Phil picked up his fresh pint and took a sip. "He went to see the brother a while back, didn't he? To tell him about the fuck-up with the evidence?"
Karen shook her fingers, the gesture of someone ridding herself of something unpleasantly clinging. "Let me tell you, I was more than happy to let him handle that. Not an interview I'd have enjoyed. 'Hello, sir. Sorry we lost the evidence that might have finally convicted your sister's killer. Oh well, that's how it goes.' " She pulled a face. "So, how are you getting on?"
Phil shrugged. "I don't know. I thought I was on to something, but it looks like another dead-end. Plus I've got the local MSP blethering on about human rights. It's a balls-acher, this job."
"Got a suspect?"
"I've got three. What I've not got is decent evidence. I'm still waiting for the lab to come back with the DNA. That's the only real chance I've got to take it any further. How about you? Who do you think killed Rosie Duff?"
Karen spread her hands. "Perm any one from four."
"You really think it was one of the students who found her?"
Karen nodded. "All the circumstantial points that way. And there's something else besides." She paused, waiting for the prompt.
"OK, Sherlock. I'll buy it. What's the something else?"
"The psychology of it. Whether this was a ritual killing or a sexual homicide, we're told by the shrinks that murders like this don't come on their own. You'd expect a couple of attempts first."
"Like with Peter Sutcliffe?"
"Exactly. He didn't get to be the Yorkshire Ripper overnight. Which leads me neatly on to the next point. Sex killers are a bit like my gran. They repeat themselves."
Phil groaned. "Oh, very good."
"Don't clap, just throw money. They repeat themselves because they get off on the killing like normal people get off on porn. Anyway, my point is that we never see another sign of this particular killer anywhere in Scotland."
"Maybe he moved away."
"Maybe. And maybe what we were presented with was a stage set. Maybe this wasn't that kind of killer at all. Maybe one or all of our boys raped Rosie and panicked. They don't want a live witness. And so they kill her. But they make it look like the work of a crazed sex beast. They didn't get off on the murder at all, so there was never any question of repetition."
"You think four half-cut lads could manage to be that cool with a dead lassie on their hands?"
Karen crossed her legs and smoothed down her skirt. She noticed him notice and felt a warm glow that had nothing to do with white rum. "That's the question, isn't it?"
"And what's the answer?"
"When you read the statements, there's one of them that sticks out. The medical student, Malkiewicz. He kept his head at the scene, and his statement reads pretty clinical. The placing of his prints indicated he was the last one to drive the Land Rover. And he was one of the three Group O secretors among the four of them. It could have been his sperm."
"Well, it's a nice theory."
"Deserves another drink, I think." This time, Karen got the round in. "The trouble with theory," she continued once her glass was refreshed, "is that it needs evidence to back it up. Evidence which I don't have."
"What about the illegitimate kid? Doesn't he have a father somewhere? What if it was him?"
"We don't know who he was. Brian Duff is keeping his mouth zipped on that one. I've not been able to talk to Colin yet. But Lawson tipped me the wink that it was probably a lad called John Stobie. He left town round about the right time."
"He might have come back."
"That's what Lawson was looking for in the file. To see if I'd got anywhere with that angle." Karen shrugged. "But even if he did come back, why kill Rosie?"
"Maybe he still carried a torch for her, only she didn't want to know."
"I don't think so. This is a kid who left town because Brian and Colin gave him a doing. He doesn't strike me as the hero who comes back to reclaim his lost love. But, no stone unturned. I've got a request in to our brothers in arms down where he lives now. They're going to go and have a wee chat with him."
"Aye, right. He's going to remember where he was on a December night twenty-five years ago."