Iain Banks - Complicity

And I know these people don't feel free, I know they're all hurrying along or sitting there worrying about their jobs or their mortgages or being late or an IRA bomb in the nearest litter-bin, but I look at them and feel a terrible sense of loss, because I think I've surrendered all this; the ordinariness of life, the ability just to be part of it and take part in it. I want to hope that I'm being melodramatic and everything will settle back to the way it used to be, before all this ghastliness, but I doubt it. In my guts I feel that, even if everything goes the best it possibly can for me, my life has changed completely and forever.

But fuck it; at least I'm back in the real world, and with a modicum of control.

I'm discreetly handcuffed to Detective Sergeant Flavell — McDunn has the key — and we have a couple of burly plain-clothes men with us I strongly suspect are tooled up, but the pressure seems to be off me a bit. I don't think I'm suspect numero uno any more; I think McDunn at least believes me and that's enough for now. The unfortunate Captain — later Major — Lingary (retired) and Doctor Halziel have done me a lot of good by disappearing so mysteriously. I try not to think what Andy might be doing to them. I try even harder not to think about what he might do to me if he ever got the chance.

We're on the dear old elevated section of the M4 where lorries are so apt to break down when there's a call for McDunn; he takes the handset, listens and sucks his teeth for a bit, then says, "Thank you." He puts the phone down and looks back at me. "Army records," he says. He turns back to face the front as we head through the late-morning traffic. "The body in the hotel was not Andrew Gould's."

"Did they check the records against the ones in Howie's file?" I ask.

McDunn nods. "They match Gould's. Not perfectly; he's had work done since, but they say they're ninety-nine per cent sure. They were switched."

I sit back, smiling; for a while there's a glow in my belly which displaces the sickness. For a while.

McDunn gets on the phone to somebody from Tayside police and tells them to contact the Goulds and stop the funeral.

Lunch for five at 35,000 feet, then Edinburgh from the air: greyly grand and a tad misty. We land just after one o'clock and get straight into a Jag jam-sandwich (so a Ford at both ends — ha!). The XJ speeds north over the road-bridge, no lights or siren on but we clip along and it's the smoothest fucking motorway journey I've ever had; just a total hassle-free zone creaming along around the ton with no worries about unmarked police cars and hoo-wee the traffic in front of us just fucking evaporates, man, just brakes (and wobbles sometimes as the guy probably gets the cold sweats and the wo-where'd-my-stomach-go? feeling), swings meekly left and brakes again; you've never seen a beefy BMW 5-series duck in so fast in your life; might as well all be driving 2CVs. It's beautiful.

We take a leg each and drag the man face-down through the ferns towards the northeast end of the hill. His cord trousers are still rolled down round his ankles and get in the way and we have to stop and turn him over and pull the trousers back up, fastening them by one button. His cock is small now and there is dried blood crusted on it. We pull him away beneath the trees; in his other hand, Andy is still holding the branch we hit him with.

We come to a thicket under the trees; a cluster of rhododendron and bramble bushes. Andy clears a way through the undergrowth and we drag the man beneath the thorns and soft fruit of the brambles and the glossy leaves of the rhodies, into the green darkness; his rucksack catches on the branches above and Andy takes it off him, pushing it ahead of us.

We come to a stubby cylinder of undressed stone; the second of the two chimneys from the old railway tunnel under the hill.

We make good time on the road from the motorway; people actually help you overtake when you're in a cop car. Unbelievable. I almost wish I'd become a cop-car driver instead of a journalist now; this is such sweet driving. Still, maybe it kind of takes some of the sport out of it.

At Gilmerton, where the three wee blue Fiat 126s used to live, there's a Sapphire Cosworth orange-and-white squatting just off the road by the junction; it flashes its lights at us as we pass. There's another patrol car at the turn-off to Strathspeld.

"Kind of high-profile here, aren't we?" I ask McDunn.

"Mm-hmm," is all he'll say.

We come to the village. I look up at our old house; bushes and trees are taller. Satellite dish. Conservatory on one side. I watch the familiar shops and houses go by; Mum's old gift shop (now a video shop); the Arms, where I had my first pint; Dad's old garage, still doing business. Another police car, parked on the village green. "Will the Goulds be at the house?" I ask.

McDunn shakes his head. "They're in that hotel we just passed."

I'm relieved. I don't think I'd know what to say to them. Hi; the good news is I didn't kill your son, in fact he isn't dead at all, but the bad news is he's a multiple murderer.

Five minutes later we're at the house.

The gravel circle outside the house looks like the car park at a cop convention. I hear a clattering in the air as McDunn gets out of the Jag and I look up over the trees into high, bright overcast. Fuck me, they've even brought a chopper.

McDunn stands talking to some heavily brassed uniformed cops on the steps of the front door. I look round the old place; the window surrounds have been painted, the flower-beds look a bit unkempt. Nothing else has changed; I haven't been here since that day a week after Clare died, and it had the same muddily washed-out look about it then.

McDunn comes back towards the car, catches FlavelPs eye and beckons him. We get out and follow McDunn into the house.

Nothing much different inside, either; still looks and smells the same: polished parquet flooring, sumptuous but fading old rugs, assorted mostly very old furniture, lots of big houseplants on the floor and time-dulled landscapes and portraits on the wood-panelled walls. We walk under the angle of the main staircase, into the dining room. The place is full of cops; there's a map of the estate on the table, almost covering it. McDunn introduces me to the other officers. I have never had so many hard, suspicious looks in my life.

"So, where's this body?" one of the uniformed guys from Strathclyde asks. He's here because they've loaned the helicopter.

"Still here," I tell him. "Unlike… unlike the man you're looking for." I look at McDunn, the one friendly-ish face in here and the only one I can look at without feeling like a five-year-old who's just wet his pants. "I thought the idea was to let the funeral go ahead, or at least make it look like it was; he was bound to be here. You might have caught him then."

McDunn's face gives a good impression of being stone-clad. "That was not felt to be the most suitable way of proceeding in this matter," he says, sounding like a police spokesman for the first time.

There's a sensation of well tailored black uniforms rustling in the room and I get the impression from the general atmosphere and a few exchanged looks that this is a contentious point.

"We're still waiting for this body," says the man with the braid from Tayside, the boys officially in charge. "Mr Colley," he adds.

I look down at the map of the estate. "I'll show you," I tell them. "You'll need a… crowbar or something, about fifty metres of rope and a torch. A hacksaw might be handy, too."

Andy reaches up to the iron grating and pulls at it.

"This one comes away," he grunts; his voice is still shaky.

I help him; we lift the rusting grating up at one end but the far side is still secured by an iron pin and we can't shift it any further.