The Distant Echo

by Val McDermid

  It was hard to see the young police constable in ACC Lawson, she thought as she settled herself opposite him. He looked like one of those people who have been born with the cares of the world on their shoulders, and today they seemed to weigh particularly heavy on him. He couldn't have been much over fifty, but he looked as if he'd be more at home on a bowling green than running criminal investigations throughout Fife. "Funny idea, this story of yours," he said, once the introductions were done with.

  "Not really. People take so much for granted now in police investigations. It's good to remind them how far we've traveled in a relatively short period of time. Of course, I need to learn much more than I'll ever be able to use in my final article. You always end up throwing away about ninety percent of the research."

  "And who's this article for?" he asked conversationally.

  " Vanity Fair," Jackie said definitely. It was always better to lie about commissions. It reassured people that you weren't wasting their time.

  "Well, here I am at your disposal," he said with forced cheerfulness, spreading his hands wide.

  "I appreciate it. I know how busy you must be. Now, can we go back to that December night in 1978? What brought you into the case?"

  Lawson breathed heavily through his nose. "I was working the night shift in the patrol car. That meant I was out on the road all night, except for refreshment breaks. I didn't drive around all night, you understand." One corner of his mouth rose in a halfsmile. "We had budgetary restraints even then. I wasn't supposed to drive more than forty miles on a shift. So I'd cruise around the town center when the pubs were closing, then I'd find a quiet spot and park there until I got called out on a shout. Which didn't happen that often. St. Andrews was a fairly quiet town, especially during the university holidays."

  "It must have been pretty boring," she sympathized.

  "You're not kidding. I used to take a transistor radio with me, but there was never much worth listening to. Most nights I'd park up by the entrance to the Botanic Gardens. I liked it up there. It was nice and quiet, but you could be anywhere in the town in minutes. That night, the weather was hellish. It had been snowing on and off all day, and by the middle of the night it was lying pretty thick. I'd had a quiet night as a result. The weather was keeping most folk in their own homes. Then, around four o'clock, I saw this figure looming up through the snow. I got out of the car and, I'll be honest with you, I wondered for a moment if I was going to be attacked by a drunken maniac. This young lad was heaving for breath, blood all over him, sweat running down his face. He blurted out that there was a lassie on Hallow Hill who had been attacked."

  "You must have been shocked," Jackie prompted him.

  "I thought at first it was some drunken student wind-up. But he was very insistent. He told me he'd stumbled over her in the snow and that she was bleeding badly. I realized pretty quickly that he was genuinely in a state, not putting it on. So I radioed back to base and told them I was investigating a report of an injured woman on Hallow Hill. I got the lad into the car…"

  "This was Alex Gilbey, right?"

  Lawson raised his eyebrows. "You've done your homework."

  She shrugged. "I read the newspaper cuttings, that's all. So, you took Gilbey back to Hallow Hill? What did you find there?"

  Lawson nodded. "By the time we got there, Rosie Duff was dead. There were three other young men around the body. It then became my job to secure the scene and radio for backup. I called for uniform and CID back-up and moved the four witnesses away from the scene, back down the hill. I freely admit, I was all at sea. I'd never seen anything like this, and I didn't know at that point if I was standing in the middle of a blizzard with four killers."

  "Surely, if they'd killed her, the last thing they would have done was run for help?"

  "Not necessarily. They were intelligent young men, perfectly capable of coming up with the double bluff. I saw it as my job to say nothing that would indicate I had any suspicions, for fear that they'd run off into the night and leave us with an even bigger problem. After all, I had no idea who they were."

  "Presumably you succeeded, since they waited for your colleagues to arrive. What happened then? Procedurally, I mean?" Jackie dutifully listened while Lawson ran through everything that had happened at the crime scene, up to the point where he had taken the four young men back to the police station.

