The Distant Echo

by Val McDermid

  And now this child of Gilbey would have everything that had been denied him, even though its father was one of those responsible for what he'd lost. It rankled with Macfadyen, biting deep to the core of his shriveled soul. It wasn't fair. It didn't deserve the secure, loving home he knew it was going to.

  It was time to make plans.

  * * *

  Weird kissed each of his children as they got into the family van. He didn't know when he'd see them again and saying good-bye in these circumstances felt like ripping a hole in his heart. But he knew this hurt was infinitesimal compared to how he'd feel if he did nothing and, by his inaction, left any of them in harm's way. A few hours driving would see them safe in the mountains, behind the stockade of an evangelical survivalist group whose leader had once been a deacon in Weird's church. He doubted the federal government could get to his kids there, far less a vengeful killer working on his own.

  Part of him thought he was overreacting, but that wasn't the part he was prepared to listen to. Years of talking to God had left him with little self-doubt when it came to decision-making. Weird folded his wife into his arms and held her close. "Thanks for taking this seriously," he said.

  "I've always taken you seriously, Tom," she murmured, stroking the silk of his shirt. "I want you to promise me you'll take as good care of yourself as you're taking of us."

  "I've got one phone call to make, then I'm out of here. Where I'm going, I won't be easy to follow or to find. We lay low for a while, trust to God, and I know we'll overcome this threat." He leaned down and kissed her long and hard. "Go with God."

  He stood back and waited while she climbed aboard and started the engine. The kids waved goodbye, their faces excited at the thought of an adventure that would take them out of school. He didn't envy them the harsh weather up in the mountains, but they'd do OK. He watched the van to the end of the street, then hurried back inside the house.

  A colleague in Seattle had put him on to a reliable, discreet private investigator. Weird dialed the cellphone number and waited. "Pete Makin here," the voice on the other end said in a slow Western drawl.

  "Mr. Makin? My name is Tom Mackie. Reverend Tom Mackie. I was given your name by Reverend Polk."

  "I do like a minister who puts work in the way of his flock," Makin said. "How can I be of service to you, Reverend?"

  "I need to find out who was responsible for sending a particular wreath to a funeral I attended recently in your area. Would that be possible?"

  "I guess. Do you have any details?"

  "I don't know the name of the florist who made it up, but it was a very distinctive arrangement. A circlet of white roses and rosemary. The card said, 'Rosemary for remembrance.' "

  "Rosemary for remembrance," Makin repeated. "You're right, it is unusual. I don't think I've ever come across anything quite like that. Whoever made it should remember it. Now, can you tell me when and where this funeral took place?"

  Weird passed on the information, carefully spelling Ziggy's name. "How long will it take you to come up with an answer?"

  "That depends. The funeral home may be able to give me a list of the florists who usually supply them. But if that doesn't pan out, I'm going to have to canvas a pretty wide area. So it could be a few hours, could be a few days. If you give me your contact details, I'll keep you posted."

  "I'm not going to be very easy to reach. I'll call in daily, if that's all right with you?"

  "That's fine by me. But I'll need a retainer from you before I can begin work, I'm afraid."

  Weird gave an ironic smile. These days, not even a man of the cloth could be trusted. "I'll wire it to you. How much do you need?"

  "Five hundred dollars will be sufficient." Makin gave Weird his payment details. "Soon as the money is with me, I'll be on the case. Thank you for your business, Reverend."

  Weird replaced the phone, strangely reassured by the conversation. Pete Makin hadn't wasted time asking why he wanted the information, nor had he made the job sound tougher than it was. He was, Weird thought, a man who could be trusted. He went upstairs and changed out of his clerical clothes into a comfortable pair of jeans, a cream Oxford cloth shirt and a soft leather jacket. His bag was already packed; all it lacked was the Bible that sat on his bedside table. He tucked it into a flap pocket, looked around the familiar room, then closed his eyes in prayer for a brief moment.

