Tooth for a Tooth (Di Gilchrist 3)

slivers of his dream – fire, smoke, blistered skin, and in the background, Gina Belli’s voice whispering its psychic warning.
    He pulled himself to his feet, flipped open his mobile phone.
    His call was answered on the third ring.
    ‘SK Motors.’
    Music thudded in the background. ‘Shuggie, it’s Andy Gilchrist.’
    ‘Ah, Mr Gilchrist. What can I do for you this morning?’
    ‘Any luck with the car?’ he asked.
    ‘Depends.’
    Gilchrist fired wide awake. ‘On what?’
    ‘On what evidence you still got available.’
    ‘Such as?’
    ‘Clothes.’
    Clothes? Gilchrist paced the room. ‘What’ve you found, Shuggie?’
    ‘Fibre.’
    ‘After all this time?’
    ‘Told you it was a shitey paint job.’
    Gilchrist opened the curtains to a black morning. The sky was starless, covered by clouds he could not see. His own thoughts seemed just as blind. ‘Start from the beginning, Shuggie, and tell me what you’ve got.’
    ‘You wanted me to keep the costs down, so I concentrated on the front end, where any damage would have occurred. If I found nothing there, I was gonnie start stripping her back bit by bit.’
    Silent, Gilchrist stared into the darkness.
    ‘Took lots of photographs so there’d be nae problems down the road. Got one of them digital cameras, with seven megapixels. Jake told me that’ll let you blow them up without loss of detail. But I took them close, just to be sure. Hang on . . .’
    Gilchrist thought the background music dropped a notch, but he could not be sure.
    ‘Once I started stripping the brightwork, I seen the paint job had been done by an absolute beginner. Nae attention to detail. Just cheap and nasty and throw the stuff back together again. One coat of paint to hide the shite. What you’re supposed to do is—’
    ‘Shuggie. What did you find?’
    ‘Haud your horses. I’m getting there. What?’ His voice faded, directed to someone else, then returned. ‘Hang on . . .’
    Gilchrist closed his eyes, took a deep breath, forced himself to stay calm. After all these years had Shuggie found something that could link the MGB to the hit-and-run?
    Shuggie’s voice came back at him. ‘You’re supposed to buff it back to bare metal, especially around the bits that could rust, like around the headlight and indicator housings, where they’re screwed in. Then build the paint back up in layers. But in a cheap job like this, there was none of that.’
    ‘Shuggie?’
    ‘The paint job covered dirt and rust and something else that might interest you.’
    Gilchrist opened his eyes, felt his throat constrict.
    ‘Now, I’m no a hundred per cent sure, but it looks like a piece of torn fibre. Just a tiny bit, mind you. So I got out my magnifying glass and my tweezers—’
    ‘Don’t tell me you pulled it off without someone being present.’
    ‘Mr Gilchrist,’ Shuggie grumbled. ‘You should know me better than that. I got Phil to take photos as I was peeling it back, paint and all, and placed it into a
clean
jam jar.’
    Gilchrist caught the emphasis on the word
clean
. Years ago, when Shuggie had been involved in his first forensic examination, he had deposited lumps of windscreen glass into a cardboard box that had once contained God only knew what. The procurator fiscal declared the entire sample contaminated. It had been a hard lesson for all involved.
    ‘But better than that,’ Shuggie went on, ‘my magnifying glass also detected what looked like hair—’
    ‘What kind of hair?’
    ‘I’m no an expert—’
    ‘Long hair short hair blond hair what?’
    ‘Short hair. Dark.’
    Gilchrist reached down, steadied himself on the window sill. ‘Jesus.’
    ‘That’s what I was telling you, Mr Gilchrist. The paint job was shite. Just spray the fucker and cover it up. I was able to peel a chunk of it off. I’ve got two hairs stuck to the back of the paint. It’s perfect, Mr Gilchrist.’
    ‘Yes,’ Gilchrist whispered, ‘it is.’
    He hung his head. Beneath him, the parking lot glowed a faint orange from the overhead lights. A car shifted in the morning chill, headlights brushing the asphalt.
    It’s perfect
, his mind repeated.
    Or was it?
    Not long after he joined the Force, he had asked to see the records of his brother’s hit-and-run and, to his disgust, had learned that much of it had been lost during repainting of the premises. They still had his blood-soaked socks and shoes, but no trousers or shirt. Without any samples of his brother’s trousers, which would