising tide of a sea filled with the rough-and-ready scum of the earth who would rather rob a ninety-year-old blind pensioner than do an honest hour’s work.
“You’re a bit of a local hero,” Nance said. “Especially after that last case.”
“I got lucky.”
“Well, get lucky on this one.”
He felt a frown crease his brow, felt that familiar weight of failure shift through him. “I think that’s why I asked you to join me for a pint. I don’t feel lucky on this one. I don’t like the feel of it. Not at all.”
“Because of Watt?”
“I don’t like my name being on an envelope, Nance. I don’t like a hand being delivered to me. We’re being toyed with.”
“You think we’ll find the rest of the body?”
Bit by hacked off bit. “I’m sure of it,” he said. “We’ll be given more clues. Why else write a single word on the note. Murder. What the hell’s that supposed to tell us? I don’t know. What I do know is, that when we finally work it out we’re not going to like it.”
Nance sipped her beer.
“I think this case is going to be painful, Nance. I think that’s what I’m trying to say.”
“Painful for you?”
He nodded and surprised himself by placing his hand on her shoulder. He flexed his fingers. “And you watch yourself with Watt. Don’t trust him.” He removed his hand, turned back to his pint. “Just watch yourself, Nance. Okay?”
But he knew it was not just Nance he was worried about.
It was himself.
ON THE DRIVE home, that night came back at him, swirling dark as the blackest smog, settling and clearing until he saw her face, her eyes, the shock still there, still unmistakable, as if the vile event had not happened eight years ago, but only yesterday. He tried to shift her image, but it impinged on his mind like the thickest of syrups that slowed the action of his memory until it seemed he was watching the scene one frame at a time.
Maureen was naked, sitting upright, her back to him. She turned as he entered the room, her face pale and blank with the rigidity of shock. Then she pushed herself up, her underage buttocks flexing with teenage ease, and he tried to keep from looking at her private parts as she slipped off her partner.
Hey, Andy. What’s up?
He remembered looking at Watt’s face, puzzling over it, as if looking at someone he had met a long time ago, but could not place when or where. Then the frames sped up.
Get out.
Get out of my house.
He turned to Maureen then, turned to confront his fifteen-year-old daughter, her back pressed to the wall as if she had no place to run. One hand covered her pubis, the other her half-developed breasts. Her cheeks glistened with tears. Then, as if by legerdemain, her clothes were in his hand.
He threw them at her. Get dressed.
He turned on Watt, who smiled up at him, mouth chewing, arms folded behind his head, his unprotected erection flat to his belly, still veined and full and glistening with the spoils of his conquest for all to see.
That was the moment Gilchrist snapped.
He remembered stepping forward. He remembered that. He could still see it. And looking down at Watt’s smiling face. He remembered that, too. But the next memory he had was of standing upright, chest heaving, lungs burning, wondering why there was so much blood, and why Watt had not tried to fight back.
And now here was Watt again, back in St. Andrews, somehow involved in a murder case clearly earmarked for Gilchrist. Fuck it. He tugged the wheel, accelerated hard past two cars, and had to slam on the brakes as he powered into a sweeping bend. Of all the people for Greaves to assign to the case, he had to pick Watt.
Greaves was no fool. Gilchrist knew that.
So why on earth had he put the two of them back together again?
Chapter 5
GILCHRIST WAKENED WITH a start.
He slid his legs to the floor, stumbled against the wall, flicked on the wall switch.
Light exploded into his brain.
He peered through half-opened eyes. His trousers, socks, shoes, shirt, lay strewn across the floor. His leather jacket dangled from the wicker laundry basket. A surge of nausea threatened to engulf him, then hung in the pit of his stomach.
He reached for his jacket, retrieved his phone, and choked, “Yeah?”
“Christ. You sound rough.”
He coughed. “Who’s this?”
“DS Watt. Sir.”
For a moment, he almost hung up. Then it hit him. “Another body part?”
“Right first time.”
Gilchrist slid his hand down his face, felt the rough crunch of stubble on his chin and neck. His nightmare had started. “The other hand?”
“Yes.”
“Bagged and sealed?”
“Lying where it was found. In the Principal’s Nose.”
“The what?”
“Another bunker on the Old Course. Sixteenth fairway.”
“Any note?”
“Yes.”
“What’s it say?”
“Massacre.”
Massacre? “Spelled correctly?”
A pause, then, “Yeah.”
Well, at least he could write. “Who found the hand?” he asked.
Watt gave out a sigh. “A man by the name of Charlie Blair, while walking his dog,” he said. “Would you like the dog’s name?”
Cheeky bastard. Gilchrist felt the back of his eyes throb, caught a mental image of Nance leaving Lafferty’s after two pints, only ever two, blouse loose, a flash of cleavage as she gave him a quick peck. Then how many after that? Four? Five? More? Bloody hell. No wonder it hurt. He glanced at his watch-6:24-then growled, “Tell me we inspected the Principal’s Nose yesterday.”