‘Twice this morning. The man’s a wonder. Never stops trying.’
‘Except where dieting’s concerned.’
‘He’s never heard of the word.’
Gilchrist eased into Bridge Street. ‘Still giving you a hard time?’
‘Fight fire with fire. He wants to play dirty? I’m thinking bring it on, sonny Jim, bring it on.’ She tapped his leg as he slowed down for the roundabout at the West Port, his indicator ticking for a left turn down Argyle Street. ‘Straight on. I’ve not had my caffeine kick yet.’
‘Starbucks?’
‘Got it in one.’
Gilchrist clicked off the indicator and accelerated through the mini-roundabout. He turned right at St Mary’s Place, and a few minutes later pulled up against the kerb outside Starbucks in Market Street.
When he switched off the engine, Jessie said, ‘I forgot to mention that Vicky Kelvin called me first thing this morning. Said she remembered something else about that night with Magner, about what he said that frightened her.’
Gilchrist faced her. ‘Go on.’
‘He said he would gut and skin her alive if she didn’t give him what he wanted.’
An image of Amy McCulloch’s slaughtered body ripped through Gilchrist’s mind with an icy chill. ‘Gut and skin her?’
‘Exact words.’
‘Alive?’
‘Thought that would get your attention.’
‘Contact DI Smith and find out if any of the others were similarly threatened,’ he said. ‘And read that article on Nichola Kelly while I get the coffees.’
He ordered two tall lattes to go. His mobile rang as he was about to collect them – Stan. ‘Is this going to be quick?’
‘Just off the phone with Anne Mills, boss. Magner’s estranged wife.’
‘What’s she got to say for herself?’ Gilchrist tucked his mobile under his chin and picked up both coffees.
‘She lives in Aberdeen, never remarried, and lives with… get this…’
Gilchrist manoeuvred his way through the shop door on to Market Street, stepping back as two students pushed past him, ignorant of manners. ‘I’m all ears.’
‘Tom Junior.’
‘Magner has a boy?’
‘He does indeed, boss.’
‘So, Tom Junior must be what… in his teens?’
‘Try twenty-nine.’
Gilchrist frowned as he struggled with the arithmetic. ‘I thought Magner married Anne Mills in 1986.’
‘Yes, but she’d had his child long before then.’
‘Hang on, Stan.’ Gilchrist sat the coffees on the roof of the Merc, then opened the door. ‘Was that why he married her?’
‘And also why she left him.’
Gilchrist handed both coffees to Jessie, slid behind the wheel, then put his mobile on speaker. ‘You’ve lost me.’
‘According to Anne, Magner doted on his son when they got back together again.’ Stan’s voice sounded metallic through the phone’s speaker. ‘But it all began to fall apart after about a year when Magner developed these weird suspicions that his son was gay. Thomas Junior was only nine or ten at the time, so Anne thinks he was just looking for any excuse to get out of the marriage. After that, things got worse, with Magner refusing to have anything more to do with the boy.’
‘Bastard,’ said Jessie.
‘What’s that, boss?’
‘Just Jessie airing her views.’
A pause, then, ‘So Anne said she moved out of the family home, back to Aberdeen with her son, and that’s the last she ever saw of Thomas Magner Senior. Despite that, he paid for his son’s education at Robert Gordon’s, as well as maintenance until Junior turned twenty-one.’
‘So you’re trying to tell us he’s a good guy?’ Jessie quipped.
‘Not according to his wife, he isn’t.’
Gilchrist caught the change in tone. ‘We’re all ears,’ he said.
‘She said they lived together as husband and wife for about a couple of years, by which time she’d seen enough.’
‘Enough?’
‘Drugs, drinks, sex. She was sick of it.’
‘Sex? As in with other couples?’ Jessie asked.
‘Swingers, wife swaps, full massages, strip shows, nude parties, you name it, in her two years of marriage she’d done it.’
‘Does she remember any names?’ Gilchrist asked.
‘She does indeed.’ The line seemed to die, then Stan came back with, ‘Would you like me to send them through to you in a text, or read them out-’
‘Just get on with it.’
Stan recited a list of about ten names that meant nothing to Gilchrist, until he said, ‘Jason Purvis-’
‘Hang on,’ Gilchrist snapped, and reached for the printout.
‘Boss?’
Jessie already had her finger on the image of the man on the court steps.
‘I haven’t reached the good bit yet, boss,’ Stan said. ‘One wellknown swinger and drug-user was a guy called Jack Russell, a politician with his fingers allegedly in any number of dodgy pies. Which might explain why Stratheden was awarded such a lucrative contract with Fife Council a couple of years later.’
‘We need to talk to him.’
‘You can’t,’ Stan said. ‘He had a stroke several years ago, and been in a coma ever since. But it might be an idea to talk to someone else.’
Gilchrist glanced at Jessie. ‘Who?’ he said.
‘Another not so well-known swinger was…’ A pause, then, ‘Drum roll-’
‘For crying out loud-’
‘Martin Craig.’
‘The MEP?’ Jessie said.
‘And the man behind the drive for Scottish entrepreneurial investment in Europe.’
‘But all this went on, what, almost twenty years ago?’
‘About then, boss.’
‘So this Anne Mills must have one hell of a good memory if she’s not been to a swinger party in two decades.’
‘Better than that, boss. She’s got photographs.’
Gilchrist caught the triumph in Stan’s voice, and could not prevent a smile from stretching his lips. ‘Blackmail?’ he suggested.
‘Blackmail. For her son’s education and maintenance, boss. But mainly for her own security. She says Magner’s the most evil man she’s ever known. Her words. So when she left him, she made sure she had something to keep herself safe.’
‘She had his son,’ Jessie said. ‘Surely that would-’
‘Magner disowned Tom Junior, remember? That was when Anne knew she had to find some way to protect herself.’
‘So, what kind of photographs does she have?’ Gilchrist asked.
‘Haven’t seen them, boss. She’s now scanned them and keeps them on a memory stick in a safe-deposit box. And she filed a letter with her solicitor, which states that if she ever dies or goes missing, then the box is to be opened and its contents distributed to the press.’
Jessie said, ‘I don’t see Magner letting his wife take photographs of him having deviant sex. He might be the most evil man she’s ever met, but he’s smarter than that.’
‘Someone else took the photos,’ Stan replied. ‘Anne just nicked the negatives before she left,’ Stan replied.
‘Ah,’ Jessie said.
‘But if she releases the photographs,’ Gilchrist argued, ‘she’ll lose whatever security they give her.’
‘She’s been diagnosed with cancer,’ Stan said. ‘She’s been told she’s in remission, but she suspects she’s only got another year or so – three, tops.’
It never failed to amaze Gilchrist how people diagnosed with a terminal illness had an innate ability, maybe even a need, to think clearly through to the closing days of their lives, wrap up all the loose ends, as it were. But something was still troubling him.
‘Did Anne Mills ever meet Vicky Kelvin?’
‘Never asked her that, boss. You think it’s important?’
‘I’m thinking that if Anne and Vicky know each other, maybe it was Anne who instigated all the rape allegations against Magner.’
‘I’ll ask, boss.’
‘And let’s have sight of these photographs today, Stan.’