ahead with a prosecution. When he heard that, Lawson just crumbled. She said it was as if he just couldn't carry the load any longer. Apparently, it's not an uncommon phenomenon. Karen told me that, when they're cornered, it's not unusual for murderers to feel the need to unburden themselves of every single bad thing they've ever done."
"So why did he do it?"
Alex sighed. "He'd been going out with her for a few weeks. And she wouldn't go the whole way. He says she would only ever go so far, then no further. And she drove him beyond control. He raped her. According to him, she said she was going straight to the police. And he couldn't handle that, so he picked up his filleting knife and stabbed her. It was already snowing, he thought there would be nobody around, so he dumped her on Hallow Hill. He meant it to look like it had been a ritual killing. He's saying he was horrified when he realized we were being suspected. Obviously, he didn't want to be caught himself, but he claims he didn't want anybody else fitted up for the crime."
"Very high-minded of him," Weird said cynically.
"I think that's the truth. I mean, with one little lie, he could have dumped one of us right in the shit. Once Maclennan knew about the Land Rover, all Lawson had to do was to say it had slipped his mind that he'd seen it earlier. Either on the way to Hallow Hill or outside the Lammas at closing time."
"The Lord alone knows the truth, but we can give him the benefit of the doubt, I suppose. You know, he must have thought he was home and dry after all this time. Never so much as a whisper of suspicion."
"No. We were the ones who carried that can. Lawson had twenty-five years of living an apparently blameless life. And then the Chief Constable announces a cold case review. According to Karen, Lawson had ditched the physical evidence the first time DNA was used successfully in court. It was still held at St. Andrews then, so he'd have had no trouble accessing it. The cardigan was genuinely misfiled at some point when the evidence was moved from one location to another, but the rest of the clothes, the stuff with the biological samples, he got rid of himself."
Weird frowned. "How come the cardigan ended up in a completely different place from the body?"
"When he was going back to his panda car, Lawson found the cardie lying in the snow. He'd dropped it carrying the body up the hill. He just stuffed it into the nearest hedge. It was the last thing he wanted sitting around in his police car. So with all the relevant evidence missing, he must have thought he could still ride out the review safely."
"And then Graham turns up out of the woodwork. The one factor he'd never been able to take account of because of her family's craving for respectability. Here was somebody who really had a stake in Rosie's death, demanding answers. But what I still don't see is why he decided to start killing us off," Weird said.
"According to Karen, Macfadyen was on Lawson's back constantly. Demanding he reinterview witnesses. Particularly us. He was convinced we were the guilty men. Among the stuff on his computer, there was an account of his conversations with Lawson. At one point, he comments that it surprised him that Lawson hadn't seen anything suspicious, sitting in his patrol car. When he put that to Lawson, he seemed very edgy about it, which Macfadyen assumed was because it sounded like he was being critical. But of course, what was really behind it was that Lawson didn't want anyone focusing on what he'd been doing that night. Everyone had taken his presence at the scene for granted, but once you took us out of the equation, the only person we know for sure was in the area that night was Lawson himself. If he hadn't been a cop, he'd have been the prime suspect."
"Even so. Why decide to go for us after all this time?"
Alex shifted uncomfortably on the rock. "This is the bit that's hard to take. According to Lawson, he was being blackmailed."
"Blackmailed? Who by?"
"Mondo."
Weird looked thunderstruck. "Mondo? You're kidding. What kind of sick line is Lawson shooting now?"
"I don't think it's a line. You remember the day Barney Maclennan died?"
Weird shuddered. "How could I forget?"
"Lawson was the front man on