The events of the night had caught up with Weird at least. When Alex went upstairs after a glum cup of coffee with Ziggy, Weird was in his usual position. Flat on his back, his gangling legs and arms thrown out from under the bed-clothes, he shattered the relative peace of the morning with grumbling snores that mutated every now and again into a high-pitched whistle. Normally, Alex had no trouble sleeping to the strident soundtrack. His bedroom at home backed onto the railway tracks, so he’d never been accustomed to night silence.
But this morning, Alex knew without even trying that he’d never drop off with Weird’s noises as a backdrop to his racing thoughts. Even though he felt light-headed with lack of sleep, he wasn’t in the least drowsy. He gathered an armful of clothes from his chair, scrabbled under the bed for his baseball boots and backed out of the room. He dressed in the bathroom and crept downstairs, not wanting to wake Weird or Mondo. He didn’t even want Ziggy’s company for once. He paused by the coat hooks in the hall. His parka was gone with the police. That only left a denim jacket or a kagoule. He grabbed them both and headed out.
The snow had stopped, but the clouds were still low and heavy. The town seemed smothered in cotton wool. The world had turned monochrome. If he half-closed his eyes, the white buildings of Fife Park disappeared, the purity of the vista defeated only by the rectangles of blank windows. Sound had disappeared too, smothered under the weight of the weather. Alex struck out across what would have been grass toward the main road. Today, it resembled a track in the Cairngorms, flattened snow indicating where occasional vehicles had toiled past. Nobody who didn’t absolutely have to was driving in these conditions. By the time he reached the university playing fields, his feet were wet and freezing, and somehow that felt appropriate. Alex turned up the drive and headed out toward the hockey pitches. In the middle of an expanse of white, he brushed a goalmouth backboard clear of snow and perched on it. He sat, elbows on knees, chin cupped in his hands and stared out over the unbroken tablecloth of snow until little lights danced in front of his vision.
Try as he might, Alex couldn’t get his mind as blank as the view. Images of Rosie Duff flitted behind his eyes like static. Rosie pulling a pint of Guinness, serious concentration on her face. Rosie half turned away, laughing at some quip from a customer. Rosie raising her eyebrows, teasing him about something he’d said. Those were the memories he could just about cope with. But they wouldn’t settle. They were constantly chased away by the other Rosie. Face twisted in pain. Bleeding on the snow. Gasping for her last breaths.
Alex leaned down and grabbed a couple of handfuls of snow, clenching them tight in his fists until his hands started to turn reddish purple with cold and drops of water ran down to his wrists. Cold turned to pain, pain to numbness. He wished there was something he could do to provoke the same response in his head. Turn it off, turn it all off. Leave a blank the brilliant white of the snowfield.
When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he nearly pissed himself. Alex stumbled forward and upward, almost sprawling in the snow but catching himself just in time. He whirled round, hands still fists against his chest. “Ziggy,” he shouted. “Christ, you nearly scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry.” Ziggy looked on the point of tears. “I said your name, but you didn’t react.”
“I didn’t hear you. Christ, creeping up on people like that, you’ll get a bad name, man,” Alex said with a shaky laugh, trying to make a joke of his fear.
Ziggy scuffed at the snow with the toe of his wellies. “I know you probably wanted to be on your own, but when I saw you go out, I came after you.”
“It’s OK, Zig.” Alex bent over and swept more snow off the backboard. “Join me on my luxurious couch, where harem girls will feed us sherbet and rose water.”
Ziggy managed a faint smile. “I’ll pass on the sherbet. It makes my tongue nip. You don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind, OK?”
“I was worried about you, that’s all. You knew her better than any of us. I didn’t know if you wanted to talk, away from the others?”
Alex hunched into his jacket and shook his head. “I’ve nothing much to say. I just keep seeing her face. I didn’t think I could sleep.” He sighed. “Hell, no. What I mean is, I was too frightened to try. When I was wee, a friend of my dad’s was in an accident in the shipyard. Some sort of explosion, I don’t know exactly what. Anyway, it left him with half a face. Literally. He had half a face. The other half’s a plastic mask he has to wear over the burn tissue. You’ve probably seen him down the street or at the football. He’s hard to miss. My dad took me to see him in the hospital. I was only five. And it freaked me out completely. I kept imagining what was behind the mask. When I went to sleep at night, I’d wake up screaming because he’d be there in my dreams. Sometimes when the mask came off, it was maggots. Sometimes it was a bloody mess, like those illustrations in your anatomy textbooks. The worst one was when the mask came off and there was nothing there, just smooth skin with the echoes of what should be there.” He coughed. “That’s why I’m frightened to go to sleep.”
