Kitabı oku: «The Distant Echo», sayfa 3

3

The poetry of Baudelaire seemed to be doing the trick. Curled into a ball on a mattress so hard it scarcely deserved the name, Mondo was mentally working his way through Les Fleurs du Mal. It seemed ironically appropriate in the light of the night’s events. The musical flow of the language soothed him, rubbing away the reality of Rosie Duff’s death and the police cell it had brought him to. It was transcendent, raising him out of his body and into another place where the smooth sequence of syllables was all his consciousness could accommodate. He didn’t want to deal with death, or guilt, or fear, or suspicion.

His hiding place imploded abruptly with the crashing open of the cell door. PC Jimmy Lawson loomed above him. ‘On your feet, son. You’re wanted.’

Mondo scrambled back, away from the young policeman who had somehow changed from rescuer to persecutor.

Lawson’s smile was far from soothing. ‘Don’t get your bowels in a confusion. Come on, look lively. Inspector Maclennan doesn’t like being kept waiting.’

Mondo edged to his feet and followed Lawson out of the cell and into a brightly lit corridor. It was all too sharp, too defined for Mondo’s taste. He really didn’t like it here.

Lawson turned a bend in the corridor then flung a door open. Mondo hesitated on the threshold. Sitting at the table was the man he’d seen up on Hallow Hill. He looked too small to be a copper, Mondo thought. ‘Mr Kerr, is it?’ the man asked.

Mondo nodded. ‘Aye,’ he said. The sound of his own voice surprised him.

‘Come in and sit down. I’m DI Maclennan, this is DC Burnside.’

Mondo sat down opposite the two men, keeping his eyes on the table top. Burnside took him through the formalities with a politeness that surprised Mondo, who had expected The Sweeney: all shouting and macho swaggering.

When Maclennan took over, a note of sharpness entered the conversation. ‘You knew Rosie Duff,’ he said.

‘Aye.’ Mondo still didn’t look up. ‘Well, I knew she was the barmaid at the Lammas,’ he added as the silence grew around them.

‘Nice-looking lassie,’ Maclennan said. Mondo did not respond. ‘You must have noticed that, at least.’

Mondo shrugged. ‘I didn’t give her any thought.’

‘Was she not your type?’

Mondo looked up, his mouth hitched up in one corner in a half-smile. ‘I think I definitely wasn’t her type. She never took any notice of me. There were always other guys she was more interested in. I always had to wait to get served in the Lammas.’

‘That must have annoyed you.’

Panic flashed in Mondo’s eyes. He was beginning to understand that Maclennan was sharper than he had expected a copper to be. He was going to have to box clever and keep his wits about him. ‘Not really. If we were in a hurry, I just used to get Gilly to go up when it was my round.’

‘Gilly? That would be Alex Gilbey?’

Mondo nodded, dropping his eyes again. He didn’t want to let this man see any of the emotions churning inside him. Death, guilt, fear, suspicion. He desperately wanted to be out of this, out of the police station, out of the case. He didn’t want to drop anyone else in it in the process, but he couldn’t take this. He knew he couldn’t take it, and he didn’t want to end up acting in a way that would make these cops think there was something suspicious about him, something guilty. Because he wasn’t the suspicious one. He hadn’t chatted up Rosie Duff, much as he might have wanted to. He hadn’t stolen a Land Rover. All he’d done was borrow it to drive a lassie home to Guardbridge. He hadn’t stumbled over a body in the snow. That was down to Alex. It was thanks to the others he was in the middle of this shit. If keeping himself secure meant making the cops look elsewhere, well, Gilly would never find out. Even if he did, Mondo was sure Gilly would forgive him.

‘So she liked Gilly, did she?’ Maclennan was relentless.

‘I don’t know. Far as I’m aware, he was just another customer to her.’

‘But one she paid more attention to than she did to you.’

‘Aye, well, that didn’t exactly make him unique.’

‘Are you saying Rosie was a bit of a flirt?’

Mondo shook his head, impatient at himself. ‘No. Not at all. It was her job. She was a barmaid, she had to be nice to people.’

‘But not to you.’

Mondo tugged nervously at the ringlets falling round his ears. ‘You’re twisting this. Look, she was nothing to me, I was nothing to her. Now, can I go, please?’

‘Not quite yet, Mr Kerr. Whose idea was it tonight to come back via Hallow Hill?’

Mondo frowned. ‘It wasn’t anybody’s idea. That’s just the quickest route from where we were back to Fife Park. We often walk back that way. Nobody gave it a second thought.’

‘And did any of you ever feel the need to run up to the Pictish cemetery before?’

