The Distant Echo Read online

  The policeman narrowed his eyes against the snow, frowning. "She's been attacked, you say. How do you know that?"

  "She's got blood all over her. And…" Alex paused for thought. "She's not dressed for the weather. She's not got a coat on. Look, can you get an ambulance or a doctor or something? She's really hurt, man."

  "And you just happened to find her in the middle of a blizzard, eh? Have you been drinking, son?" The words were patronizing, but the voice betrayed anxiety.

  Alex didn't imagine this was the kind of thing that happened often in the middle of the night in douce, suburban St. Andrews. Somehow he had to convince this plod that he was serious. "Of course I've been drinking," he said, his frustration spilling over. "Why else would I be out at this time in the morning? Look, me and my pals, we were taking a shortcut back to halls and we were messing about and I ran up the top of the hill and tripped and landed right on top of her." His voice rose in a plea. "Please. You've got to help. She could die out there."

  The policeman studied him for what felt like minutes, then leaned into his car and launched into an unintelligible conversation over the radio. He stuck his head out of the door. "Get in. We'll drive up to Trinity Place. You better not be playing the goat, son," he said grimly.

  The car fishtailed up the street, tires inadequate for the conditions. The few cars that had traveled the road earlier had left tracks that were now only faint depressions in the smooth white surface, testament to the heaviness of the snowfall. The policeman swore under his breath as he avoided skidding into a lamppost at the turning. At the end of Trinity Place, he turned to Alex. "Come on then, show me where she is."

  Alex set off at a trot, following his own rapidly disappearing tracks in the snow. He kept glancing back to check if the policeman was still in his wake. He nearly went headlong at one point, his eyes taking a few moments to adjust to the greater darkness where the streetlights were cut off by the tree trunks. The snow seemed to cast its own strange light over the landscape, exaggerating the bulk of bushes and turning the path into a narrower ribbon than it normally appeared. "It's this way," Alex said, swerving off to the left. A quick look over his shoulder reassured him that his companion was right behind him.

  The policeman hung back. "Are you sure you're no' on drugs, son?" he said suspiciously.

  "Come on," Alex shouted urgently as he caught sight of the dark shapes above him. Without waiting to see if the policeman was following, Alex hurried up the slope. He was almost there when the young officer overtook him, brushing past and stopping abruptly a few feet short of the small group.

  Ziggy was still hunkered down beside the woman's body, his shirt plastered to his slim torso with a mixture of snow and sweat. Weird and Mondo stood behind him, arms folded across their chests, hands tucked in their armpits, heads thrust down between their raised shoulders. They were only trying to stay warm in the absence of coats, but they presented an unfortunate image of arrogance.

  "What's going on here, then, lads?" the policeman asked, his voice an aggressive attempt to stamp authority in spite of the greater weight of numbers arrayed against him.

  Ziggy pushed himself wearily to his feet and shoved his wet hair out of his eyes. "You're too late. She's dead."

  2

  Nothing in Alex's twenty-one years had prepared him for a police interrogation in the middle of the night. TV cop shows and movies always made it look so regimented. But the very disorganization of the process was somehow more nerve-wracking than military precision would have been. The four of them had arrived at the police station in a flurry of chaos. They'd been hustled off the hill, bathed in the strobing blue lights of panda cars and ambulances, and nobody seemed to have any clear idea of what to do with them.

  They'd stood under a streetlamp for what felt like a very long time, shivering under the frowning gaze of the constable Alex had summoned to the scene and one of his colleagues, a grizzled man in uniform with a scowl and a stoop. Neither officer spoke to the four young men, though their eyes never strayed from them.

  Eventually, a harassed-looking man huddled into an overcoat that looked two sizes too big for him slithered over to them, his thin-soled shoes no match for the terrain. "Lawson, Mackenzie, take these boys down to the station, keep them apart when you get there. We'll be down in a wee while to talk to them." Then he turned and stumbled back in the direction of their terrible discovery, now hidden behind canvas screens through which an eerie green light emanated, staining the snow.

  The younger policeman gave his colleague a worried look. "How are we going to get them back?"

