Tooth for a Tooth (Di Gilchrist 3)

was her daughter. I wonder who she could have been.’
    ‘She looked Italian?’
    Ewart almost smirked. ‘Mrs McLeod’s family was from Italy.’
    Gilchrist leaned forward. ‘I thought you hardly knew the McLeods.’
    Ewart looked straight at Gilchrist, hands flat on his desk. ‘My father told me,’ he said. ‘Mrs McLeod came to Scotland as a young woman not long after the war.’
    ‘Did you speak to her after the funeral?’
    ‘No. I went home.’ Ewart tried to give an embarrassed shrug. ‘Most of the other students lived in rented accommodation. Being a local boy I stayed at home with good old Mum and Dad.’
    Gilchrist forced his thoughts back on track. ‘Can you recall how many people were there?’ he asked.
    ‘What’s this about, please?’
    Ewart’s response seemed more challenge than question. Gilchrist placed his elbow on Ewart’s desk and moved closer. ‘Yesterday,’ he said, ‘a woman’s skeleton was discovered in Hamish’s plot.’
    Ewart grimaced. ‘Was anyone reported missing back then?’
    ‘Back when?’
    Ewart seemed to freeze, like a child trapped in the telling of a lie. ‘You did say skeleton. So I’m assuming it’s been there a while.’
    Gilchrist nodded, oddly deflated.
    ‘Well, was there?’ Ewart asked.
    ‘We’re looking into that,’ said Stan.
    ‘Do you know who she was?’
    ‘That’s why we’re here.’
    ‘Here?’ Ewart’s face adopted a look of pain. ‘Are you in any way suggesting—’
    ‘No. Not at all,’ said Gilchrist, and returned Ewart’s firm look with one of his own. ‘We’re trying to establish who was at the funeral, what they saw, what they can remember. We intend to talk to everyone who was there.’
    Ewart settled, seemingly satisfied. ‘Well, I’ve told all I know.’
    Gilchrist prodded a few more questions, but Ewart could offer little more. Gilchrist stood, and offered his hand. ‘Thanks for your time, Dougie. You’ve been very helpful.’
    ‘My pleasure.’ Ewart shook Gilchrist’s hand as vigorously as before. He smiled, a short flash of teeth that folded into a grimace. ‘If there’s anything else I can do . . .’
    ‘We’ll be in touch.’
    Outside, Gilchrist and Stan walked across the car park in silence.
    The Merc’s lights flashed as Gilchrist pressed his remote and opened the door.
    Gilchrist swung his Roadster around the end of a row of parked cars and drove back past Ewart’s office. ‘Don’t be too obvious, Stan, but second window from the right. What do you see?’ Gilchrist eased along the car park and pulled to a halt at the exit. From that location, Ewart’s office was out of sight. ‘Anything?’ he asked.
    ‘Someone peeped through the blinds, boss.’
    ‘Dougie?’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘Now why would he do that?’
    ‘Happy to see us leave?’
    ‘That would be my first guess.’ Gilchrist pulled into the flow of traffic.
    ‘Have to say, boss, that I thought he had a good memory. All those years ago and he can still remember what the weather was like.’
    ‘Meaning?’
    ‘That if I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was ready for your questions.’
    Gilchrist gave Stan’s words some thought. But an image of Dr Douglas Ewart in the throes of murdering someone, and a woman at that, simply refused to manifest. ‘You got Sammy Wilson’s address?’ he asked.
    Stan slapped his pocket. ‘In my notebook, boss.’
    ‘Good,’ said Gilchrist. ‘I’d like to talk to him.’

CHAPTER 4
     
    Sammy Wilson lived in a council house on Tom Morris Drive, south of the West Port. The garden either side of the slabbed path looked neat and tidy, but on closer inspection had about it the look of an old man’s face after shaving in the dark.
    Sammy answered the door wearing a worn woollen coat and flat cap, its tip finger-blackened smooth. For a moment he struggled for recognition, then showed his false teeth. ‘It’s yourself, son,’ he said. ‘In yous come.’
    ‘Were you going out?’ asked Gilchrist.
    ‘Naw. The bloody place is freezing. Have to wear a coat to keep the heating bills down.’ He turned and stepped down the hall, his voice echoing, thickened with phlegm. ‘Scandalous, so it is, the bloody price of stuff.’ He gave a cough that seemed to shake his body to his toes. ‘Can hardly afford to buy myself a bloody half these days.’
    Gilchrist walked along a dark hallway redolent of burned toast. Doors lay opened to bedrooms long since transformed into storage rooms. Cardboard boxes,