Dear God, tell me I’m wrong. Not this. Not this.
He stepped away then, pushed under the yellow tape, and stumbled through the long grass, to the peak of the hillock vacated by Watt. He faced the dark sea. His breath rushed in hard gasps, lungs filling and deflating as if seeking the last ounce of oxygen. He removed his mobile and on the sixth ring got Jack’s answering machine.
“Damn.”
He hung up, tried again.
Six rings, then the answering machine.
He hung up. Tried again.
Come on, come on, I know you’re home.
Shit. And again.
On the fifth attempt, Jack picked up, his voice heavy with sleep, or worse. “This had better be good,” he slurred.
“Jack, it’s me.”
“Aw, come on, Andy.” A deep breath then out with a tired yawn. “It’s not even seven o’clock yet.”
“I know, Jack, I’m sorry, but I need to speak to Chloe.”
“Chloe?”
“Is she there?”
“What for?”
Gilchrist felt his head slump. This was not good. Not good at all. “If I can’t speak to her,” he tried, “just tell me she’s okay.”
“What?”
“Tell me Chloe’s okay.” Gilchrist tightened his grip on his phone, prayed Jack would simply pass his call to a sleeping Chloe and have her speak to him.
“What the hell is this, Andy?”
“Let me speak to her.”
A pause, then a defeated rush, “She’s not here.”
Gilchrist felt his breath leave him. There. He had it. He was right. He stared at the sea, felt the breeze squeeze tears from his eyes. Then a flicker of hope. Maybe he was wrong. “She’s left you,” he said. “Hasn’t she?”
“What the hell’s that got-”
“Jack, listen-”
“No, Andy. You listen. What Chloe and I do with our lives has got eff all to do-”
“That’s not why I’m calling.”
“Why, then?”
Because I think someone’s murdered Chloe and is feeding her to me in chunks. He took a deep breath, tried the soft approach once more. “Jack, please, if you know, just tell me where she is.”
“Are you listening to me?”
Sometimes with Jack you had to take the direct approach. “I am, Jack. Now you listen to me. This is not a personal call. I’m talking to you as Detective Chief Inspector Gilchrist of Fife Constabulary’s Crime Management Department. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Silence.
“I need to talk to Chloe.” He heard a hand brush the mouthpiece, caught an image of Jack pulling himself from bed, blonde hair tousled with bed-head.
“You’re serious?”
“Deadly.”
Jack’s breath came hard and deep all of a sudden. “It’s that hand thing,” he said. “Isn’t it? It’s been on the news.”
“It’s too early to say.”
“Don’t lie to me, Andy.”
“I’m not lying, for crying out loud. We don’t know.”
“Why call then?”
“To rule Chloe out.”
“I don’t know where she is. We had a row. She stomped off in one of her moods.”
“When did you last talk to her?”
“Three days ago. No. Four. Christ. I don’t know.”
“Settle down,” Gilchrist said, struggling to keep his own voice steady.
“Jesus, Andy. What’s happened to her?”
“Probably nothing, Jack.”
“Why’re you calling, then?”
“To rule her out.”
“You know it’s her.”
“For God’s sake, Jack, will you just listen?”
“That’s why you’re asking to talk to her. You know it’s her, don’t you? The hand. It’s hers. You know it is.”
Gilchrist felt his lips tighten as he listened to his son cry. He wanted to speak, but found his own voice had deserted him. He heard Jack say something, the words thick and unintelligible. He clung onto the phone, pressed it tight against his ear, and whispered, “Jack,” then felt a puzzling sense of relief wash over him when Jack hung up.
He folded his phone. His chest was heaving, his heart racing. He had handled it all wrong. Why could he never get it right with Jack? Why did he always feel as if he was pushing him farther away? He felt the tight sting of tears, the cold flush of ice in his lungs.
Christ. What if the hand was not Chloe’s? What if all he had done was upset Jack? Dear God, he would love Jack to call him back and give him a right old reaming. Then Chloe would be safe and alive. He could stand that. In fact, he would welcome that. He stared off across the dunes, felt an odd reluctance to leave that spot, knowing that doing so would mean having to look at the hand again in the knowledge that if he was right, if his worst fears were realised, then the rest of Chloe would be presented to him piece by slaughtered piece.
Now he knew why his name had been on the envelope. What better way to hurt another human being, to really hurt them to the core, than to hurt their family?
But why? And why him?
He could think of a million reasons for someone wanting to even the score.
He closed his eyes and prayed to God he was wrong on every one of them.
Chapter 6
GILCHRIST DID THE necessary.
He dialled the number for DCI Peter “Dainty” Small of Strathclyde Police HQ, Pitt Street, Glasgow, and asked him to put out a Lookout Request on a young woman, five-ten, twenty-two years old, a freelance artist by the name of Chloe Fullerton. He gave her last known address as Jack’s tenement flat in Glasgow.
Dainty and Gilchrist had joined Fife Constabulary at the same time. But eight years later, Dainty married Margo Cunningham, a young PW, and moved to Glasgow the following year. They had kept in contact over the years, exchanging Christmas cards and information on relevant cases as the need arose. Gilchrist ended the call by saying he hoped he was wrong, hoped Chloe would turn up, then slipped his mobile into his jacket pocket.
From his hillock, the golf course was beginning to show signs of life.
Behind the first tee, the Royal and Ancient Clubhouse stood like a misplaced mansion, alone in its stone splendour. People dotted Grannie Clark’s Wynd, the pathway that crossed the first and eighteenth fairways and connected The Links to Bruce Embankment on the shoreline. To the east, the sky glowed crimson with a hint of blue through tattered clouds.
Gilchrist could not rid himself of his fear for Chloe. He searched the dunes for the spot where they had picnicked on the beach in January. It seemed absurd. But it had been Jack’s idea. Freezing cold. Wind whipping in off the sea. At least we’ll have the beach to ourselves. Gilchrist almost smiled. They ended up sharing the West Sands with people and dogs and couples in love, and sweating joggers and kids, and fathers with swooping kites. They even watched some lunatic strip to his underwear and take a swim-
Something moved at his feet. The black labrador.
He scratched behind its ears as its tail brushed the long grass.
“Her name’s Biddy,” said the man in the yellow anorak.
Gilchrist scratched deeper. “That’s a rare old name.”
“That’s what my father called my grandmother.”
“He must have thought she gossiped too much, then?”
“Among other things.” The man chuckled, held out his hand. “Charlie Blair.”
The grip felt warm, hard, honest. “DCI Gilchrist.”
Blair nodded. “Nice to meet you at last. I’ve seen your face around.”
Gilchrist smiled. “In the bars, no doubt.”
“On the telly.” Blair nodded over his shoulder. “Quite gruesome,” he said. “I don’t think I would like your job. It must get to you.”