  He shrugged. "You'll have to squeeze them in your panda. I came up in the Sherpa van."

  "Can we not take them back down in that? Then you could keep an eye on them while I'm driving."

  The older man shook his head, pursing his lips. "If you say so, Lawson." He gestured to the Laddies fi' Kirkcaldy. "Come on, youse. Into the van. And no messing about, right?" He herded them toward a police van, calling over his shoulder to Lawson, "You better get the keys off Tam Watt."

  Lawson set off up the slope, leaving them with Mackenzie. "I wouldnae like to be in your shoes when the CID get off that hill," he said conversationally as he climbed in behind them. Alex shivered, though not from the cold. It was slowly dawning on him that the police were regarding him and his companions as potential suspects rather than witnesses. They'd been given no opportunity to confer, to get their ducks in a row. The four of them exchanged uneasy looks. Even Weird had straightened out enough to realize this wasn't some daft game.

  When Mackenzie hustled them into the van, there had been a few seconds when they'd been left alone. Just sufficient time for Ziggy to mutter loud enough for their ears, "For fuck's sake, don't mention the Land Rover." Instant comprehension had filled their eyes.

  "Christ, aye," Weird said, head jerking back in terrified realization. Mondo chewed the skin round his thumbnail, saying nothing. Alex merely nodded.

  The police station hadn't felt anymore composed than the crime scene. The desk sergeant complained bitterly when the two uniformed officers arrived with four bodies who were supposed to be prevented from communicating with each other. It turned out there were insufficient interview rooms to keep them separate. Weird and Mondo were taken to wait in unlocked cells, while Alex and Ziggy were left to their own devices in the station's two interview rooms.

  The room Alex found himself in was claustrophobically small. It was barely three paces square, as he established within minutes of being shut in to kick his heels. There were no windows, and the low ceiling with its graying polystyrene tiles made it all the more oppressive. It contained a chipped wooden table and four unmatching wooden chairs that looked exactly as uncomfortable as they felt. Alex tried them all in turn, finally settling for one that didn't dig into his thighs as much as the others.

  He wondered if he was allowed to smoke. Judging by the smell of the stale air, he wouldn't have been the first. But he was a well-brought-up lad, and the absence of an ashtray gave him pause. He searched his pockets and found the screwed-up silver paper from a packet of Polo mints. Carefully, he spread it out, folding the edges up to form a rough tray. Then he took out his packet of Bensons and flipped the top open. Nine left. That should see him through, he thought.

  Alex lit his cigarette and allowed himself to think about his position for the first time since they'd arrived at the police station. It was obvious, now he thought about it. They'd found a body. They had to be suspects. Everybody knew that the prime candidates for arrest in a murder investigation were either the ones who last saw the victim alive or the ones who found the body. Well, that was them on both counts.

  He shook his head. The body. He was starting to think like them. This wasn't just a body, it was Rosie. Somebody he knew, however slightly. He supposed that made it all the more suspicious. But he didn't want to consider that now. He wanted that horror far from his mind. Whenever he closed his eyes, flashbacks to the hill played like a movie before hi
s eyes. Beautiful, sexy Rosie broken and bleeding on the snow. "Think about something else," he said aloud.

  He wondered how the others would react to questioning. Weird was off his head, that was for sure. He'd had more than drink tonight. Alex had seen him with a joint in his hand earlier, but with Weird, there was no telling what else he might have indulged in. There had been tabs of acid floating around. Alex had refused it himself a couple of times. He didn't mind dope but he preferred not to fry his brains. But Weird was definitely in the market for anything that would allegedly expand his consciousness. Alex fervently hoped that whatever he'd swallowed, inhaled or snorted, it would have worn off before it was his turn to be interviewed. Otherwise, Weird was likely to piss the cops off very badly indeed. And any fool knew that was a bad idea in the middle of a murder investigation.

