by Val McDermid
That was something else that would never happen again.
"Alex?" His wife's voice cut into his numb reverie. He'd been so locked inside himself, he hadn't noticed her car arrive, nor the sound of her footfalls. He half turned toward the faint waft of her perfume.
"Why are you sitting in the dark? And why are you home so early?" There was no accusation in her voice, just concern.
Alex shook his head. He didn't want to share the news.
"Something's wrong," Lynn insisted, covering the distance between them and dropping into the chair next to him. She put a hand on his arm. "Alex? What is it?"
At the sound of her disquiet, the anesthetic of shock vanished abruptly. A searing pain knifed through him, taking his breath away momentarily. He met Lynn's worried eyes and flinched. Without words, he put his hand out and laid it gently on the swell of her stomach.
Lynn covered his hand with hers. "Alex… tell me what's happened."
His voice sounded alien to him, a cracked and broken simulacrum of his normal articulation. "Ziggy," he managed. "Ziggy's dead."
Lynn's mouth opened. A frown of incredulity gathered. "Ziggy?"
Alex cleared his throat. "It's true," he said. "There was a fire. At the house. In the night."
Lynn shivered. "No. Not Ziggy. There's been a mistake."
"No mistake. Paul told me. He phoned to tell me."
"How could that be? Him and Ziggy, they shared a bed. How can Paul be all right and Ziggy dead?" Lynn's voice was loud, her disbelief echoing around the conservatory.
"Paul wasn't there. He was giving a guest lecture at Stanford." Alex closed his eyes at the thought of it. "He flew back in the morning. Drove straight home from the airport. And found the firemen and the cops poking through what used to be their house."
Silent tears sparkled on Lynn's eyelashes. "That must have been… oh, dear God. I can't take it in."
Alex folded his arms across his chest. "You don't think of the people you love being so fragile. One minute they're there, the next minute they're not."
"Do they have any idea what happened?"
"They told Paul it was too early to say. But he said they were asking him some pretty sharp questions. He thinks it maybe looks suspicious, and they're thinking him being away was a bit too convenient."
"Oh God, poor Paul." Lynn's fingers worried at each other in her lap. "Losing Ziggy, that's hellish enough. But to have the police on his back too… Poor, poor Paul."
"He asked me if I'd tell Weird and Mondo." Alex shook his head. "I haven't been able to do it yet."
"I'll call Mondo," Lynn said. "But later. It's not as if anybody else is going to tell him first."
"No, I should call him. I told Paul…"
"He's my brother. I know how he is. But you'll have to deal with Weird. I don't think
I could handle being told that Jesus loves me right now."
"I know. But somebody should tell him." Alex managed a bitter smile. "He'll probably want to preach a sermon at the funeral."
Lynn looked appalled. "Oh, no. You can't let that happen."
"I know." Alex leaned forward and lifted his glass. He swallowed the last few drops of brandy. "You know what day it is?"
Lynn froze. "Oh, Jesus Christ Almighty."
* * *
The Reverend Tom Mackie replaced the phone in its cradle and caressed the silver gilt cross that lay on his purple silk cassock. His American congregation loved that they had a British minister and, since they could never distinguish between Scots and English, he satisfied their desire for display with the most lavish trappings of High Anglicanism. It was a vanity, he acknowledged, but essentially a harmless one.
However, his secretary had left for the day and the solitude of his empty office allowed him space to confront his confused emotional reaction to the shock of Ziggy Malkiewicz's death without having to assume a public face. While there was no lack of cynical manipulation in the way Weird dealt with the practice of ministry, the beliefs that underpinned his evangelical regime were sincerely and deeply held. And he knew in his heart that Ziggy was a sinner, tainted irrevocably by the stain of his homosexuality. There was no room for doubt on that point in Weird's fundamentalist universe. The Bible was clear in its prohibition and its abhorrence of the sin. Salvation would have been hard to come by even if Ziggy had earnestly repented, but, as far as Weird was aware, Ziggy had died as he had lived, embracing his sin with enthusiasm. Doubtless the manner of his death would somehow connect back to the transgression of his lifestyle. The link would have been more obvious if the Lord had visited the plague of AIDS upon him. But Weird had already mentally created a scenario that would lay the blame at the door of Ziggy's own perilous choice. Perhaps some casual pickup had waited till Ziggy was asleep to rob him and then set a fire to cover his crime. Perhaps they had been smoking marijuana and a smoldering joint had been the source of the burning.
