The Distant Echo Page 9

  Janice sat on the end of the bed, where Rosie must have perched to peer into the mirror and apply her makeup. Maclennan turned to the dressing table and slid open the drawer. It contained a fat book called The Far Pavilions, which Maclennan thought was just the sort of thing his ex-wife had used to keep him at bay in bed. "I'm reading, Barney," she'd say in a tone of patient suffering, brandishing some doorstop novel under his nose. What was it with women and books? He lifted out the book, trying not to notice Janice systematically exploring drawers. Underneath was a diary. Refusing to allow himself optimism, Maclennan picked it up.

  If he'd been hoping for some confessional, he'd have been sorely disappointed. Rosie Duff hadn't been a "Dear Diary" sort of girl. The pages listed her shifts at the Lammas Bar, birthdays of family and friends, and social events such as, "Bob's party" "Julie's spree." Dates were indicated with the time and place and the word, "Him," followed by a number. It looked like she'd gone through 14, 15 and 16 in the course of the past year; 16 was, obviously, the most recent. He first appeared in early November and soon became a regular feature two or three times a week. Always after work, Maclennan thought. He'd have to go back to the Lammas and ask again if anyone had seen Rosie meeting a man after closing time. He wondered why they met then, instead of on Rosie's night off, or during the day when she wasn't working. One or other of them seemed determined to keep his identity secret.

  He glanced across at Janice. "Anything?"

  "Nothing you wouldn't expect. It's all the kind of stuff women buy for themselves. None of the tacky things that guys buy."

  "Guys buy tacky things?"

  "I'm afraid you do, sir. Scratchy lace. Nylon that makes you sweat. What men want women to wear, not what they'd choose for themselves."

  "So that's where I've been going wrong all these years. I should really have been buying big knickers from Marks and Spencer."

  Janice grinned. "Gratitude goes a long way, sir."

  "Any sign she was on the pill?"

  "Nothing so far. Maybe Brian was on the money when he said she was a good girl."

  "Not entirely. She wasn't a virgin, according to the pathologist."

  "There's more than one way of losing your virginity, sir," Janice pointed out, not quite courageous enough to cast aspersions on a pathologist that everyone knew was more focused on his next drink and his retirement than on whoever ended up on his slab.

  "Aye. And the pills are probably in her handbag, which hasn't turned up yet." Maclennan sighed and shut the drawer on the novel and the diary. "I'll take a look at the wardrobe." Half an hour later, he had to concede that Rosie Duff had not been a hoarder. Her wardrobe contained clothes and shoes, all in current styles. In one corner, there was a pile of paperbacks, all thick bricks of paper that promised glamour, wealth and love in equal measure. "We're wasting our time here," he said.

  "I've just got one drawer to go. Why don't you have a look in her jewelry box?" Janice passed him a box in the shape of a treasure chest covered in white leatherette. He flipped open the thin brass clasp and opened the lid. The top tray contained a selection of earrings in a range of colors. They were mostly big and bold, but inexpensive. In the lower tray there was a child's Timex watch, a couple of cheap silver chains and a few novelty brooches; one looked like a piece of knitting, complete with miniature needles; one a fishing fly, and the third a brightly enameled creature that looked like a cat from another planet. It was hard to read anything significant into any of it. "She liked her earrings," he said, closing the box. "Whoever she was seeing wasn't the kind who gives expensive jewelry."

  Janice reached to the back of her drawer and pulled out a packet of photographs. It looked as if Rosie had raided the family albums and made her own selection. It was a typical mixture of family photos: her parents' wedding picture, Rosie and her brothers growing up, assorted family groups spanning the last three decades, a few baby pictures and some snaps of Rosie with schoolfriends, mugging at the camera in their Madras College uniforms. No photo-booth shots of her with boyfriends. No boyfriends at all, in fact. Maclennan flicked through them then shoved them back in the packet. "Come on, Janice, let's see if we can find something a bit more productive to occupy us." He took a last look round the room that had told him far less than he'd hoped about Rosie Duff. A girl with a craving for something more glamorous than she had. A girl who kept herself to herself. A girl who had taken her secrets to the grave, probably protecting her killer in the process.