  "That was really the extent of my direct involvement with the case," Lawson concluded. "All the subsequent inquiries were dealt with by CID officers. We had to draft in men from other divisions, we didn't have the staffing levels to cover a case like this ourselves." Lawson pushed back his chair. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll have DC Pirie come up and get you. She's better placed than me to run through the case with you."

  Jackie picked up her tape recorder but didn't turn it off. "You've got very good recall of that night," she said, letting admiration seep into her voice.

  Lawson pressed the button on his intercom. "Ask Karen to come up, would you, Margaret?" He gave Jackie the sort of smile that reveals vanity satisfied. "You've got to be meticulous in this job," he said. "I always kept careful notes. But you have to remember, murder is a pretty rare occurrence in St. Andrews. We've only had a handful of instances in my ten years stationed there. So naturally it sticks in my mind."

  "And you never came near to arresting anyone?"

  Lawson pursed his lips. "No. And that's a very hard thing for police officers to live with. The finger pointed at the four lads who found the body, but there was never anything more than circumstantial evidence against any of them. Because of where the body was found, I had a hunch it might have been some sort of pagan ritual killing. But nothing ever came of that idea, and nothing like it ever happened again on our patch. I'm sorry to say that Rosie Duff's killer went free. Of course, men who commit this kind of crime often go on to repeat it. So for all we know he may be behind bars for another murder."

  There was a knock at the door and Lawson called, "Come in." The woman who walked in was the diametric opposite to Jackie. Where the journalist was fluid and lithe, Karen Pirie was solid and graceless. What united them was the obvious spark of intelligence each recognized in the other. Lawson performed the introductions then skilfully steered them toward the door. "Good luck with your article," he said as he closed the door firmly behind them.

  Karen led the way up one flight of stairs to the cold cases review room. "You're based in Glasgow?" she asked as they climbed.

  "Born and bred. It's a great city. All human life is here, as they say."

  "Handy for a journalist. So what got you interested in this case?"

  Jackie swiftly ran through her cover story again. It seemed to make sense to Karen. She pushed open the door of the squadroom and led the way inside. Jackie looked around, noting the pinboards covered with photographs, maps and memos. A couple of people sitting behind computers glanced up as they walked in, then returned to their work. "It goes without saying, by the way, that anything you see or hear in this room relating to current investigations or to any other case should be treated as confidential. Are you clear about that?"

  "I'm not a crime reporter. I have no interest in anything other than what we are here to discuss. So no sneaky stuff, OK?"

  Karen smiled. She'd encountered a fair few journalists in her time, and most of them she wouldn't trust not to steal an ice-cream from a toddler. But this woman seemed different. Whatever she was hungry for, it wasn't a quick, devious hit and run. Karen showed Jackie to a long trestle table set against one wall where she'd arranged the material from the original investigation. "I don't know how much detail you want," she said dubiously, eyeing the stack of files in front of them.

  "I need to have a sense of how the investigation progressed. What avenues were explored. And of course"— Jackie pulled a self-deprecating expression out of her bag of tricks—"because this is journalism and not history, I need the names of the people concerned, and any background you have on them. Police officers, pat
hologist, forensic scientists. That sort of thing." She was so smooth, water would have slithered off her like rain on a duck's feathers.

  "Sure, I can give you names. Background I'm a bit sketchy on. I was only three when this case hit the bricks running. And of course, the senior investigating officer, Barney Maclennan, died during the investigation. You knew that, right?" Jackie nodded. Karen continued. "The only one of the players I've ever met is David Soanes, the forensics guy. He did the work, though it was actually his boss that signed off on the report."

  "Why was that?" Jackie asked nonchalantly, trying not to show her elation at getting what she wanted so easily and quickly.

  "Standard practice. The person who actually signs off on the reports is always the head of the lab, even though he might never have touched any of the exhibits. It impresses the jury."

  "So much for expert testimony," Jackie said sardonically.

