Eye for an Eye

pee.’
    ‘Police surgeon been notified?’
    ‘On his way.’
    ‘And the pathologist?’
    Sa tutted, which Gilchrist took to mean yes.
    He eyed the scene. A closed row of plastic traffic cones lined the street. Another row of taped cones surrounded the victim. Examination of the body should not commence until the police surgeon had confirmed life was extinct, but Gilchrist pulled on his coveralls and gloves. ‘Don’t suppose we need anyone to tell us this one’s not breathing,’ he said.
    When Gilchrist stepped over the tape, the photographer lowered his camera, as if in deference.
    Granton was wearing a dark blue pinstriped suit beneath a fawn overcoat. It had not rained for several hours, but his clothes were sodden. His right eye stared skyward, lid half-closed. His left, a congealed pool of blood and blackened matter, housed a wooden stave. It always surprised Gilchrist how calm the Stabber’s victims looked, as if they had been talking to a friend who had changed into a fiend all of a sudden and stabbed them unawares. Or perhaps having a stave driven into the brain rid the body of mortal rictus.
    Gilchrist took hold of Granton’s left hand. It felt cold and wet. Rigor mortis had not fully set in and the skin felt as soft as a woman’s, an indication Granton had never done a day’s manual labour in his life. Gilchrist twisted the hand over. In the dim light, the skin shone wet and smooth and hairless. Manicured fingernails glistened as if varnished. No wedding ring. Only a depressed mark on the meat of the ring finger where the ring had been slipped off.
    Gilchrist looked up at Sa. ‘Did you notice this?’
    ‘No wedding ring?’
    ‘What do you make of it?’
    ‘Took it off to get bum-fucked.’
    Gilchrist wondered if he would ever understand Sa. He remembered when they had been teamed up by Patterson, she had looked squeamish over the body of the Stabber’s fourth victim, in Burgher Close. But at the post-mortem she had watched with the attentive curiosity of a student as the pathologist slapped a dripping brain onto the scales.
    Gilchrist felt in Granton’s right-hand coat pocket. Nothing. The other was empty, too. From the inside suit pocket he removed a burgundy leather wallet. He placed it to his nose. The leather smelled new. He ran his finger over the embossed monogram on the top corner. WBG.
    William Granton. But what did the middle initial stand for? Perhaps his family name?
    Gilchrist opened the wallet and counted ten crisp twenty-pound notes. ‘Two hundred pounds,’ he said. ‘That’s a lot to be carrying.’
    ‘Maybe that’s what you have to pay these days.’
    ‘For spending the night with another man?’
    ‘Who said anything about spending the night?’
    ‘Granton’s wife never called the Office to say he hadn’t come home.’ He looked at Sa. ‘So it might be reasonable to assume she never called because she didn’t expect him.’
    Gilchrist flipped through the wallet again. Other than the usual credit cards, all bearing the imprint of William B. Granton, the wallet contained nothing else.
    He stood. ‘No money taken.’
    ‘There never is.’
    ‘And no driver’s licence.’
    ‘Maybe he doesn’t drive.’
    Gilchrist frowned. Most people carried their licence with them. If Granton lived within walking distance of the bank, maybe he had no need of a car. Or maybe he did, but kept his licence at home. Or maybe he had been banned. Which did not seem likely, somehow. But it would not be the first time Gilchrist had been fooled by superficial innocence.
    He stared along the harbour wall that jutted into the sea like a giant’s stone limb. Spray drifted on the wind. During last night’s storm the sea must have thundered onto the pier. He stepped back over the tape.
    ‘What was Granton doing out here?’ he asked.
    ‘Meeting his shirt-lifter?’
    ‘Here?’
    Sa shrugged. ‘Why not?’ She looked away.
    Gilchrist found himself following her line of sight, along the path that ran up the slope to the ruins of Culdee Church and past the Abbey wall. By the light from a street lamp, he watched Stan walk toward them, mobile phone pressed to his ear.
    ‘But why here?’ Gilchrist asked Sa. ‘There must be a thousand places in St Andrews for two adults to meet in private without the risk of being seen.’
    ‘This is one of them.’
    ‘Hardly.’ Gilchrist found his gaze being drawn to the end of the harbour pier. Over the years he had come to trust this sixth sense of