by Val McDermid
"You could always lean on Duff, sir."
"And say what?"
"I don't know, sir. But it might make you feel better."
Maclennan looked at Janice in surprise. Then he grinned. "You're right, Janice. Malkiewicz might still be a suspect, but if anybody's going to beat him up, it should be us. Let's go to Guardbridge. I've not been to the paper mill in a very long time."
* * *
Brian Duff strode into the manager's office with the cocky strut of a man who thinks he has the keys to the kingdom. He leaned against the wall and swept Maclennan with an arrogant stare. "I don't like being interrupted at my work," he said.
"Shut your puss, Brian," Maclennan said contemptuously.
"That's no way to speak to a member of the public, Inspector."
"I'm not speaking to a member of the public, I'm speaking to a piece of shite. I know what you and your moronic pals did last night, Brian. And I know you think you'll get away with it because of what you know about Ziggy Malkiewicz. Well, I'm here to tell you different." He moved closer to Duff, only inches away from him now. "From now on, Brian, you and your brother are marked men. You go one mile an hour over the speed limit on that bike of yours and you're pulled. You have one drink over the limit, and you're breathalyzed. You so much as breathe on any of those four lads and you're under arrest. And with your record, that means you're going away again. And this time, it'll be for a damn sight more than three months." Maclennan paused for breath.
"That's police harassment," Brian said, his complacency only slightly dented.
"No, it's not. Police harassment is when you accidentally fall down the stairs on the way to the cells. When you trip over and break your nose when you hit the wall." In a sudden, lightning moment, Maclennan's hand shot out and grabbed Duff's crotch. He squeezed as tightly as he could, then twisted his wrist sharply.
Duff screamed, the color draining from his face. Maclennan let him go and stepped back smartly. Duff doubled over, spitting curses. "That's police harassment, Brian. Get fucking used to it." Maclennan yanked open the door. "Oh dear. Brian seems to have banged into the desk and hurt himself," he said to the startled secretary in the anteroom. He smiled as he walked past her, out the door and into the cold sunlight. He got into the car.
"You were right, Janice. I feel a lot better now," he said, smiling broadly.
* * *
No work was being done in the small house in Fife Park that day. Mondo and Weird mooched around the music room, but guitar and drums didn't make for a great combo and Alex was clearly not about to join them. He lay on his bed, trying to work out his feelings about what had happened to them all. He'd always wondered why Ziggy had been so reluctant to share his secret with the other two. Deep down, Alex believed they would accept it because they knew Ziggy too well not to. But he'd underestimated the power of knee-jerk bigotry. He didn't like what their reaction said about his friends. And that called into question his own judgment. What was he doing, investing so much time and energy in people who were, at bottom, as narrowminded as scum like Brian Duff? On their way to the ambulance, Ziggy had whispered in Alex's ear what had happened. What scared Alex was the thought that his friends shared the same prejudices.
OK, Weird and Mondo weren't about to go out and beat up gay men for want of something better to do of an evening. But not everyone in Berlin had been part of Kristallnacht. And look where that had led. By sharing the same position of intolerance, you gave tacit support to the extremists. In order for evil to triumph, Alex remembered, it is necessary only that good men do nothing.
He could almost understand Weird's position. He'd dug himself in with a bunch of fundamentalists who required that you had to swallow the entire doctrine whole. You couldn't opt out of the bits that didn't suit you.
But there was no excuse for Mondo. The way he felt right now, Alex didn't even want to sit down at the same table with him.
It was all coming apart at the seams, and he didn't know how to stop it.
He heard the sound of the front door opening, and he was out of bed and down the stairs in seconds. Ziggy leaned against the wall, a wobbly smile on his face. "Shouldn't you be in the hospital?" Alex asked.
"They wanted to keep me in for observation. But I can do my own obs. There's no need for me to be cluttering up a bed."
Alex helped him through to the kitchen and put the kettle on. "I thought you had hypothermia?"
