LEIGHTON SCOWLED AT him. “Through there,” he said, and pointed to a door at the end of the hallway. “I don’t like being wakened at this time of the morning.”
“Neither do I.”
Gilchrist brushed past and entered the room. An oak dining table with folded leaves, reminiscent of the one his grandmother used to have, centred the cramped space. Reams of printed paper stacked the table’s polished surface. On a coffee table to the side, Maureen’s laptop sat hooked to an HP DeskJet printer. Two opened boxes of copier paper squatted on the carpet.
“Is this it?” Gilchrist asked.
“As much as I’ve printed thus far.”
Gilchrist flipped through several pages. Leighton had printed them in chronological order and divided them into piles by year. A single sheet listed the file names in each stack.
“Is there much more?” he asked.
“That’s only one day’s printing.”
Gilchrist removed his wallet. “Ten hours cover it so far?”
Leighton did not hesitate. “That should just about do it.”
Gilchrist knew he was being ripped off, but peeled ten twenties from his wallet and passed them to Leighton. He picked up the printed reams. “How soon until you print the rest?”
Leighton shrugged. “Another day or so?”
“Too long. I need them tonight.”
“I can only print out as fast as my printer will allow.”
“Get another printer,” he snapped. “Get two. I’m paying your expenses. I need them tonight, no later than seven.”
“That doesn’t give me much time.”
“You’d better get on with it then,” he said, and strode down the hall.
THE BMW DREW to a halt.
Its engine purred in the quiet of some deserted spot. Maureen knew it was deserted, because the sound of traffic had stopped fifteen minutes earlier. They were in the countryside somewhere. But even if she knew how far they had travelled, she did not know the starting point, or in which direction they had come. They could be anywhere.
The engine died.
She listened to the sounds of the door opening, closing, then footsteps crunching the length of the car. The footsteps stopped.
The boot lid popped open.
Before she had time to move, fingers as tight as talons grabbed her by the hair.
“Don’t even think about it.”
He pulled her upright, and she squealed, “You’re hurting me.”
A blow to the side of her head sent her slamming into the dark confines of the boot.
Warm breath by her ear. “If you want to see your old man again, shut the fuck up, and do as you’re told.”
Hope and fear surged through her in a confusing wave. If she did as she was told, she would see her father again. But why mention her father, not her mother? Did he know her mother was ill? If he knew that, what else did he know?
“Sign this.”
She peered up. The sky was still dark, but she caught the high-pitched chatter of birdsong. A blackbird? A starling? Did that mean it was morning, not night?
A beam of light pierced the darkness, and she glimpsed the back of Chloe’s head. When they had driven off, Chloe’s head had rolled into her. She had screamed then, pushed the thing away, hating the feel of Chloe’s hair on her bare skin, just managing to keep down the vomit that threatened to erupt from her throat. She must have jammed it into a hole or something, for the head had not moved for the rest of the journey.
“Here.”
She stared at a pen and a rough-edged piece of paper.
“Sign.”
“Why?”
“Don’t play the silly cunt.” He leaned down, picked up Chloe’s head, and she gagged back a scream. “If you don’t want this to happen to you,” he growled, “you’d better sign.”
Once more, hope soared within her.
If she signed, would he let her go? She took the paper, noticed something was printed on it. “What’s it say?”
The beam of light shivered across the paper.
“Vengeance? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just sign the fucking thing.”
“You’ll let me go then?”
“I won’t slit your throat, you stupid bitch.”
Maureen stared at his lantern jaw, made all the more gaunt by several days’ growth, at his filthy moustache yellowed from tobacco smoke. Where was his knife? Could she make a run for it? And once again that thought flew from her mind. She would not stand a chance. She turned to the note and pretended to have difficulty holding the pen. But between looking up at him, then down at the pen, she glanced past him to the bushes by the wall.
It was morning. She knew by the way the sky was lightening.
And that was when she saw it, when it hit her that he had no intention of letting her live. She felt the warm release of urine as a tremor gripped her hands. She almost dropped the pen. “Please,” she whimpered. “Please let me go.”
His face darkened. “Aw, you bitch, you pissed in my car. I should slit your fucking throat for that. Get out.”
She tried to pull herself to her feet, but her legs gave way. She did not even have the strength to scream as he hauled her out by her hair.
She slumped onto hard asphalt.
“Now sign that fucking paper or I’ll rip your fucking head off.” He gobbed off to the side, a thick lump of green phlegm that anger had released from his throat.
Through the blur of her tears, she tried to make sense of the single word.
VENGEANCE.
What did it mean? But it was pointless asking. She was going to be killed. Maybe by signing she could leave a message to her parents, let them know she had remained defiant to the last. She almost choked a laugh at the thought. How could she even think that, when she wet herself with every spurt of fear?
