In the kitchen he poured a glass of orange juice, then checked with the Office. But no one had any news for him. He tried Dainty on his mobile, but it rang out. He got through to Pitt Street, but was told Dainty would not be in until 8:00. He asked for a home number but the receptionist declined to give it out. He next called Directory Enquiries for Strathclyde Drug Squad, but when he asked for Watt he was surprised to be told they had no record of a Ronnie Watt, Ron Watt, Ronald Watt, or any variation of that name, either at Detective Sergeant or Constable level.
Gilchrist gave a whispered curse as he hung up.
What the hell was going on? If Strathclyde had no record of Watt, did that mean Watt had pulled one over on Greaves? Watt would be transferred to Fife only on written authority. Had Watt faked the transfer, or was Greaves in on it? Or was he just pissing up against the wrong tree?
He checked his watch. He would make one more call.
“This is DCI Gilchrist,” he said. “How much have you printed?”
“Mr. Gilchrist?” grumbled Leighton. “It’s 5:00 in the morning.”
“You said you would call.”
“I’ve been quite busy working on them.”
“In that case, I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Give me what you’ve got.”
He pulled on his black leather jacket and stepped out into a cold east coast morning.
Today he would find his daughter.
Even if he had to die doing so.
Chapter 27
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?”