"Only very mildly. It's not like I had frostbite or anything. They got my core temperature back up, so that's OK. I've not got any broken bones, just bruises. I'm not passing blood, so my kidneys are fine. I'd rather suffer in my own bed than have doctors and nurses poking at me, making jokes about medics who can't heal themselves."
Footsteps on the stairs, then Mondo and Weird appeared in the doorway, looking sheepish. "Good to see you, man," Weird said.
"Aye," Mondo agreed. "What the hell happened?"
"They know, Ziggy," Alex cut in.
"You told them?" The accusation came out sounding tired rather than angry.
"Maclennan told us," Mondo said sharply. "He just confirmed it."
"Fine," Ziggy said. "I don't expect Duff and his Neanderthal buddies were looking for me in particular. I think they'd just gone out for a bit of queer-bashing and they happened to come across me and this other guy down by St. Mary's Church."
"You were having sex in the church?" Weird sounded appalled.
"It's a ruin," Alex said. "It's not exactly consecrated ground." Weird looked as if he was going to say more, but the look on Alex's face stopped him in his tracks.
"You were having sex with a total stranger out in the open on a freezing winter night?" Mondo spoke with a mixture of disgust and contempt.
Ziggy gave him a long considering look. "Would you rather I'd brought him back here?" Mondo said nothing. "No, I thought not. Unlike the stream of strange women you inflict on us on a regular basis." "That's different," Mondo said, shifting from one foot to the other.
"Why?"
"Well, it's not illegal, for a start," he said.
"Thanks for your support, Mondo." Ziggy got to his feet, slowly and precariously, like an old man. "I'm going to bed."
"You still haven't told us what happened," Weird said, sensitive to atmosphere as ever.
"When they realized it was me, Duff wanted me to confess. When I wouldn't confess, they tied me up and lowered me down the Bottle Dungeon. It was not the best night of my life. Now, if you'll excuse me?"
Mondo and Weird stepped aside to let him pass. The stairs were too narrow for two, so Alex didn't offer to help. He didn't think Ziggy would accept help right now anyway, not even from him. "Why don't you two just move in with the people you're comfortable with?" Alex said, pushing past them. He picked up his book bag and his coat. "I'm going to the library. It would be really nice if you two were gone when I got back."
* * *
A couple of weeks passed in what appeared to be an uneasy truce. Weird spent most of his time either working in the library or with his evangelical friends. Ziggy seemed to recover his sangfroid as his physical injuries healed, but Alex noticed he didn't like being out after dark alone. Alex got his head down to work, but made sure he was around when Ziggy needed company. He went to Kirkcaldy for a weekend, taking Lynn to Edinburgh. They ate in a small Italian restaurant with cheery décor and went to the pictures. They walked all the way from the station to her home three miles away at the back of the town. As they cut through the stand of trees that masked the Dunnikier Estate from the main road, she pulled him into the shadows and kissed him as if her life depended on it. He'd walked home singing.
The person most affected by the recent events, paradoxically, seemed to be Mondo. The story of Ziggy's attack spread round the university like wildfire. The version that went public conveniently left out the first part of the story, so his privacy remained intact. But a sizable majority were talking about the four of them as if they were suspects, as if there was some sort of just
ification for what had been done to Ziggy. They had become pariahs.
Mondo's girlfriend dumped him unceremoniously. She was worried for her reputation, she said. He didn't find a new one easy to come by either. Girls wouldn't meet his eye anymore. They sidled away when he went to talk to them in pubs and discos.
His fellow students on his French course also made it clear they didn't want him around. He was isolated in a way that none of the others was. Weird had the Christians; Ziggy's fellow medics were firmly on his side; Alex didn't give a shit what anyone else thought; he had Ziggy and, although Mondo didn't know it, he had Lynn.
Mondo had wondered if he still had an ace up his sleeve, but he was nervous about exposing his hand in case it turned into a joker. It wasn't exactly easy to waylay the person he needed to talk to, and so far he'd failed dismally to make contact. He couldn't even manage to set up an exercise in mutual self-interest. Because that's what he'd persuaded himself it was. Not blackmail. Just a little reciprocity. But even that was beyond him right now. He really was a total failure; everything he touched turned to dross.
