lines that seemed to work with other lassies. But he was sorry that her death had plummeted him into this difficult place where he didn’t belong.
What he really needed was sex. That would take his mind off the horrors of the night before. It would be a sort of therapy. Like getting back on the horse. Unfortunately, he lacked the amenity of a girlfriend in Kirkcaldy. Maybe he should make a couple of phone calls. One or two of his exes would be more than happy to renew their relationship. They’d be a willing ear for his woes and it would tide him over the holidays at least. Judith, maybe. Or Liz. Yeah, probably Liz. The chubby ones were always so pathetically grateful for a date, they came across with no effort at all. He could feel himself growing hard at the thought.
Just as he was about to get off the bed and go downstairs to the phone, there was a knock at his door. ‘Come in,’ he sighed wearily, wondering what his mother wanted now. He shifted his position to hide his budding erection.
But it wasn’t his mother. It was his fifteen-year-old sister Lynn. ‘Mum thought you might like a Coke,’ she said, waving the glass at him.
‘I can think of things I’d rather have,’ he said.
‘You must be really upset,’ Lynn said. ‘I can’t imagine what that must have been like.’
In the absence of a girlfriend, he’d have to make do with impressing his sister. ‘It was pretty tough,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want to go through that again in a hurry. And the police were Neanderthal imbeciles. Why they felt the need to interrogate us as if we were IRA bombers, I’ll never know. It took real guts to stand up to them, I can tell you.’
For some reason, Lynn wasn’t giving him the unthinking adoration and support he deserved. She leaned against the wall, her expression that of someone waiting for a break in the flow so she could get to what was really on her mind. ‘It must have done,’ she said mechanically.
‘We’ll probably have to face more questioning,’ he added.
‘It must have been awful for Alex. How is he?’
‘Gilly? Well, he’s hardly Mr Sensitive. He’ll get over it.’
‘Alex is a lot more sensitive than you give him credit for,’ Lynn said fiercely. ‘Just because he played rugby, you think he’s all muscle and no heart. He must be really torn up about it, especially with him knowing the girl.’
Mondo cursed inwardly. He’d momentarily forgotten the crush his sister had on Alex. She wasn’t in here to give him Coke and sympathy, she was here because it gave her an excuse to talk about Alex. ‘It’s probably just as well for him that he didn’t know her as well as he’d have liked to.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He fancied her something rotten. He even asked her out. Now, if she’d said yes, then you can bet your bottom dollar that Alex would be the prime suspect.’
Lynn flushed. ‘You’re making it up. Alex wouldn’t go around chasing barmaids.’
Mondo gave a cruel little smile. ‘Wouldn’t he? I don’t think you know your precious Alex as well as you think.’
‘You’re a creep, you know that?’ Lynn said. ‘Why are you being so horrible about Alex? He’s supposed to be one of your best friends.’
She slammed out, leaving him to ponder her question. Why was he being so horrible about Alex, when normally he’d never have heard a word against him?
Slowly, it began to dawn on him that, deep down, he blamed Alex for this whole mess. If they’d just gone straight down the path, somebody else would have found Rosie Duff’s body. Somebody else would have had to stand there and listen to the last breaths dragging out of her. Somebody else would feel tainted by the hours they’d spent in a police cell.
That he was now apparently a suspect in a murder inquiry was Alex’s fault, there was no getting away from it. Mondo squirmed uncomfortably at the thought. He tried to push it away, but he knew you couldn’t close Pandora’s box. Once the idea was planted, it couldn’t be uprooted and thrown aside to wither. This wasn’t the time to be coming up with notions that would drive a wedge between them. They needed each other now as they had never done before. But there was no getting away from it. He wouldn’t be in this mess if it wasn’t for Alex.
And what if there was worse to come? There was no escaping the fact that Weird had been driving around in that Land Rover half the night. He’d been taking girls for a spin, trying to impress them. He didn’t have an alibi worth a shit, and neither did Ziggy, who had sneaked off and dumped the Land Rover somewhere Weird couldn’t find it. And neither did Mondo himself. What had possessed him, borrowing the Land Rover to take that lassie back to Guardbridge? A quick fuck in the back seat wasn’t worth the hassle he faced if somebody remembered she’d been at the party. If the police started asking questions of the other partygoers, somebody would shop them. No matter how much the students professed contempt for authority, somebody would lose their bottle and tell tales. The finger would point then.
Suddenly, blaming Alex seemed like the least of his worries. And as he turned over the events of the past few days, Mondo remembered something he’d seen late one night. Something that might just ease him off the hook. Something he was going to keep to himself for now. Never mind all for one and one for all. The first person Mondo owed any duty of care to was himself. Let the others look after their own interests.
Maclennan closed the door behind him. With WPC Janice Hogg and him both in the room, it felt claustrophobic, the low slant of the roof hemming them in. This was the most pitiful element of sudden death, he thought. Nobody has the chance to tidy up after themselves, to present a picture they’d like the world to see. They’re stuck with what they left behind the last time they closed the door. He’d seen some sad sights in his time, but few more poignant than this.
Someone had taken the trouble to make this room look bright and cheerful, in spite of the limited amount of light that came in at the narrow dormer window overlooking the village street. He could see St Andrews in the distance, still looking white under yesterday’s snow, though he knew the truth was different. Already, pavements were filthy with slush, the roads a slippery morass of grit and melt. Beyond the town, the grey smudge of the sea melted imperceptibly into the sky. It must be a fine view on a sunny day, he thought, turning back to the magnolia-painted wood-chip and the white candlewick bedspread, still rumpled from where Rosie had last sat on it. There was a single poster on the wall. Some group called Blondie, their lead singer busty and pouting, her skirt impossibly short. Was that what Rosie aspired to, he wondered.
‘Where would you like me to start, sir?’ Janice asked, looking around at the 1950s wardrobe and dressing table which had been painted white in an effort to make them look more contemporary. There was a small table by the bed with a single drawer. Other than that, the only place where anything might be concealed was a small laundry hamper tucked behind the door and a metal wastepaper bin under the dressing table.
‘You do the dressing table,’ he said. That way, he didn’t have to deal with the make-up that would never be used again, the second-best bra and the old knickers thrust to the back of the drawer for laundry emergencies that never happened. Maclennan knew his tender places, and he preferred to avoid probing them whenever he could.
Janice sat on the end of the bed, where Rosie must have perched to peer into the mirror and apply
