Читать книгу The Distant Echo - Val McDermid, Val McDermid - Страница 13

Weird glared at Maclennan, skinny arms folded across his narrow chest. ‘I want a smoke,’ he said. The acid he’d taken earlier had worn off, leaving him jittery and fractious. He didn’t want to be here, and he was determined to get out as quickly as he could. But that didn’t mean he was going to give an inch.

Maclennan shook his head. ‘Sorry, son. I don’t use them.’

Weird turned his head and stared at the door. ‘You’re not supposed to use torture, you know.’

Maclennan refused to rise to the bait. ‘We need to ask you some questions about what happened tonight.’

‘Not without a lawyer, you don’t.’ Weird gave a small, inward smile.

‘Why would you need a lawyer if you’ve got nothing to hide?’

‘Because you’re the Man. And you’ve got a dead lassie on your hands that you need to blame somebody for. And I’m not signing any false confessions, no matter how long you keep me here.’

Maclennan sighed. It depressed him that the dubious antics of a few gave smart-arsed boys like this a stick to beat all cops with. He’d bet a week’s wages that this self-righteous adolescent had a poster of Che Guevara on his bedroom wall. And that he thought he had first dibs on the role of working-class hero. None of which meant he couldn’t have killed Rosie Duff. ‘You’ve got a very funny notion of the way we do things round here.’

‘Tell that to the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four,’ Weird said, as if it were a trump card.

‘If you don’t want to end up where they are, son, I suggest you start co-operating. Now, we can do this the easy way, where I ask a few questions and you answer them, or we can lock you away for a few hours till we can find a lawyer who’s that desperate for work.’

‘Are you denying me the right to legal representation?’ There was a note of pomposity in Weird’s voice that would have made the hearts of his friends sink if they’d heard it.

But Maclennan reckoned he was more than a match for some student on his high horse. ‘Please yourself.’ He pushed back from the table.

‘I will,’ Weird said stubbornly. ‘I’ve got nothing to say to you without a lawyer present.’ Maclennan made for the door, Burnside on his tail. ‘So you get someone here, right?’

Maclennan turned at the open doorway. ‘That’s not my job, son. You want a lawyer, you make the phone call.’

Weird calculated. He didn’t know any lawyers. Hell, he couldn’t afford a lawyer, even if he’d known one. He could imagine what his dad would say if he phoned home and asked for help with the situation. And it wasn’t an appealing thought. Besides, he’d have to tell a lawyer the whole story, and any lawyer paid for by his father would be bound to make a full report back. There were, he thought, far worse things than being nicked for stealing a Land Rover. ‘I tell you what,’ he said grudgingly. ‘You ask your questions. If they’re as harmless as you seem to think, I’ll answer them. But any hint you’re trying to stitch me up, and I’m saying nothing.’

Maclennan closed the door and sat down again. He gave Weird a long, hard stare, taking in the intelligent eyes, the sharp beaky nose and the incongruously full lips. He didn’t think Rosie Duff would have seen him as a desirable catch. She’d probably have laughed at him if he’d ever propositioned her. That sort of reaction could breed festering resentment. Resentment that might have spilled over into murder. ‘How well did you know Rosie Duff?’ he asked.

Weird cocked his head to one side. ‘Not well enough to know what her second name was.’

‘Did you ever ask her out?’

Weird snorted. ‘You’ve got to be joking. I’m a wee bit more ambitious than that. Small-town lassies with small-time dreams; that’s not my scene.’

‘What about your friends?’

‘Shouldnae think so. We’re here precisely because we’ve got bigger ideas than that.’

Maclennan raised his eyebrows. ‘What? You’ve come all the way from Kirkcaldy to St Andrews to broaden your horizons? My, the world must be holding its breath. Listen, son, Rosie Duff has been murdered. Whatever dreams she had have died with her. So think twice before you sit here and patronize her.’

Weird held Maclennan’s stare. ‘All I meant was that our lives had nothing in common with hers. If it hadn’t been for the fact that we stumbled across her body, you wouldn’t even have heard our names in connection with this investigation. And frankly, if we’re the best you can do in the way of suspects, you don’t deserve to be called detectives.’