  Mondo would be a different kettle of fish. This would freak him out in a totally different way. Mondo was, when you got right down to it, too sensitive for his own good. He'd always been the one picked on at school, called a jessie partly because of the way he looked and partly because he never fought back. His hair hung in tight ringlets round his pixie face, his big sapphire eyes always wide like a mouse keeking out from a divot. The lassies liked it, that was for sure. Alex had once overheard a pair of them giggling that Davey Kerr looked just like Marc Bolan. But in a school like Kirkcaldy High, what won you favor with the lassies could equally earn you a kicking in the cloakroom. If Mondo hadn't had the other three to back him up, he'd have had a pretty thin time of it. To his credit, he knew that, and he repaid their services with interest. Alex knew he'd never have got through Higher French without Mondo's help.

  But Mondo would be on his own with the police. Nobody to hide behind. Alex could picture him now, head hung low, tossing the odd glance out from under his brows, picking at the skin round his thumbnail or flicking the lid of his Zippo open and shut. They'd get frustrated with him, think he had something to hide. The thing they'd never suss, not in a million years, was that the big secret with Mondo was that ninetynine times out of a hundred, there was no secret. There was no mystery wrapped in an enigma. There was just a guy who liked Pink Floyd, fish suppers with lashings of vinegar, Tennent's lager and getting laid. And who, bizarrely, spoke French like he'd learned it at his mother's knee.

  Except of course tonight there was a secret. And if anybody was going to blow it, it would be Mondo. Please God, let him not give up the Land Rover, Alex thought. At the very least, they'd all be landed with the charge of taking and driving away without the owner's consent. At the very worst, the cops would realize one or all of them had the perfect means to transport a dying girl's body to a quiet hillside.

  Weird wouldn't tell; he had most to lose. He'd been the one who'd turned up at the Lammas grinning from ear to ear, dangling Henry Cavendish's key-ring from his finger like the winner at a wife-swapping party.

  Alex wouldn't tell, he knew that. Keeping secrets was one of the things he did best. If the price of avoiding suspicion was to keep his mouth shut, he had no doubts he could manage it.

  Ziggy wouldn't tell either. It was always safety first with Ziggy. After all, he was the one who had sneaked away from the party to move the Land Rover once he'd realized how off his head Weird was getting. He'd taken Alex to one side and said, "I've taken the keys out of Weird's coat pocket. I'm going to shift the Land Rover, put it out of temptation's way. He's already been taking people for a spin round the block, it's time to put a stop to it before he kills himself or somebody else." Alex had no idea how long he'd been gone, but when he'd returned, Ziggy had told him the Land Rover was safely stowed up behind one of the industrial units off the Largo Road. "We can go and pick it up in the morning," he'd said.

  Alex had grinned. "Or we could just leave it there. A nice wee puzzle for Hooray Henry when he comes back next term."

  "I don't think so. As soon as he realized his precious wheels weren't parked where he left them, he'd go to the police and drop us right in it. And our fingerprints are all over it."

  He'd been right, Alex thought. There was no love lost between the Laddies fi' Kirkcaldy and the two Englishmen who shared their sixroom campus house. There was no way Henry would see the funny side of Weird helping himself to the Land Rover. Henry didn't see the funny side of much that his housemates did. So, Ziggy wouldn't tell. That was for sure.

  But Mondo just might. Alex hoped Ziggy's warning had penetrated Mondo's selfabsorption enough for him to think through the consequences. Telling the cops about Weird helping himself to someone else's car wouldn't get Mondo off the hook. It would only put all four of them firmly on it. Besides, he'd been driving it himself, taking that lassie home to Guardbridge. For once in your life, think it through, Mondo.

  Now, if it was a thinker you wanted, Ziggy was your man. Behind the apparent openness, the easy charm and the quick intellect, there was a lot more going on than anyone knew. Alex had been pals with Ziggy for nine and a half years, and he felt as though he'd only scratched the surface. Ziggy was the one who would surprise you with an insight, knock you off balance with a question, make you look at something through fresh eyes because he'd twisted the world like a Rubik's Cube and seen it differently. Alex knew one or two things about Ziggy that he felt pretty sure were still hidden from Mondo and Weird. That was because Ziggy had wanted him to know, and because Ziggy knew his secrets would always be safe with Alex.