  As they drove back down to St. Andrews, Maclennan's radio crackled. He fiddled with the knobs, trying to get a clear signal. Seconds later, Burnside's voice came through loud and clear. He sounded excited. "Sir? I think we've got something."

  * * *

  Alex, Mondo and Weird had finished their shift stacking shelves in Safeway, keeping their heads down and hoping nobody would recognize them from the front page of the DailyRecord. They'd bought a bundle of papers and walked along the High Street to the café where they'd spent their early evenings as teenagers.

  "Did you know that one in two adults in Scotland reads the Record?" Alex said gloomily.

  "The other one can't read," Weird said, looking at the snatched picture of the four of them on the doorstep of their residence. "Christ, look at us. They might as well have captioned it, 'Shifty bastards suspected of rape and murder.' Do you suppose anybody seeing that wouldn't think we'd done it?"

  "It's not the most flattering photo I've ever had taken," Alex said.

  "It's all right for you. You're right at the back. You can hardly make out your face. And Ziggy's turning away. It's me and Weird that have got it full frontal," Mondo complained. "Let's see what the others have got."

  A similar picture appeared in the Scotsman, the Glasgow Herald and the Courier, but thankfully on inside pages. The murder made it to the front page of all of them, however, with the exception of the Courier. Nothing as insignificant as a murder could shift the fatstock prices and small ads from their front page.

  They sat sipping their frothy coffees, silently poring over the column inches. "I suppose it could be worse," Alex said.

  Weird made an incredulous face. "Worse how, exactly?"

  "They spelled our names right. Even Ziggy's."

  "Big fat hairy deal. OK, I'll grant you they've stopped short of calling us suspects. But that's about all you can say in our favor. This makes us look bad, Alex. You know it does."

  "Everybody we know is going to have seen this," Mondo said. "Everybody is going to be into our ribs about it. If this is my fifteen minutes of fame, you can stuff it."

  "Everybody was going to know anyway," Alex pointed out. "You know what this town's like. Village mentality. People have got nothing else to keep them occupied but gossiping about their neighbors. It doesn't take the papers to spread the news around here. The plus side is that half the university lives in England, so they're not going to know anything about this. And by the time we get back after the New Year, it'll be history."

  "You think so?" Weird folded the Scotsman shut with an air of finality. "I tell you something. We better be praying that Maclennan finds out who did this and puts him away."

  "Why?" Mondo asked.

  "Because if he doesn't, we're going to go through the rest of our lives as the guys that got away with murder."

  Mondo looked like a man who's just been told he has terminal cancer. "You're kidding?"

  "I've never been more serious in my puff," Weird said. "If they don't arrest anybody for Rosie's murder, all anybody's going to remember is that we're the four who spent the night at the police station. It's obvious, man. We're going to get a not proven verdict without a trial. 'We all know they did it, the police just couldn't prove it,' " he added, mimicking a woman's voice. "Face it, Mondo, you're never going to get laid again." He grinned wickedly, knowing he'd hit his friend where it hurt most.

  "Fuck off, Weird. At least I'll have memories," Mondo snapped. Before any of them could say more, they were interrupted by a new arrival. Ziggy
came in, shaking rain from his hair. "I thought I'd find you here," he said.

  "Ziggy, Weird says…" Mondo began.

  "Never mind that. Maclennan's here. He wants to talk to the four of us again."

  Alex raised his eyebrows. "He wants to drag us back to St. Andrews?"

  Ziggy shook his head. "No. He's here in Kirkcaldy. He wants us to come to the police station."

  "Fuck," Weird said. "My old man's going to go mental. I'm supposed to be grounded. He'll think I'm giving him the V-sign. It's not like I can tell him I've been at the cop shop."

  "Thank my dad for the fact that we're not having to go to St. Andrews," Ziggy said. "He went spare when Maclennan turned up at the house. Read him the riot act, accusing him of treating us like criminals when we'd done everything we could to save Rosie. I thought at one point he was going to start battering him with the Record." He smiled. "I tell you, I was proud of him."

