hapter 22

Alex stared at the entrance to his drive as if he'd never seen it before. He had no recollection of the drive out of Edinburgh, across the Forth Bridge and down into North Queensferry. Dazed, he eased the car in and parked at the far edge of the cobbled area, leaving plenty of space for Lynn's car nearer the house.

The square stone house sat on a bluff near the massive pilings of the cantilevered rail bridge. This close to the sea, the snow was fighting a losing battle with the salt air. The slush was treacherous underfoot, and Alex almost lost his footing a couple of times between the car and the front door. The first thing he did after wiping his feet and slamming the door closed against the elements was to call Lynn's mobile and leave a message warning her to be careful when she got home.

He glanced at the long case clock as he crossed the hall, snapping lights on as he went. It wasn't often that he was home on a weekday in winter when it was still technically daylight, but the sky was so low today, it felt later than it was. It would be at least an hour before Lynn returned. He needed company, but he'd have to make do with the sort that came out of a bottle till then.

In the dining room, Alex poured himself a brandy. Not too much, he cautioned himself. Getting pissed would make it worse, not better. He took his glass and continued through to the large conservatory that commanded a panoramic view of the Firth of Forth and sat in the gray gloom, oblivious to the shipping lights twinkling on the water. He didn't know how to begin to deal with the afternoon's news.

Nobody makes it to forty-six without loss. But Alex had been luckier than most. OK, he'd been to all four funerals of his grandparents in his twenties. But that was what you expected of people in their late seventies and eighties, and one way or another all four deaths had been what the living referred to as "a welcome release." Both his parents and his in-laws were still alive. So, until today, had been all his close friends. The nearest he'd come to intimacy with the dead had been a couple of years before, when his head printer had died in a car crash. Alex had been sad at the loss of a man he'd liked as well as relied on professionally, but he couldn't pretend to a grief he hadn't felt.

This was different. Ziggy had been part of his life for over thirty years. They'd shared every rite of passage; they were the touchstones for each other's memories. Without Ziggy, he felt cast adrift from his own history. Alex cast his mind back to their last meeting. He and Lynn had spent two weeks in California in the late summer. Ziggy and Paul had joined them for three days hiking in Yosemite. The sky had blazed blue, the sunlight casting the astonishing mountains into sharp relief, their every detail clear as the acid etching on a printing plate. On their final evening together, they'd driven cross country to the coast, checking in to a hotel on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. After dinner, Alex and Ziggy had retired to a hot tub with a six-pack from the local micro-brewery and congratulated themselves on having their lives so well sorted. They'd talked about Lynn's pregnancy and Alex had been gratified by Ziggy's obvious delight.

"You going to let me be the godfather?" he'd demanded, chinking his amber ale bottle against Alex's.

"I don't think we'll be doing the christening thing," Alex said. "But if the parents push us into it, there's nobody I'd rather have."

"You won't regret it," Ziggy said.

And Alex knew he wouldn't have. Not for a second. But that was something that would never happen now.

The following morning, Ziggy and Paul had left early for the long drive back to Seattle. They'd stood on the deck of their cabin in the pearly dawn light, hugging farewell. Another thing that would never happen again.

What was the last thing Ziggy had called out of the window of their SUV as they'd set off down the trail? Something about making sure Alex indulged Lynn's every whim because it would get him into practice for parenthood. He couldn't remember the exact words, nor what he'd shouted in reply. But it was typical of Ziggy that their last exchange had been about taking care of someone else. Because Ziggy had always been the one who took care.

In any group, there's always one person who ends up as the rock, who provides the shelter that allows the weaker members of the tribe to grow into their own strengths. For the Laddies fi' Kirkcaldy, that had always been Ziggy. It wasn't that he was bossy, or a control freak. He just had a natural aptitude for the role, and the other three had been the constant beneficiaries of Ziggy's capacity for getting things sorted. Even in their adult lives, it had always been Ziggy that Alex had turned to when he needed a sounding board. When he'd been considering the huge jump of shifting from gainful employment to taking a chance on setting up his own company, they'd spent a weekend in New York thrashing out the pros and cons, and Ziggy's confidence in his abilities had, if Alex was honest, been more of a clincher than Lynn's conviction he could make a go of it.