  He imagined how Ziggy would be with his interrogators. He'd seem relaxed, calm, at ease with himself. If anyone could persuade the cops that their involvement with the body on Hallow Hill was entirely innocent, it was Ziggy.

  * * *

  Detective Inspector Barney Maclennan threw his damp coat over the nearest chair in CID office. It was about the size of a primary school classroom, bigger than they normally needed. St. Andrews wasn't high on Fife Constabulary's list of crime hotspots, and that was reflected in their staffing levels. Maclennan was head of CID out at the edge of the empire not because he lacked ambition but because he was a fully paid-up member of the awkward squad, the sort of bolshie copper senior officers liked best at a distance. Normally, he chafed at the lack of anything interesting to keep him occupied, but that didn't mean he welcomed the murder of a young lassie on his patch.

  They'd got an ID right away. The pub Rosie Duff worked in was an occasional drop-in for some of the uniformed boys, and PC Jimmy Lawson, the first man at the locus, had recognized her immediately. Like most of the men at the scene, he'd looked shell-shocked and nauseous. Maclennan couldn't remember the last time they'd had a murder on his patch that hadn't been a straightforward domestic; these lads hadn't seen enough to harden them to the sight they'd come upon on the snowy hilltop. Come to that, he'd only seen a couple of murder victims himself, and never anything quite as pathetic as the abused body of Rosie Duff.

  According to the police surgeon, it looked as if she'd been raped and stabbed in the lower abdomen. A single, vicious blow carving its lethal track upward through her gut. And it had probably taken her quite a while to die. Just thinking about it made Maclennan want to lay hands on the man responsible and beat the crap out of him. At times like this, the law felt more like a hindrance than a help when it came to achieving justice.

  Maclennan sighed and lit a cigarette. He sat down at his desk and made notes of what little information he'd learned so far. Rosemary Duff. Nineteen years old. Worked in the Lammas Bar. Lived in Strathkinness with her parents and two older brothers. The brothers worked in the paper mill out at Guardbridge, her father was a grounds-man up at Craigtoun Park. Maclennan didn't envy Detective Constable Iain Shaw and the WPC he'd sent up to the village to break the news. He'd have to talk to the family himself in due course, he knew that. But he was better employed trying to get this investigation moving. It wasn't as if they were swarming with detectives who had a clue about running a major inquiry. If they were going to avoid being pushed out to the sidelines by the big boys from headquarters, Maclennan had to get the show on t
he road and make it look good.

  He looked impatiently at his watch. He needed another CID man before he could start interviewing the four students who claimed they'd found the body. He'd told DC Allan Burnside to get back down to the station as soon as he could, but there was still no sign of him. Maclennan sighed. Goons and balloons, that was what he was stuck with out here.

  He slipped his feet out of his damp shoes and swiveled round so he could rest them on the radiator. God, but it was a hell of a night to be starting a murder inquiry. The snow had turned the crime scene into a nightmare, masking evidence, making everything a hundred times more difficult. Who could tell which traces had been left by the killer, and which by the witnesses? That was assuming, of course, that those were separate entities. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Maclennan thought about his interview strategy.

  All the received wisdom indicated he should speak first to the lad who'd actually found the body. Well-built lad, broad-shouldered, hard to see much of his face inside the big snorkel hood of the parka. Maclennan leaned back for his notebook. Alex Gilbey, that was the one. But he had a funny feeling about that one. It wasn't that he'd been exactly shifty, more that he'd not met Maclennan's eyes with the kind of piteous candour that most young lads in his shoes would have shown. And he certainly looked strong enough to carry Rosie's dying body up the gentle slope of Hallow Hill. Maybe there was more going on here than met the eye. It wouldn't be the first time a murderer had engineered the discovery of his victim's body to include himself. No, he'd let young Mr. Gilbey sweat a wee bit longer.

  The desk sergeant had told him that the other interview room was occupied by the medical student with the Polish name. He was the one who had been adamant that Rosie had still been alive when they found her, claiming he'd done all he could to keep her that way. He'd seemed pretty cool in the circumstances, cooler than Maclennan would have managed. He thought he'd start there. Just as soon as Burnside showed his face.