You get used to it, Gilchrist wanted to say, but he would be lying. Instead, he said, “You found it? The hand, I mean.”
“Just passing.”
The significance of Blair’s comment did not hit Gilchrist until Blair continued on his way and Biddy loped ahead, nose to the rough, tail like a black hand-brush sweeping the grass with canine pleasure. Gilchrist called out.
They met halfway, and Gilchrist asked what he meant by just passing.
“Exactly that. I saw Detective Watt standing at the bunker. At first I thought he was a drunk taking a leak, but then he called me over and asked me what I thought.”
“What you thought?”
Blair nodded. “Of the hand.”
“I see,” said Gilchrist, and thanked him for his time.
“He’s a strange one,” said Blair as he strode off.
Gilchrist found Watt standing at the edge of the fairway, and grabbed him by his coat lapels. “Why are you here?” he growled.
“What the fuck’re you-”
“Why are you here? In St. Andrews.”
A steel claw gripped his wrist. “Take your fucking hands off me.”
Gilchrist glanced to his side, saw the SOCOs eye them with suspicion, as if undecided whether to separate them, or stand back and enjoy the fight. He tightened his grip. “Not until you tell me why you were up bright as a lark way before dawn this morning.”
“I’m an early riser.”
“Who told you the hand was here?”
“No one.”
“Charlie Blair and his faithful mutt, Biddy, didn’t find it. You did.”
“Is that what he told you?” Watt sneered. “He doesn’t want to be involved, does Charlie.”
“I warned you, Ronnie. One step out of line and I’ll have you kicked all the way back to Glasgow.” He gritted his teeth. “Did somebody call you?”
“No.”
“I swear I’ll have your phone records examined.”
Something went out of Watt at that moment, like a prisoner realising the futility of struggling against his shackles. Gilchrist responded by relaxing his grip. Then he let go and lowered his arm.
Watt straightened his lapels, shuffled his shoulders, smoothed his jacket. He pushed his hand into his pocket. “I got this.” He pulled out a damp piece of paper that looked as if it had been ripped from an envelope.
Gilchrist read the pencilled words.
right hand-principal’s nose.
“Who gave you this?” he asked.
“It was stuck underneath my windscreen wiper.” Watt’s jaw was set as tight as rock. He widened his stance, and Gilchrist could almost taste the raw power of the guy.
“And you don’t know who put it there?”
“Correct.”
“Were you going to show me this?”
“Of course,” Watt growled. “I never got a chance.”
Gilchrist glared at him.
Watt shrugged. “You looked busy. I was taking a call. When I spoke to you, you ignored me. What do you expect me to do? Get down on my knees and fucking beg?”
Gilchrist narrowed his eyes. He held the damp scrap up between them. “Whoever wrote this,” he said to Watt, “is playing games with us. A note for me. A message for you. Did it not cross your mind that we’re being set up?”
Watt tightened his lips.
“What about Blair and his dog?” asked Gilchrist.
“What about them? He was walking down the fairway. I called him over, asked him to verify it.”
“Why?”
“Thought I could use a witness.”
“What for?”
“Protection.”
“From what?”
Watt chewed his imaginary gum. “You’re just itching to kick me out,” he said.
Somehow hearing the truth of his own vendetta against Watt shamed Gilchrist. He needed to rise above it all. But damn it, what the hell had Greaves expected?
“Any other messages I need to see?”
Watt shook his head. “None.”
Gilchrist was prepared to bet a month’s salary that Watt was lying. But what could he do? Tie him to a rack? Hammer bamboo shoots under his fingernails? He raked his fingers through his hair. It felt damp. But the sea air had almost cleared his hangover. “After you removed the note from your windscreen,” he said, “did you talk to anyone?”
“No.”
“Call anyone?”
“No.”
“You came straight here?”
“That’s right.”
Watt could be lying, but how could he prove it? “Get hold of Nance,” he said. “Get her down here. With Bert. There’s paint under the fingernails. I want Bert to tell us what it is. And if Brenda from the Procurator Fiscal’s Office turns up, keep your hands off her. She’s married.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Everything,” he said, and walked away. It was corny, he knew, but he counted off seven steps then stopped. “Tell me this,” he said to Watt. “Where’s the Valley of Sin?”
Watt stopped chewing. “The what?”
“The Valley of Sin.”
Watt gave an uncertain smile, and said, “Between a pair of knockers?” He shrugged and half-laughed. “What kind of a question is that?”
Gilchrist had his answer. He strutted off, past the SOCO van, reached the boundary wall, and glanced back. Watt stood at the edge of the bunker. Beyond the dunes, a low sun pierced thinning clouds that stretched to the horizon. He leapt over the stone wall and put his head down for the walk back to his car.
He should send Watt packing. Get it over and done with. But he wondered if there might be something to be gained by not doing that. The killer was smart, cunning, and for some reason it seemed important to make sure Watt was one of the first on the scene.
Hence the note under the windscreen.
After finding the note, Watt said he had not spoken to anyone. But he was lying. Why else had he crumbled at the mention of his phone records?
And then there was the Valley of Sin.
Not being a golfer and not raised in St. Andrews, Watt’s local knowledge was limited. The Valley of Sin was a grass swale that fronted the eighteenth green of the Old Course, a dip in the fairway that punished weak approach shots. To the golfing world, the Valley of Sin was infamous. But if Watt had never heard of the Valley of Sin he sure as hell had not heard of the Principal’s Nose. So, how had he known the Principal’s Nose was a cluster of bunkers on the sixteenth fairway? It could have been the name of a pub, for all he knew. Had a fairy fluttered down and lit Watt’s way with her magic wand?
Not a chance. Gilchrist did not believe in fairies.
But he did believe in phone calls and phone records.
He reached his Mercedes and glanced over at the dunes, to the spot that had held so much promise for Jack and Chloe. He had seen in Chloe a young woman who could settle the wild stallion of his son, who could pull in his reins and have him snorting with restive passion. And as he stared seaward, he wondered what memories of St. Andrews Chloe had taken with her. Iced champagne on wind-chilled dunes? Shoeless strolls on sun-soaked sands? Jokes and hugs and kisses and beer?
And what of his own memories of Chloe?
He would remember her as waif-like, with slender limbs and blonde hair and eyes and teeth that sparkled with the promise of life.
And hands as fine as those of any model.
He slid behind the wheel and closed the door. He knew what he had to do.
For Chloe. And for Jack.
Chapter 7
JACK STOOD OUTSIDE his tenement building.
His breath evaporated in drizzle as fine as haar. To his side, water dripped from a broken drainpipe, as steady as a metronome. Runoff trickled along granite curbs that edged North Gardner Street. He blew into his hands, tried to take the chill from his body, would have called for a taxi if he could afford it. But he had spent the last of his dole check on a tab of speed to keep him awake for his latest work, a life-sized figure sculpted from concrete and reinforcing steel rods finagled from a building site in Partick.