The Distant Echo. Val McDermid

cold and drops of water ran down to his wrists. Cold turned to pain, pain to numbness. He wished there was something he could do to provoke the same response in his head. Turn it off, turn it all off. Leave a blank the brilliant white of the snowfield.

      When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he nearly pissed himself. Alex stumbled forward and upward, almost sprawling in the snow but catching himself just in time. He whirled round, hands still fists against his chest. ‘Ziggy,’ he shouted. ‘Christ, you nearly scared the shit out of me.’

      ‘Sorry.’ Ziggy looked on the point of tears. ‘I said your name, but you didn’t react.’

      ‘I didn’t hear you. Christ, creeping up on people like that, you’ll get a bad name, man,’ Alex said with a shaky laugh, trying to make a joke of his fear.

      Ziggy scuffed at the snow with the toe of his wellies. ‘I know you probably wanted to be on your own, but when I saw you go out, I came after you.’

      ‘It’s OK, Zig.’ Alex bent over and swept more snow off the backboard. ‘Join me on my luxurious couch, where harem girls will feed us sherbet and rose water.’

      Ziggy managed a faint smile. ‘I’ll pass on the sherbet. It makes my tongue nip. You don’t mind?’

      ‘I don’t mind, OK?’

      ‘I was worried about you, that’s all. You knew her better than any of us. I didn’t know if you wanted to talk, away from the others?’

      Alex hunched into his jacket and shook his head. ‘I’ve nothing much to say. I just keep seeing her face. I didn’t think I could sleep.’ He sighed. ‘Hell, no. What I mean is, I was too frightened to try. When I was wee, a friend of my dad’s was in an accident in the shipyard. Some sort of explosion, I don’t know exactly what. Anyway, it left him with half a face. Literally. He had half a face. The other half’s a plastic mask he has to wear over the burn tissue. You’ve probably seen him down the street or at the football. He’s hard to miss. My dad took me to see him in the hospital. I was only five. And it freaked me out completely. I kept imagining what was behind the mask. When I went to sleep at night, I’d wake up screaming because he’d be there in my dreams. Sometimes when the mask came off, it was maggots. Sometimes it was a bloody mess, like those illustrations in your anatomy textbooks. The worst one was when the mask came off and there was nothing there, just smooth skin with the echoes of what should be there.’ He coughed. ‘That’s why I’m frightened to go to sleep.’

      Ziggy put his arm round Alex’s shoulders. ‘That’s a hard one, Alex. Thing is, though, you’re older now. What we saw last night, that was as bad as it gets. There’s really nothing much your imagination can do to make it worse. Whatever you dream now, it’s not going to be half as bad as seeing Rosie like that.’

      Alex wished he could take more comfort from Ziggy’s words. But he sensed they were only half true. ‘I guess we’re all going to have demons to deal with after last night,’ he said.

      ‘Some more practical than others,’ Ziggy said, taking his arm back and clasping his hands. ‘I don’t know how, but Maclennan picked up on me being gay.’ He bit his lip.

      ‘Oh, shit,’ Alex said.

      ‘You’re the only person I’ve ever told, you know that?’ Ziggy’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. ‘Well, apart from the guys I’ve been with, obviously.’

      ‘Obviously. How did he know?’ Alex asked.

      ‘I was being so careful not to lie, he spotted the truth in between the cracks. And now I’m worried that it’s going to spread out further.’

      ‘Why should it?’

      ‘You know how people love to gossip. I don’t suppose cops are any different from anybody else in that respect. They’re bound to talk to the university. If they wanted to put pressure on us, that would be one way to do it. And what if they come and see us at home in Kirkcaldy? What if Maclennan thinks it would be a smart move to out me to my parents?’

      ‘He’s not going to do that, Ziggy. We’re witnesses. There’s no mileage for him in alienating us.’

      Ziggy sighed. ‘I wish I could believe you. As far as I can see, Maclennan is treating us more like suspects than witnesses. And that means he’ll use anything as a pressure point, doesn’t it?’

      ‘I think you’re being paranoid.’

      ‘Maybe. But what if he says something to Weird or Mondo?’

      ‘They’re your friends. They’re not going to turn their backs on you over that.’

      Ziggy snorted. ‘I tell you what I think would happen if Maclennan lets slip that their best mate is a poof. I think Weird will want to fight me and Mondo will never walk into a toilet with me again as long as he lives. They’re homophobic, Alex. You know that.’

      ‘They’ve known you half their lives. That’s going to count for a lot more than stupid prejudice. I didn’t freak out when you told me,’ Alex said.

      ‘I told you precisely because I knew you wouldn’t freak out. You’re not a knee-jerk Neanderthal.’

      Alex pulled a self-deprecating face. ‘It was a pretty safe bet, telling somebody whose favourite painter is Caravaggio, I suppose. But they’re not dinosaurs either, Ziggy. They’d take it on board. Revise their world view in the light of what they know about you. I really don’t think you should lose sleep over it.’

      Ziggy shrugged. ‘Maybe you’re right. I’d prefer not to put it to the test, though. And even if they’re all right, what happens if it gets out? How many out gays can you name in this university? All those English public schoolboys who spent their teens buggering each other, they’re not out of the closet, are they? They’re all running about with Fionas and Fenellas, securing the succession. Look at Jeremy Thorpe. He’s standing trial for conspiring to murder his ex-lover, just to keep his homosexuality quiet. This isn’t San Francisco, Alex. This is St Andrews. I’ve got years before I qualify as a doctor, and I tell you now, my career is dead in the water if Maclennan outs me.’

      ‘It’s not going to happen, Ziggy. You’re getting things out of proportion. You’re tired, and you said yourself, we’ve all had our heads fucked up by what’s happened. I tell you what I’m a lot more concerned about.’

      ‘What’s that?’

      ‘The Land Rover. What the fuck are we going to do about that?’

      ‘We’ll have to bring it back. There’s no other option. Otherwise it gets reported stolen, and we’re in big trouble.’

      ‘Sure, I know that. But when?’ Alex asked. ‘We can’t do it today. Whoever dumped Rosie there must have had some sort of vehicle, and the one thing that makes us look less like suspects is that none of us has a car. But if we’re spotted tooling around in the snow in a Land Rover, we go straight to number one on Maclennan’s hit parade.’

      ‘Same thing applies if a Land Rover suddenly appears smack bang outside our house,’ Ziggy said.

      ‘So what do we do?’

      Ziggy kicked at the snow between his feet. ‘I suppose we just have to wait till the heat dies down, then I’ll come back and shift it. Thank God I remembered about the keys in time to shove them into the waistband of my underpants. Otherwise we’d have been screwed when Maclennan made us turn out our pockets.’

      ‘You’re not kidding. You sure you want to move it?’

      ‘The rest of you have got holiday jobs. I can easily get away. All I have to do is make some excuse about needing the university library.’

      Alex shifted uneasily on his perch. ‘I suppose it has occurred to you that covering up the fact we had the Land Rover might just be letting a killer off the hook?’

      Ziggy looked shocked. ‘You’re not seriously suggesting … ?’

      ‘What?