  Several hours later, he was walking out of the long-stay car park at Atlanta airport. He was in good time for his flight to San Diego. By nightfall, he'd be across the border, anonymous in some cheap motel in Tijuana. It wasn't an ambience he'd normally choose, which made it even safer.

  Whoever was out to get him, they weren't going to find him there.

  * * *

  Jackie glowered at Alex. "She's not here."

  "I know. It's you I wanted to see."

  She snorted, arms folded across her chest. Today, she was dressed in leather jeans and a tight black T-shirt. A diamond twinkled in her eyebrow. "Warning me off, eh?"

  "What makes you think that's any of my business?" Alex said coolly.

  She raised her eyebrows. "You're Scottish, you're male, she belongs to your family."

  "That chip on your shoulder's going to leave one hell of a grease stain on your T-shirt. Look, I'm here because I think you and I can do each other a favor."

  Jackie tilted her head at an insolent angle. "I don't do boys. Hadn't you worked that one out by now?"

  Exasperated, Alex turned to go. He wondered why he'd risked Lynn's anger for this. "I'm wasting my time here. I just thought you might appreciate a suggestion that could get you off the hook with the police."

  "Wait a minute. Why are you offering me a way out?"

  He paused, one foot on the stairs. "It's not because of your natural charm, Jackie. It's because it also offers me peace of mind."

  "Even if you do think I might have killed your brother-in-law."

  Alex grunted. "Believe me, I'd sleep a lot easier in my bed at night if I believed that."

  Jackie bristled. "Because then the dyke would have got what she deserved?" Irritated, Alex snapped, "Could you put your prejudices away for five minutes? The only reason I'd be glad if you'd killed Mondo is that it would mean I was safe."

  Jackie tilted her head to one side, intrigued in spite of herself. "That's a very strange thing to say."

  "You want to talk about it on the landing?"

  She gestured to the door and stepped back. "You'd better come in. What do you mean, 'safe'?" she asked as he walked to the nearest chair and sat down.

  "I've got a theory about Mondo's death. I don't know if you know, but another friend of mine was killed in suspicious circumstances a few weeks ago."

  Jackie nodded. "Hélène mentioned it. This was someone you and David were at university with, right?"

  "We grew up together. Four of us. We were best friends at school and we all went on to university together. One night, coming home drunk from a party, we stumbled over a young woman—"

  "I know about that, too," Jackie interrupted.

  Alex was surprised at how relieved he felt at not having to go over all the details of the aftermath of Rosie's murder. "Right. So you know the background. Now, I know this is going to sound crazy, but I think the reason Mondo and Ziggy are dead is that someone is taking revenge for Rosie Duff. That's the girl that died," he added.

  "Why?" In spite of herself, Jackie was all attention now, head forward, elbows on her knees. The whiff of a good story was powerful enough to put her hostility on hold.

  "It sounds so insignificant," Alex said, then told her about the wreaths. "Her full name was Rosemary," he finished off.

  She raised her eyebrows. "That's creepy shit," she said. "I've never come across a wreath like that. It's hard to interpret it except as a reference to this woman. I can see why it would do your head in."

  "The police couldn't. They acted like I was a little old lady afraid of the dark."

  Jackie made a scornful nois
e in the back of her throat. "Well, we both know how smart the police are. So what is it you think I can do?"

  Alex looked embarrassed. "Lynn had this notion that, if we could find out who really killed Rosie all those years ago, then whoever is taking it out on us will see they have to stop. Before it's too late for the two of us that are left."

  "It makes sense. Can't you persuade the police to reopen the case? With the techniques they have nowadays…"

  "It's already been reopened. Fife Police are doing a review of cold cases, and this is one of them. But they seem to have hit a brick wall, mostly because they've lost the physical evidence. Lynn has this idea that if we can track down the forensic scientist who did the original report, he might be able to tell us more than he put in it."

  Jackie nodded, understanding. "Sometimes they leave things out to avoid giving the defense any leverage. So you want me to track this guy down and interview him?"

  "Something like that. I thought you might be able to pretend you were going to do an in-depth feature on the case, focusing on the original investigation. Maybe you could persuade the police to give you access to material they wouldn't readily show me?"

