Eye for an Eye

was thickening, gathering into droplets that trickled over the skin like beads of sweat.
    ‘Anyone here recognize him?’ Gilchrist asked.
    ‘I do.’
    A long-haired youth stepped forward, with skin as pale and smooth as that of a young boy. He would later be found to be in his mid-twenties.
    ‘You know his name?’ Gilchrist asked.
    ‘He’s my father.’
    And Gilchrist saw that face now, the eyes more dark and dangerous looking, the hair longer, scruffier than it had been that day on the beach three years earlier.
    He took out his mobile and asked to speak to PC Norris.
    He was connected almost in the next breath.
    ‘Andy Gilchrist here,’ he said. ‘Can you talk?’
    ‘I don’t know if this is a good idea,’ said Norris.
    ‘My lips are sealed,’ said Gilchrist. ‘So should yours be. That body on the beach three years ago,’ he pressed on before Norris could object. ‘You remember it?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Who was it?’
    A moment’s pause, then, ‘Jimmy Hamilton.’
    Gilchrist smiled. Now he remembered. ‘And the son is Sebastian. Right?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Norris. ‘And a right weirdo.’
    ‘Whatever happened to him?’
    ‘Couldn’t say, sir.’
    ‘Got an address?’
    ‘Way ahead of you, sir. I’ve got it up on the screen right now. You got a pen and paper?’
    Gilchrist assigned the address to memory as Norris read it out to him. Hamilton lived on the other side of town. ‘Do me another favour, can you? Get hold of Stan and tell him to take Nance and bring Hamilton in for questioning.’
    ‘On what charge, sir?’
    ‘Indecent exposure. And if he has any problems with that, tell him to call me on my mobile.’
    When Gilchrist reached the cemetery he walked toward the narrow entrance of Gregory Lane. To his right, the Cathedral ruins rose into the night sky like massive wraiths. Ahead, the lane beckoned like a cave.
    He hesitated. His thoughts conjured up an image of the Stabber’s first victim, Donald McLeish, killed in a lane not dissimilar to this. In his mind’s eye, he watched a woman in denim jeans step from the deepest shadows and plunge a stave into Donald’s left eye. Had Donald known her? Had he been abusive to her in a past relationship? Gilchrist would never know, not until he came face to face with the Stabber and asked outright.
    He stuffed his hands deep into his pockets and entered the lane. His footfall reverberated as darkness enveloped him and he found himself taking comfort from the dim glow of penumbral light that spilled from the rear courtyard of St Gregory’s.
    He emerged at the opposite end with a shiver and crossed the path that paralleled the cliff face. He stood with his back against the metal railing. The sea wind was picking up, cold as ice. To his left, the path rose, then spilled, black as the River Styx, down toward Kirkhill. To his right, it ran off like some spectral invitation to the Castle ruins. From where he stood, he could just make out Garvie’s bedroom window, a grey rectangle on a black roof. Through the McLarens’ lighted window, he noticed young Ian slinking around his bedroom.
    Forty minutes later, a weak light spilled from Garvie’s dormer, and a woman stepped forward to pull down the blinds. He thought he recognized Garvie’s features, but from that distance could not be sure.
    He waited another ten minutes before making a move.
    Back in Gregory Lane he pulled himself up and over the stone wall and landed in a garden as dank and cold as an abandoned forest. He pushed his way through a tangle of bushes and uncut grass until he came to what he worked out had to be Garvie’s perimeter wall.
    He peered over.
    Yellow light glowed from an upper window, soft and misted by the blinds. Through the fine material, he caught a flicker of movement. He imagined Garvie exercising, and an image of black Lycra shorts and blond hair, short and damp, reared up in his mind.
    He was about to move closer when he stopped.
    Had his eyes deceived him? Had someone else walked into the room? He kept his gaze glued to the window. Garvie lived alone, did she not? Did she have a visitor? And if so, who? And why upstairs?
    But ten minutes later, Gilchrist made out no other movement and decided the shadows must have tricked his eyes.
    The luminous hands on his watch stood at 10:33. Nothing moved in the darkness around him. Cliff surf rushed in the distance like leaves in an autumn wind. Garvie had told him she took sleeping pills, so he crouched, deep enough in