hapter 33

Lynn stared at Alex, never pausing in her gentle rocking of her daughter. "Say again," she commanded.

"Rosie had a son. It never came out at the time. For some reason, the pathologist didn't pick it up at the post mortem. Lawson admitted he was a doddery old sod who liked a drink. But in his defense, he said it was possible the wound itself obscured any traces. Naturally, the family weren't going to tell because they knew that if people found out she'd had an illegitimate kid, she'd instantly be portrayed as a gymslip mum, no better than she should be. She'd be demoted from innocent victim to a lassie who asked for it. They were desperate to protect her good name. You can't blame them for that."

"I don't blame them at all. One look at how viciously the press treated you, and anybody would have done the same. But how come he's surfaced now?"

"According to Lawson, he was adopted. He decided last year to track down his birth mother. He found the woman who ran the home where Rosie had stayed when she was pregnant, and that's when he discovered he wasn't going to have a happy family reunion after all."

Davina gave a small cry and Lynn put her little finger in the baby's mouth, smiling down at her. "That must have been terrible for him. It must take so much courage to go looking for your birth mother. She's rejected you once?who knows why?and you're setting yourself up for a second slap in the face. But you must be clinging to the hope that she's going to welcome you with open arms."

"I know. And then to find out that somebody snatched that chance away from you twenty-five years before." Alex leaned forward. "Can I take her for a while?"

"Sure. She's not long had a feed, so she should sleep for a bit." Lynn gently eased her hands under her daughter, passing her to Alex as if she was the most valuable and fragile object in the world. He slid his hand beneath her frail neck and held her to his chest. Davina mumbled softly, then settled. "So, does Lawson think the son is coming after you?"

"Lawson doesn't think anybody's coming after me. He thinks I'm a paranoid nutter making a mountain out of a molehill. He got very embarrassed about having let it slip about Rosie's son, and kept reassuring me that he wouldn't harm a fly. He's called Graham, by the way. Lawson wouldn't give me his surname. Apparently he works in the IT industry. Quiet, stable, very normal," Alex said.

Lynn shook her head. "I can't believe Lawson's taking it all so lightly. Who does he think sent the wreaths?"

"He doesn't know and he doesn't care. All he's bothered about is that his precious cold case review is going down the drain."

"They couldn't run a m-age, far less a murder inquiry. Did he have any explanation as to how they lost a whole box of forensic evidence?"

"They didn't lose the whole box. They've still got the cardigan. Apparently it was found separately. Thrown over the wall into somebody's garden. They tested it after all the other stuff, which is probably why it ended up separated from the rest of the material."

Lynn frowned. "It turned up later? Wasn't there something about a second search they did later at your house? I vaguely remember Mondo complaining about them being all over the place weeks after the murder."

Alex struggled with memory. "After they'd done the initial search?They came back after the New Year. They scraped paint off the walls and ceilings. And they wanted to know whether we'd done any redecorating." He snorted. "As if. And Mondo said he'd overheard one of them talking about a cardigan. He assumed they were looking for something one of us had been wearing. But they weren't, of course. They were referring to Rosie's cardigan," he finished triumphantly.

"So there must have been paint on her cardigan," Lynn said thoughtfully. "That's why they were taking samples."

"Yeah, but they obviously didn't get a match from our house. Or else we'd have been in even deeper shit."

"I wonder if they've done a fresh analysis. Did Lawson say anything about it?"

"Not specifically. He said they didn't have any of the clothes that would be susceptible to modern forensic analysis."

"That's nonsense. They can do so much with paint these days. I get far more information from the labs now than I did even three or four years ago. They should be testing that. You need to get back to Lawson and insist that they look again at it."

"An analysis isn't any use without something to compare it with. Lawson's not going to jump just because I say so."

"I thought you said he wanted to solve this case?"

"Lynn, if there was anything to be gained, they'd have done it."