The air between the two of them was electric with tension. Normally, Maclennan welcomed the raising of the stakes in an interrogation. It was a useful lever to get people to say more than they meant to. And he had a gut feeling that this young man was covering something with his apparent arrogance. It might be nothing of significance, but it might be everything that mattered. Even if all he’d gain by pushing him would be a sinus headache, Maclennan still couldn’t resist. Just on the off chance. ‘Tell me about the party,’ he said.

Weird cast his eyes upwards. ‘Right enough, I don’t suppose you get invited to many. Here’s how it goes. Males and females congregate in a house or a flat, they have a few bevvies, they dance to the music. Sometimes they get off with each other. Sometimes they even get laid. And then everybody goes home. That’s how it was tonight.’

‘And sometimes they get stoned,’ Maclennan said mildly, refusing to let the boy’s sarcasm rile him further.

‘Not when you’re there, I bet.’ Weird’s smile was scornful.

‘Did you get stoned tonight?’

‘See? There you go. Trying to fit me up.’

‘Who were you with?’

Weird considered. ‘You know, I don’t really remember. I arrived with the boys, I left with the boys. In between? I can’t say I recall. But if you’re trying to suggest I slipped away to commit murder, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Ask me where I was and I can give you an answer. I was in the living room all night except for when I went upstairs for a piss.’

‘What about the rest of your friends? Where were they?’

‘I haven’t a clue. I am not my brothers’ keeper.’

Maclennan immediately noticed the echo of Sigmund Malkiewicz’s words. ‘But you look out for each other, don’t you?’

‘No reason why you’d know that that’s what friends do,’ Weird sneered.

‘So you’d lie for each other?’

‘Ah, the trick question. “When did you stop beating your wife?” There’s no call for us to lie for each other where Rosie Duff is concerned. Because we didn’t do anything that needs lying about.’ Weird rubbed his temples. He wanted his bed so badly it was like a deep itch in his bones. ‘We just got unlucky, that’s all.’

‘Tell me how it happened.’

‘Alex and me, we were mucking about. Pushing each other in the snow. He kind of lost his balance and carried on up the hill. Like the snow was making him excited. Then he tripped and fell and the next thing was, he was shouting us to come up quick.’ For a moment, Weird’s cockiness slipped and he looked younger than he was. ‘And we found her. Ziggy tried … but there was nothing he could do to save her.’ He flicked a smudge of dirt off his trouser leg. ‘Can I go now?’

‘You didn’t see anybody else up there? Or on the way there?’

Weird shook his head. ‘No. The crazed axe-murderer must have gone another way.’ His defences were back in place, and Maclennan could see that any further attempts to extract information would likely be fruitless. But there would be another day. And he suspected there would be another way under Tom Mackie’s defences. He just had to figure out what that might be.

Janice Hogg slithered across the car park in Iain Shaw’s wake. They’d been more or less silent on the drive back to the police station, each relating the encounter with the Duffs to their own lives with varying levels of relief. As Shaw pushed open the door leading into the welcome warmth of the station, Janice caught up with him. ‘I’m wondering why she wouldn’t let on to her mum about who she was seeing,’ she said.

Shaw shrugged. ‘Maybe the brother was right. Maybe he was a married man.’

‘But what if she was telling the truth? What if it wasn’t? Who else would she be secretive about?’

‘You’re the female here, Janice. What do you think?’ Shaw carried on through to the cubbyhole occupied by the officer charged with keeping local intelligence up to date. The office was empty in the middle of the night, but the cabinets with their alphabetically arranged filing cards were unlocked and available.

‘Well, if her brothers had a track record of warning off unsuitable men, I suppose I’d have to think about what sort of man Colin and Brian would consider unsuitable,’ she mused.

‘And that would be what?’ Shaw asked, pulling open the drawer marked ‘D’. His fingers, surprisingly long and slender, began to riffle through the cards.

‘Well, thinking aloud … Looking at the family, that buttoned-up, Fife respectability … I’d say anybody they considered beneath her or above her.’

Shaw glanced round at her. ‘That really narrows it down.’

‘I said I was thinking aloud,’ she muttered. ‘If it was some toerag, she’d probably think he could hold his own against her brothers. But if it was somebody a bit more rarefied …’

‘Rarefied? Posh word for a woolly suit, Janice.’