Mondo shook his head. ‘We knew it was there, we went up to look at it when they were excavating it. Like half of St Andrews. Doesnae make us weirdos, you know.’

‘I never said it did. But you never made a detour there on the way back to your residence before?’

‘Why would we?’

Maclennan shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Daft boys’ games. Maybe you’ve watched Carrie a few too many times.’

Mondo tugged at a lock of his hair. Death, guilt, fear, suspicion. ‘I’m not interested in horror films. Look, Inspector, you’re reading this all wrong. We’re just four ordinary guys that walked into the middle of something extraordinary. Nothing more, nothing less.’ He spread his hands in a gesture of innocence that he prayed was convincing. ‘I’m sorry for what happened to the lassie, but it’s got nothing to do with me.’

Maclennan leaned back in his chair. ‘So you say.’ Mondo said nothing, simply letting his breath out in a long sigh of frustration. ‘What about the party? What were your movements there?’

Mondo twisted sideways in his seat, his desire for escape obvious in every muscle. Would the lassie talk? He doubted it. She’d had to sneak in to the house, she’d been supposed to be home hours before. And she wasn’t a student, had known almost nobody there. With a bit of luck, she’d never be mentioned, never questioned. ‘Look, why do you care about this? We just found a body, you know?’

‘We have to explore all the possibilities.’

Mondo sneered. ‘Just doing your job, eh? Well, you’re wasting your time if you think we had anything to do with what happened to her.’

Maclennan shrugged. ‘Nevertheless, I’d like to know about the party.’

Stomach churning, Mondo produced an edited version he hoped would pass muster. ‘I don’t know. It’s hard to remember every detail. Not long after we arrived, I was chatting up this lassie. Marg, her name was. From Elgin. We danced for a while. I thought I was in there, you know?’ He pulled a rueful face. ‘Then her boyfriend turned up. She hadn’t mentioned him before. I was pretty fed up, so I had a couple more beers, then I went upstairs. There was this wee study, just a boxroom really, with a desk and a chair. I sat there feeling sorry for myself for a bit. Not long, just the time it took to drink a can. Then I went back downstairs and mooched around. Ziggy was giving some English guys his Declaration of Arbroath speech in the conservatory, so I didn’t hang around there. I’ve heard it too many times. I didn’t really pay attention to anybody else. There wasn’t much in the way of talent, and what there was was spoken for, so I just hung around. Tell you the truth, I was ready to go ages before we finally left.’

‘But you didn’t suggest leaving?’

‘No.’

‘Why not? Don’t you have a mind of your own?’

Mondo gave him a look of loathing. It wasn’t the first time he’d been accused of following the others around like a mindless sheep. ‘Of course I do. I just couldn’t be bothered, OK?’

‘Fine,’ Maclennan said. ‘We’ll be checking your story out. You can go home now. We’ll want the clothes you were wearing tonight. There’ll be an officer at your residence to take them from you.’ He stood up, the chair legs grating on the floor in a screech that set Mondo’s teeth on edge. ‘We’ll be in touch, Mr Kerr.’

WPC Janice Hogg closed the door of the panda car as quietly as she could. No need to wake the whole street. They’d hear the news soon enough. She flinched as DC Iain Shaw slammed the driver’s door without a thought and directed a glare at the back of his balding head. Only twenty-five and already he had an old man’s hairline, she thought with a flash of smug pleasure. And him thinking he was such a catch.

As if the tenor of her thoughts had penetrated his skull, Shaw turned and scowled. ‘Come on, then. Let’s get it over with.’

Janice gave the cottage the once-over as Shaw pushed open the wooden gate and walked briskly up the short path. It was typical of the area; a low building with a couple of dormer windows thrusting out of the pantile roof, crow-stepped gables dressed with snow. A small porch thrust out between the downstairs windows, the harling painted some dun colour that was hard to identify in the weak light shed by the streetlamps. It looked well enough kept, she reckoned, wondering which room had been Rosie’s.

Janice put the thought from her mind as she prepared herself for the coming ordeal. She’d been brought in to deliver the bad news on more than her fair share of occasions. It came with the gender. She braced herself as Shaw banged the heavy iron knocker on the door. At first, nothing stirred. Then a muted light glowed behind the curtains at the right-hand downstairs window. A hand appeared, pulling the curtain to one side. Next, a face, lit on one side. A man in late middle-age, hair greying and tousled, stared open-mouthed at the pair of them.

