Iain Banks - Complicity

McDunn breathes hard, then glares at me. "You do know, don't you? You know who it is." He sucks on his teeth. "Is it who I think it is?"

I nod. "Yes, it's Andy."

McDunn nods grimly. He frowns. "So who was it in the hotel? There's been nobody reported missing up there."

There will be," I tell him. "Guy called Howie… I can't remember his second name; begins with a G. He was supposed to leave for Aberdeen the day I left, to start some job on the rigs. Anyway, a few of us had a drink in the hotel that night, and apparently there was a fight; this was after I got drunk and got put to bed. Andy told me Howie and another two locals jumped a couple of travellers who'd been at the party as well. The local cop was called and he was looking for Howie." I hold my hands out. "I mean, this is all stuff that Andy told me, so it could be just a story, but I'd bet that up to that point it's all true. I think Andy offered to let Howie hole up in the hotel while the cops were looking for him, and everybody else up there just assumes Howie's offshore at the moment." I tap my fingers on the table and look at McDunn's cigarette packet, hoping he'll get the hint. "Grissom," I tell McDunn, suddenly remembering. Couldn't think of it all night but now I have, just by talking about it. "That's who it was. Howie Grissom; his second name was Grissom."

There's a terrible sick, empty feeling in my guts. My hands are shaking again and I put them between my legs. I give a small laugh. "I even saw the local cop outside the dentist's, day of the party. I just assumed he was there to get a tooth filled or something, but Andy must have broken in and switched the records then."

"We're checking the dental records of the body from the hotel with the Army's records," McDunn says, nodding. He glances at his watch. "Should have something this morning." He shakes his head. "And why those two? Why Lingary and Doctor Halziel?"

I tell the DI why; I tell him about two more betrayals; about the commanding officer who had let men die to cover up his own inadequacy (or at least Andy believed he had, which was all that mattered), and I tell him about the locum doctor who couldn't be bothered to attend a patient and then, when he eventually did pay a visit, just assumed her pain was something trivial.

McDunn finally offers me a cigarette. Oh, joy. I take it and suck hard, coughing a bit. "I guess," I tell him, "he's getting personal now because his usual targets have become more wary." I shrug. "And maybe he's guessed I'll put you onto him, or that you'll just work it out for yourselves, so he's settling old scores while he can, before they're warned, too."

McDunn is staring at the floor and turning the gold B&H packet over and over on the table. He shakes his head. I get the impression he agrees with what I'm saying and he's just shaking his head at the sheer extent of human deviousness and spite. I think in a strange sort of way I feel sorry for McDunn.

There's a pause while a young constable comes in with some tea; the man at the door gets his cup, and McDunn and I sip ours. "So, Detective Inspector," I say, sitting back in my chair. Hell, I'm almost enjoying this, sick feeling or not. "Are we going there or not?"

McDunn sucks his lips in and looks pained. He nods.

I trip on something in the ferns, twisting in mid-air as my ankle gives underneath me and I slam backwards into the ground, winding myself. I lie there, gulping for air, terrified of the man coming to get me while I lie there helpless; then I hear a scream.

I get to my feet.

I look down at what I tripped over; a fallen branch, about the size of a man's arm. I stare at it, thinking down the depth of years to that frozen day by the river.

Get a branch .

The scream again.

Get a branch .

I'm still staring at the branch; it's like my brain's screaming at me inside my own head and I don't know what else it is that's listening, except it isn't listening; my brain's screaming Run! Run ! at me but the message isn't getting through, there's something else in the way, something else pulling me back, back to Andy and back to that frozen river bank; I hear Andy crying out and I can still see him reaching towards me and he's about to slip away from me again and I can't do anything… but I can, this time I can; I can do something and I will.

I take hold of the branch and pull it ripping out of the grass and ferns. I start to run again, back the way I've just come, the branch held out in front of me in both hands. I can hear Andy's muffled shouting; for a moment I think I've lost them and run past them somehow; then I see them, almost straight ahead. The man is moving up and down over Andy, his backside looks large and white against the green of the ferns; he still has the rucksack on and it looks weird, frightening and comical at the same time. He has one hand over Andy's face, clamped tight; his head is turned away from me, red hair fallen down over one ear. I put the branch two-handed over my right shoulder as I run up to them, jump over a small bush and then as I land at their side bring the branch swinging down. It whacks into the man's head with a dull, hollow sound, jerking his head to one side; he grunts and starts to get up, then goes limp. I stand over him.

Andy is wheezing, struggling for breath; he pulls himself out from underneath the man; there is blood round his backside. He pushes the man away; the man flops onto his side, then rolls forward onto his face again, groaning.

Andy sucks breath, staring at me; he pulls his trousers up, then he puts out his hand and takes the branch from me. He raises it over his head and brings it crashing down on the back of the man's head; once, twice, three times.

"Andy!" I shout. He raises the branch again, then drops it. He stands there, shaking, then hugs himself, chin on his chest, staring down at the man, his head and whole body trembling.

There is blood leaking from the back of the man's head, beneath the red hair.

"Andy?" I ask him. I put my hand out to him but he flinches.

We both stand and stare at the man, and at the blood spreading amongst the red hair.

"I think he's dead," Andy whispers.

I put one shaking hand out and roll the man over. His eyes are half-open. He doesn't seem to be breathing. I hold one of his wrists for a while, trying to find a pulse.

"What are we going to do?" I ask, letting the man roll forward onto his face again. Sunlight dapples the grass and ferns around us. Birds call from the trees above and I can hear the distant sound of traffic on the main road, through the forest.

Andy is silent.

"We'd better tell somebody, don't you think? Andy? We'd better tell somebody, eh? We'd better tell… tell, tell, tell your mum and dad. We'll have to tell the police; even if he is… even if he was… I mean, this was self-defence, they call it, it was self-defence. He, he, he, he was trying to kill us, kill you; it was self-defence, we can say that, people'll believe us, it was self-defence; self-defence — Andy turns to me, face set and pale. "Fucking shut up."

I shut up. I can't stop shaking.

"Then what are we going to do ?" I wail.

"I know," Andy says.

A civvy Granada to Heathrow. London on a bright November morning. People and cars and buildings and shops. I watch the real life go by outside like it's something from an SF movie; I can't believe how alien it all looks, how strange and foreign. I feel a bizarre sense of loss and yearning. I watch the men and women as they crowd along the streets or sit in their cars and vans and buses and trucks, and their freedom seems inestimably precious, exotic and vicariously intoxicating. To be able just to walk, or drive, wherever you want; Christ, I've been away from all this for less than a week and I feel like somebody coming out after thirty years.