Eye for an Eye

water, then sluicing the area down with disinfectant. Afterwards, she had trashed the gloves and wash-rag.
    She shuddered again at the thought of it.
    But how could she file a complaint?
    Finding the words to tell the police that someone had ejaculated on her door was beyond her. Without a description, what could they do? And she had unwittingly destroyed all the evidence. She had no option but to work through the rest of the day as if nothing had happened. But despite her outer resolve, she could not rid herself of the unsettling feeling that continued to sweep through her.
    What if the man returned?
    What then?

CHAPTER 6
     
    Gilchrist kept his finger on the doorbell longer than considered courteous. He was concerned by Mrs Granton’s failure to answer following Nance’s visit to break the news.
    ‘See anything?’ he asked Sa.
    She shook her head.
    Gilchrist stepped back.
    The cottage’s roughcast façade shone white in the morning light. A brass coach lamp, polished like new copper, hung by the side of a varnished door. A gleaming brass nameplate was engraved with the single word ‘Inverlea’. A stone wall ran along the boundary and hid the rear garden from passers-by.
    Gilchrist peered over.
    A tidy lawn with crisp edges, the flower bed turned over for the winter. Pruned shrubs stood against the opposite wall like shorn heads. A patio door lay open to reveal several dark inches of interior.
    ‘Back in a tick,’ he said, and gripped the cold stone.
    He swung his legs up and over and leapt onto the gravel path that edged the lawn. He brushed moss and dirt from his hands and stopped at the sight of an elderly lady at the patio window. Behind him, Sa cleared the wall and landed on the gravel with the grace of an acrobat. Without a word, she walked past him, her feet crunching the pebbles, and faced the patio door. The woman barely reacted, as if she was watching a play, rather than two strangers invade her property.
    Sa pressed her mouth to the gap in the patio door and said, ‘We were concerned when you didn’t answer.’
    The woman stared blankly, as if she had heard a sound but was unable to locate it. Sa opened the patio door wider.
    ‘May we come in?’ she asked.
    ‘Of course, dear.’
    To Gilchrist’s surprise, Sa stepped inside, put her arms around Mrs Granton and gave her a hug, patting her like a mother clearing wind from a baby. As they parted, Mrs Granton glanced at him and smiled.
    ‘Come in, Detective Inspector. Please. I’ve heard so much about you.’
    The living room was redolent of flowers and fresh polish, the air thick enough to taste.
    ‘Have a seat, dear, I’ve got a pot brewing,’ said Mrs Granton, then walked into the kitchen.
    When he heard a cupboard being opened, he said, ‘What the hell’s going on?’
    ‘Liz is my aunt,’ she explained. ‘Not my real aunt. She was best friends with my mother.’
    ‘So you knew Bill Granton?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Gilchrist recalled her reluctance to look at Granton’s body. Now it made some sense. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
    ‘Would it have made a difference?’
    Gilchrist chose not to answer and sat on a beige leather sofa that felt creased and soft. On a polished side table stood four framed photographs of an aged corgi. On a wooden bookshelf, another two. But no family photographs, or any evidence that Mrs Granton had shared the house with a man.
    ‘So you must know Sam MacMillan as well,’ he said to Sa.
    Sa shook her head. ‘His name cropped up but I had no idea he and Bill were so – how do I say it? – close.’
    Gilchrist glanced toward the kitchen. ‘Did Mrs Granton know about her husband’s relationship with MacMillan?’
    ‘If she did, she chose to live with it. She’s a devout Catholic. Divorce was not an option.’
    ‘Children?’
    ‘Only the one. Alex.’
    Alex. Alex Granton. Gilchrist ran the name through his mind, but could not pull up why it sounded familiar. It would come to him.
    ‘Do you know where he lives?’
    ‘Glasgow. Last I heard he was a nurse in the Royal Infirmary. Never married.’
    Mrs Granton reappeared carrying a large silver tray laden with a pot and cups and two side plates heaped high.
    ‘Some home-made shortbread,’ she announced.
    Silent, Gilchrist watched her fuss around them, filling three bone-china cups with the weakest of tea and asking whether they liked milk or sugar, and would cubes be all right, and how many. It seemed surreal to think that her husband’s corpse now