Iain Banks - Complicity

"Now, Cameron," McDunn says.

Burall puts the radio handset down. McDunn asked me for the telephone number of William and Yvonne's house; Chambers Street is ringing there now and they'll call us if they get through.

" Come on !" I mutter under my breath, willing the road to clear for us.

The driver's doing his best; we've a siren going and blue lights flashing behind the grille, we're darting in and out of the traffic and taking a few risks, but there's just too much traffic . What are all these people doing on the road? Why aren't they at work or at home or on public transport? Can't the bastards walk ?

We go wailing across the red lights at Tollcross, snarling traffic up in all directions, take the right-turn lane heading up Home Street, dodge a little old lady on the pedestrian crossing at Bruntsfield and scream down Colinton Road through thinning traffic. The radio gibbers away at us; I lean forward, trying to listen. A patrol car's there at the house; no sign of anybody. My hands are hurting; I look down and see they're clenched tight, tendons standing out on my wrist. I sit back, thrown to one side as we swerve for a car coming suddenly out of a side street. The radio tells us the garage doors are open at the house. The beat cops can't get any answer at the front door.

We sweep across the by-pass. I'm sitting back in the seat, staring at the headlining of the car's roof, coughing now and again, tears in my eyes. Oh Christ, Andy, please, no.

We enter the executive development of Torphin Dale between the tall sandstone gateposts of the old estate; on Baberton Drive, everything looks the way I remember it apart from the orange-and-white parked in the short driveway from the bottom of the cul-de-sac to the house. The three garage doors are all tipped open. I don't know why but this gives me a bad feeling.

William's Merc is there; Yvonne's 325 isn't.

We pull into the drive. It takes a second for me to remember that I'm not handcuffed to anybody. The driver stays in the Cavalier, talking into the radio.

A uniformed cop comes down the drive from the front door, nodding to Burall and McDunn.

"No answer, sir. We haven't looked inside yet; my mate's round the back, looking in the garden."

"There a door from the garage to the rest of the house?" McDunn asks.

"Looks like it, sir."

McDunn looks at me. "You know these people, Cameron; they in the habit of leaving the place unattended like this?"

I shake my head. "Pretty security-conscious," I tell him.

McDunn sucks on his teeth.

We walk into the garage under the tip-up doors. The usual garage stuff, if you're filthy nouveau riche; packing cases, golfing gear, the Jet Ski on its trailer, a work bench, a grid on the wall holding neatly arrayed car and garden tools, most of them gleaming and unused, pairs of ski-boot bags and ski bags hanging from the wall, a steam-cleaning outfit, a little mini-tractor lawn mower, a big grey-black wheelie bin and a couple of mountain bikes. The triple garage is huge but still cluttered; if Yvonne's car was here it would be positively crowded.

McDunn knocks at the door into the rest of the house. He frowns, looks back at Burall. "We got any disposable gloves with us at all?"

"In the car," Burall says, and jogs back to the Cavalier.

"You've been here before, have you, Cameron?" McDunn asks.

"Yes," I say, coughing.

"Right; let us know about any nooks and crannies, will you?"

I nod. Burall comes back with a handful of the sort of gloves you can buy at service stations for working on the car. We all get a pair, even me. McDunn opens the door and we go into the utility room. Nothing in the cupboards in the utility room; nothing in the kitchen.

The four of us spread through the house; I stay with McDunn. We walk through the main lounge, looking behind the curtains, the couches, under the tables, even up inside the hood of the central fireplace. We head upstairs. We check one of the back bedrooms. The officer in the rear garden, walking back towards the house, sees us; he waves and makes a hands-out shrugging motion, shaking his head.

McDunn inspects the drawers built into the divan bed. I look in the built-in wardrobe, sliding my mirrored image out of the way, my heart in my mouth.

Clothes. Just clothes, hats and a few boxes.

We go to the main bedroom. I try not to think about what we were doing here the last time I was in this room. I have that roaring noise in my ears again and I've got a cold sweat and I feel like I could just collapse at any second. I have a weird, invasive feeling, being here with the detective inspector, clumbering around the expensively delicate domesticity of this house with no William or Yvonne here.

I look in the dressing room while McDunn checks under the bed, then looks out onto the balcony. I open the dressing-room wardrobes. Lots of clothes. I pull them back, hands shaking.

Nothing. I put the mirror doors back. I walk towards the bathroom. I put my hand on the door; a pale, pastel light shines from the room as the door starts to open.

"Cameron?" McDunn says, from the bedroom. I retreat, padding through, leaving the door half-open. He's looking out the window towards the drive. He glances at me, nods. "Car."

I go to the window; a red BMW325. Yvonne's car.

It's as if the car's hesitating, just in front of the drive, put off by the patrol car and the unmarked Cavalier parked in front of the garage.

Then it parks across the bottom of the drive, blocking our way out but leaving an escape route for itself. McDunn looks suspicious but I feel relieved. If Andy was here, he's long gone; that's an Yvonne move.

And it's her. Sweet Jesus, it's her, it's her, it's her. She gets out of the car holding a big black torch about two foot long, her face set in a frown. She's wearing jeans and a leather jacket over a sweatshirt. She's had her hair cut again. Her sharp, lean-featured face is un-made-up and looks aggressively distrustful. She looks wonderful.

"That Mrs Sorrell?" McDunn says quietly.

"Yes," I say, on an outrush of breath, something in me easing. I want to cry. Yvonne looks away up the drive as another patrol car swings in. She puts the torch away as the car pulls to a stop and two uniformed officers get out. She walks up to them, nodding back to the house.

"Let's get down there and see what she's got to say, shall we?" McDunn says.

We go past the dressing-room door. "Just a minute," I say. McDunn waits as I go through the dressing room. I press the door to the bathroom open. The pale light spills out onto me.

Nothing. I look in the shower, the Jacuzzi, the bath. Nothing. I take a swallow and a deep breath and join McDunn to head downstairs.

"Cameron!" Yvonne says as we get to the bottom of the stairs. She's putting a newspaper and a couple of pints of milk down on the telephone table. The two cops from the second car are behind her. She glances at McDunn then comes up to me, hugs me, holding me tight. "Are you all right?"

"Fine. Are you?"

"Yes," she says. "What is all this? Somebody from the paper said you were the man they were holding for all those murders." She pulls away, still with one arm round my waist. "Why the police?" She looks at McDunn.

"Detective Inspector McDunn," he says, nodding. "Good afternoon, Mrs Sorrell."

"Hello." She looks at me, stepping back but still holding my hand, searching my face. "Cameron, you look…" She shakes her head, sucking on her lips. She looks around and says, "Where's William?"

McDunn and I exchange looks. Detective Inspector Burall comes downstairs, saying, "Nothing up there…" as he sees Yvonne.

She lets go of my hand, taking a step back and looking around at all of us, as the cop from the first patrol car comes into the hall from the study, and I see her gaze falling on my transparently gloved hands, and on the hands of the other men.