That was something else that would never happen again.

"Alex?" His wife's voice cut into his numb reverie. He'd been so locked inside himself, he hadn't noticed her car arrive, nor the sound of her footfalls. He half turned toward the faint waft of her perfume.

"Why are you sitting in the dark? And why are you home so early?" There was no accusation in her voice, just concern.

Alex shook his head. He didn't want to share the news.

"Something's wrong," Lynn insisted, covering the distance between them and dropping into the chair next to him. She put a hand on his arm. "Alex? What is it?"

At the sound of her disquiet, the anesthetic of shock vanished abruptly. A searing pain knifed through him, taking his breath away momentarily. He met Lynn's worried eyes and flinched. Without words, he put his hand out and laid it gently on the swell of her stomach.

Lynn covered his hand with hers. "Alex?tell me what's happened."

His voice sounded alien to him, a cracked and broken simulacrum of his normal articulation. "Ziggy," he managed. "Ziggy's dead."

Lynn's mouth opened. A frown of incredulity gathered. "Ziggy?"

Alex cleared his throat. "It's true," he said. "There was a fire. At the house. In the night."

Lynn shivered. "No. Not Ziggy. There's been a mistake."

"No mistake. Paul told me. He phoned to tell me."

"How could that be? Him and Ziggy, they shared a bed. How can Paul be all right and Ziggy dead?" Lynn's voice was loud, her disbelief echoing around the conservatory.

"Paul wasn't there. He was giving a guest lecture at Stanford." Alex closed his eyes at the thought of it. "He flew back in the morning. Drove straight home from the airport. And found the firemen and the cops poking through what used to be their house."

Silent tears sparkled on Lynn's eyelashes. "That must have been?oh, dear God. I can't take it in."

Alex folded his arms across his chest. "You don't think of the people you love being so fragile. One minute they're there, the next minute they're not."

"Do they have any idea what happened?"

"They told Paul it was too early to say. But he said they were asking him some pretty sharp questions. He thinks it maybe looks suspicious, and they're thinking him being away was a bit too convenient."

"Oh God, poor Paul." Lynn's fingers worried at each other in her lap. "Losing Ziggy, that's hellish enough. But to have the police on his back too?Poor, poor Paul."

"He asked me if I'd tell Weird and Mondo." Alex shook his head. "I haven't been able to do it yet."

"I'll call Mondo," Lynn said. "But later. It's not as if anybody else is going to tell him first."

"No, I should call him. I told Paul?

"He's my brother. I know how he is. But you'll have to deal with Weird. I don't think I could handle being told that Jesus loves me right now."

"I know. But somebody should tell him." Alex managed a bitter smile. "He'll probably want to preach a sermon at the funeral."

Lynn looked appalled. "Oh, no. You can't let that happen."

"I know." Alex leaned forward and lifted his glass. He swallowed the last few drops of brandy. "You know what day it is?"

Lynn froze. "Oh, Jesus Christ Almighty."

The Reverend Tom Mackie replaced the phone in its cradle and caressed the silver gilt cross that lay on his purple silk cassock. His American congregation loved that they had a British minister and, since they could never distinguish between Scots and English, he satisfied their desire for display with the most lavish trappings of High Anglicanism. It was a vanity, he acknowledged, but essentially a harmless one.

However, his secretary had left for the day and the solitude of his empty office allowed him space to confront his confused emotional reaction to the shock of Ziggy Malkiewicz's death without having to assume a public face. While there was no lack of cynical manipulation in the way Weird dealt with the practice of ministry, the beliefs that underpinned his evangelical regime were sincerely and deeply held. And he knew in his heart that Ziggy was a sinner, tainted irrevocably by the stain of his homosexuality. There was no room for doubt on that point in Weird's fundamentalist universe. The Bible was clear in its prohibition and its abhorrence of the sin. Salvation would have been hard to come by even if Ziggy had earnestly repented, but, as far as Weird was aware, Ziggy had died as he had lived, embracing his sin with enthusiasm. Doubtless the manner of his death would somehow connect back to the transgression of his lifestyle. The link would have been more obvious if the Lord had visited the plague of AIDS upon him. But Weird had already mentally created a scenario that would lay the blame at the door of Ziggy's own perilous choice. Perhaps some casual pickup had waited till Ziggy was asleep to rob him and then set a fire to cover his crime. Perhaps they had been smoking marijuana and a smoldering joint had been the source of the burning.