Ziggy put his arm round Alex’s shoulders. “That’s a hard one, Alex. Thing is, though, you’re older now. What we saw last night, that was as bad as it gets. There’s really nothing much your imagination can do to make it worse. Whatever you dream now, it’s not going to be half as bad as seeing Rosie like that.”
Alex wished he could take more comfort from Ziggy’s words. But he sensed they were only half true. “I guess we’re all going to have demons to deal with after last night,” he said.
“Some more practical than others,” Ziggy said, taking his arm back and clasping his hands. “I don’t know how, but Maclennan picked up on me being gay.” He bit his lip.
“Oh, shit,” Alex said.
“You’re the only person I’ve ever told, you know that?” Ziggy’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Well, apart from the guys I’ve been with, obviously.”
“Obviously. How did he know?” Alex asked.
“I was being so careful not to lie, he spotted the truth in between the cracks. And now I’m worried that it’s going to spread out further.”
“Why should it?”
“You know how people love to gossip. I don’t suppose cops are any different from anybody else in that respect. They’re bound to talk to the university. If they wanted to put pressure on us, that would be one way to do it. And what if they come and see us at home in Kirkcaldy? What if Maclennan thinks it would be a smart move to out me to my parents?”
“He’s not going to do that, Ziggy. We’re witnesses. There’s no mileage for him in alienating us.”
Ziggy sighed. “I wish I could believe you. As far as I can see, Maclennan is treating us more like suspects than witnesses. And that means he’ll use anything as a pressure point, doesn’t it?”
“I think you’re being paranoid.”
“Maybe. But what if he says something to Weird or Mondo?”
“They’re your friends. They’re not going to turn their backs on you over that.”
Ziggy snorted. “I tell you what I think would happen if Maclennan lets slip that their best mate is a poof. I think Weird will want to fight me and Mondo will never walk into a toilet with me again as long as he lives. They’re homophobic, Alex. You know that.”
“They’ve known you half their lives. That’s going to count for a lot more than stupid prejudice. I didn’t freak out when you told me,” Alex said.
“I told you precisely because I knew you wouldn’t freak out. You’re not a knee-jerk Neanderthal.”
Alex pulled a self-deprecating face. “It was a pretty safe bet, telling somebody whose favorite painter is Caravaggio, I suppose. But they’re not dinosaurs either, Ziggy. They’d take it on board. Revise their world view in the light of what they know about you. I really don’t think you should lose sleep over it.”
Ziggy shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. I’d prefer not to put it to the test, though. And even if they’re all right, what happens if it gets out? How many out gays can you name in this university? All those English public schoolboys who spent their teens buggering each other, they’re not out of the closet, are they? They’re all running about with Fionas and Fenellas, securing the succession. Look at Jeremy Thorpe. He’s standing trial for conspiring to murder his ex-lover, just to keep his homosexuality quiet. This isn’t San Francisco, Alex. This is St. Andrews. I’ve got years before I qualify as a doctor, and I tell you now, my career is dead in the water if Maclennan outs me.”
“It’s not going to happen, Ziggy. You’re getting things out of proportion. You’re tired, and you said yourself, we’ve all had our heads fucked up by what’s happened. I tell you what I’m a lot more concerned about.”
“What’s that?”
“The Land Rover. What the fuck are we going to do about that?”
“We’ll have to bring it back. There’s no other option. Otherwise it gets reported stolen, and we’re in big trouble.”
“Sure, I know that. But when?” Alex asked. “We can’t do it today. Whoever dumped Rosie there must have had some sort of vehicle, and the one thing that makes us look less like suspects is that none of us has a car. But if we’re spotted tooling around in the snow in a Land Rover, we go straight to number one on Maclennan’s hit parade.”
“Same thing applies if a Land Rover suddenly appears smack bang outside our house,” Ziggy said.
“So what do we do?”
Ziggy kicked at the snow between his feet. “I suppose we just have to wait till the heat dies down, then I’ll come back and shift it. Thank God I remembered about the keys in time to shove them into the waistband of my underpants. Otherwise we’d have been screwed when Maclennan made us turn out our pockets.”
“You’re not kidding. You sure you want to move it?”
“The rest of you have got holiday jobs. I can easily get away. All I have to do is make some excuse about needing the university library.”
Alex shifted uneasily on his perch. “I suppose it has occurred to you that covering up the fact we had the Land Rover might just be letting a killer off the hook?”
