The Distant Echo. Val McDermid

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      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 six-room 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 house-mates did. So, Ziggy wouldn’t tell. That was for sure.

      But Mondo just might. Alex hoped Ziggy’s warning had penetrated Mondo’s self-absorption 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 the 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 like she’d been raped and stabbed in the lower abdomen. A single, vicious blow carving its lethal track upwards 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 groundsman 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 the 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 swivelled 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.

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