The Distant Echo. Val McDermid
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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