However it had happened, Ziggy's death was nevertheless a powerful reminder to Weird that it was possible to hate the sin and yet love the sinner. There was no denying the reality of the friendship that had sustained him through his teenage years, when his own wild spirit had blinded him to the light, when he truly had been Weird. Without Ziggy, he'd never have made it through his adolescence without ending up in serious trouble. Or worse.

Without prompting, his memory played a flashback sequence. Winter, 1972. The year of their O Grade exams. Alex had acquired a talent for breaking into cars without damaging the locks. It involved a flexible strip of metal and a lot of dexterity. It gave them scope to be anarchic without really being criminal. The routine was simple. A couple of illicit Carlsberg Specials in the Harbor Bar, then they'd sally forth into the night. They'd pick half a dozen cars at random between the pub and the bus station. Alex would shoogle his metal band inside the car door and pop the lock. Then Ziggy or Weird would climb into the car and scribble their message across the inside of the windscreen. In red lipstick, previously shoplifted from Boots the Chemist and which was a bugger to clean off, they'd scribble the chorus from Bowie's "Laughing Gnome." It always reduced the four of them to helpless mirth.

Then they'd stagger off, giggling like fools, being careful to lock the car door behind them. It was a game that managed to be simultaneously stupid and brilliant.

One night, Weird had climbed behind the wheel of a Ford Escort. While Ziggy was writing, he'd flipped open the ashtray and gazed with delight at a spare key. Knowing that larceny wasn't on the agenda and that Ziggy would manage to stop him having his fun, Weird had waited till his friend got out of the car, then he'd fumbled the key into the ignition and started the engine. He flicked the lights on, revealing shock on the faces of the other three. His first idea had simply been to give his friends a surprise. But confronted with the possibility of mayhem, Weird had let himself be carried away. He'd never driven before, but knew the theory and he'd watched his dad often enough to be convinced he could pull it off. He crashed the car into gear, released the handbrake and juddered forward.

He kangarooed out of the parking space and headed for the exit that would bring him on to the Prom, the two-mile strip that ran alongside the sea wall. The streetlights were an orange blur, the scarlet letters of the message turned black on the windscreen as he careered along, crunching up through the gears as he went. He could hardly steer straight, he was laughing so hard.

The end of the Prom was upon him unbelievably quickly. He wrenched the wheel to the right, somehow managing to keep control as he rounded the bend past the bus garage. Thankfully there were few cars on the road, most people having elected to stay at home on a cold and frosty February night. He jammed his foot on the accelerator, shooting up Invertiel Road, under the railway bridge and past Jawbanes Road.

His speed was his undoing. As the road climbed toward a left-hand bend, Weird hit an ice-covered puddle and found himself spinning. Time decelerated and the car whirled in a slow waltz through three hundred and sixty degrees. He yanked on the wheel, but it only seemed to make things worse. The windscreen was filled with a steep grassy bank, then suddenly the car was on its side and he was slammed against the door, the window-winder smashing into his ribs.

He had no idea how long he lay there, dazed and in pain, listening to the tick, tick of the stalled engine as it cooled in the night air. The next thing he knew was the door above his head disappearing, to be replaced by Alex and Ziggy staring down with frightened faces. "You fucking moron," Ziggy shouted, as soon as he realized Weird was more or less OK.

Somehow, he managed to struggle upright as they hauled him out, screaming in pain as his broken ribs protested. He lay panting on the frosted grass, each breath a knife of agony. It took a minute or so to realize that an Austin Allegro was parked on the road behind the wrecked Escort, its lights cutting through the darkness and casting strange shadows.

Ziggy had dragged him to his feet and down the verge. "You fucking moron," he kept repeating as he shoved him into the backseat of the Allegro. Through a daze of pain, Weird heard the negotiation.

