the rope. He saw what happened. According to him, Maclennan was hanging onto Mondo, but Mondo panicked and kicked him off the rope."
Weird closed his eyes momentarily. "I wish I could say I don't believe it, but it's exactly how Mondo would react. Still, I don't understand what that has to do with Lawson being blackmailed."
"After they pulled Mondo up, it was chaos. Lawson took charge of Mondo. He went in the ambulance with him. He told Mondo he'd seen what had happened and promised that he would make sure Mondo paid the full legal price for what he'd done. And that's when Mondo dropped his wee bombshell. Mondo claimed that he'd seen Rosie getting into Lawson's patrol car one night outside the Lammas. Well, Lawson knew that he'd be in deep shit if that came out. So he did a deal. If Mondo kept quiet about what he'd seen, Lawson would do the same."
"Not so much blackmail as mutually assured destruction," Weird said harshly. "What went wrong?"
"As soon as the cold case review was announced, Mondo went to see Lawson and told him that the price of his continued silence was to be left alone. He didn't want his life blown apart a second time. And he told Lawson he had insurance. That he wasn't the only one who knew what he'd seen. Only, of course, he didn't specify which one of us he'd allegedly told. That's why Lawson was so insistent that Karen concentrate on the physical evidence rather than interviewing us again. It bought him time while he killed off anyone who might know the truth. But then he got too clever by half. He wanted to make Robin Maclennan look like a suspect in Mondo's murder, so he told him how Barney had really died. But before he could kill Mondo, Robin Maclennan got in touch with Mondo, who panicked and went to see Lawson again." Alex gave a wry smile. "That was the bit of business he had over in Fife the night he came to see me. Anyway, Mondo accused Lawson with breaking his end of the bargain. Older and wiser, or so he thought. He said he'd get his side of the story in first so that Lawson's claim that he killed Barney Maclennan would look like the desperate mud-slinging of a cornered man." Alex rubbed a hand over his face.
Weird groaned. "Poor, silly Mondo."
"The irony is that, if it hadn't been for Graham Macfadyen's obsession with the case, Lawson might well have succeeded in killing all four of us."
"What do you mean?"
"If Graham hadn't been tracking us all via the Internet, he'd never have found out about Ziggy's death and he wouldn't have sent that wreath. Then we'd never have made a connection between the two murders and Lawson would have been able to pick us off at his leisure. Even then, he muddied the waters as much as he could. He carefully made sure I knew all about Graham, even though he pretended he'd accidentally let it slip. And of course, he told Robin Maclennan how Mondo had killed his brother. That way, he could give himself a bit of insurance. After Mondo was killed, the sly bastard went to Robin and offered him an alibi. Which Robin agreed to, not thinking for a minute that it worked the other way too?that he was giving an alibi to the real killer."
Weird shivered and pulled his legs up, hugging his knees to his chest. He felt a twinge in his ribs, the shadow of a former pain. "But why did he come after me? He must have realized that neither of us knew what Mondo had seen or else we'd have confronted him with it after Mondo's death."
Alex sighed. "By that time, he'd dug himself in too deep. Because of Macfadyen's wreaths, we'd made the connection between two killings that were supposed to look completely unrelated. His only hope was to make Macfadyen look like the killer. And Macfadyen wouldn't have stopped at two, would he? He'd have gone on until he'd taken us all out."
Weird shook his head sadly. "What a terrible mess. But why did he kill Ziggy first?"
Alex groaned. "It's so banal it would make you weep. Apparently he'd already booked his holiday in the States before the cold case review was announced."
Weird licked his lips. "So it could just as easily have been me?"
"If he'd decided to go fishing on your side of the country, yes."