Val McDermid - The Distant Echo

Weird looked abashed. ‘Sorry. I’m not thinking straight. You know, when I woke up, I could almost believe last night was nothing more than a bad trip. That would have been enough to put me off acid for life, I tell you.’ He shook his head. ‘Poor lassie.’

Alex took that as his cue to disappear upstairs and cram a last bundle of books in his holdall. He wasn’t sorry to be going home. For the first time since he’d started living with the other three, he felt claustrophobic. He longed for his own bedroom; a door he could close that nobody else would think of opening without permission.

It was time to leave. Three holdalls and Ziggy’s towering rucksack were piled in the hall. The Laddies fi’ Kirkcaldy were ready to head for home. They shouldered their bags and opened the door, Ziggy leading the way. Unfortunately, the effect of Weird’s hard words had apparently worn off. As they emerged on the churned-up slush of their path, five men materialized as if from nowhere. Three carried cameras, and before the foursome even realized what was happening, the air was thick with the sounds of Nikon motor drives.

The two journalists were coming round the flank of the photographers, shouting questions. They managed to make themselves sound like an entire press conference, so quickfire were their enquiries. ‘How did you find the girl?’ ‘Which one of you made the discovery?’ ‘What were you doing on Hallow Hill in the middle of the night?’ ‘Was this some sort of satanic rite?’ And of course, inevitably, ‘How do you feel?’

‘Fuck off,’ Weird roared at them, swinging his heavy bag in front of him like an overweight scythe. ‘We’ve got nothing to say to you.’

‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,’ Mondo muttered like a record stuck in the groove.

‘Back indoors,’ Ziggy shouted. ‘Get back inside.’

Alex, bringing up the rear, reversed hastily. Mondo tumbled in, almost tripping over him in his haste to get away from the insistent badgering and the clicking cameras. Weird and Ziggy followed, slamming the door behind them. They looked at each other, hunted and haunted. ‘What do we do now?’ Mondo asked, voicing what they were all wondering. They all looked blank. This was a situation entirely outwith their limited experience of the world.

‘We can’t sit tight,’ Mondo continued petulantly. ‘We’ve got to get back to Kirkcaldy. I’m supposed to start at Safeway at six tomorrow morning.’

‘Me and Alex too,’ said Weird. They all looked expectantly at Ziggy.

‘OK. What if we go out the back way?’

‘There isn’t a back way, Ziggy. We’ve only got a front door,’ Weird pointed out.

‘There’s a toilet window. You three can get out that way, and I’ll stay put. I’ll move around upstairs, putting lights on and stuff so they’ll think we’re still here. I can go home tomorrow, when the heat’s died down.’

The other three exchanged looks. It wasn’t a bad idea. ‘Will you be all right on your own?’ Alex asked.

‘I’ll be fine. As long as one of you rings my mum and dad and explains why I’m still here. I don’t want them finding out about this from the papers.’

‘I’ll phone,’ Alex volunteered. ‘Thanks, Ziggy.’

Ziggy raised his arm and the other three followed suit. They gripped hands in a familiar four-way clasp. ‘All for one,’ Weird said.

‘And one for all,’ the others chorused. It made as much sense now as it had when they’d first done it nine years before. For the first time since he’d stumbled over Rosie Duff in the snow, Alex felt a faint flicker of comfort.

Alex trudged over the railway bridge, turning right into Balsusney Road. Kirkcaldy was like a different country. As the bus had meandered its way along the Fife Coast, the snow had gradually given way to slush, then to this biting grey damp. By the time the northeast wind made it this far, it had dumped its load of snow and had nothing to offer the more sheltered towns further up the estuary but chilly gusts of rain. He felt like one of Breughel’s more miserable peasants plodding wearily home.

Alex lifted the latch on the familiar wrought-iron gate and walked up the short path to the little stone villa where he’d grown up. He fumbled his keys out of his trouser pocket and let himself in. A blast of warmth enveloped him. They’d had central heating installed over the summer, and this was the first time he’d experienced the difference it made. He dumped his bag by the door and shouted, ‘I’m home.’

His mother appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. ‘Alex, it’s lovely to have you back. Come away through, there’s soup and there’s stew. We’ve had our tea, I was expecting you earlier. I suppose it was the weather? I saw on the local news you’d had it bad up there.’

He let her words wash over him, their familiar tone and content a security blanket. He hauled off his kagoule and walked down the hall to give her a hug. ‘You look tired, son,’ she said, concern in her voice.

‘I’ve had a pretty terrible night, Mum,’ he said, following her back into the tiny kitchen.

From the living room, his father’s voice. ‘Is that you, Alex?’

‘Aye, Dad,’ he called back. ‘I’ll be through in a minute.’

His mother was already dishing up a plate of soup, handing him the bowl and a spoon. While there was food to be served, Mary Gilbey had no attention to be spared for minor details like personal grief. ‘Away and sit with your dad. I’ll heat up the stew. There’s a baked potato in the oven.’

Alex went through to the living room where his father sat in his armchair, the TV facing him. There was a place set at the dining table in the corner and Alex sat down to his soup. ‘All right, son?’ his father asked, not taking his eyes off the game show on the screen.

‘No, not really.’

That got his father’s attention. Jock Gilbey turned and gave his son the sort of scrutiny that schoolteachers are adept at. ‘You don’t look good,’ he said. ‘What’s bothering you?’

Alex swallowed a spoonful of soup. He hadn’t felt hungry, but at the first taste of home-made Scotch broth, he’d realized he was ravenous. The last he’d eaten had been at the party and he’d lost that twice over. All he wanted now was to fill his belly, but he was going to have to sing for his supper. ‘A terrible thing happened last night,’ he said between mouthfuls. ‘There was a girl murdered. And it was us that found her. Well, me, actually, but Ziggy and Weird and Mondo were with me.’

His father stared, mouth agape. His mother had walked in on the tail end of Alex’s revelation and her hands flew to her face, her eyes wide and horrified. ‘Oh, Alex, that’s … Oh, you poor wee soul,’ she said, rushing to him and taking his hand.

‘It was really bad,’ Alex said. ‘She’d been stabbed. And she was still alive when we found her.’ He blinked hard. ‘We ended up spending the rest of the night at the police station. They took all our clothes and everything, like they thought we had something to do with it. Because we knew her, you see. Well, not really knew her. But she was a barmaid in one of the pubs we sometimes go to.’ Appetite deserted him at the memory, and he put his spoon down, his head bowed. A tear formed at the corner of his eye and trickled down his cheek.

‘I’m awful sorry, son,’ his father said inadequately. ‘That must have been a hell of a shock.’

Alex tried to swallow the lump in his throat. ‘Before I forget,’ he said, pushing his chair back. ‘I need to phone Mr Malkiewicz and tell him Ziggy won’t be home tonight.’

Jock Gilbey’s eyes widened in shock. ‘They’ve not kept him at the police station?’