"What are we going to do now?" Mondo asked.

"Alex is going to drive you all back to the Prom and you're going to put this car back where you found it. Then you're going home. OK?"

"But Weird's hurt," Mondo protested. "He needs to go to the hospital."

"Yeah, right. Let's advertise the fact that he's been in a car crash." Ziggy leaned into the car and held his hand in front of Weird's face. "How many fingers, moron?"

Woozily, Weird focused. "Two," he groaned.

"See? He's not even concussed. Amazing. I always thought he had concrete between his ears. It's just his ribs, Mondo. All the hospital will do is give him some painkillers."

"But he's in agony. What's he going to say when he gets home?"

"That's his problem. He can say he fell down some stairs. Anything." He leaned in again. "You're just going to have to grin and bear it, moron."

Weird pushed himself upright, wincing. "I'll manage."

"And what are you going to be doing?" Alex demanded as he slid behind the wheel of the Allegro.

"I'll give you five minutes to get clear. Then I'm going to set fire to the car."

Thirty years on, Weird could still remember the look of shock on Alex's face. "What?"

Ziggy rubbed a hand over his face. "It's covered in our fingerprints. It's got our trademark all over the windscreen. When we were just scribbling on windscreens, the police weren't going to bother with us. But here's a stolen, wrecked car. You think they're going to treat that like a joke? We've got to burn it out. It's totalled anyway."

There was no possible argument. Alex started the engine and drove off without a hitch, looking for a side road to turn around in. It was days later when Weird finally thought to ask: "Where did you learn to drive?"

"Last summer. On the beach on Barra. My cousin showed me how."

"And how did you get the Allegro started without keys?"

"Did you not recognize the car?"

Weird shook his head.

"It belongs to 'Sammy' Seale."

"The metalwork teacher?"

"Exactly."

Weird grinned. The first thing they'd made in metalwork was a magnetized box to stick to a car chassis to hold a spare set of keys. "Lucky break."

"Lucky for you, moron. It was Ziggy that spotted it."

How different it all could have been, Weird mused. Without Ziggy coming to the rescue, he'd have ended up in custody, with a police record, his life blown apart. Instead of abandoning him to the consequences of his own stupidity, Ziggy had found the means to save him. And he'd put himself on the line in the process. Setting a car ablaze was a big deal for an essentially law-abiding, ambitious lad. But Ziggy hadn't hesitated.

So now Weird had to return that and many other favors. He'd speak at Ziggy's funeral. He'd preach repentance and forgiveness. It was too late to save Ziggy, but with God's good grace he might just save another benighted soul.

Chapter 23

Waiting was one of the things Graham Macfadyen did best. His adopted father had been a passionate amateur ornithologist, and the boy had been forced to spend long tracts of his youth killing time between sightings of birds sufficiently interesting to warrant the raise of binoculars to eyes. He'd learned stillness at an early age; anything to avoid the vicious edge of his father's sarcasm. The wounds of blame cut just as deep as physical blows and Macfadyen would do anything in his limited power to dodge them. The secret, he'd learned early on, was to dress for the weather. So although he'd spend most of the day enduring snow flurries and cold gusts of northerly wind, he was still comfortable in his down parka, his waterproof fleece-lined trousers and his stout walking boots. He was most grateful for the shooting stick he'd brought with him, for his observation post offered nowhere to sit except gravestones. And that felt like bad manners.

He'd taken time off work. It had meant lying, but that couldn't be helped. He knew he was letting people down, that his absence might mean missing a crucial deadline. But some things were more important than hitting a contract payment date. And nobody would suspect someone as conscientious as him of faking it. Lying, like blending in and stillness, was something he did well. He didn't think Lawson had entertained the slightest flicker of doubt when he'd claimed to have loved his adopted parents. God knows, he'd tried to love them. But their emotional distance coupled with the constant attrition of their disapproval and disappointment had worn away his affections, leaving him numb and isolated. It would have been so different with his real mother, he felt sure. But he'd been deprived of the chance to find out, leaving him with nothing but a fantasy of somehow being instrumental in making someone pay for that. He'd had such high hopes of his interview with Lawson, but the incompetence of the police had yanked the ground from under his feet. Still, just because the obvious route had been closed off to him didn't mean he should give up his quest. He'd learned that persistence from years of writing program code.

