Tooth for a Tooth (Di Gilchrist 3)

discomfiting ease from passionate to indifferent.
    And he loved her still. He would always love her.
    But the truth was that Gail’s love for him had changed like the clicking of a switch. She had cast him off like an old winter coat as she welcomed the fresh summer winds of her new lover, Harry.
    Harry
. God, how he hated the sound of that name, a name that cast up images of extramarital sex behind locked doors in the hospital administration building, rushed and desperate and kept out of sight of all and sundry. But although Gilchrist had not once strayed, he saw that his love affair with his job had caused the death of his marriage.
    When Gail’s affair started, their marriage was already dead.
    That thought calmed him. Detective Chief Inspector Andrew James Gilchrist of the St Andrews Division of Fife Constabulary’s Crime Management Department had no one to blame but himself.
    He had just slipped on to the M876 when his mobile rang from a number he did not recognize.
    ‘You’re a hard man to track down.’
    He grimaced at the American accent. ‘And you’re a hard woman to lose.’
    Gina Belli laughed, a grating sound he found unattractive. ‘You hiding from me?’
    ‘Trying to. I like to keep my personal life personal.’
    ‘You almost made the cover of
Newsweek
after the Stabber case. Did you know that?’
    ‘Does that matter?’
    ‘To people who write biographies, yes.’ She paused. ‘Where are you?’
    He ignored her question, wanted to ask how she found his mobile number, but heard Stan’s voice say,
Nice voice. Very sexy
, and already knew. ‘You need to stop calling me,’ he replied.
    ‘What are you doing tonight?’
    ‘I’m out of town.’
    ‘Tomorrow night?’
    ‘I think I’m losing you. You’re sounding faint.’
    ‘You can do better than that, Andy. If you want to disconnect, just say so. But I’ll be in the Central tomorrow night at seven. I’d like to ask you something.’
    ‘Ask away.’
    ‘Not on the phone,’ she said. ‘And one other thing . . .’
    Gilchrist waited.
    ‘I don’t bite.’
     
    He arrived at Jeanette Pennycuick’s at five to seven. The cold stone building looked dull and imposing, all the more uninviting seen through a damp drizzle that hung in the air like an east-coast haar.
    He stepped from his car and pulled his collar up.
    He pushed open a heavy metal gate that groaned on rusted hinges, and walked along a pathway lined with the skeletal branches of pruned autumn bushes to a dark door sheltered by a portico with twin stone columns. A matching pair of flowerpots shaped like lions sat on the first step and guarded the door. The brass doorknob resembled a roaring lion with a ring knocker like an oversized nose-piercing. A dim light on the door frame led his fingers to the doorbell, beneath which lay a polished brass nameplate.
    Geoffrey Pennycuick
.
    No mention of his having a wife.
    A deep chime echoed back at him when he pressed the doorbell. A dim light warmed the ceiling of an upstairs room. If not for that, he would have said the house was deserted. Late October was the time for the mid-term break. Maybe the Pennycuicks were away on holiday with their children, if they had any children. Or perhaps they had gone out for the evening. If they were not to return until after midnight, he would have a long wait. Mind made up, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and returned to his car, intent on paying them a visit first thing in the morning.
    He wound his way through night-time traffic to Jack’s flat in Hillhead. Unable to find a parking spot, he abandoned his Merc in a cobbled lane opposite and hoped he would not be clamped.
    Jack’s flat was one of a terraced row of tenement buildings; whose façade had been sandblasted clean within the last year. Despite the communal door being freshly painted black, the starless Glasgow sky doused the area in misery. He climbed the footworn steps. From somewhere beyond the bottom of the road, he heard the sound of breaking glass, people shouting. He eyed the junction but saw only passing cars, their lights piercing the night air like laser beams. He pressed Jack’s doorbell.
    Several seconds later a tinny voice said, ‘Heh.’
    ‘Jack?’
    ‘Who’s this?’
    ‘Your father.’
    ‘Heh, Andy, didn’t recognize the voice. Up you come, man.’
    The lock buzzed, and Gilchrist stepped into a dark close that echoed with the sound of his footfall. The door thudded behind him. On the third-floor landing, Jack