The world had been his oyster and now all Mondo could taste was the grit. He'd always been the most emotionally fragile of the quartet, and without their support, he crumbled. Depression set in like a heavy blanket, muffling the world outside. He even walked like a man with a burden on his back. He couldn't work, couldn't sleep. He stopped showering and shaving, only changing his clothes occasionally. He spent endless hours lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to Pink Floyd tapes. He'd go off to pubs where he knew nobody and drink morosely. Then he'd stumble into the night and wander through the town until the small hours.
Ziggy tried to talk to him, but Mondo would have none of it. Somewhere in his heart, he blamed Ziggy, Weird and Alex for what had happened to him, and he didn't want what he saw as their pity. That would be the final indignity. He wanted proper friends who would appreciate him, not people who felt sorry for him. He wanted friends he could trust, not ones who made him worry about what knowing them might mean for him.
One afternoon, his pub crawl took him to a small hotel on The Scores. He trudged up to the bar and slurred an order for a pint. The barman looked at him with thinly disguised contempt and said, "Sorry, son. I'm not serving you."
"What do you mean, you're not serving me?"
"This is a respectable establishment, and you look like a tramp. I have the right to refuse service to anyone I don't want drinking in here." He jerked a thumb toward a notice by the till which backed up his words. "On your bike."
Mondo stared at him in disbelief. He looked around, seeking support from other customers. Everyone studiously avoided meeting his eye. "Fuck you, pal," he said, sweeping an ashtray to the floor and storming out.
In the short time he'd been inside, the heavy rain that had been threatening all day had broken over the town, scouring the streets under the impetus of a strong east wind. In no time at all, he was soaked to the skin. Mondo wiped the rain from his face and realized he was crying. He'd had enough of this. He couldn't take another day of misery and pointlessness. He had no friends, women despised him and he just knew he was going to fail his finals because he hadn't done any work. Nobody cared because nobody understood.
Drunk and depressed, he staggered along The Scores toward the castle. He'd had enough. He'd show them. He'd make them see his point of view. He climbed over the railing by the footpath and stood swaying at the edge of the cliff. Below, the sea pounded angrily against the rocks, sending fountains of spume high into the air. Mondo breathed in the salt spray and felt curiously at peace as he stared down at the raging water. He spread his arms wide, raised his face to the rain and screamed his pain at the sky.
18
Maclennan was walking past the radio room when the call went out. He translated the numbers in the code. Potential suicide on the cliffs above the Castle Sands. Not really a CID matter, and anyway, it was his day off. He'd only come in to clear up some paperwork. He could carry on out the door, be home in ten minutes, a can of lager in his hand and the sports pages open on his lap. Like almost every other day off since Elaine walked out the door.
No contest.
He stuck his head in the radioroom door. "Tell them I'm on my way," he said. "And send for the lifeboat from Anstruther."
The operator looked at him in surprise, but gave him the thumbs up. Maclennan carried on through to the car park. God, but it was a rough afternoon. The bloody weather alone was enough to make you suicidal. He drove to the scene, his wipers barely slapping the windscreen clear between gouts of rain.
The cliffs were a favorite spot for attempted suicides. Mostly, they succeeded if the tide was right. There was a vicious undertow that swept the unsuspecting out into the sea in a matter of minutes. And nobody lasted long in the North Sea in winter. There had been some spectacular failures too. He remembered a janitor from one of the local primary schools who had completely mistimed the attempt. He came crashing down into two feet of water, missed the rocks altogether and ended up hitting the sand. He broke both his ankles and was so mortified at this farcical fiasco that he caught a bus to Leuchars the day he was released from hospital, tottered on his crutches along the railway track and threw himself under the Aberdeen express.
