Eye for an Eye

his. So, why the pier? It might be a discreet place for Granton to meet a partner, but surely they would never have sex out in the open. In the middle of a downpour.
    ‘Boss.’
    Gilchrist turned.
    Stan clipped his mobile shut. ‘Someone saw him.’
    ‘Saw Granton?’
    ‘Saw the Stabber.’ Stan’s breath clouded the air. ‘Sam MacMillan. Painter and decorator. Lives on South Street. Not far from Deans Court.’
    ‘Did he get a look at the Stabber’s face?’ Sa asked.
    Stan shook his head and ran the back of his hand under his nose. ‘Wouldn’t say. He called the Office about ten minutes ago and said he wanted to talk to someone about the Stabber. He asked for you, boss.’
    Gilchrist frowned. Over the past months his picture had been in the newspapers and he had often been quoted as Detective Inspector Andrew Gilchrist of the St Andrews Division of Fife Constabulary’s Crime Management Department, senior investigator in the Stabber case. By his side, the photogenic Detective Sergeant Sa Preston. He never liked to see himself in the newspapers, always thought he looked tense, as if he was not in control of his emotions.
    The way Stan looked at that moment.
     
    Beth Anderson wrapped a peach-coloured bath-towel around her naked body. In her bedroom she picked up a jar of Dior moisturizer and squeezed out a dollop. She rubbed it in, breathing in its light fragrance and loving the way it left her skin cool and moist.
    She let the bath-towel drop to the floor and studied her figure in the mirror. She had never fallen pregnant, although she’d had a few scares as a teenager, and she exercised often, which kept her stomach trim. Not quite washboard abs, but flat enough not to bulge over the top of her knickers.
    She stared at her breasts, cupped a hand under the right one, which she thought hung lower than the left, and pushed it up. Much better. She always thought her breasts were small for the rest of her body, as if they belonged to someone more slender. She slid her hands down over her waist, settled them onto her rump. She squeezed. Still firm, she thought, but too wide. Yes? No? Her mother had assured her that one day when she was in the throes of childbirth she would be pleased to have inherited wide hips. But having a family was not top of Beth’s list. In fact, now she was fast approaching the big four-O, it was pretty close to the bottom.
    She threw on a pair of white jeans, flat black shoes and matching leather belt. A peach cashmere twinset, purchased for a steal in the States last year, topped it off. She pulled on her light-tan suede jacket and left the house, umbrella in hand.
    She had breakfast in the Victoria Café, near the corner of St Mary’s Place and Bell Street. During the summer months the roof-top patio was one of her favourite places to eat. But in November the patio was closed and she took a table by the window. She knew the menu by heart, so when the waiter approached, his black-brown eyes glistening with pleasure, she said, ‘Fruit and a croissant, please. And a pot of Earl Grey.’
    ‘Certainly, Miss Anderson. Anything else?’
    ‘No, thank you.’
    ‘May I?’ He slipped a small glass vase onto the table, pulled a cut rose from his pocket as if by sleight of hand, and popped it in. ‘For you.’ He stood back, both hands over his heart. ‘With all my love.’
    Beth felt her lips pull back in an unrestrained smile. ‘Thank you, Brian. That’s lovely. Thank you.’
    ‘When I serve the most beautiful woman in the whole of the British Isles, the pleasure is all mine.’
    ‘You’re crazy.’
    ‘Crazy with love.’
    Beth chuckled. ‘But the answer is still no.’
    ‘Ah, but one of these days,’ he said, ‘you’ll surprise yourself and say yes. No?’ Then he pirouetted and crossed the wooden floor toward the kitchen.
    Beth watched him go. Brian was young enough to be her son, but it felt lovely to be treated with such romance, and so revitalizing to live a romantic dream from time to time.
    She fingered the rose. Red. Which stood for lust. Not love. Brian was full of youthful hormones, but in the two years he had worked at the Victoria Café, not once had he been anything other than a gentleman. He had told her his romantic side came from his father, Baldomero, a hot-blooded Spaniard who had divorced Brian’s Scottish mother when Brian was ten, and now lived in Gibraltar with a Spanish beauty from a once wealthy family that had lost its land and property when Franco