Tooth for a Tooth (Di Gilchrist 3)

his hotel room he raided the minibar, removing an assortment of liquors. He cracked the top off a miniature Jack Daniel’s and tipped the photographs on to the bedroom floor, where he split them into two piles, one of landscapes and places, the other of Kelly and friends. Sipping the Jack straight from the bottle, he set to work.
    Twenty minutes later, and on his second bottle – Captain Morgan’s Dark Rum – familiar scenes of St Andrews lay before him. Images of the harbour, the East Sands, the cathedral ruins, St Rules, the West Sands and the university itself, all spread out around him. But it was the less familiar images that grabbed his attention – Kelly with her friends, in groups of three, four, as many as eight, mostly much the worse for drink and few he recognized.
    He picked one at random.
    A party in someone’s house. In the background, couples dance-hugged in a dimly lighted room. No Jack. No Rita. Just Kelly in the foreground, her arms around someone he did not recognize, their bodies pressed close. Another of Kelly with her arms draped over the shoulders of two male students either side, grinning faces tilted towards the all-American girl. The university archway fixed the locale.
    Where had Jack been when all this was going on?
    He further split the Kelly-and-friends pile into Kelly with women, Kelly with men, Kelly with both and those without Kelly. He had no idea where this would lead him, but he thought it might prove something. Perhaps the extent of her infidelity. Rita’s words echoed in his mind –
men back all the time
. Could Kelly not be true to her boyfriend? As he stacked the photographs in their respective piles, the answer became clear to him.
    No, she could not. Not one bit.
    He studied another photograph – Kelly seated on a sofa, being kissed with passion, returning it with passion of her own. Another of her seated at some bar, the Central perhaps, a friend’s hand dangling over her shoulder, his fingers daringly close to the tip of her left breast, the nipple proud through her summer blouse. If Gilchrist had not known better, he would have thought these were photographs of a free-spirited girl with no steady love interest, intent on enjoying life to the full.
    He finished the dark rum, stripped open a bottle of wine.
    Never mix the grape and the grain. Why the hell not? He almost finished the wine in one go, and spread the photographs across the floor. He picked up the closest one.
    Rita stood shoulder to shoulder with Kelly on the beach, scarves and gloves and flushed faces beating off the chill. Behind them, waves frothed. Anywhere else in the world it would have been a winter scene. In Scotland, it could have been the middle of summer. He searched for others of Rita, found one of her with Brian. He remembered Brian playing rugby with Jack, but nowhere near as gifted, or committed. Beside Brian stood Kelly, and next to Kelly stood Jack, slim and fit. But where other photographs showed Jack smiling, this one showed him dark and brooding. He had always thought Jack and Kelly made an attractive couple, always happy in each other’s company. But that photograph told him otherwise. He flipped it over, looking for a date, but the back was clear.
    Had this been the start of Jack’s dark period, his emotional change? How intense he looked, how unhappy. Had he found out about Kelly’s infidelity? Had he confronted her with his suspicions? As Gilchrist studied the photograph, he came to see in Jack’s eyes the desperation of a lover knowing he was being cast aside and not knowing how to stop it.
    He thought of Jack’s letter to Kelly, his cry for her to come back to him.
    I hope you can find some way to forgive me
.
    Having now seen these photographs, did Jack not have that the wrong way around?
    I just wish I could have those last two days back
.
    Would two days have made any difference? By the looks of things, he would have needed two years.
    Gilchrist finished off the wine, pressed his thumb and forefinger into the corners of his eyes. The desire to sleep swept over him in waves. He glanced at his watch: 1.42. Back in Scotland, he would be on his way to the office by now. He gathered the photographs from the floor. Those he had already looked at, he stacked in their respective piles and placed on top of the television stand. The others he swept together and threw into the box.
    In doing so, one caught his eye.
    Kelly and Rita in a bar. Where else? But standing in a group of