Free Life For a Life by T F Muir Page B

head, its neck dripping of blood, towards the camera until the screen was filled with Gordie’s closed eyes, which looked remarkably peaceful despite the horror of moments earlier.
    ‘Next one’s the brothers,’ Jessie said.
    Gilchrist pushed his chair back and stood. ‘I’ll give it a miss,’ he said, and strode straight to the door, except that he bumped into the wall on the way.
    ‘Andy?’
    He fumbled with the door handle, then stepped into the corridor.
    Outside, Tam caught his eye as Gilchrist walked towards him, and had a cigarette out of the packet by the time he reached him. Even then, the tremors in Gilchrist’s fingers caused him to drop it, and he watched in despair as it rolled into a puddle.
    Tam removed another, lit it for him, and planted it between Gilchrist’s lips.
    Gilchrist inhaled as if his life depended on it. Christ, the way he felt at that moment, it probably did.
    ‘Gordie left a wife and an eighteen-month-old daughter,’ Tam said.
    Two more hard pulls that had the inside of his cheeks touching his tongue, and the cigarette almost done.
    ‘Another one?’
    Although his fingers still shivered, Gilchrist shook his head. ‘Gave up smoking.’
    Tam nodded, dropped his dout to the pavement, ground it out with his shoe. ‘Years ago,’ he said, ‘when I was a stupid teenager, I used to be a ban-the-bomber.’ He narrowed his eyes, stared at some imaginary event over Gilchrist’s shoulder. ‘Now? After seeing what they done to Gordie?’ Tam’s eyes returned to Gilchrist, cold and hard. ‘We should nuke the fucking lot of them.’

CHAPTER 12
    ‘You look queasy,’ Jessie said.
    ‘That’s how I feel.’ Gilchrist powered up to fifty. Ahead, a steady stream of traffic lined the inside lanes of the M80. He eased out, accelerated to sixty, tried to pull his thoughts together, force himself to concentrate on the case. ‘Did anyone follow up with the ring?’
    ‘What ring?’
    ‘On his right hand.’
    ‘I don’t remember seeing a ring,’ Jessie said.
    Gilchrist frowned. The recording had been grainy, the action blurred, but he thought he had caught the glint of a ring on one of the fingers. Or maybe a glint of light on the knife’s blade had made him think it was a ring. He struggled to pull it up in his mind’s eye but his brain seemed unwilling to cooperate.
    ‘Maybe I’ve got it wrong,’ he said.
    ‘Let me call Tam,’ she said, and fiddled with her iPhone.
    While Jessie called Tam, Gilchrist’s mind swelled with images of Gordie’s execution. He tried to shift his thoughts, but the sawing knife, and the dark hand to steady the head, refused to leave. And the guttural screaming too, the sound of an adult man howling in pain for his life, would not leave his senses.
    Jessie hung up. ‘Tam says they clocked the ring but couldn’t make nothing out of it.’
    ‘Couldn’t make
any
thing out of it.’
    ‘That’s what I said.’
    ‘What about the other recording? Of the brothers?’ he asked, and hoped she would not suggest he sit through it, just to prove a point. ‘Can you get a better image of it there?’
    ‘That’s what puzzled me,’ she said. ‘When he sticks their cocks into their mouths, you can see both his hands, and there’s no rings anywhere.’
    ‘So he must have taken it off ?’ Gilchrist said.
    ‘Maybe he put it on.’
    Jessie’s remark puzzled Gilchrist, until he realised that the brothers’ execution could pre-date that of Gordie’s beheading. But why had Kumar decided to wear a ring for the second recording? And did it make any difference if he had?
    Maybe he was searching for clues where there were none.
    ‘And you’re sure it’s the same person?’ he tried.
    Jessie nodded. ‘Same voice, same suit, same size, same shape.’
    ‘There had to be at least two of them. One to work the camera, one to—’
    ‘For all we know there could be a team of them. An audience, too.’ Jessie snorted. ‘Maybe he’s selling tickets by the