are to be here and we don’t want to screw it up.’
‘So you prefer each other’s company? Where I come from, people might think you were queer.’
Ziggy’s composure slipped momentarily. ‘So what? It’s not against the law.’
‘That depends on what you’re doing and who you’re doing it with,’ Maclennan said, any pretence of amiability gone.
‘Look, what has any of this got to do with the fact that we stumbled over the dying body of a young woman?’ Ziggy demanded, leaning forward. ‘What are you trying to suggest? We’re gay, therefore we raped a lassie and murdered her?’
‘Your words, not mine. It’s a well-known fact that some homosexuals hate women.’
Ziggy shook his head in disbelief. ‘Well known to whom? The prejudiced and ignorant? Look, just because Alex and Tom and Davey left the party with me doesn’t make them gay, right? They could give you a list of girls who could show you just how wrong you are.’
‘And what about you, Sigmund? Could you do the same thing?’
Ziggy held himself rigid, willing his body not to betray him. There was a world of difference the size of Scotland between legal and comprehended. He’d arrived at a place where the truth was not going to be his friend. ‘Can we get back on track here, Inspector? I left the party about four o’clock with my three friends. We walked down Learmonth Place, turned left up the Canongate then went down Trinity Place. Hallow Hill is a short cut back to Fife Park …’
‘Did you see anyone else as you walked down towards the hill?’ Maclennan interrupted.
‘No. But the visibility wasn’t great because of the snow. Anyway, we were walking along the footpath at the bottom of the hill and Alex started running up the hill. I don’t know why, I was ahead of him and I didn’t see what set him off. When he got to the top, he tripped and fell into the hollow. The next thing I knew was he was shouting to us to come up, that there was a young woman bleeding.’ Ziggy closed his eyes, but opened them hastily as the dead girl rose before him again. ‘We climbed up and we found Rosie lying in the snow. I felt her carotid pulse. It was very faint, but it was still there. She seemed to be bleeding from a wound to the abdomen. Quite a large slit, it felt like. Maybe three or four inches long. I told Alex to go and get help. To call the police. We covered her with our coats and I tried to put pressure on the wound. But it was too late. Too much internal damage. Too much blood loss. She died within a couple of minutes.’ He gave a long exhalation. ‘There was nothing I could do.’
Even Maclennan was momentarily silenced by the intensity of Ziggy’s words. He glanced at Burnside, who was scribbling furiously. ‘Why did you ask Alex Gilbey to go for help?’
‘Because Alex was more sober than Tom. And Davey tends to go to pieces in a crisis.’
It made perfect sense. Almost too perfect. Maclennan pushed his chair back. ‘One of my officers will take you home now, Mr Malkiewicz. We’ll want the clothes you’re wearing, for forensic analysis. And your fingerprints, for the purposes of elimination. And we’ll be wanting to talk to you again.’ There were things Maclennan wanted to know about Sigmund Malkiewicz. But they could wait. His feeling of unease about these four young men was growing stronger by the minute. He wanted to start pushing. And he had a feeling that the one who went to pieces in a crisis might just be the one to cave in.
The poetry of Baudelaire seemed to be doing the trick. Curled into a ball on a mattress so hard it scarcely deserved the name, Mondo was mentally working his way through Les Fleurs du Mal. It seemed ironically appropriate in the light of the night’s events. The musical flow of the language soothed him, rubbing away the reality of Rosie Duff’s death and the police cell it had brought him to. It was transcendent, raising him out of his body and into another place where the smooth sequence of syllables was all his consciousness could accommodate. He didn’t want to deal with death, or guilt, or fear, or suspicion.
His hiding place imploded abruptly with the crashing open of the cell door. PC Jimmy Lawson loomed above him. ‘On your feet, son. You’re wanted.’
Mondo scrambled back, away from the young policeman who had somehow changed from rescuer to persecutor.
Lawson’s smile was far from soothing. ‘Don’t get your bowels in a confusion. Come on, look lively. Inspector Maclennan doesn’t like being kept waiting.’
Mondo edged to his feet and followed Lawson out of the cell and into a brightly lit corridor. It was all too sharp, too defined for Mondo’s taste. He really didn’t like it here.
Lawson turned a bend in the corridor then flung a door open. Mondo hesitated on the threshold. Sitting at the table was the man he’d seen up on Hallow Hill. He looked too small to be a copper, Mondo thought. ‘Mr Kerr, is it?’ the man asked.
Mondo nodded. ‘Aye,’ he said. The sound of his own voice surprised him.
‘Come in and sit down. I’m DI Maclennan, this is DC Burnside.’
Mondo sat down opposite the two men, keeping his eyes on the table top. Burnside took him through the formalities with a politeness that surprised Mondo, who had expected The Sweeney: all shouting and macho swaggering.
When Maclennan took over, a note of sharpness entered the conversation. ‘You knew Rosie Duff,’ he said.
‘Aye.’ Mondo still didn’t look up. ‘Well, I knew she was the barmaid at the Lammas,’ he added as the silence grew around them.
‘Nice-looking lassie,’ Maclennan said. Mondo did not respond. ‘You must have noticed that, at least.’
Mondo shrugged. ‘I didn’t give her any thought.’
‘Was she not your type?’
Mondo looked up, his mouth hitched up in one corner in a half-smile. ‘I think I definitely wasn’t her type. She never took any notice of me. There were always other guys she was more interested in. I always had to wait to get served in the Lammas.’
‘That must have annoyed you.’
Panic flashed in Mondo’s eyes. He was beginning to understand that Maclennan was sharper than he had expected a copper to be. He was going to have to box clever and keep his wits about him. ‘Not really. If we were in a hurry, I just used to get Gilly to go up when it was my round.’
‘Gilly? That would be Alex Gilbey?’
Mondo nodded, dropping his eyes again. He didn’t want to let this man see any of the emotions churning inside him. Death, guilt, fear, suspicion. He desperately wanted to be out of this, out of the police station, out of the case. He didn’t want to drop anyone else in it in the process, but he couldn’t take this. He knew he couldn’t take it, and he didn’t want to end up acting in a way that would make these cops think there was something suspicious about him, something guilty. Because he wasn’t the suspicious one. He hadn’t chatted up Rosie Duff, much as he might have wanted to. He hadn’t stolen a Land Rover. All he’d done was borrow it to drive a lassie home to Guardbridge. He hadn’t stumbled over a body in the snow. That was down to Alex. It was thanks to the others he was in the middle of this shit. If keeping himself secure meant making the cops look elsewhere,