  "Good for him," Alex said. "So where's Maclennan?"

  "Outside in his car. With my dad's car parked right behind him." Ziggy's shoulders started shaking with laughter. "I don't think Maclennan's ever come up against anything quite like my old man."

  "So we've got to go to the police station now?" Alex asked.

  Ziggy nodded. "Maclennan's waiting for us. He said my dad could drive us there, but he's not in the mood for hanging around."

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, Ziggy was sitting alone in an interview room. When they'd arrived at the police station, Alex, Weird and Mondo had been taken to a separate interview room under the watchful eye of a uniformed constable. An anxious Karel Malkiewicz had been unceremoniously abandoned in the reception area, told abruptly by Maclennan that he'd have to wait there. And Ziggy had been shepherded off, sandwiched between Maclennan and Burnside, who had promptly left him to kick his heels.

  They knew what they were doing, he thought ruefully. Leaving him isolated like this was a sure-fire recipe for unsettling him. And it was working. Although he showed no outward signs of tension, Ziggy felt taut as a piano wire, vibrating with apprehension. The longest five minutes of his life ended when the two detectives returned and sat down opposite him.

  Maclennan's eyes burned into his, his narrow face tight with some suppressed emotion. "Lying to the police is a serious business," he said without preamble, his voice clipped and cold. "Not only is it an offense, it also makes us wonder what exactly it is you've got to hide. You've had a night to sleep on things. Would you care to revise your earlier statement?"

  A chilly shock of fear spasmed in Ziggy's chest. They knew something. That was clear. But how much? He said nothing, waiting for Maclennan to make his move.

  Maclennan opened his file and pulled out the fingerprint sheet that Ziggy had signed the previous day. "These are your fingerprints?"

  Ziggy nodded. He knew what was coming now.

  "Can you explain how they came to be on the steering wheel and gearstick of a Land Rover registered to a Mr. Henry Cavendish, found abandoned this morning in the parking area of an industrial unit on Largo Road, St. Andrews?"

  Ziggy closed his eyes momentarily. "Yes, I can." He paused, trying to gather his thoughts. He'd rehearsed this conversation in bed that morning, but all his lines had deserted him now he was faced with this unnerving reality.

  "I'm waiting, Mr. Malkiewicz," Maclennan said.

  "The Land Rover belongs to one of the other students who shares the house with us. We borrowed it last night to get to the party."

  "You borrowed it? You mean, Mr. Cavendish gave you his permission to ride around in his Land Rover?" Maclennan pounced, refusing to give Ziggy the chance to get into his stride.

  "Not exactly, no." Ziggy looked off to one side, unable to meet Maclennan's stare. "Look, I know we shouldn't have taken it, but it was no big deal." As soon as the words were out of his mouth. Ziggy knew they were a mistake.

  "It's a criminal offense. Which I'm sure you knew. So, you stole the Land Rover and took it to the party. That doesn't explain how it ended up where it did." Ziggy's breath was fluttering in his chest like a trapped moth. "I moved it there for safety. We were drinking and I didn't want any of us to be tempted to drive it when we were drunk."

  "When exactly did you move it?"

  "I don't know exactly. Probably some time between one and two in the morning."

  "You must have had quite a lot to drink by then yourself." Maclennan was on a roll now, his shoulders hunched forward as he leaned into the interrogation.

  "I was probably over the limit, yes. But…"

  "Another criminal offense. So you were lying when you said you never left the party?" Maclennan's eyes felt like surgical probes.

  "I was gone for as long as it took to move the Land Rover and walk back. Maybe twenty minutes."

  "We've only got your word for that. We've been speaking to some of the other people at the party, and we've not had many sightings of you. I think you were away for a lot longer than that. I think you came across Rosie Duff and you offered her a lift."

  "No!"

  Maclennan continued relentlessly. "And something happened that made you angry, and you raped her. Then you realized that she could destroy your life if she went to the police. You panicked and you killed her. You knew you had to dump the body, but you had the Land Rover, so that wasn't a big deal. And then you cleaned yourself up and went back to the party. Isn't that how it happened?"