However it had happened, Ziggy's death was nevertheless a powerful reminder to Weird that it was possible to hate the sin and yet love the sinner. There was no denying the reality of the friendship that had sustained him through his teenage years, when his own wild spirit had blinded him to the light, when he truly had been Weird. Without Ziggy, he'd never have made it through his adolescence without ending up in serious trouble. Or worse.
Without prompting, his memory played a flashback sequence. Winter, 1972. The year of their O Grade exams. Alex had acquired a talent for breaking into cars without damaging the locks. It involved a flexible strip of metal and a lot of dexterity. It gave them scope to be anarchic without really being criminal. The routine was simple. A couple of illicit Carlsberg Specials in the Harbor Bar, then they'd sally forth into the night. They'd pick half a dozen cars at random between the pub and the bus station. Alex would shoogle his metal band inside the car door and pop the lock. Then Ziggy or Weird would climb into the car and scribble their message across the inside of the windscreen. In red lipstick, previously shoplifted from Boots the Chemist and which was a bugger to clean off, they'd scribble the chorus from Bowie's "Laughing Gnome." It always reduced the four of them to helpless mirth.
Then they'd stagger off, giggling like fools, being careful to lock the car door behind them. It was a game that managed to be simultaneously stupid and brilliant.
One night, Weird had climbed behind the wheel of a Ford Escort. While Ziggy was writing, he'd flipped open the ashtray and gazed with delight at a spare key. Knowing that larceny wasn't on the agenda and that Ziggy would manage to stop him having his fun, Weird had waited till his friend got out of the car, then he'd fumbled the key into the ignition and started the engine. He flicked the lights on, revealing shock on the faces of the other three. His first idea had simply been to give his friends a surprise. But confronted with the possibility of mayhem, Weird had let himself be carried away. He'd never driven before, but knew the theory and he'd watched his dad often enough to be convinced he could pull it off. He crashed the car into gear, released the handbrake and juddered forward.
He kangarooed out of the parking space and headed for the exit that would bring him on to the Prom, the two-mile strip that ran alongside the sea wall. The streetlights were an orange blur, the scarlet letters of the message turned black on the windscreen as he careered along, crunching up through the gears as he went. He could hardly steer straight, he was laughing so hard.
The end of the Prom was upon him unbelievably quickly. He wrenched the wheel to the right, somehow managing to keep control as he rounded the bend past the bus garage. Thankfully there were few cars on the road, most people having elected to stay at home on a cold and frosty February night. He jammed his foot on the accelerator, shooting up Invertiel Road, under the railway bridge and past Jawbanes Road.
His speed was his undoing. As the road climbed toward a left-hand bend, Weird hit an ice-covered puddle and found himself spinning. Time decelerated and the car whirled in a slow waltz through three hundred and sixty degrees. He yanked on the wheel, but it
only seemed to make things worse. The windscreen was filled with a steep grassy bank, then suddenly the car was on its side and he was slammed against the door, the window-winder smashing into his ribs.
He had no idea how long he lay there, dazed and in pain, listening to the tick,tickof the stalled engine as it cooled in the night air. The next thing he knew was the door above his head disappearing, to be replaced by Alex and Ziggy staring down with frightened faces. "You fucking moron," Ziggy shouted, as soon as he realized Weird was more or less OK.