Shaw produced his warrant card and held it out. There was no mistaking the gesture. The curtain fell back. A couple of moments later, the front door opened to reveal the man, tying the cord of a thick woollen dressing gown round his waist. The legs of his pyjamas pooled over faded tartan slippers. ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded, hiding apprehension imperfectly behind belligerence.

‘Mr Duff?’ Shaw asked.

‘Aye, that’s me. What are you doing at my door at this hour?’

‘I’m Detective Constable Shaw, and this is WPC Hogg. Can we come in, Mr Duff? We need to talk to you.’

‘What have they laddies of mine been up to?’ He stood back and waved them inside. The inner door gave straight on to the living room. A three-piece suite covered in brown corduroy laid siege to the biggest TV set Janice had ever seen. ‘Have a seat,’ he said.

As they made for the sofa, Eileen Duff emerged from the door at the far end of the room. ‘What’s going on, Archie?’ she asked. Her naked face was greasy with night cream, her hair covered in a beige chiffon scarf to protect her shampoo and set. Her quilted nylon housecoat was buttoned awry.

‘It’s the polis,’ her husband said.

The woman’s eyes were wide with anxiety. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Could you come and sit down, Mrs Duff?’ Janice said, crossing to the woman and taking her elbow. She steered her to the sofa and gestured to her husband that he should join her there.

‘It’s bad news, I can tell,’ the woman said piteously, clutching at her husband’s arm. Archie Duff stared impassively at the blank TV screen, lips pressed tightly together.

‘I’m very sorry, Mrs Duff. But I’m afraid you’re right. We do have some very bad news for you.’ Shaw stood awkwardly, head slightly bowed, eyes on the multicoloured swirls of the carpet.

Mrs Duff pushed her husband. ‘I told you not to let Brian buy that motorbike. I told you.’

Shaw cast a glance of appeal at Janice. She took a step closer to the Duffs and said gently, ‘It’s not Brian. It’s Rosie.’

A soft mewing noise came from Mrs Duff. ‘That cannae be right,’ Mr Duff protested.

Janice forced herself to continue. ‘Earlier tonight, the body of a young woman was found on Hallow Hill.’

‘There’s been some mistake,’ Archie Duff said stubbornly.

‘I’m afraid not. Some of the officers at the scene recognized Rosie. They knew her from the Lammas Bar. I’m very sorry to have to tell you that your daughter is dead.’

Janice had delivered the blow often enough to know that most people fell into one of two reactions. Denial, like Archie Duff. And overwhelming grief that hit the surviving relatives like an elemental force of nature. Eileen Duff threw her head back and roared her pain at the ceiling, her hands twisting and wringing in her lap, her whole body possessed by anguish. Her husband stared at her as if she were a stranger, his brows drawn down in a firm refusal to acknowledge what was happening.

Janice stood there, letting the first wave break over her like a spring tide on the West Sands. Shaw shifted from one foot to the other, unsure what to say next.

Suddenly there were heavy footfalls on the stairs that led off one end of the room. Legs clad in pyjama bottoms appeared, followed by a naked torso then a sleepy face topped with a shock of tousled dark hair. The young man stopped a couple of steps from the bottom and surveyed the scene. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he grunted.

Without turning his head, Archie said, ‘Your sister’s dead, Colin.’

Colin Duff’s mouth fell open. ‘What?’

Janice stepped into the breach again. ‘I’m very sorry, Colin. But your sister’s body was found a short while ago.’

‘Where about? What happened? What do you mean, her body was found?’ The words tumbled out as his legs gave way and he crumpled on to the bottom tread of the stairs.

‘She was found on Hallow Hill.’ Janice took a deep breath. ‘We believe that Rosie was murdered.’

Colin dropped his head into his hands. ‘Oh Jesus,’ he whispered over and over again.

Shaw leaned forward. ‘We’re going to need to ask you some questions, Mr Duff. Could we maybe go through to the kitchen?’

Eileen’s first paroxysm of grief was easing now. She’d stopped wailing and turned her tear-streaked face to Archie. ‘Bide here. I’m no’ a bairn that needs to be kept from the truth,’ she gulped.

‘Have you got some brandy?’ Janice asked. Archie looked blank. ‘Or some whisky?’

Colin stumbled to his feet. ‘There’s a bottle in the scullery. I’ll get it.’

Eileen turned her swollen eyes to Janice. ‘What happened to my Rosie?’

‘We can’t be certain yet. It appears that she was stabbed. But we’ll need to wait for the doctor before we can be sure.’

At her words, Eileen recoiled as if she herself had been struck. ‘Who would do a thing like that to Rosie? Her that wouldnae hurt a fly.’

