Tooth for a Tooth (Di Gilchrist 3)

What for?’
    Her answer confused him for a moment. Was she questioning her reason to deny it, or her reason for committing murder? ‘For Dougie,’ he tried.
    ‘Dougie was a man. She was a woman. Men and women screw on the side. We were all doing it back then. What’s the big deal?’
    He noticed the past tense, wondered if it meant anything. ‘The big deal was that Dougie wasn’t just any man. He was
your
man.’
    ‘You’re off your head, Andy. Look at you. You’re knackered. You need a break. Forget all this stuff about murder. You’re barking up the wrong tree. I didn’t do it.’ She patted the sofa again. ‘Come here. Sit down.’
    ‘Of course, back in the late sixties, forensic science was not what it is today,’ he pressed on. ‘Fingerprint technology—’
    ‘You can’t get fingerprints off that postcard,’ she objected. ‘I’m not stupid enough to believe that. It’s been through the mill, that has.’
    ‘So you’re saying you’ve touched it?’
    Her face closed down as if he had slapped her.
    ‘I wasn’t thinking about fingerprints,’ he went on. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of DNA.’
    Her eyes came alive then, shifted from side to side as if trying to recall where she had slipped up, what she had missed.
    ‘The stamps,’ he offered.
    Her eyes stilled, her lips pressed together.
    He turned the postcard over, pointed to the stamp. ‘Our forensics boys will lift it off, peel it back and take a sample—’
    ‘Of what?’
    He cocked his head, looked out the window, thought he heard a car door closing. Had Tosh returned? Outside, the street lay deserted. He strained to hear the faintest sound. Had he imagined it?
    Megs stood, the move so sudden that Gilchrist almost jumped. ‘Waste of bloody time trying it on with you. You always were a cold bastard, Andy. Just like Jack. That’s why that American bimbo screwed around. She wasn’t getting any at home.’
    Her words stunned him, but he just managed to beat her to the door again.
    ‘Are you going to open this fucking door,’ she said, ‘or am I going to have to fight my way through it? One thing’s for sure, Andy. I am going into my own kitchen.’
    He caught a glimmer of madness in her eyes, had a sense of her brute strength. In full attack mode, Kelly would have been no match for her. He readied to open the door, put his hand on her shoulder—
    She struck at it with the speed of a snake.
    ‘Keep your filthy fucking hands off me.’
    The venom in her voice surprised him. He wondered if he should just arrest her there and then. But the instant he stepped into the office, even with Megs, he would be locked up before he could make a case. Tosh would see to that. Maybe McVicar, too. He realized he needed to play along a bit, try to trip Megs up, trick some confession from her. So far she had denied everything. Even his threat of DNA sampling had failed to evoke a response. If he was going to turn himself in, he needed more than his own convoluted logic and two postcards.
    ‘I’m waiting.’
    He cocked his head, strained to catch the metallic rattle of something.
    But again, nothing. He was too tense, by far. He had Tosh on the brain.
    He stepped back and Megs barged into the kitchen. She clattered a kettle under the tap, smacked it on to the tiled surface, spilling water. Even through her moments of anger, he came to understand that she would not attack him, for doing so gave him some form of confession, without which he had nothing.
    Except the stamps.
    Who could he give them to? Who could he trust?
    He laid the postcards on the nearest shelf, on top of a pile of hand-printed recipes that acted as a makeshift bookend for a row of paperback cookbooks. One toppled over as he lifted the wall phone from its cradle. He noticed the message light was blinking.
    ‘Why don’t you use the phone?’ A drawer opened, spoons rattled. ‘Then get the hell out.’ The drawer slammed.
    He turned his back to Megs, but kept sight of her reflection in the window, just in case, and pressed the button.
    He puzzled at the sound of the voice . . .
    Megs? Andy Gilchrist’s been here . .
.
    Took a fraction of a second to recognize it . . .
    I think he’s on his way
. . .
    And an instant too long to sense the rush of movement behind him . . .
    Don’t say anything to—
    A blow like a hammer-hit struck the back of his neck and the floor swept up to meet him with a thud that pulled a grunt from his throat.
    His day sank into