Lynn flushed with sudden anger. "Christ, Alex, listen to yourself. Are you just going to sit back and wait for something else to blow up in the middle of our lives? My brother's dead. Somebody walked into his house bold as brass and murdered him. The only person who might have been any use to you thinks you're paranoid. I don't want you to die, Alex. I don't want your daughter to grow up without a single memory of you."

"You think I want that?" Alex hugged his daughter to his chest.

"Stop being so bloody spineless, then. If you and Weird are right, the person who killed Ziggy and Mondo is going to come after you. The only way you're going to get off the hook is if Rosie's killer is finally exposed. If Lawson won't do it, maybe you should give it a try. You've got the best motivation in the world there in your arms."

He couldn't deny it. He'd been awash with emotion since Davina's birth, perpetually astonished at the depth of his feelings. "I'm a greetings card manufacturer, Lynn, not a detective," he protested weakly.

Lynn glared at him. "And how often have miscarriages of justice been overturned because some punter wouldn't stop digging?"

"I haven't got a clue where to start."

"Do you remember that series about forensic science on the telly a couple of years back?"

Alex groaned. His wife's fascination with thrillers on TV and film had never infected him. His usual response to a two-hour special featuring Frost, Morse or Wexford was to pick up a pad and start working on ideas for greetings cards.

"Vaguely," he said.

"I remember one of the forensic scientists saying how they often leave stuff out of their reports. Trace evidence that can't be analyzed, that sort of thing. If it's not going to be of any use to the detectives, they don't bother including it. Apparently, the defense might use it to create confusion in the minds of the jury."

"I don't see where that gets us. Even if we could get our hands on the original reports, we wouldn't know what was left out, would we?"

"No. But maybe if we tracked down the scientist who put it together in the first place, he might remember something that meant nothing at the time but might mean something now. He might even have kept his own notes." Her anger had been swallowed by her enthusiasm now. "What do you think?"

"I think your hormones have addled your brain," Alex said. "You think if I ring up Lawson and ask him who did the forensic report, he's going to tell me?"

"Of course he's not." Her lip curled in distaste. "But he'd tell a journalist, wouldn't he?"

"The only journalists I know are the ones who write lifestyle features for the Sunday supplements," Alex protested.

"Well, ring round and ask them to find one of their colleagues who can help." Lynn spoke with an air of finality. When she was in this kind of mood, there was no point in trying to argue with her, he knew. But as he resigned himself to creeping round his contacts, the glimmer of an idea came into his mind. It might, he thought, kill two birds with one stone. Of course, it might also rebound painfully. There was only one way to find out.

Hospital car parks were good places for surveillance, Macfadyen thought. Plenty of comings and goings, always people sitting in their cars waiting. Good lighting, so you were sure of seeing your quarry arriving and leaving. No one gave you a second look; you could hang around for hours without anybody thinking you were dodgy. Not like your average suburban street where everybody wanted to know your business.

He wondered when Gilbey would get to take his daughter home. He'd tried ringing the hospital for information, but they'd been cagey, refusing to say much other than that the baby was doing well. Everybody with responsibility for kids was so security-conscious these days.

The resentment he felt toward Gilbey's child was overwhelming. Nobody was going to turn their back on this child. Nobody was going to hand it over and let it take its chances with strangers. Strangers who would bring up a child in a state of permanent anxiety that he'd do something that would bring arbitrary wrath down on his head. His parents hadn't abused him, not in the sense of beating him. But they'd made him feel constantly wanting, constantly at fault. And they hadn't hesitated to lay the blame for his inadequacies at the door of his bad blood. But he'd missed out on so much more than tenderness and love. The family stories that had been fed to him as a child were other people's stories, not his. He was a stranger to his own history.

He would never be able to look in the mirror and see an echo of his mother's features. He would never be aware of those strange congruences that happen in families, when a child's reactions replicate those of their parents. He was adrift in a world without connections. The only real family he had still didn't want him.

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. "He'd 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 noise 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?"

Chapter 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 on." 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 blas? 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.

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 half-smile. "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, pathologist, 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 self-evident 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.