‘We don’t know that yet either,’ Shaw chipped in. ‘But we’ll find him, Mrs Duff. We’ll find him. I know this is the worst time in the world to be asking you questions, but the sooner we get the information we need, the quicker we can make progress.’

‘Can I see her?’ Eileen asked.

‘We’ll arrange for that later today,’ Janice said. She crouched down beside Eileen and put a comforting hand on her arm. ‘What time did Rosie usually come in?’

Colin emerged from the kitchen carrying a bottle of Bells and three glasses. ‘The Lammas has last orders at half-past ten. Most nights, she was in by quarter-past eleven.’ He put the glasses down on the coffee table and poured three stiff measures.

‘But some nights she was later?’ Shaw asked.

Colin handed his parents a whisky each. Archie downed half of his in one gulp. Eileen clutched the glass but didn’t put it to her lips. ‘Aye. If she was going to a party or something.’

‘And last night?’

Colin swallowed some whisky. ‘I don’t know. Mum? Did she say anything to you?’

Eileen looked up at him, her expression dazed and lost. ‘She said she was meeting some friends. She didnae say who, and I didnae ask. She’s got a right to her own life.’ There was a defensive tone in her voice that told Janice this had been a bone of contention, probably with Archie.

‘How did Rosie usually get home?’ Janice asked.

‘If me or Brian was in the town, we’d stop by at closing time and give her a lift. One of the other barmaids, Maureen, she’d drop her off if they were on the same shift. If she couldn’t get a lift, she’d get a taxi.’

‘Where’s Brian?’ Eileen said suddenly, anxious for her chicks.

Colin shrugged. ‘He’s not come home. He must have stayed down in the town.’

‘He should be here. He shouldnae hear this from strangers.’

‘He’ll be back for his breakfast,’ Archie said roughly. ‘He needs to get ready for his work.’

‘Was Rosie seeing anybody? Did she have a boyfriend?’ Shaw let his eagerness to be away take over and shunt the interview back on the track he wanted.

Archie scowled. ‘She was never short of boyfriends.’

‘Was there anyone in particular?’

Eileen took a tiny sip of whisky. ‘She’s been going out with somebody lately. But she wouldnae tell me anything about him. I asked her, but she said she’d tell me in her own good time.’

Colin snorted. ‘Some married man, by the sounds of it.’

Archie glared at his son. ‘You keep a civil tongue in your heid when you talk about your sister, you hear me?’

‘Well, why else would she keep it secret?’ The young man’s jaw jutted out defiantly.

‘Maybe she didnae want you and your brother sticking your oar in again,’ Archie retorted. He turned to Janice. ‘They once gave a laddie a battering because they thought he wasnae treating Rosie right.’

‘Who was that?’

Archie’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘That was years ago. It’s got nothing to do with this. The laddie doesnae even live here any more. He moved down to England not long after it happened.’

‘We’ll still want his name,’ Shaw insisted.

‘John Stobie,’ Colin said mutinously. ‘His dad’s a greenkeeper at the Old Course. Like Dad says, he wouldnae dare go near Rosie.’

‘It’s not a married man,’ Eileen said. ‘I asked her. She said she wouldnae bring trouble like that to our door.’

Colin shook his head and turned away, nursing his whisky. ‘I never saw her with anybody lately,’ he said. ‘But she liked her secrets, did Rosie.’

‘We’ll need to take a look at her room,’ Shaw said. ‘Not just now. But later today. So if you could avoid moving anything in there, that would be helpful.’ He cleared his throat. ‘If you’d like, WPC Hogg can stay with you?’

Archie shook his head. ‘We’ll manage.’

‘You might get reporters coming to the door,’ Shaw said. ‘It would be easier for you if you had an officer here.’

‘You heard my dad. We’re better left to ourselves,’ Colin said.

‘When can I see Rosie?’ Eileen asked.

‘We’ll send a car up for you later. I’ll make sure somebody calls you to arrange it. And if you remember anything Rosie said about where she was going tonight, or who she was seeing, please let us know. It would be helpful if you could make a list of her friends. Especially anyone who might know where she was last night and who she was with. Can you do that for us?’ Shaw was gentle now he could see his escape route clear.

Archie nodded and got to his feet. ‘Later. We’ll do it.’

Janice stood up, her knees complaining at their prolonged crouch. ‘We’ll see ourselves out.’

She followed Shaw to the door. The misery in the room felt like a tangible substance, filling the air and making it hard to breathe. It was always the same. The melancholy seemed to grow incrementally in those first hours after the news arrived.

But that would change. Soon enough, the anger would come.

4

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.