  Ziggy shook his head. "No. You've got it all wrong. I never saw her, never touched her. I just got rid of the Land Rover before somebody had an accident."

  "What happened to Rosie Duff wasn't an accident. And you were the one who made it happen."

  Flushed with fear, Ziggy ran his hands through his hair. "No. You've got to believe me. I had nothing to do with her death."

  "Why should I believe you?" "Because I'm telling you the truth."

  "No. What you're telling me is a new version of events that covers what you think I know. I don't think it's anything like the whole truth."

  There was a long silence. Ziggy clenched his jaw tight, feeling the muscles bunching in his cheeks.

  Maclennan spoke again. This time, his tone was softer. "We're going to find out what happened. You know that. Right now, we've got a team of forensic experts going over every inch of that Land Rover. If we find one spot of blood, one hair from Rosie Duff's head, one fiber from her clothes, it'll be a very long time before you sleep in your own bed again. You could save yourself and your father a lot of grief if you just tell us everything now."

  Ziggy almost burst out laughing. It was so transparent a move, so revealing of the weakness of Maclennan's hand. "I've got nothing more to say."

  "Have it your own way, son. I'm arresting you for taking and driving away a motor vehicle without the owner's consent. You'll be bailed to report to the police station in a week's time." Maclennan pushed his chair back. "I suggest you get yourself a lawyer, Mr. Malkiewicz."

  * * *

  Inevitably, Weird was next up. It had to be the Land Rover, he'd decided as they'd sat in silence in the interview room. OK, he'd told himself. He'd hold his hand up, carry the can. He wasn't going to let the others take the blame for his stupidity. They wouldn't send him to jail, not for something so trivial. It would be a fine, and he could pay that off somehow. He could get a part-time job. You could be a mathematician with a criminal record.

  He slouched in the chair opposite Maclennan and Burnside, a cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth, trying to look casual. "How can I help?" he said.

  "The truth would be a start," Maclennan said. "Somehow, it slipped your mind that you'd been joyriding in a Land Rover when you were supposed to be partying."

  Weird spread his hands. "It's a fair cop. Just youthful high spirits, officer."

  Maclennan slammed his hands down on the table. "This isn't a game, son. This is murder. So stop acting the goat."

  "But that's all it was, really. Look, the weather was shite. The others went on ahead to the La
mmas while I finished doing the dishes. I was standing in the kitchen looking out at the Land Rover, and I thought, why not? Henry's away back to England and nobody would be any the wiser if I borrowed it for a few hours. So I took it down to the pub. The other three were pretty pissed off with me, but when they saw the way the snow was coming down, they decided it wasn't such a bad idea after all. So we took it to the party. Ziggy moved it later, to save me from making a complete arse of myself. And that's all there is to it." He shrugged. "Honest. We didn't tell you before because we didn't want to waste your time over something and nothing."

  Maclennan glared at him. "You're wasting my time now." He opened his file. "We've got a statement from Helen Walker that you persuaded her to go for a ride in the Land Rover. According to her, you were trying to grab her as you drove. Your driving became so erratic that the Land Rover went into a skid and stalled against a kerb. She jumped out and ran back to the party. She said, and I'm quoting now, 'He was out of control.' "

  Weird's face twitched, tipping the ash from his cigarette down his jumper. "Silly wee lassie," he said, his voice less confident than his words.

  "Just how out of control were you, son?"

  Weird managed a shaky laugh. "Another one of your trick questions. Look, OK, I was a bit carried away with myself. But there's a big difference between having a bit of fun in a borrowed motor and killing somebody."

  Maclennan gave him a look of contempt. "That's your idea of a bit of fun, is it? Molesting a woman and frightening her to the point where running through a blizzard in the middle of the night is better than sitting in a car with you?" Weird looked away, sighing. "You must have been angry. You get a woman into your stolen Land Rover, you think you're going to impress her and get your way with her, but instead she runs away. So what happens next? You see Rosie Duff in the snow, and you think you'll work your magic on her? Only she doesn't want to know, she fights you off, but you overpower her. And then you lose it, because you know she can destroy your life."