He wasn't sure whether his vigil would pay off, but he'd felt driven to come here. If it didn't work, he'd find another way to get what he wanted. He'd arrived just after seven and made his way to the grave. He'd been there before, disappointed that it didn't make him feel any closer to the mother he'd never known. This time, he laid the discreet floral tribute at the foot of the headstone then made his way to the vantage point he'd scouted on his last visit. He would be mostly obscured by an ornate memorial to a former town councillor, but with a clear line of sight to Rosie's last resting place.

Someone would come. He'd felt sure of it. But now, as the hands of his watch moved toward seven o'clock, he began to wonder. To hell with what Lawson had told him about staying away from his uncles. He was going to make contact. He'd reckoned that approaching them in such a highly charged place might cut through their hostility and allow them to see him as someone who, like them, had a right to be considered part of Rosie's family. Now it was starting to look as if he'd miscalculated. The thought angered him.

Just then, he saw a darker shape against the graves. It resolved itself to the outline of a man, walking briskly along the path toward him. Macfadyen drew his breath in sharply.

Head down against the weather, the man left the path and picked his way confidently through the grave markers. As he grew closer, Macfadyen could see he carried a small posy of flowers. The man slowed down and came to a halt five feet from Rosie's gravestone. He bowed his head and stood for a long moment. As he bent to place the flowers, Macfadyen moved forward, the snow muffling his steps.

The man straightened and took a step backward, cannoning into Macfadyen. "What the? he exclaimed, swinging round on his heel.

Macfadyen held up his hands in a placatory gesture. "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." He pushed back the hood of his parka, to appear less intimidating.

The man scowled at him, head to one side, staring intently at his face. "Do I know you?" he said, his voice as belligerent as his stance.

Macfadyen didn't hesitate. "I think you're my uncle," he said.

Lynn left Alex to make his phone call. Her sorrow felt like a solid uncomfortable lump in her chest. Distracted, she went through to the kitchen and diced chicken on automatic pilot, tossing it into a cast-iron casserole with some roughly chopped onions and peppers. She poured over a jar of ready-made sauce, added a slug of white wine and shoved it in the oven. As usual, she'd forgotten to preheat it. She pricked a couple of baking potatoes with a fork and placed them on the shelf above the casserole. Alex should have finished his call to Weird by now, she thought. She couldn't postpone talking to her brother any longer.

When she stopped to think about it, it seemed slightly odd to Lynn that, despite the blood ties, despite her contempt for Weird's brand of hellfire and damnation, Mondo had become the most disengaged member of the original quartet. She often thought that if it weren't for the fact that they were brother and sister, he'd have disappeared completely from Alex's radar. He was geographically closest, over in Glasgow. But by the end of their university career, it seemed he wanted to shed all the ties that bound him to his childhood and adolescence.

He'd been first to leave the country, heading off to France after graduation to pursue his ambition for a career in academe. He'd scarcely returned to Scotland in the following three years, not even showing up for their grandmother's funeral. She doubted whether he'd have bothered to attend her wedding to Alex if he hadn't been back in the UK by then, lecturing at Manchester University. Whenever Lynn had tried to discover the reason for his absence, he'd always evaded the issue. He'd always been good at avoidance, her big brother.

Lynn, who had stayed firmly anchored to her roots, couldn't understand why anyone would want to sever himself from his personal history. It wasn't as if Mondo had had a shitty childhood and a horrible adolescence. Sure, he'd always been a bit of a jessie, but once he'd hooked up with Alex, Weird and Ziggy, he'd had a bulwark against the bullies. She remembered how she'd envied the four boys their rock-solid friendship, the casual way they'd always created a good time for themselves. Their terrible music, their subversive edge, their complete disregard for the opinion of their peers. It seemed to her entirely masochistic to turn his back on such a support system.