Somehow, he managed to struggle upright as they hauled him out, screaming in pain as his broken ribs protested. He lay panting on the frosted grass, each breath a knife of agony. It took a minute or so to realize that an Austin Allegro was parked on the road behind the wrecked Escort, its lights cutting through the darkness and casting strange shadows.
Ziggy had dragged him to his feet and down the verge. "You fucking moron," he kept repeating as he shoved him into the backseat of the Allegro. Through a daze of pain, Weird heard the negotiation.
"What are we going to do now?" Mondo asked.
"Alex is going to drive you all back to the Prom and you're going to put this car back where you found it. Then you're going home. OK?"
"But Weird's hurt," Mondo protested. "He needs to go to the hospital."
"Yeah, right. Let's advertise the fact that he's been in a car crash." Ziggy leaned into the car and held his hand in front of Weird's face. "How many fingers, moron?"
Woozily, Weird focused. "Two," he groaned.
"See? He's not even concussed. Amazing. I always thought he had concrete between his ears. It's just his ribs, Mondo. All the hospital will do is give him some painkillers."
"But he's in agony. What's he going to say when he gets home?"
"That's his problem. He can say he fell down some stairs. Anything." He leaned in again. "You're just going to have to grin and bear it, moron."
Weird pushed himself upright, wincing. "I'll manage."
"And what are you going to be doing?" Alex demanded as he slid behind the wheel of the Allegro.
"I'll give you five minutes to get clear. Then I'm going to set fire to the car." Thirty years on, Weird could still remember the look of shock on Alex's face. "What?"
Ziggy rubbed a hand over his face. "It's covered in our fingerprints. It's got our trademark all over the windscreen. When we were just scribbling on windscreens, the police weren't going to bother with us. But here's a stolen, wrecked car. You think they're going to treat that like a joke? We've got to burn it out. It's totalled anyway."
There was no possible argument. Alex started the engine and drove off without a hitch, looking for a side road to turn around in. It was days later when Weird finally thought to ask: "Where did you learn to drive?"
"Last summer. On the beach on Barra. My cousin showed me how."
"And how did you get the Allegro started without keys?"
"Did you not recognize the car?"
Weird shook his head.
"It belongs to 'Sammy' Seale."
"The metalwork teacher?"
"Exactly."
Weird grinned. The first thing they'd made in metalwork was a magnetized box to stick to a car chassis to hold a spare set of keys. "Lucky break."
"Lucky for you, moron. It was Ziggy that spotted it."
How different it all could have been, Weird mused. Without Ziggy coming to the rescue, he'd have ended up in custody, with a police record, his life blown apart. Instead of abandoning him to the consequences of his own stupidity, Ziggy had found the means to save him. And he'd put himself on the line in the process. Setting a car ablaze was a big deal for an essentially law-abiding, ambitious lad. But Ziggy hadn't hesitated.
So now Weird had to return that and many other favors. He'd speak at Ziggy's funeral. He'd preach repentance and forgiveness. It was too late to save Ziggy, but with God's good grace he might just save another benighted soul.
23
Waiting was one of the things Graham Macfadyen did best. His adopted father had been a passionate amateur ornithologist, and the boy had been forced to spend long tracts of his youth killing time between sightings of birds sufficiently interesting to warrant the raise of binoculars to eyes. He'd learned stillness at an early age; anything to avoid the vicious edge of his father's sarcasm. The wounds of blame cut just as deep as physical blows and Macfadyen would do anything in his limited power to dodge them. The secret, he'd learned early on, was to dress for the weather. So although he'd spend most of the day enduring snow flurries and cold gusts of northerly wind, he was still comfortable in his down parka, his waterproof fleecelined trousers and his stout walking boots. He was most grateful for the shooting stick he'd brought with him, for his observation post offered nowhere to sit except gravestones. And that felt like bad manners.