That wouldn't happen today, though. Maclennan was pretty sure the tide was in, and the east wind would whip the sea into a pounding maelstrom beneath the cliffs. He hoped they'd get there in time.
There was a panda car there already when he arrived. Janice Hogg and another uniformed officer were standing uncertainly by the low railing, watching a young man lean into the wind, his arms spread like Christ on the cross. "Don't just stand there," Maclennan said, turning his collar up against the rain. "There's a lifebelt further along. One of those ones with a rope. Get it, now."
The male constable sprinted off in the direction Maclennan was pointing in. The detective climbed over the railing and took a couple of steps forward. "All right, son," he said gently.
The young man turned and Maclennan realized that it was Davey Kerr. A wrecked and ruined Davey Kerr, to be sure. But there was no mistaking that elfin face, those terrified Bambi eyes. "You're too late," he slurred, his body wavering drunkenly.
"It's never too late," Maclennan said. "Whatever's wrong, we can fix it."
Mondo turned to face Maclennan. He dropped his arms to his side. "Fix it?" His eyes blazed. "You're ones that broke it in the first place. Thanks to you lot, everybody thinks I'm a killer. I've got no friends, I've got no future."
"Of course you've got friends. Alex, Ziggy, Tom. They're your friends." The wind howled and the rain battered his face, but Maclennan was oblivious to everything except the frightened face before him.
"Some friends. They don't want me, because I tell the truth." Mondo's hand came up to his mouth and he chewed at a fingernail. "They hate me."
"I don't think so." Maclennan took a small step nearer. Another couple of feet and he'd be within grabbing distance.
"No closer. You stay back. This is my business. Not yours." "Think about what you're doing here, Davey. Think about the people who love you. This is going to tear up your family."
Mondo shook his head. "They don't care about me. They've always loved my sister more than me."
"Tell me what's bothering you." Keep him talking, keep him alive, Maclennan willed himself. Let this not be another nightmare fuck-up.
"Are you deaf, man? I already told you," Mondo shouted, his face a rictus of pain. "You've ruined my life."
"That's not true. You've got a great future."
"Not anymore, I haven't." He spread his arms like wings again. "Nobody understands what I'm going through."
"Let me understand." Maclennan edged forward. Mondo tried to step sideways but his drunken feet slithered on the thin wet grass. His face was a mask of shocked horror. In a terrible pantomimic cartwheel, he struggled against the pull of gravity. For a few drawn-out seconds, it looked as if he would succeed.
Then his feet went from under him and he disappeared from sight in one shocking moment.
Maclennan lunged forward, but far too late. He teetered on the edge, but the wind was on his side and held him till he had his balance again. He looked down. He thought he saw the splash. Then he saw Mondo's white face through a break in the white froth of water. He whirled round as Janice and the other constable reached his side. Another police car drew up, disgorging Jimmy Lawson and two other uniformed officers. "The lifebelt," Maclennan shouted. "Hold on to the rope."
Already, he was tearing off his coat and jacket, slipping out of his shoes. Maclennan grabbed the lifebelt and looked down again. This time, he saw an arm black against the foam. He took a deep breath and launched himself into space.
The drop was heart-stopping in its suddenness. Buffeted by the wind, Maclennan felt weightless and insignificant. It was over in seconds. Hitting the water was like falling on to solid ground. It knocked the breath from him. Gasping and swallowing great mouthfuls of freezing salt water, Maclennan struggled to the surface. All he could see was water, spray and spume. He kicked out with his legs, trying to orientate himself.
Then, in a trough between the waves, he caught a glimpse of Mondo. The lad was a few yards farther out, over to his left. Maclennan struck out toward him, hampered by the lifebelt round his arm. The sea lifted him and brought him crashing down again, carrying him right into Mondo. He grabbed him by the scruff of his neck.
Mondo flailed in his grip. At first, Maclennan thought he was determined to break free and drown himself. But then he understood that Mondo was fighting him for the lifebelt. Maclennan knew he couldn't hang on indefinitely. He let go of the lifebelt but managed to cling on to Mondo.