He'd always been weak, she knew that. When trouble walked in the door, Mondo had always been straight out the window. All the more reason, in Lynn's world view, why he should have wanted to cling to the friendships that had sustained him through so much difficulty. She'd asked Alex what he'd thought and he'd shrugged. "That last year at St. Andrews?it was tough. Maybe he just doesn't want to be reminded of it."

It made a kind of sense. She knew Mondo well enough to understand the shame and guilt he'd felt over Barney Maclennan's death. He'd endured the bitter taunts of the barroom bullies who suggested next time he wanted to kill himself, he do it properly. He'd suffered the personal anguish of knowing a piece of selfish grandstanding had robbed someone else of his life. He'd had to put up with counseling that served mostly to remind him of that terrible moment when a bid for attention had turned into the worst of nightmares. She supposed the presence of the other three served only as a cue for memories he wanted to erase. She also knew that, although he never said so, Alex had not been able entirely to shrug off a lingering suspicion that Mondo might know more than he'd told about Rosie Duff's death. Which was nonsense, really. If any of them had been capable of committing that particular crime on that particular night, it had been Weird, off his head on a mixture of drink and drugs, frustrated that his antics with the Land Rover hadn't impressed the girls as much as he'd hoped. She'd always wondered about that sudden damascene conversion of his.

But whatever the underlying reasons, she'd missed her brother over the past twenty years or so. When she was younger, she'd always imagined that he'd marry some girl who would become her best friend; that they'd be brought even closer with the arrival of children; that they'd develop into one of those comfortable extended families who live in each other's pockets. But none of it had come true. After a string of semiserious relationships, Mondo had finally married He'd, a French student ten years his junior who scarcely bothered to hide her contempt for anyone who couldn't discourse with equal ease on Foucault or couture. Alex she openly despised for choosing commerce over art. Lynn she patronized with lukewarm enthusiasm for her career as a fine art restorer. Like her and Alex, they were childless thus far, but Lynn suspected that was from choice and that they would remain that way.

She supposed distance should make the passing on of this news easier somehow. But still, lifting the phone was one of the hardest things she'd ever done. The call was answered on the second ring by He'd. "Hallo, Lynn. How nice to hear from you. I'll just get David," she said, her almost perfect English a reproach in itself. Before Lynn could utter a warning about the reason for her call, He'd was gone. A long minute passed, then her brother's familiar voice sounded in her ear.

"Lynn," he said. "How are you doing?" Just like someone who cared.

"Mondo, I'm afraid I've got some bad news."

"Not the parents?" He jumped in before she could say more.

"No, they're fine. I spoke to Mum last night. This is going to come as a bit of a shock. Alex got a call this afternoon from Seattle." Lynn felt her throat closing at the thought of it. "Ziggy's dead." Silence. She couldn't tell if it was the silence of shock or of uncertainty as to the appropriate response. "I'm sorry," she said.

"I didn't know he was ill," Mondo finally said.

"He wasn't ill. The house went on fire in the night. Ziggy was in bed, asleep. He died in the fire."

"That's terrible. Jesus. Poor Ziggy. I can't believe it. He was always so careful." He made a strange sound, almost like a snort of laughter. "If any of us was going to go up in flames, you'd have to have put your money on Weird. He's always been accident prone. But Ziggy?"

"I know. It's hard to take it in."

"God. Poor Ziggy."

"I know. We had such a lovely time with him and Paul in California in September. It feels so unreal."

"And Paul? Is he dead too?"

"No. He was away overnight. He came back to find the house burned down and Ziggy dead."

"God. That's going to point the finger at him."

"I'm sure that's the last thing on his mind right now," Lynn snapped.

"No, you misunderstand me. I just meant it would make it all so much worse for him. Christ, Lynn, I know what it means to have everybody looking at you as if you're a murderer," Mondo flashed back.

There was a brief silence while both retreated from confrontation. "Alex is going over for the funeral," Lynn offered as an olive branch.

"Oh, I don't think I'll be able to manage that," Mondo said hastily. "We're off to France in a couple of days. We've got the flights booked and everything. Besides, it's not like I've been as close to Ziggy recently as you and Alex."