Ziggy looked shocked. “You’re not seriously suggesting…?”
“What? That one of us could have done it?” Alex couldn’t believe he’d given voice to the insidious suspicions that had wormed their way into his consciousness. Hastily, he tried to cover up. “No. But those keys were floating around at the party. Maybe somebody else saw a chance and took it…” His voice tailed off.
“You know that didn’t happen. And in your heart, you know you don’t really believe one of us could have murdered Rosie,” Ziggy said confidently.
Alex wished he could be so sure. Who knew what went on in Weird’s head when he was drugged up to the eyeballs? And what about Mondo? He’d driven that girl home, obviously thinking he was in there. But what if she’d knocked him back? He’d have been pissed off and frustrated, and maybe just drunk enough to want to take it out on another lassie who had knocked him back as Rosie had more than once in the Lammas. What if he’d come across her on his way back? He shook his head. It didn’t bear thinking about.
As if sensing the thoughts in Alex’s head, Ziggy said softly, “If you’re thinking about Weird and Mondo, you have to include me in the list. I had just as much chance as them. And I hope you know what a ludicrous idea that is.”
“It’s insane. You’d never hurt anybody.”
“Same goes for the other two. Suspicion’s like a virus, Alex. You’ve picked it up off Maclennan. But you need to shake it off before it takes hold and infects your head and your heart. Remember what you know about us. None of that matches up with a cold-blooded killer.”
Ziggy’s words didn’t quite dispel Alex’s unease, but he didn’t want to discuss it. Instead, he put his arm round Ziggy’s shoulders. “You’re a pal, Zig. Come on. Let’s go into town. I’ll treat you to a pancake.”
Ziggy grinned. “Last of the big spenders, huh? I’ll pass, if you don’t mind. Somehow, I don’t feel that hungry. And remember: All for one and one for all. That’s not about being blind to each other’s faults, but it is about trusting each other. It’s a trust that’s based on years of solid knowledge. Don’t let Maclennan undermine that.”
Barney Maclennan looked round the CID room. For once it was packed out. Unusually among plainclothes detectives, Maclennan believed in including the uniformed officers in his briefings on major cases. It gave them a stake in the investigation. Besides, they were so much closer to the ground, they were likely to pick up things detectives might miss. Making them feel part of the team meant they were more inclined to follow those observations through rather than put them to one side as irrelevant.
He stood at the far end of the room, flanked by Burnside and Shaw, one hand in his trouser pocket obsessively turning over coins. He felt brittle with tiredness and strain, but knew that adrenaline would keep him fired for hours to come. It was always the way when he was following his gut. “You know why we’re here,” he said once they’d settled down. “The body of a young woman was discovered in the early hours of this morning on Hallow Hill. Rosie Duff was killed by a single stab wound to her stomach. It’s too early for much detail, but it’s likely she was also raped. We don’t get many cases like this on our patch, but that’s no reason why we can’t clear it up. And quickly. There’s a family out there that deserves answers.
“So far, we’ve not got much to go on. Rosie was found by four students on their way back to Fife Park from a party in Learmonth Gardens. Now, they may be innocent bystanders, but equally they might be a hell of a lot more than that. They’re the only people we know that were walking around in the middle of the night covered in blood. I want a team to check out the party. Who was there? What did they see? Have our lads really got alibis? Are there any chunks of time unaccounted for? What was their behavior like? DC Shaw will lead this team, and I’d like some of the uniformed officers to work with him. Let’s put the fear of God into these partygoers.
“Now, Rosie worked in the Lammas Bar, as I’m sure a few of you know?” He looked around, seeing a handful of nods, including one from PC Jimmy Lawson, the officer who had been first on the scene. He knew Lawson; young and ambitious; he’d respond well to a bit of responsibility. “These four were drinking in there earlier in the evening. So I want DC Burnside to take another team and talk to everybody you can find who was in there last night. Was anybody taking particular notice of Rosie? What were our four lads doing? How were they acting? PC Lawson, you drink in there. I want you to liaise with DC Burnside, give him all the help you can to nail down the regulars.” Maclennan paused, looking round the room.
“We also need to do door-to-door in Trinity Place. Rosie didn’t walk to Hallow Hill. Whoever did this had some sort of transport. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find the local insomniac. Or at least somebody who got up for a pee. Any vehicles seen on the move down that way in the early hours of the morning, I want to know about it.”