‘Woolly suit doesn’t mean woolly brain, DC Shaw. Don’t forget you were in uniform yourself not so long ago.’

‘OK, OK. Let’s stick to rarefied. You mean, like a student?’ Shaw asked.

‘Exactly.’

‘Like one of the ones that found her?’ He turned back to his search.

‘I wouldn’t rule it out.’ Janice leaned against the doorframe. ‘She had plenty of opportunity to meet students at her work.’

‘Here we are,’ Shaw said, pulling a couple of cards out of the drawer. ‘I thought Colin Duff rang a bell with me.’ He read the first card, then passed it over to Janice. In neat handwriting, it read, Colin James Duff. DoB: 5/3/55 LKA: Caberfeidh Cottage, Strathkinness. Employed at Guardbridge paper mill as fork-lift truck driver. 9/74 Drunk and disorderly, fined £25. 5/76 Breach of the peace, bound over. 6/78 Speeding, fined £37. Known associates: Brian Stuart Duff, brother. Donald Angus Thomson. Janice turned the card over. In the same handwriting, but in pencil this time so it could be erased if ever called into evidence, she read, Duff likes a fight when he’s had a drink. Handy with his fists, handy at keeping out of the frame. Bit of a bully. Not dishonest, just a handful.

‘Not the sort of guy you’d want mixing it with your sensitive student boyfriend,’ Janice commented as she took the second file card from Shaw. Brian Stuart Duff. DoB 27/5/57 LKA Caberfeidh Cottage, Strathkinness. Employed at Guardbridge paper mill as warehouseman. 6/75 Assault, fined £50. 5/76 Assault, three months, served at Perth. 3/78 Breach of the peace, bound over. Known associates: Colin James Duff, brother. Donald Angus Thomson. When she flipped it over, she read, Duff junior is a lout who thinks he’s a hard man. Record would be a lot longer if big brother didn’t drag him away before the trouble really gets going. He started early – John Stobie’s broken ribs and arm in 1975 likely down to him, Stobie refused to give a statement, said he’d had an accident on his bike. Duff suspected of involvement in unsolved break-in at the off-licence at West Port 8/78. One day he’s going to go away for a long time. Janice always appreciated the personal notes their local record-keeper appended to the official record. It helped when you were going out on an arrest to know if things were likely to turn ugly. And by the looks of it, the Duff boys could turn very ugly indeed. A pity really, she thought. Now she looked back, Colin Duff was rather hunky.

‘What do you think?’ Shaw asked, surprising her both because of her train of thought but also because she wasn’t used to CID expecting her to be capable of joined-up thinking.

‘I think Rosie was keeping quiet about who she was seeing because she knew it would provoke her brothers. They seem like a close family. So maybe she was protecting them as much as her boyfriend.’

Shaw frowned. ‘How do you mean?’

‘She didn’t want them getting into more trouble. With Brian’s record especially, another serious assault would get them both jail time. So she kept her mouth shut.’ Janice put the cards back in the file.

‘Good thinking. Look, I’m going up to the CID room to write up the report. You go down to the mortuary and see about arranging a viewing for the family. The day shift can take the Duffs down, but it would be helpful if they know when that’s likely to happen.’

Janice pulled a face. ‘How come I get all the good jobs?’

Shaw raised his eyebrows. ‘You need to ask?’

Janice said nothing. She left Shaw in the intelligence office and headed for the women’s locker room, yawning as she went. They had a kettle in there that the guys knew nothing about. Her body craved a hit of caffeine and if she was going to the mortuary, she deserved a treat. After all, Rosie Duff wasn’t going anywhere.

Alex was on his fifth cigarette and wondering if the packet was going to last him when the door to his interview room finally opened. He recognized the thin-faced detective he’d seen up on Hallow Hill. The man looked a lot fresher than Alex felt. Hardly surprising, since it was getting on for breakfast time for most people. And Alex doubted very much if the detective was experiencing the dull ache of a fledgling hangover at the base of his skull. He crossed to the chair opposite, never taking his eyes off Alex’s face. Alex forced himself to hold the policeman’s gaze, determined not to let exhaustion make him look shifty.

‘I’m Detective Inspector Maclennan,’ the man said, his voice clipped and brisk.