He'd taken time off work. It had meant lying, but that couldn't be helped. He knew he was letting people down, that his absence might mean missing a crucial deadline. But some things were more important than hitting a contract payment date. And nobody would suspect someone as conscientious as him of faking it. Lying, like blending in and stillness, was something he did well. He didn't think Lawson had entertained the slightest flicker of doubt when he'd claimed to have loved his adopted parents. God knows, he'd tried to love them. But their emotional distance coupled with the constant attrition of their disapproval and disappointment had worn away his affections, leaving him numb and isolated. It would have been so different with his real mother, he felt sure. But he'd been deprived of the chance to find out, leaving him with nothing but a fantasy of somehow being instrumental in making someone pay for that. He'd had such high hopes of his interview with Lawson, but the incompetence of the police had yanked the ground from under his feet. Still, just because the obvious route had been closed off to him didn't mean he should give up his quest. He'd learned that persistence from years of writing program code.
He wasn't sure whether his vigil would pay off, but he'd felt driven to come here. If it didn't work, he'd find another way to get what he wanted. He'd arrived just after seven and made his way to the grave. He'd been there before, disappointed that it didn't make him feel any closer to the mother he'd never known. This time, he laid the discreet floral tribute at the foot of the headstone then made his way to the vantage point he'd scouted on his last visit. He would be mostly obscured by an ornate memorial to a former town councillor, but with a clear line of sight to Rosie's last resting place.
Someone would come. He'd felt sure of it. But now, as the hands of his watch moved toward seven o'clock, he began to wonder. To hell with what Lawson had told him about staying away from his uncles. He was going to make contact. He'd reckoned that approaching them in such a highly charged place might cut through their hostility and allow them to see him as someone who, like them, had a right to be considered part of Rosie's family. Now it was starting to look as if he'd miscalculated. The thought angered him.
Just then, he saw a darker shape against the graves. It resolved itself to the outline of a man, walking briskly along the path toward him. Macfadyen drew his breath in sharply.
Head down against the weather, the man left the path and picked his way confidently through the grave markers. As he grew closer, Macfadyen could see he carried a small posy of flowers. The man slowed down and came to a halt five feet from Rosie's gravestone. He bowed his head and stood for a long moment. As he bent to place the flowers, Macfadyen moved forward, the snow muffling his steps.
The man straightened and took a step backward, cannoning into Macfadyen. "What the…" he exclaimed, swinging round on his heel.
Macfadyen held up his hands in a placatory gesture. "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." He pushed back the hood of his parka, to appear less intimidating.
The man scowled at him, head to one side, staring intently at his face. "Do I know you?" he said, his voice as belligerent as his stance.
Macfadyen didn't hesitate. "I think you're my uncle,"
he said.
* * *
Lynn left Alex to make his phone call. Her sorrow felt like a solid uncomfortable lump in her chest. Distracted, she went through to the kitchen and diced chicken on automatic pilot, tossing it into a cast-iron casserole with some roughly chopped onions and peppers. She poured over a jar of ready-made sauce, added a slug of white wine and shoved it in the oven. As usual, she'd forgotten to preheat it. She pricked a couple of baking potatoes with a fork and placed them on the shelf above the casserole. Alex should have finished his call to Weird by now, she thought. She couldn't postpone talking to her brother any longer.
When she stopped to think about it, it seemed slightly odd to Lynn that, despite the blood ties, despite her contempt for Weird's brand of hellfire and damnation, Mondo had become the most disengaged member of the original quartet. She often thought that if it weren't for the fact that they were brother and sister, he'd have disappeared completely from Alex's radar. He was geographically closest, over in Glasgow. But by the end of their university career, it seemed he wanted to shed all the ties that bound him to his childhood and adolescence.
He'd been first to leave the country, heading off to France after graduation to pursue his ambition for a career in academe. He'd scarcely returned to Scotland in the following three years, not even showing up for their grandmother's funeral. She doubted whether he'd have bothered to attend her wedding to Alex if he hadn't been back in the UK by then, lecturing at Manchester University. Whenever Lynn had tried to discover the reason for his absence, he'd always evaded the issue. He'd always been good at avoidance, her big brother.