  She shrugged. "It's worth a try."

  "Then you'll do it?"

  "I'll be honest with you, Alex. I can't say I've got any great interest in saving your skin. But you're right. I've got something at stake here too. Helping you find who killed David gets me off the hook. So, who should I speak to?"

  34

  The message on James Lawson's desk simply said, "The cold case team would like to see you asap." It didn't sound like news of disaster. He walked into the squadroom with an air of cautious optimism which was immediately vindicated by the sight of a bottle of Famous Grouse and half a dozen plastic cups in the hands of his detectives. He grinned. "This looks very like a celebration to me," he said.

  DI Robin Maclennan stepped forward, offering the ACC a whiskey. "I've just had a message from Greater Manchester Police. They arrested a guy on suspicion of rape a couple of weeks ago in Rochdale. When they ran the DNA results through the computer, they got a hit."

  Lawson stopped in his tracks. "Lesley Cameron?" Robin nodded. Lawson took the whiskey and raised his cup in a silent toast. As with the Rosie Duff case, Lawson would never forget Lesley Cameron's murder. A student at the university, she'd been raped and strangled on her way back to her halls of residence. As with Rosie, they'd never found her killer. For a while, the detectives had tried to link the two cases, but there weren't sufficient similarities to justify the connection. It wasn't enough simply to say that there were no other rape-murders in St. Andrews during the period in question. He'd been a junior CID detective then and he remembered the debate. Personally, he'd never gone for the linkage theory. "I remember it well," he said.

  "We ran DNA tests on her clothes, but there was no match in the system then," Robin continued, his lean face revealing previously unseen laughter lines. "So I put it on the back burner and carried on checking out subsequent sex offenders. Got nowhere. But then we got this call from GMP. Looks like we might have got a result."

  Lawson clapped him on the shoulder. "Well done, Robin. You'll be going down to do the interview?" he asked.

  "You bet. I can't wait to see the look on this scumbag's face when he hears what I want to question him about."

  "That's great news." Lawson beamed at the rest of the team. "You see? All it takes is that one lucky break and you've got a success on your hands. How are the rest of you doing? Karen, did you get anywhere tracking down Rosie Duff's ex-boyfriend? The one we think is Macfadyen's father?"

  Karen nodded. "John Stobie. The local lads had a word with him. And they got a result of sorts too. Turns out Stobie has the perfect alibi. He broke his leg in a motorbike accident at the end of November, 1978. The night Rosie was murdered, he had a stookie from thigh to toe. There's no way he was running around St. Andrews in the middle of a blizzard."

  Lawson raised his eyebrows. "Christ, anybody would think Stobie had brittle bones. Presumably they checked his medical records?"

  "Stobie gave them permission. And it looks like he was telling the truth. So that's the end of that."

  Lawson turned slightly, cutting himself and Karen off from the others. "As you say, Karen." He sighed. "Maybe I should put Macfadyen on to Stobie. It might get him off my case."

  "He still hassling you?" "A couple of times a week. I'm beginning to wish he'd never come out of the woodwork."

  "I've still got to interview the other three witnesses," Karen said.

  Lawson pulled a face. "Actually, there's only two. Apparently, Malkiewicz died in a suspected arson just before Christmas. And Alex Gilbey has got it into his head that now David Kerr's been murdered too, there's some mad vigilante out there picking them off one by one."

  "What?"

  "He came in to see me a couple of days ago. It's paranoia run mad, but I don't want to encourage him. So maybe it's best if you just leave the witness interviews. I can't see that they'd be any use after all this time."

  Karen thought about objecting. Not that she expected anything significant to turn up by talking to her witnesses, but she was too dogged a detective to be comfortable leaving any avenue unexplored. "You don't think he could be right? I mean, it's a bit of a coincidence. Macfadyen appears on the scene, finds out we've no hope of catching his mother's killer, then two of the original suspects wind up murdered."

