Tooth for a Tooth (Di Gilchrist 3)

it,’ he said, then added: ‘Before I forget. Do you have Jack’s lighter with you?’
    ‘It’s in the hotel room.’
    ‘Have you mentioned what I told you about the nicks?’
    She took another draw, blew it out with a gush. ‘Give me some credit, for crying out loud.’
    ‘I take it that’s a no.’
    She scowled at him.
    ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Let’s keep it that way.’
    She took another draw, which seemed to kill her anger. ‘Be careful, Andy.’
    He eyed her over a mouthful of beer.
    ‘I mean it,’ she said. ‘I’m getting bad feelings about this.’
    He returned his pint to the table. ‘Voices in your head again?’
    She stubbed her cigarette into the ashtray, as if trying to grind it through the glass. Then she pushed her chair back, and stood. ‘You know, you can be a real bastard at times,’ she hissed, then strode from the bar.
    No sooner had she left when a voice to his side said, ‘I see you haven’t lost your charm with women.’
    DI ‘Tosh’ MacIntosh stood at the bar, no more than four feet from the back of Gina’s chair. How long had he been there? But, more worrying, had he overheard any of his conversation with Gina?
    Gilchrist tilted his pint. ‘Up yours,’ he said to Tosh, and took a sip.
    ‘Not going to ask me to join you?’
    ‘Just leaving.’
    ‘I’d buy you a pint, Gilchrist, but I might have to piss in it first.’
    Gilchrist pushed from the table and, without a word, walked from the bar.
     
    By two that afternoon, Stan had retrieved Kelly’s records from the university. ‘She seemed to have it all,’ he said. ‘Beautiful
and
smart.’
    Gilchrist scanned her records. Eighty-six per cent in English, her best subject. He remembered Jack telling him that Kelly lived somewhere north of New York City. He pulled her home address from the records, and a search on Google Maps confirmed that Wilton was a small town about eight miles north of Saratoga Springs in upstate New York. Several phone calls later, State records confirmed that Kelly’s father had died five years earlier. The US Postal Service verified that a Mrs Annie Roberts lived at the given address. This troubled Gilchrist. If both of Kelly’s parents had been alive at the time of her murder, why had they not reported her missing?
    One way to find out.
    He clicked on the recorder, introduced himself and Stan, then placed the call to the States.
    ‘Mrs Annie Roberts?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Andy Gilchrist from Fife Constabulary in Scotland. I have you on speaker phone with Detective Sergeant Stan Davidson. We’re recording this call. Can you spare a few minutes to talk to us?’
    ‘Who did you say you were?’
    Gilchrist repeated his introduction a little slower, more emphatic. ‘We’d like to ask you a few questions about your daughter.’
    ‘My daughter?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘My daughter Kelly?’
    Gilchrist raised a hopeful eyebrow at Stan. ‘Yes.’
    ‘Have you found her?’
    Gilchrist frowned at Stan, who eyed the phone with an intensity that almost burned. ‘Why do you ask that?’ Gilchrist tried.
    ‘Kelly’s been missing for thirty-five years.’
    ‘Did you report her missing?’
    ‘We did.’
    ‘Who to?’
    ‘The police, of course. But nothing ever came of it. Have you heard from her? Is she . . . is she all right?’
    ‘Mrs Roberts, we’re looking into Kelly’s disappearance, and need to ask you a few questions that might help us with our . . . enquiries.’ He had almost said
investigation
and was already regretting calling. He should have flown out, had a face-to-face.
    ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘From Scotland, did you say?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Why Scotland?’
    It was Gilchrist’s turn to be confused. ‘I’m not sure I follow.’
    ‘What was she doing in Scotland?’ she asked. ‘She disappeared in Mexico.’
    Mexico?
Gilchrist leaned forward, placed his hands on the table. ‘We have records of Kelly living in Scotland.’
    ‘She took a short-term course in English at St Andrews University, but she left there and went to Mexico.’
    Stan spoke into the phone. ‘When was that?’
    ‘When she finished her studies.’
    ‘Yes, but which year?’
    ‘Sixty-nine.’
    ‘Month?’
    ‘She said her last exams were in January. She flew to Mexico not long after that.’
    ‘When did you last see Kelly, Mrs Roberts?’
    ‘Christmas sixty-eight. Tom and I flew over for a week.’
    ‘To St Andrews?’
    ‘Yes. Tom loved to