Val McDermid - The Distant Echo

‘How did you hear about it?’ Janice was genuinely curious. News generally travelled through a small town like St Andrews at the speed of sound, but not usually in the middle of the night.

‘I crashed at one of my pals’ last night. His girlfriend works the breakfast shift at the greasy spoon on South Street. She heard about it when she turned in for work at six and she got straight on the phone. Fuck,’ he exploded. ‘I thought it was some kind of stupid bad-taste joke at first. I mean, you would, wouldn’t you?’

Janice unlocked the car, thinking, No, actually, I don’t have the sort of friends who would find that amusing. She said, ‘You don’t want to think even for a second that it could be the truth.’

‘Exactly,’ Duff said, climbing into the passenger seat. ‘Who would do a thing like that to Rosie, though? I mean, she was a good person, you know? A nice lassie. Not some slut.’

‘You and your brother kept an eye on her. Did you see anybody hanging around her that you didn’t like the look of?’ Janice started the engine, shivering as a blast of cold air gusted out of the vents. Christ, but it was a bitter morning.

‘There were always lowlifes sniffing around. But everybody knew they’d have me and Colin to answer to if they bothered Rosie. So they kept their distance. We always looked out for her.’ He suddenly slammed one fist into the palm of his other hand. ‘So where were we last night when she really needed us?’

‘You can’t blame yourself, Brian.’ Janice edged the panda out of the car park on to the glassy compressed snow of the main drag. The Christmas lights looked sickly against the yellowish grey of the sky, the glamorous laser laid on by the university physics department an unremarkable pale scribble against the low clouds.

‘I don’t blame myself. I blame the bastard that did this. But I just wish I’d been there to stop it happening. Too fucking late, always too fucking late,’ he muttered obscurely.

‘So you didn’t know who she was meeting?’

He shook his head. ‘She lied to me. She said she was going to a Christmas party with Dorothy that she works with. But Dorothy turned up at the party I was at. She said Rosie had gone off to meet some bloke. I was going to give her what for when I saw her. I mean, it’s one thing keeping Mum and Dad out of the picture. But me and Colin, we were always on her side.’ He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘I cannae bear it. Last thing she said to me was a lie.’

‘When did you see her last?’ Janice slewed to a halt at the West Port and edged forward on to the Strathkinness road.

‘Yesterday, after I’d finished my work. I met her in the town, we went shopping for Mum’s Christmas present. The three of us clubbed together to get her a new hairdrier. Then we went to Boots to get her some nice soap. I walked Rosie to the Lammas and that’s when she told me she was going out with Dorothy.’ He shook his head. ‘She lied. And now she’s dead.’

‘Maybe she didn’t lie, Brian,’ Janice said. ‘Maybe she was planning to go to the party but something came up later in the evening.’ That was probably as truthful as the story Rosie had offered up, but Janice knew from experience that the bereaved would grasp at any straw that kept intact their image of the person they’d lost.

Duff acted true to form. Hope lit his face. ‘You know, that’s probably it. Because Rosie wasn’t a liar.’

‘She had her secrets, though. Like any girl.’

He scowled again. ‘Secrets are trouble. She should have known that.’ Something struck him suddenly and his body tensed. ‘Was she … you know? Interfered with?’

Nothing Janice could say would offer him any comfort. If the rapport she appeared to have established with Duff was going to survive, she couldn’t afford to let him think she too was a liar. ‘We won’t know for sure until after the post mortem, but yes, it looks that way.’

Duff smashed his fist into the dashboard. ‘Bastard,’ he roared. As the car fishtailed up the hill towards Strathkinness, he turned in his seat. ‘Whoever did this, he better fucking hope you catch him before I do. I swear to God, I’ll kill him.’

The house felt violated, Alex thought as he opened the door into the self-contained unit the Laddies fi’ Kirkcaldy had turned into their personal fiefdom. Cavendish and Greenhalgh, the two English former public schoolboys they shared the house with, spent as little time there as possible, an arrangement that suited everyone perfectly. They’d already gone home for the holidays, but today the braying accents that sounded so stridently posh to Alex would have been far more welcome than the police presence that seemed to dominate the very air he breathed.

Maclennan at his heels, Alex ran upstairs to the room where he slept. ‘Don’t forget, we want everything you’re wearing. That includes underwear,’ Maclennan reminded him as Alex pushed the door open. The detective stood on the threshold, looking mildly puzzled at the sight of two beds in the tiny room that had clearly been designed for only one. ‘Who do you share with?’ he demanded.

Before Alex could reply, Ziggy’s cool tones cut through the atmosphere. ‘He thinks we’re all queer for each other,’ he said sarcastically. ‘And that of course is why we murdered Rosie. Never mind the complete absence of logic, that’s what’s going on in his mind. Actually, Mr Maclennan, the explanation is far more mundane.’ Ziggy gestured over his shoulder at the closed door across the landing. ‘Take a look,’ he said.

Curious, Maclennan seized Ziggy’s invitation. Alex took the opportunity of his turned back to strip himself hastily, grabbing at his dressing gown to cover his embarrassment. He followed the other two across the landing and couldn’t help a smug smile when he saw Maclennan’s bemused expression.

‘You see?’ Ziggy said. ‘There’s simply no room for a full drum kit, a Farfisa organ, two guitars and a bed in one of these rabbit hutches. So Weird and Gilly drew the short straws and ended up sharing.’

‘You boys are in a group, then?’ Maclennan sounded like his father, Alex thought with a pang of affection that surprised him.

‘We’ve been making music together for about five years,’ Ziggy said.

‘What? You’re going to be the next Beatles?’ Maclennan couldn’t let it go.

Ziggy cast his eyes heavenwards. ‘There are two reasons why we’re not going to be the next Beatles. For one thing, we play purely for our own pleasure. Unlike the Rezillos, we have no desire to be on Top of the Pops. The second reason is talent. We’re perfectly competent musicians, but we haven’t got an original musical thought between us. We used to call ourselves Muse until we realized we didn’t have one to call our own. Now we call ourselves the Combine.’

‘The Combine?’ Maclennan echoed faintly, taken aback by Ziggy’s sudden access of confidentiality.

‘Again, two reasons. Combine harvesters gather in everybody else’s crop. Like us. And because of the Jam track of the same name. We just don’t stand out from the crowd.’

Maclennan turned away, shaking his head. ‘We’ll have to search in there as well, you know.’

Ziggy snorted. ‘The only lawbreaking you’ll find evidence of in there is breach of copyright,’ he said. ‘Look, we’ve all co-operated with you and your officers. When are you going to leave us in peace?’

‘Just as soon as we’ve bagged all your clothes. We’d also like any diaries, appointment books, address books.’

‘Alex, give the man what he wants. We’ve all handed our stuff over. The sooner we get our space back, the sooner we can get our heads straight.’ Ziggy turned back to Maclennan. ‘You see, what you and your minions seem to have taken no notice of is the fact that we have had a terrible experience. We stumbled on the bleeding, dying body of a young woman that we actually knew, however slightly.’ His voice cracked, revealing the fragility of his cool surface. ‘If we seem odd to you, Mr Maclennan, you should bear in mind that it might have something to do with the fact that we’ve had our heads royally fucked up tonight.’