Lynn stared at the wall in disbelief. "You four were like blood brothers. Isn't that worth a bit of disruption to your travel plans?"

There was a long silence. Then Mondo said, "I don't want to go, Lynn. It doesn't mean that I don't care about Ziggy. It's just that I hate funerals. I'll write to Paul, of course. What's the point of going halfway across the world for a funeral that will only upset me? It won't bring Ziggy back."

Lynn felt suddenly worn out, grateful that she had taken the burden of this wounding conversation from Alex. The worst of it was that she could still find it in her heart to sympathize with her oversensitive brother. "None of us would want you to be upset," she sighed. "Well, I'll let you go, Mondo."

"Just a minute, Lynn," he said. "Was it today Ziggy died?"

"The early hours of the morning, yes."

A sharp suck of breath. "That's pretty spooky. You know it's twenty-five years today since Rosie Duff died?"

"We hadn't forgotten. I'm surprised you remembered."

He gave a bitter laugh. "You think I could forget the day my life was destroyed? It's carved on my heart."

"Yeah, well, at least you'll always remember the anniversary of Ziggy's death," Lynn said, spite rising as she realized that, yet again, Mondo was turning the kaleidoscope so that everything was about him. Sometimes she really wished you could dissolve family ties.

Lawson glared at the phone as he replaced it in its cradle. He hated politicians. He'd had to listen to the MSP who represented Phil Parhatka's new chief suspect droning on for ten minutes about the scumbag's human rights. Lawson had wanted to shout, "What about the human rights of the poor bastard he killed?" but he'd had far more sense than to give voice to his irritation. Instead, he'd made soothing noises and a mental note to himself to have a word with the parents of the dead man, to get them to remind their MSP that his loyalties should lie with the victims, not the perpetrators. All the same, he'd better warn Phil Parhatka to watch his back.

He glanced at his watch, surprised at the lateness of the hour. He might as well stick his head round the door of the cold case squadroom on his way out, on the off chance that Phil was still at his desk.

But the only person there at this late hour was Robin Maclennan. He was poring over a file of witness statements, his brow furrowed in concentration. In the pool of light cast by his desk lamp, the resemblance to his brother was uncanny. Lawson shivered involuntarily. It was like seeing a ghost, but a ghost who had aged a dozen years since he'd last walked on earth.

Lawson cleared his throat and Robin looked up, the illusion shattered as his own mannerisms superimposed themselves on the fraternal resemblance. "Hello, sir," he said.

"You're late at it," Lawson said.

Robin shrugged. "Diane's taken the kids to the pictures. I thought I might as well be sitting here as in an empty house."

"I know what you mean. I often feel the same myself since Marian died last year."

"Is your boy not at home?"

Lawson snorted. "My boy's twenty-two now, Robin. Michael graduated in the summer. MA in economics. And now he's working as a motorbike courier in Sydney, Australia. Sometimes I wonder what the hell I worked so hard for. You fancy a pint?"

Robin looked mildly surprised. "Aye, OK," he said, closing the file and getting to his feet.

They agreed on a small pub on the outskirts of Kirkcaldy, a short journey home for both of them afterward. The place was buzzing, a thrum of conversation battling the selection of Christmas hits that seemed inescapable at that time of year. Strands of tinsel festooned the gantry and a garish fiber-optic Christmas tree leaned drunkenly at one end of the bar. As Wizzard wished it could be Christmas every day, Lawson bought a couple of pints and whiskey chasers while Robin found a relatively quiet table in the furthest corner of the room. Robin looked faintly startled at the two drinks in front of him. "Thanks, sir," he said cautiously.

"Forget the rank, Robin. Just for tonight, eh?" Lawson took a long draft of his beer. "To tell you the truth, I was glad to see you sitting there. I wanted a drink tonight, and I didn't want to drink alone." He eyed him curiously. "You know what today is?"

Robin's face suddenly grew cautious. "It's the sixteenth of December."

"I think you can do better than that."

Robin picked up his whiskey and knocked it back in one. "It's twenty-five years since Rosie Duff was murdered. Is that what you want me to say?"

