McBride woke at seven o’clock precisely the following morning, as he did every day. He never needed an alarm clock, a call from hotel receptionists or their automated equivalents. He just woke at seven o’clock, no matter what time he had gone to sleep, who lay beside him or where in the world he was. He nodded his head seven times on the pillow and followed this by tracing the number seven on his forehead before turning over to go to sleep and he believed this routine was what caused him to rouse with such exactness. But, when he was too drunk to remember the procedure or so wrapped in a pair of delicate arms that such behaviour would have prompted questions, he still started each new day at 7 a.m. which was frustrating on the days he didn’t want to.
It had an upside. Unless he had company and the option of other forms of exercise, he invariably pulled on his jogging kit and put in a few miles before breakfast, which was never much of an occasion for him anyway. McBride had a schizophrenic relationship with running. Even after doing it for a dozen or so years, he could not make his mind up if he actually liked it. He knew with absolute certainty, however, that he could not function fully without it. It aided his body, of course, but it was what it did for his head that kept taking him out in every kind of climate. He had a simple formula – the more there was on his mind, the more miles he consumed. Usually he found his answers before exhaustion overtook him.
That morning, he fought with the wind all the way through the harbour area and kept on going, with the river by his side, until he’d passed Broughty Castle. Then he turned and headed back. Altogether, he covered ten miles but there weren’t any answers because he didn’t even know the questions.
When he plodded back into the Apex, a small package awaited him at reception. The Jiffy bag bore the frank mark of Black & White, his publishers, and the handwriting was unmistakeably Janne’s. Without pausing, he slid it open and pulled out the contents. The first item to appear was pair of knickers, black, lacy and extremely brief. Janne’s sense of humour, like her complexion, glowed. She would have experienced a moment of blissful triumph if she’d been present to see the look on the receptionist’s face.
McBride contained himself until he was back in his room before poring over the letter. Janne’s description of the anonymous communication was accurate. It was word and punctuation perfect and the computer-produced message was quite unambiguous:
Your book may be factual, Mr McBride, but that does not mean it contains ‘facts’. Bryan Gilzean most certainly did not kill Alison Brown. I know this beyond doubt.
If you are the investigative journalist we are led to believe, you should investigate more and believe the idiots in the police less. They are easy to hoodwink.
My message to you is that it could be productive for you to review the ‘evidence’ on which you based your words.
Of course, there was no signature. McBride folded the single A4 page and slowly replaced it in its white, rectangular envelope, the front and rear of which he inspected three times though he knew before he did so that it would be a pointless exercise.
He also knew that, in order to ‘review the “evidence”’, he should begin in the building where, many years earlier, he had devoted endless hours to absorbing the kind of facts any would-be investigative reporter would require if he wanted to flourish away from his home town.