“Here, wee man. Let me show you the way.”
As Wee Kenny stood, a couple of things struck him-that it was more painful having your hair grabbed and your head twisted than it was having your throat cut. And having your throat cut was not sore at all, more like not being able to catch your breath. But the sound of blood spurting over the bushes confused him.
“Down you go, wee man,” as a hard hand kept a grip of his hair, and lowered his head to the ground.
The grass felt cold and soaking wet. He tried to lift his hands to feel the slit in his throat, but he had lost all strength, just wanted to close his eyes, go to sleep. He heard the Jaguar’s engine roar into life, and for a fleeting moment his world exploded with light.
Then that, too, faded, until all that was left was darkness and the sound of rain.
And his own bubbling whimpers.
GILCHRIST WAKENED WITH a start.
He lay still for several seconds, confused as to where he was and who he was with. They had turned from each other in their sleep, and he felt a shiver of surprise as his fingers found, then touched, bare skin.
Nance moaned, a soft sound that hinted of consent and compliance, and she rolled her body into his. An arm slid over his chest, a leg over his thighs. He felt the press of her pubis and the heat of her breath as her lips worked up his neck like damp fingers, searching for him.
They found each other.
His body pulled towards her while his mind flew away, as if some sensual part of him had been released from his physical being and was floating, looking down at what was left of him. From somewhere deep in the logical part of his brain he heard a whisper call out to him, a sound that was almost indistinguishable from the rush of blood in his ear. Then the whisper took on an urgency that ordered him to stop.
He came to with a jolt.
“Nance,” he said. “I’m-”
“Sshh.” Her finger pressed against his lips. “You don’t have to say a thing.”
“I-”
“Not a thing.” She kissed him then, her lips swollen and soft, like flesh of the sweetest fruit peeling apart. Then she pulled back. “Would you like me to stop?”
Gilchrist felt his heart bound in his chest like some caged animal. Yes, I would like you to stop. But make love to me first. Please stop.
“No,” he said.
“Are you all right?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
That was how he should have answered her first question. Yes, he should have said. Yes, I would like you to stop. But now it was too late. He felt as if some part of him that had lain dormant for too long had resurfaced in all its sensual libidinous glory. He felt, too, that he was breaking the rules. Not just constabulary rules, but his own unwritten code of ethics that had guided him since his affair with Alyson Baird several years earlier. He had made a promise to himself to keep sexual relationships remote from the Office.
“Kiss me again,” she said.
Her lips tasted as moist as mango, and when he opened his mouth her tongue powered inside like some living thing driven to search out every sensual nerve of his being.
Her fingers slid down his chest. His breath caught.
Her hand found him, slid down the base of him, cupped him in its warm grip. He heard someone groan, then let himself freefall into the dream.
Was he dreaming?
She seemed to be all around him, in his mouth, against his chest, his thighs. Fingers of the lightest silk slid over him, down and under to hold him, rubbing, stretching, then up again, caressing the head of him.
Then she pulled away from him.
He lay there, confused for a moment as to what he had done wrong, then felt his desire surge to a new high as he heard the soft rustle of her thong being slipped off.
When she returned to him, she slid a leg over his thigh, and straddled him. Her fingers took hold of him, guided him, and he opened his mouth to afford her one last opportunity to stop.
We shouldn’t, his mind whispered.
She set herself down on him and he slid into the depths of her. She eased herself up, as if riding the lazy waves of a Caribbean surf. With each slow mounting, she leaned farther forward, falling closer to him, until her arms reached around his neck and he took hold of her breasts.
Her wetness ran onto his aching sac and down and over the top of his thighs. He took control then, placed his hands on her buttocks, pulled her onto him, her rhythmic surfing more frantic with each rising thrust.
Still, his personal turmoil persisted.
Please stop, he wanted to say. No, make love to me. Let me make love to you. No. You. Me. Please. No.
Yes…
His breath caught in his throat, gave out tiny gasps that hardened as she impaled herself onto him again and again. The waves rose and fell, the seas roughened, the swell deepened, falling lower, rising higher, climbing, peaking, then crashing onto the warm shores of their drenched bodies to ebb and flow with a force that almost sucked the heart out of him.
She lay on top of him, her body writhing, squeezing every last ounce of pleasure from the moment. And Gilchrist wanted to thank her for what she had given him, but could not find the words. Instead, he drifted off and dreamed the dream of the dead.
Chapter 19
GILCHRIST WAKENED TO the whisper of rain on glass, then realised it was Nance having a shower. He raised the white-cotton Roman blinds to the pale grey of a Glasgow morning, then tried Maureen’s mobile, but got no connection. He called Dainty for an update, only to be told they had uncovered nothing overnight.
The unequivocal fact that his daughter was missing hit him like a blow to the gut. A cold sweat came over him, and he brushed his forehead surprised to see his fingers tremble. He had never felt such helplessness. He forced his mind to think, to come up with something, some intangible clue that might lead him to her, or at least point him in the right direction.
But what? And how?
He powered up her laptop, then entered My Documents and tried the Research folder, and into more subfolders, working through one branch, then back out and down another, but coming up with nothing, until an idea stopped him. Was Maureen’s laptop wi-fi enabled? Even if it was, Jack would not have wireless Internet, of that he felt certain. A short search located the Ethernet cable, but plugging it in gave him no connection, and he had to switch the power off. Within four minutes of restarting, he had an Internet connection and found himself at the BBC home page-another surprise. He typed hotmail.com and in the Sign In page entered Maureen’s email address. For her password, he typed Blackie 1980-the name of her first cat and the year of her birth-and prayed she had not changed it since she last told him. He held his breath while the screen opened to her Hotmail account.
He was in.
He read the folders listed in a column that ran down the left side of the screen, searching for something that might lead him to Ronnie Watt, until his eye tripped up on Topley. He had heard that name somewhere before. Topley. But where, he could not recall.
He opened it to a screen that contained no emails, and wondered why Maureen had emptied that folder. He eyed the column list again and stopped at Chris.
Was this Maureen’s boyfriend?
He opened that folder, surprised to find a list of emails that ran to five pages and dated back to January two years earlier.
Two years? But was Chris not Maureen’s latest boyfriend? Despite the distancing in their relationship, Gilchrist knew Maureen well enough to know that two years was too long for her to keep any romance secret. Ergo, Chris could not be her latest boyfriend.
Or could he?
He chose the most recent email, dated six weeks ago.