  "You do what it takes to put the bad guys away," Karen said. It was clear from her weary tone that she couldn't be bothered going on the defensive over such a selfevident point. "Anyway, in this instance, we couldn't have been better served. David Soanes is one of the most painstaking guys I've ever come across." She smiled. "And these days, he's the guy who signs off on other people's reports. David's the Professor of Forensic Science at Dundee University now. They supply all our forensic services."

  "Maybe I could talk to him."

  Karen shrugged. "He's a pretty approachable guy. So, where should we start?"

  Two mostly tedious hours later, Jackie managed to make her escape. She knew more than she could possibly want to about police procedure in Fife in the late 1970s. There was nothing more frustrating than getting the information you needed at the start of an interview and then having to carry on regardless, for fear of revealing a hidden agenda.

  Of course, Karen hadn't let her see the original forensic report. But Jackie hadn't expected that. She'd got what she came for. Now it was up to Alex.

  35

  Alex stared down into the moses basket. She was here, where she belonged. Their daughter, in their house. Loosely swaddled in a white blanket, her face scrunched up in sleep, Davina made his heart sing. She'd lost that pinched look that had frightened him so much in the first few days of her life. Now, she looked like other babies, her face growing more individual. He wanted to draw her every day of her life, so he'd never miss a single nuance of the changes she'd go through.

  She filled his senses. If he leaned down close and held his breath, he could hear the faint susurration of her breathing. His nostrils trembled at the unmistakable smell of baby. Alex knew he loved Lynn; but he'd never felt this overwhelming protective passion in his heart before. Lynn was right; he had to do whatever he could to make sure he'd be there to see his daughter grow up. He decided to call Paul later, to share this momentous evening. He'd have done it if Ziggy had still been alive, and Paul deserved to know he was still part of their lives.

  The distant sound of the doorbell interrupted his devotions. Alex gave his sleeping daughter the lightest of touches, then walked backward out of the room. He reached the front door seconds behind Lynn, who looked thunderstruck to see Jackie standing on the doorstep. "What are you doing here?" she demanded.

  "Didn't Alex tell you?" Jackie drawled.

  "Tell me what?" Lynn rounded on Alex.

  "I asked Jackie to help me," Alex said.

  "That's right." Jackie seemed more amused than offended.

  "You asked her?" Lynn made no attempt to disguise her contempt. "A woman who had a motive for murdering my brother and the kind of contacts to get it done? Alex, how could you?"

  "Because she's got something to gain, too. Which means I could trust her not to rat us out for the sake of a page lead," he said, trying to calm Lynn down before Jackie took the huff and marched off into the night without revealing what she'd learned.

  "I'm not having her in my house," Lynn said categorically.

  Alex held his hands up. "Fine. Just let me get my coat. We'll go to the pub, if that's all right with you, Jackie?"

  She shrugged. "Whatever. But you're buying."

  They walked down the gentle slope to the pub in silence. Alex didn't feel inclined to apologize for Lynn's hostility and Jackie couldn't be bothered to make an issue of it. When they were settled with a couple of glasses of red wine, Alex raised his eyebrows interrogatively. "Well? Any joy?"

  Jackie looked smug. "I have the name of the forensic scientist who carried out the work on the Rosie Duff case. And the beauty of it is that he's still in the game. He's a professor at Dundee. His name is David Soanes, and apparently he's shit hot." "So when can you go and see him?" Alex asked.

  "I'm not going to go and see him, Alex. That's your job."

  "My job? I'm not a journalist. Why would he talk to me?"

  "You're the one with something at stake here. You throw yourself on his mercy and ask for any information he can give you that might help move the case forward."

  "I don't know how to conduct an interview," Alex protested. "And why would Soanes tell me anything? He's not going to want it to look as if there were things he overlooked before."

