Tooth for a Tooth (Di Gilchrist 3)

poison settle his jumping nerves. A dog. That’s what had set him off. The memory of that single word. He took another pull, then studied the burning tip as if surprised to see what he was holding. He exhaled, dropped the cigarette on the pavement, ground it out by stirring it into the asphalt. A dog. He pulled the cigarette packet from his pocket, crushed it in his hands and dropped it into a rubbish bin, followed by his lighter.
     
    By the end of the week, Gilchrist had his answer.
    Forensics confirmed Ewart’s DNA on the St Andrews postcard, and Megs’ on the Mexican one. Confronted with the evidence, Ewart claimed he remembered Megs asking him to mail some postcards for her. He’d had no idea what she’d written on them, of course, or where they were going to, and had simply done as he was told. In those days, no one argued with Megs, he joked.
    Two hours later he was formally charged with the murder of Kelly Roberts.
    And Fairclough, too. Jack’s DNA was confirmed from the hairs trapped in the paint, and a perfect thumbprint lifted from pieces of the broken bottles recovered from Betson’s garage matched Fairclough’s. An investigation of Fairclough’s offices revealed a crate of Irn-Bru bottles in a storage cupboard, providing the critical connection to the arson attack. The final nail was hammered deep by way of Linda Melrose’s statement confirming the hit-andrun, leaving Fairclough with no way out.
    The procurator fiscal confirmed she had enough evidence to charge Fairclough with death by dangerous driving, and attempted murder for the arson attack. Additional charges of failing to report the collision and attempting to pervert the course of justice would guarantee that Fairclough would be an old man by the time he got out of prison. If he ever lived that long.

CHAPTER 35
     
    Two weeks later
     
    The funeral was small, more memorial service than burial, as they interred the bones in a coffin in the tiny plot. A simple black headstone gave tribute in neatly etched words to the memory of a young life lost.
     
    KELLY ANNABELLE ROBERTS
MARCH 17, 1949 – FEBRUARY 23, 1969
FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS
     
    Gilchrist thought the final date at least gave some closure to the open-ended question Ewart continued to refuse to answer. It could be a day out, no more than two. But as best he could figure, the twenty-third was when Ewart took Kelly’s life.
    Somehow, staring at the dates seemed to strike home to Gilchrist just how young Kelly and Jack had been at the time of their deaths. Kelly had been a teenager, about to turn twenty in March of that fateful year, and yet she had been two years older than Jack.
    Kelly’s mother surprised him by taking hold of his hand. ‘Are you all right, Andy?’
    He nodded, not trusting his voice. He turned with her, away from the grave, and said nothing as their feet crushed the gravel pathway to his car.
    ‘It’s such a beautiful place,’ Annie said. ‘Kelly would be pleased. And Tom.’ She turned her face to the wind as if testing the air. ‘And such a beautiful day, too. Kelly used to write Tom and me about days like this, with the trees and the grass glistening fresh and smelling damp from the rain. It’s what she loved most about Scotland.’
    She squeezed Gilchrist’s hand. He squeezed back.
    At her insistence, he dropped her off at Leuchars Station.
    ‘I’d be more than happy to drive you to Edinburgh Airport,’ he offered again.
    ‘I’d rather take the train,’ she said, ‘if you don’t mind.’
    ‘Of course not, it’s just . . .’
    ‘It’s just that Kelly wrote about the train journey to Edinburgh. I’d like to travel that same route now, see the same things Kelly might have seen. For Tom, too,’ she said, almost as an afterthought. ‘I don’t think I told you, but Tom and I visited St Andrews three years after Kelly disappeared. We went back to that same hotel, but checked out after only two days. We couldn’t stand it, knowing this was where Kelly used to live. Tom never came back to Scotland again.’
    Gilchrist felt his lips tighten.
    ‘It’s a bit silly, I know,’ Annie went on, ‘but now I know where Kelly is, I feel as if I’m seeing the beauty of the Scottish countryside for the first time. I don’t suppose I’ll ever return here, not at my age, so I’d like to take back what memories I can.’
    Gilchrist carried her suitcase to the platform and, when the train arrived, helped her on board. She turned and faced him, eyes