Tooth for a Tooth (Di Gilchrist 3)

into his sales spiel.
    Silent, Gilchrist listened to Betson quote brake horsepower, engine size in cubic inches and cubic centimetres, length of wheelbase, turning circle and a litany of other things that Gilchrist could not care less about. He could hardly wait to call Stan, get him to check something out for him.
    And all the while the Mercedes was eating the miles to Betson’s home.
     
    Stan called Gilchrist back before he reached Edinburgh.
    ‘You were right, boss. McKinley, who bought the car from Fairclough, said it had a dent in the front end, which he patched up himself.’
    ‘Patched up?’
    ‘Hammered out, buffed down, repainted. His own words.’
    Gilchrist gripped the steering wheel, eyed the road ahead.
    Was it possible? After all these years?
    By the time Gilchrist reached his destination, night had fallen.
    Betson’s garage was remote from the house, one of a row of identical lock-ups that lined a cobbled lane at the back of the tenement building. Light from the kitchen windows cast a dim glow over parts of the lane. Each lock-up seemed too narrow to park a car in, the turning circle too tight. A number on a metal plate screwed into the frame above double wooden doors matched Betson’s home address.
    ‘Here we are.’ Betson inserted a key into a rusted padlock. ‘Haven’t had a look at it for some time, but back here’s as safe as houses. We’ve lived here for over thirty years and never had a spot of bother. Not even any graffiti. Amazing, when you think about it.’
    Gilchrist eyed the narrow lane. The lock-ups extended in a row to a high stone wall that bordered the back gardens of houses one street over. On the opposite side of the lane, a wall as high as the other bounded Betson’s building. The lane faded to a dark mouth as it kinked on a forty-five-degree bend out of sight to the main road. Betson’s garage sat at the farthest end, where the lane dead-ended against the back of a brick building. No matter how skilful the driver, manoeuvring in and out of any of these garages had to be a feat in itself.
    Most of the lock-ups were secured with rusting padlocks and wooden doors that seemed to have taken root among the weeds. Paint and slivers of wood had flaked off at the foot of Betson’s garage door, but the cobbles fronting it had the worn pattern of wood scraping stone.
    Someone could die back here, and remain undiscovered for days.
    ‘When did you say you were last down here?’ Gilchrist asked.
    ‘Months ago. Just after Easter, I think.’
    ‘Looks like these doors have been opened recently.’
    ‘That would be the wife. She’s forever stacking stuff down here.’
    Betson hooked the opened padlock on to the clasp, the key dangling from it like an earring, and eased one of the doors open. The strangely pleasant smell of petrol and oil mixed with ageing leather hit Gilchrist.
    ‘There’s a light switch in here,’ Betson’s voice came back at him.
    The inside of the garage opened up to Gilchrist like Aladdin’s cave.
    Folded tables, chairs, cardboard cartons stacked with comics, books, children’s toys, lined both sides of a grey tarpaulin stretched across the ghostly outline of some low-slung vehicle. Framed pictures and posters wrapped in tissue paper perched on the tarpaulin, as if placed there as an afterthought.
    Betson pushed his way through the muddle like a man wading through water, to squeeze past a rusted barbecue stand, a bag of golf clubs, then step over what looked like a chaise longue, its yellow fabric spotted with oil or mould. A gunmetal toolbox sat in the mildewed folds of a garden umbrella that lay like a quilt over boxes of comics.
    Gilchrist followed.
    ‘The wife refuses to throw stuff away,’ Betson said to him. ‘If you’re going to keep that car, she says, then I’m going to keep everything else.’ He chuckled. ‘One of these days I’m going to have to clear the lot out. A friend of mine says he could sell it on eBay and make a fortune.’ He grunted as he bent beneath a pedal bike suspended from hooks on the ceiling. ‘Maybe I’ll take him up on that offer. Split the proceeds fifty-fifty. That would be better than having all this stuff just lying here doing nothing.’
    From where Gilchrist stood, the tarpaulin that covered the bonnet and front grille was clear of all jumble, whereas the roof seemed to double as additional storage space. From outside, he thought he heard the grumbling of a running motor echo off the lane’s stone