  Lawson rolled his eyes. "You've been stuck in this investigation room for too long, Karen. You're starting to hallucinate. Of course Macfadyen isn't going around doing a Charles Bronson. He's a respectable professional man, for heaven's sake, not some demented vigilante. And we're not going to insult him by interrogating him about two murders that didn't even happen on our patch."

  "No, sir," Karen said, sighing.

  Lawson put a paternal hand on her arm. "So let's forget about Rosie Duff for the time being. It's going nowhere." He moved back into the main group. "Robin, isn't Lesley Cameron's sister an offender profiler?"

  "That's right. Dr. Fiona Cameron. She was involved in the Drew Shand case in Edinburgh a few years back."

  "I remember now. Well, maybe you should give Dr. Cameron a courtesy call. Let her know we're questioning a suspect. And make sure the press office knows too. But only after you've spoken to Dr. Cameron. I don't want her reading it in the papers before she hears it from the horse's mouth." It was clearly the end of the conversation. Lawson knocked back his whiskey and headed for the door. He paused on the threshold and turned back. "Great result, Robin. This makes us all look good. Thank you."

  * * *

  Weird pushed his plate away from him. Greasy tourist food, and in helpings large enough to feed an entire family of poor Mexicans for a day or two, he thought miserably. He hated being wrenched from his daily round like this. All the things that made his life enjoyable felt like a distant dream. There were limits to the comfort that could be extorted from faith alone. Proof, if ever he needed it, that he fell far short of his own ideals.

  As the waiter cleared away the debris of his burrito special, Weird pulled out his phone and called Pete Makin. Greetings over, he cut straight to the chase. "Have you made any progress," he asked.

  "Only of the negative kind. The funeral home gave me the names of three stores who normally supply their floral tributes. But none of them ever created a wreath like the one you described to me. They all agreed it sounded unusual, distinctive. Something they'd recall if it had been one of theirs."

  "What now, then?"

  "Well," Makin drawled. "There are maybe five or six florists in the immediate area. I'm going to do the rounds of them, see what I come up with. But it may take a day or two. I'm in court tomorrow, testifying in a fraud case. It could run over to the next day. But, rest assured, Reverend. I'll get back to this just as soon as I can."

  "I appreciate you being so straightforward with me, Mr. Makin. I'll give you a ring in a couple of days and see how you're getting o
n." Weird put his phone back in his pocket. It wasn't over yet. Not by a long chalk.

  * * *

  Jackie put fresh batteries in her tape recorder, checked she had a couple of pens in her bag, then left her car. She'd been pleasantly surprised by the helpfulness of the police press officer she'd called after Alex's visit.

  She'd had her pitch ready. She was writing a major magazine article comparing the methods the police used in a murder inquiry twenty-five years ago with how they ran an investigation now. It had struck her that the easiest way to get a handle on an old investigation would be to piggyback a cold case review such as Fife were running. That way, she'd be dealing with an officer who was completely current with the details of the case. She'd emphasized that there was no question of criticizing the police; this was to be purely about the changes in procedure and practice that had been brought about by scientific developments and legal changes.

  The press officer had called her back the following day. "You're in luck. We've got a case from almost exactly twenty-five years ago. And it so happens that our Assistant Chief Constable was the first police officer at the scene. And he's agreed to give you an interview about that. I've also arranged for you to meet DC Karen Pirie, who's been working on the case review. She's got all the details at her fingertips."

  So here she was, breaching the bastion of Fife Police. Jackie didn't normally feel nervous before an interview. She'd been in the game long enough for it to hold no terrors for her. She'd dealt with every kind of interviewee; the shy, the brash, the excited, the frightened, the self-publicizing and the blasé, the hardened criminal and the raw victim. But today, there was definitely a buzz of adrenaline in her blood. She hadn't been lying when she'd told Alex that she had something at stake here too. She'd lain awake for hours after they'd talked, keenly aware of how much damage suspicion over David Kerr's death could do to her life. So she'd prepared herself for today, dressing conservatively and deliberately trying to look as unthreatening as possible. For once, there were more holes in her ears than rings.