She gripped the pen, signed beneath the single word.
Mo, she wrote. That was all.
He snatched the paper from her, stuffed it into his pocket.
She felt herself freeze as he reached behind him. He was going for his knife. That was where he kept it. In a leather sheath on his belt. She stared at the bushes, or what she had mistaken for bushes. Now morning was dawning, the old stone wall and the headstones behind it had taken shape. And the oddest thought coursed through her mind.
A cemetery seemed such an appropriate place in which to be killed.
“ANDY. IT’S PETE Small. You tried to reach me?”
Gilchrist dug his thumb and forefinger into his eyes. “Ronnie Watt,” he said. “He’s not one of yours. Is he?”
“You know I can’t talk about that, Andy. Is that why you called?”
Gilchrist caught the anger in Dainty’s voice. The man might be small in stature, but that did little to lessen his presence. “There used to be a time when we worked hand in hand.”
“Don’t play with words, Andy. You know the rules.”
Gilchrist stared at Leighton’s printouts on his desk. He’d been reading his way through them for the last four hours, but come up with nothing. “Watt knows Chris Topley. Did you know that?”
“Yes.”
“They were seen having a drink together. Does that not interest you?”
“I’ve had the odd pint with a criminal or two. So has half the force.”
Gilchrist could not argue with that. “Where did Topley get the money to start his business?”
“Topley’s clean. We’ve checked him out. He might have an eponymous agency, but it’s part of a larger holding group. Some international company with too much money.”
“Does it have a name?”
“W something Holdings International.”
“Can you find out?”
“Can do.”
“And where it’s based?”
“Can do. Why?”
He had no clear idea why his interest was piqued, other than his sixth sense telling him something did not ring true. “Just a hunch,” he said.
Dainty grunted, then said, “One other thing.”
Gilchrist caught the bite in Dainty’s voice. “I’m all ears.”
“A body was found in a farm lane on the outskirts of Castlecary, off the M80 on the way to Stirling. Male, early thirties, throat cut. Being treated as murder, obviously.”
“Anyone we know?”
“Kenneth Finnigan. Wee Kenny to his friends. But for the last two or three years was Jimmy Reid’s goffer.”
Jimmy Reid? Why was Dainty telling him this? Reid? Then Gilchrist felt the hairs on the nape of his neck stir. “Bully’s brother?”
“The one and only.”
Christ. “What does Jimmy have to say about it?”
“Jimmy’s shot the crow. We raided his house this morning, but he’s packed up and left. Spain, probably. Has a villa there. We’ve already been onto the airlines and the Spanish Police.”
Gilchrist could tell from Dainty’s tone that Jimmy’s disappearance was not the crux of the matter. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Wee Kenny’s car was discovered twenty miles away, burned to a shell.”
“A Jaguar?”
“Right first time.”
“How badly burned?”
“Nothing left of it.”
Gilchrist knew they would not be able to tell from the paintwork if the boot of the Jaguar had been patch-painted. But they might from the metalwork. “The boot,” he said. “Any damage done to it?”
Dainty chuckled. “You don’t miss a thing, do you?”
And neither do you, Gilchrist thought.
“Repaired pockmarks were found on the boot. Possible bullet holes. Six in total. Which might suggest an old-fashioned revolver.”
“For an old-fashioned gangland war.”
“Could be. Jimmy was involved in some turf war about eight years ago.”
“About the time Bully was put behind bars?”
“Some time after that. Rumour had it he was looking after the family business.”
Bully had been sent down on charges of manslaughter. Fifteen years, with no chance of parole—supposedly. Was it possible he was still pulling the strings from behind bars?
“Bully’s still in prison, right?” Gilchrist asked.
“Bar-L. The one and only.”
“He’s not getting out any time soon, is he?”
“He’s hired one of the top legal firms in town.”
“Meaning?”
“They’re pushing to have him out in maybe two years.”
“You’re joking.”
“Afraid not.”
The Jaguar. Burned to a cinder. Kenny Finnigan. Dead in a farm lane. Ronnie Watt. Back in Fife. Maureen. Vanished. Jimmy Reid. Gone to Spain. And Bully. Getting out in two years. Did it add up to something Gilchrist should be able to see? He hated to say it, but only one person was available to him. “I need to talk to Bully,” he said. “Can you set it up for me?”
“This afternoon do?”
“Perfect,” he said, and closed his mobile.
Gilchrist had once prayed that he would never have to face hatred like Bully’s again. Now he had arranged to meet with the psycho. Just the thought that Bully might be involved with Maureen’s disappearance had his heart racing. Christ, anyone but Bully.
But he knew Bully was involved. Bully would always be involved.
He did not need his sixth sense to tell him that.
For years he had dreaded this day coming.
Now it had, he prayed he was up to the task.