"I thought you'd know." Neither could think of what to say next, so they drank in uneasy silence for a few minutes.

"How's Karen getting on with it?" Robin asked.

"I thought you'd know better than me. The boss is always the last to know, isn't that how it goes?"

Robin gave a wry smile. "Not in this case. Karen's hardly been in the office lately. She seems to spend all her time down at the property store. And when she is at her desk, I'm the last person she wants to talk to. Like everybody else, she's embarrassed to talk about Barney's big failure." He swallowed the last of his pint and got to his feet. "Same again?"

Lawson nodded. When Robin returned, he said, "Is that how you see it? Barney's big failure?"

Robin shook his head impatiently. "That's how Barney saw it. I remember that Christmas. I'd never seen him like that. Beating himself up. He blamed himself for the fact that there hadn't been an arrest. He was convinced he was missing something obvious, something vital. It was eating him alive."

"I remember he took it very personally."

"You could say that." Robin stared into his whiskey. "I wanted to help. I only ever went into the police because Barney was like a god to me. I wanted to be like him. I asked for a transfer to St. Andrews to get on the squad. But he put the black on it." He sighed. "I can't help thinking that maybe if I'd been there?

"You couldn't have saved him, Robin," Lawson said.

Robin threw his second whiskey back. "I know. But I can't help wondering."

Lawson nodded. "Barney was a great cop. A hard act to follow. And the way he died, it made me sick to my stomach. I always thought we should have charged Davey Kerr."

Robin looked up, puzzled. "Charged him? What with? Attempting suicide's not a crime."

Lawson looked startled. "But?Right enough, Robin. What was I thinking about?" he stammered. "Forget what I said."

Robin leaned forward. "Tell me what you were going to say."

"Nothing, really. Nothing." Lawson tried to cover his confusion by taking a drink. He coughed and choked, spluttering whiskey down his chin.

"You were going to say something about the way Barney died." Robin's eyes pinned Lawson to the seat.

Lawson wiped his mouth and sighed. "I thought you knew."

"Knew what?"

"Culpable homicide, that's what the charge sheet against Davey Kerr should have read."

Robin frowned. "That would never have stood up in court. Kerr didn't mean to go over the edge, it was an accident. He was just drawing attention to himself, not seriously trying to commit suicide."

Lawson looked uncomfortable. He pushed his chair back and said, "You need another whiskey." This time, he came back with a double. He sat down and eyed Robin. "Christ," he said softly. "I know we decided to keep it quiet, but I was sure you would have heard."

"I still don't know what you're talking about," Robin said, his face intense with interest. "But I think I deserve an explanation."

"I was the front man on the rope," Lawson said. "I saw it with my own eyes. When we were pulling them back up the cliff, Kerr panicked and kicked Barney off him."

Robin's face screwed up in an expression of incredulity. "You're saying Kerr pushed him back into the sea to save his own skin?" Robin sounded incredulous. "How come I'm just hearing this now?"

Lawson shrugged. "I don't know. When I told the superintendent what I'd seen, he was shocked. But he said there was no point in pursuing it. The fiscal's office would never have gone through with a prosecution. The defense would have argued that in those conditions I couldn't have seen what I saw. That we were being vindictive because Barney died trying to save Kerr. That we were being vexatious in alleging culpable homicide of Barney because we couldn't nail Kerr and his pals for Rosie Duff. So they decided to keep the lid on it."

Robin picked up his glass, his hand shaking so much it chattered against his teeth. All color had drained from his face, leaving him gray and sweaty. "I don't believe this."

"I know what I saw, Robin. I'm sorry, I assumed you knew."

"This is the first? He looked around him, as if he couldn't understand where he was or how he'd got here. "I'm sorry, I've got to get out of here." Abruptly he got to his feet and headed for the door, ignoring the complaints of fellow drinkers as he jostled them in passing.

Lawson closed his eyes and exhaled. Nearly thirty years on the force and he still hadn't grown accustomed to the hollow feeling that imparting bad news left in his stomach. A worm of anxiety gnawed at his insides. What had he done, revealing the truth to Robin Maclennan after all these years?