Maclennan looked round the room. “Chances are Rosie knew the person who did this. Some stranger grabbing her off the street wouldn’t have bothered to move her dying body. So we need to go through her life too. Her family and friends aren’t going to enjoy that, so we need to be sensitive to their grief. But that doesn’t mean we settle for coming back with half a tale. There’s somebody out there who killed last night. And I want him brought to book before he gets the chance to do it again.” There was a murmur of agreement through the room. “Any questions?”
To his surprise, Lawson raised a hand, looking faintly embarrassed. “Sir? I wondered if there was any significance in the choice of where the body was dumped?”
“How do you mean?” Maclennan asked.
“With it being the Pictish cemetery. Maybe this was some sort of satanic rite? In which case, could it not have been a stranger who just picked on Rosie because she fitted in with what he needed for a human sacrifice?”
Maclennan’s skin crawled at the possibility. What was he thinking of, not to have considered this option? If it had occurred to Jimmy Lawson, it might well occur to the press. And the last thing he wanted was headlines proclaiming there was a ritual killer on the loose. “That’s an interesting thought. And one we should all bear in mind. But not one we should mention outside these four walls. For now, let’s concentrate on what we know for sure. The students, the Lammas Bar and the door-to-door. That doesn’t mean closing our eyes to other possibilities. Let’s get busy.”
The briefing over, Maclennan walked through the room, pausing for a word of encouragement here and there as officers bunched around desks, organizing their tasks. He couldn’t help hoping they could tie this to one of the students. That way, they might get a swift result, which was what counted with the public in cases like this. Even better, it wouldn’t leave the town with the taste of suspicion on its tongue. It was always easier when the bad guys came from the outside. Even if the outside, in this instance, was a mere thirty miles away.
Ziggy and Alex got back to their residence with an hour to spare before they had to leave for the bus station. They’d walked down to check and had been assured that the country services were running, although the timetable was more honored in the breach than the observance. “You take your chances,” the booking clerk had told them. “I can’t guarantee a time, but buses there will be.”
They found Weird and Mondo hunched over coffee in the kitchen, both looking disgruntled and unshaven. “I thought you were out for the count,” Alex said, filling the kettle for a fresh brew.
“Fat fucking chance,” Weird grumbled.
“We reckoned without the vultures,” Mondo said. “Journalists. They keep knocking at the door and we keep telling them to piss off. Doesn’t work, though. Ten minutes go by and there they are again.”
“It’s like a fucking ‘knock, knock’ joke in here. I told the last one if he didn’t piss off, I’d knock his puss into the middle of next week.”
“Mmm,” said Alex. “And the winner of this year’s Mrs. Joyful Prize for Tact and Diplomacy is…”
“What? I should have let them in?” Weird exploded. “These assholes, you have to talk to them in language they understand. They don’t take no for an answer, you know.”
Ziggy rinsed a couple of mugs and spooned coffee into them. “We didn’t see anyone just now, did we, Alex?”
“No. Weird must have persuaded them of the error of their ways. If they come back, though, you don’t think we should just give them a statement? It’s not like we’ve got anything to hide.”
“It would get them off our backs,” Mondo agreed, but in the way that Mondo always agreed. He specialized in a tone of voice that managed to suggest doubt, always leaving himself a way out if he found himself accidentally swimming against the tide. His need to be loved colored everything he said, everything he did. That and his need to protect himself.
“If you think I’m talking to the running dogs of capitalist imperialism, you’ve another think coming.” Weird, on the other hand, never left room for qualms. “They’re scum. When did you ever read a match report that bore any resemblance to the game you’d just seen? Look at the way they ripped the piss out of Ally McLeod. Before we went to Argentina, the man was a god, the hero who was going to bring the World Cup home. And now? He’s not good enough to wipe your arse with. If they can’t get something as straightforward as football right, what chance have we got of getting away without being misquoted?”
“I love it when Weird wakes up in a good mood,” Ziggy said. “But he’s got a point, Alex. Better to keep our heads down. They’ll have moved on to the next big thing by tomorrow.” He stirred his coffee and made for the door. “I’ve got to finish my packing. We better give ourselves a bit of leeway, leave a bit earlier than usual. It’s hard going underfoot and, thanks to Maclennan, none of us have got decent shoes. I can’t believe I’m walking around in wellies.”
“Watch out, the style police’ll get you,” Weird shouted after him. He yawned and stretched. “I can’t believe how tired I am. Has anybody got any dexys?”
“If we did, they’d have been flushed down the toilet hours ago,” Mondo said. “Are you forgetting the pigs have been crawling all over the place?”
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 quick-fire were their inquiries. “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.