Alex wondered what the etiquette was here. ‘I’m Alex Gilbey,’ he tried.

‘I know that, son. I also know you’re the one that fancied Rosie Duff.’

Alex felt a blush rising across his cheeks. ‘That’s not a crime,’ he said. Pointless to deny what Maclennan seemed so certain of. He speculated which of his friends had betrayed his interest in the dead barmaid. Mondo, almost certainly. He’d sell his granny under pressure, then convince himself it was the best possible outcome for the old woman.

‘No, it’s not. But what happened to her tonight was the worst kind of crime. And it’s my job to find out who did it. So far, the only person connected to the dead girl and also connected to the discovery of her body is you, Mr Gilbey. Now, you’re obviously a smart boy. So I don’t have to spell it out for you, do I?’

Alex tapped nervously on his cigarette although there was no ash to dislodge. ‘Coincidences happen.’

‘Less often than you might think.’

‘Well, this is one.’ Maclennan’s gaze felt like insects crawling under Alex’s skin. ‘I just got unlucky, finding Rosie like that.’

‘So you say. But if I’d left Rosie Duff for dead on a freezing cold hillside and I was worried I’d maybe got some blood on me, and I was a smart boy, I’d engineer it so that I was the one who found her. That way, I’ve got the perfect excuse for being covered in her blood.’ Maclennan gestured at Alex’s shirt, smeared with the dirty rust of dried blood.

‘I’m sure you would. But I didn’t. I never left the party.’ Alex was starting to feel genuinely scared. He’d been half expecting some awkward moments in the conversation with the police, but he hadn’t expected Maclennan to go in so hard so soon. Clammy sweat coated his palms and he had to struggle against the impulse to wipe them on his jeans.

‘Can you provide witnesses to that?’

Alex squeezed his eyes shut, trying to quiet the pounding in his head enough to remember his movements at the party. ‘When we got there, I was talking to a woman on my course for a while. Penny Jamieson, her name is. She went off for a dance, and I hung around in the dining room, just picking at the food. Various people were in and out, I didn’t pay much attention. I was feeling a bit drunk. Later, I went into the back garden to clear my head.’

‘All by yourself?’ Maclennan leaned forward slightly.

Alex had a sudden flash of memory that brought a flicker of relief in its wake. ‘Yes. But you’ll probably be able to find the rose bush I was sick next to.’

‘You could have been sick any time,’ Maclennan pointed out. ‘If you’d just raped and stabbed someone and left her for dead, for example. That might make you sick.’

Alex’s moment of hope crashed and burned. ‘Maybe, but that’s not what I did,’ he said defiantly. ‘If I had blood all over me, don’t you think someone would have noticed when I went back into the party? I was feeling better after I’d thrown up. I went back inside and joined in the dancing in the living room. Any number of people must have seen me then.’

‘And we’ll be asking them. We’re going to need a list of everyone who was at that party. We’ll be speaking to the host. And to everybody else we can trace. And if Rosie Duff showed her face, even for a minute, you and me will be having a much less friendly conversation, Mr Gilbey.’

Alex felt his face betray him again and hurriedly looked away. Not soon enough, however. Maclennan pounced. ‘Was she there?’

Alex shook his head. ‘I never saw her after we left the Lammas Bar.’ He could see something dawning behind Maclennan’s steady gaze.

‘But you invited her to the party.’ The detective’s hands gripped the edge of the table as he leaned forward, so close Alex could smell the incongruous drift of shampoo from his hair.

Alex nodded, too riven with anxiety to deny it. ‘I gave her the address. When we were in the pub. But she never turned up. And I never expected her to.’ There was a sob in his voice now, his tenuous control slipping as he remembered Rosie behind the bar, animated, teasing, friendly. Tears welled up as he stared at the detective.

‘Did that make you angry? That she hadn’t turned up?’

Alex shook his head. ‘No. I never really expected she would. Look, I wish she wasn’t dead. I wish I hadn’t found her. But you’ve got to believe me. I had nothing to do with it.’

‘So you say, son. So you say.’ Maclennan held his position, inches from Alex’s face. All his instincts told him there was something lurking under the surface of these interviews. And one way or another, he was going to find out what it was.