“Mine’s an Eighty.”
Give Watt his due, he never so much as flinched. “An Eighty over here,” he said to the barman. “Pubs in St. Andrews shut, are they?”
“You tricked Maureen,” Gilchrist growled. “You tricked her into thinking she was working undercover for the police.”
“Where do you get off?”
“Oh I’m staying on to the bitter end, you’d better believe it.”
Although Gilchrist had not raised his voice, Watt picked up on the change in mood. He took a sip of beer. “If you must know,” he said, “Maureen begged me to hire her.”
The word begged did not conjure up an image of Maureen. He slapped a hand onto Watt’s arm with a force that splashed beer over the counter and stopped the barman from pulling his pint. “She’s missing,” he hissed. “And you know who’s behind it. You’ve known all along. But made no attempt to stop it. Why?”
Watt scowled until Gilchrist relaxed his grip. “Crap like that can get a lad like you hurt.”
“Are you denying it?”
“What do you think?”
“Bootsie isn’t coming tonight,” Gilchrist tried.
“Who?”
“The Bootsie you used to phone first thing in the morning and last thing at night.”
“Fifty quid says you never had a warrant to pull my phone records.”
Gilchrist realised his attempts to call the number on Watt’s records had succeeded only in alerting Watt. “You knew someone was onto you,” he said. “So instead of calling Bootsie morning noon and night you meet him here.”
“If you say so.”
“Bootsie says so.”
Watt sipped his beer like a lonely man.
“And Bootsie also says you’re sniffing around the east coast waiting for some drug shipment from Europe. That’s why you finagled a reassignment to Fife.” Gilchrist leaned closer. “But there is no drug shipment.”
Watt faced Gilchrist. “Says Bootsie? Bootsie knows the square root of fuck all.”
“This didn’t come from Bootsie.”
Watt’s eyes livened. “You always were a right cocky bastard.”
Gilchrist struggled to hide his anxiety. Did he have it wrong? He had spent thirty minutes interrogating Bootsie, cutting it short to catch Watt before he left the Dreel. But now Watt was giving off the wrong signals. Had Bootsie told him a rat’s nest of lies just to get rid of him? Nance was still interrogating him, and Gilchrist found himself wishing she was with him now, helping him pierce a way through Watt’s deception.
“Maureen, Topley, Bully, Jimmy, you,” Gilchrist said. “Took me a while to piece it all together. Bit of a Chinese puzzle, really. But it was the drug shipment that helped me work it out.”
“And here was me thinking you were good at puzzles.”
Gilchrist clenched his jaw. He had still not worked out the puzzle of where Maureen was. Bootsie had not been able to help them either. “Well, how’s this for a puzzle?” he said. “How about I charge you as an accessory to murder?”
Watt smiled. He really smiled. “The Lone fucking Ranger,” he growled. “That’s you. You always get your man.” He chewed imaginary gum, and something told Gilchrist that the worst was yet to come. “That’s why Maureen hated you.” Watt’s teeth flashed a grin. “The most successful DCI in Fife Constabulary, but an abject failure as a father.”
Something cold washed over Gilchrist then, and he had to look away.
He knew he had failed. He had failed as a father, failed as a husband. If he had been there for his wife, there for his children, would they have left him to live in Glasgow? In his mind’s eye he watched the door open, the empty hallway appear before him, heard the thud of the door behind him as he stepped inside to his new life, all alone.
But Maureen hated him?
That could not be. Hate was too strong a word. No, it was Watt who hated him. And with that thought he saw it was time to tighten the screws.
“Bootsie’s ready to tell all,” he said.
“Fuck Bootsie. One wrong word from him and I’ll put him away for life.”
“Funny. That’s what Bootsie said about you.”
Watt’s jaw ruminated, and Gilchrist knew his words had hit home at last.
Then Watt picked up his pint, downed it, and turned from the bar.
Gilchrist grabbed his arm. “Don’t even think about it,” he said. “Bootsie’s safe and sound. Leave now and the next time you see him will be from behind bars. Not his. Yours.”
Watt tugged his arm free.
Gilchrist could almost see Watt’s mind trying to work out what he had over him. But in reality, Watt had little to fear. Gilchrist needed him to fill in the gaps. He could not let Watt leave. Not just yet.
He turned to the bartender. “Same again,” and waited until a glass was shoved under the tap before he said, “Talk to me, Ronnie. For Maureen’s sake, talk to me.”
Gilchrist thought he understood Watt’s dilemma. Watt had a soft spot for Maureen, maybe even loved her in his own way. But nothing could come of their relationship because of the past. And behind his back Watt had resurrected their affair by tricking Maureen into working for him. Now she was missing and might never be found, Watt could deny it, talk his way out of it, lie himself clear. But Gilchrist suspected that Watt was up to his neck in unofficial police work, straddling the fine line between working inside or outside the law.
It would probably not take much to put him away.
“If Maureen dies,” Gilchrist said to him, “I’ll make it my life’s mission to make sure you never see this side of a prison wall as long as you live. You got that?”
Watt’s eyes blazed for a long moment, then softened. He took another sip of beer, and said, “That body they found?”
“What about it?”
“Bootsie says it’s Wee Kenny.”
Gilchrist remembered Dainty mentioning Wee Kenny, but the name meant nothing to him, so he waited.
“Bootsie used to live in Glasgow,” Watt went on. “Left to start a new life. But some losers never change. With Bootsie gone, Jimmy Reid was looking for a new goffer.” Watt returned his pint to the bartop. “So what’s this about there being no drug shipment?”
The question threw Gilchrist, but he was not yet ready to give anything out. “Why the east coast?” he asked.
“Jimmy’s ill.”
Watt’s answer made no sense to him, but he said, “Flu, cold, what?”
“Cancer.”
Gilchrist felt a flush warm his face. His mind leapt to Gail, and he had to blink once, twice, three times to clear the image. “Terminal?”
“Word is he’s got less than six months.”
“So he’ll be dead and buried by the time Bully’s out.”
“All his life he’s lived in Bully’s shadow. Even with Bully inside Jimmy still played second fiddle. But he can’t wait for Bully to come out. He wants to reap the benefits of a life of crime before he dies.” Watt took another sip of beer. “Jimmy’d been coming up this way several times a week. I figured he was getting ready to handle one final shipment.”
Now it made some sense. Watt had assumed that Jimmy’s visits to St. Andrews were to set up that final shipment. But he had it all wrong. The final shipment had already arrived, hidden in a coffin in the Auld Aisle Cemetery where it would remain until Bully got out of Barlinnie, or Jimmy shifted it before he died.
“Jimmy’s made three trips to Spain this year alone,” Watt said.
“Setting up his retirement villa?”
Watt nodded, sipped his beer.
According to Bootsie, he had told Watt when and where each body part was going to turn up, alerting Watt to Jimmy Reid’s visits to St. Andrews so he could keep his eye on him. What Gilchrist could not rationalise was that Watt had known Jimmy Reid was involved in Chloe’s murder, but had turned a blind eye for the sake of the discovery of a drug shipment.