The Distant Echo. Val McDermid
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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