  "Alex, you talked me into going out on a limb for you, and frankly I don't like you or your offensive, small-minded wife. So I think you can probably talk David Soanes into telling you what you want to know. Especially since you're not asking about things he overlooked. You'll be asking about things that might not have been susceptible to analysis, things he justifiably didn't include in his report. If he cares about his work, then he should want to help. He's also a lot less likely to talk to a journalist who could make him look incompetent." Jackie swallowed some wine, made a face and got to her feet. "Let me know when you've got something that gets me off the hook."

  * * *

  Lynn sat in the conservatory, watching the lights on the estuary. They were faintly haloed with damp air, investing them with more mysteriousness than they merited. She heard the front door close and Alex's cry of, "I'm back." But before he could join her, the doorbell pealed out again. Whoever it was, she wasn't in the mood.

  Mumbled voices grew more distinct as they approached, but still she couldn't tell who their latest visitor was. Then the door opened and Weird strode in. "Lynn," he cried. "I hear you have a beautiful daughter to show me."

  "Weird," Lynn exclaimed, astonishment on her face. "You're the last person I expected to see."

  "Good," he said. "Let's hope that's how everybody else is thinking." He looked down at her with concern. "How are you holding up?"

  Lynn leaned into his hug. "I know it sounds stupid, given how little we saw of Mondo, but I miss him."

  "Of course you do. We all do. And we always will. He was part of us, and now he isn't anymore. Knowing he's with the Lord is a small consolation for what we've lost." They were quiet for a moment, then Lynn moved away. "But what are you doing here?" she asked. "I thought you went straight back to America after the funeral?"

  "I did. I packed my wife and kids off to the mountains, somewhere they'll be safe from anybody who has an issue with me. And then I made myself disappear. I crossed the border into Mexico. Lynn, never go to Tijuana unless you have a cast-iron stomach. The food is the worst in the world, but what really gives the soul indigestion is the collision between the extravagant riches of America and the grinding poverty of those Mexicans. I was ashamed of my adopted countrymen and women. Do you know, the Mexicans even paint their donkeys in stripes, like zebras, so the tourists can have their pictures taken with them? That's how far we've driven them."

  "Spare us the sermon, Weird. Cut to the chase," Lynn complained.

  Weird grinned. "I'd forgotten quite how forthright you can be, Lynn. Well, I felt pretty uneasy after Mondo's funeral. So I hired a private eye in Seattle. I wanted to find out who sent that wreath to Ziggy's funeral. And he came back with an answer. An answer that gave me good reason to come back here. Plus, I figured this was the last place that anybody looking for me would expec
t to find me. Way too near to home."

  Alex rolled his eyes. "You really have learned a few theatrical tricks over the years, haven't you? Are you going to tell us what you found out?"

  "The man who sent the wreath lives right here in Fife. St. Monans, to be precise. I don't know who he is, or how he's connected to Rosie Duff. But his name is Graham Macfadyen."

  Alex and Lynn exchanged a look of anxiety. "We know who he is," Alex said. "Or we can at least make an educated guess."

  Now it was Weird's turn to look puzzled and frustrated. "You do? How?"

  "He's Rosie Duff's son," Lynn said.

  Weird's eyes widened. "She had a son?"

  "Nobody knew about him at the time. He was adopted at birth. He must have been three or four when she died," Alex said.

  "Oh my," Weird said. "Well, that makes sense, doesn't it? I take it he only found out about his mother's murder recently?"

  "He went to see Lawson when the cold case review was launched. He'd only started trying to trace his birth mother a few months before that."

  "There's your motive, if he thought you four were responsible for her murder," Lynn said. "We need to find out more about this Macfadyen."

  "We need to find out if he was in the States the week Ziggy died," Alex said.

  "How do we do that?" Lynn said.

  Weird raised a hand. "Atlanta is Delta's hub. One of my flock has a pretty senior position there. I'd guess he can maybe get hold of passenger manifests. The airlines swap information like that all the time, apparently. And I have Macfadyen's creditcard details, which might speed things up. I'll call him later, if I may?"