a round hole and I'd found the place I belonged all along. I can't describe it any better than that. I only went to the service to keep my mum company. And I was sitting there in Abbot-shall Kirk, the candles flickering all around like they do at the Watch Night service. And Ruby Christie was singing "Silent Night" solo, unaccompanied. And all the hairs on my body stood on end and suddenly it all made sense. I understood that God gave his only son for the sins of the world. And that meant me. It meant I could be redeemed."
"Big stuff." Alex was embarrassed by this emotional candour. For all their years of friendship, he'd never had a conversation like this with Weird. Weird, of all people, whose only tenet of faith had apparently been to consume as many mind-altering substances as he could reasonably ingest before he died. "So what did you do?" He had a sudden vision of Weird running down to the front of the church and demanding he be forgiven his sins. That would be truly mortifying, he thought. The kind of thing that would bring you out in a cold sweat to remember once you'd come out of the other side of the God-bothering phase and resumed normal life.
"Nothing. I sat through the service and went home. I thought it was just a one-off, some kind of bizarre mystical experience. Maybe to do with all the stuff that Rosie's death churned up. Maybe even some kind of acid flashback. But when I woke up in the morning, I felt the same. So I looked in the paper to see who had a Christmas Day service and I ended up at an evangelical gig down the Links."
Uh-oh. "I bet you had the place to yourself on Christmas morning."
Weird laughed. "Are you kidding? The place was full to the doors. It was brilliant. The music was great, the people treated me like we'd been friends for years. And after the service, I went and spoke to the minister." Weird bowed his head. "It was a pretty emotional encounter. Anyway, the upshot is he baptised me last week. And he's given me the name of a sister congregation in St. Andrews." He gave Alex a beatific smile. "That's why I needed to tell you guys today. Because I'll be going to church just after we get back to Fife Park tomorrow."
The first opportunity the others had to discuss Weird's dama-scene conversion was the following evening after he'd packed his electric acoustic guitar into its case and set off to walk across town to the evangelical service down near the harbor. They sat in the kitchen and watched him stride off into the night. "Well, that's the end of the band," Mondo said decisively. "I'm not playing fucking spirituals and 'Jesus Loves Me' for anybody."
"Elvis has now left the building," Ziggy said. "I tell you, he's lost any connection to reality he ever had."
"He means it, guys." Alex said.
"You think that makes it better? We're in for a rough ride, boys," Ziggy said. "He'll be bringing the beardie weirdies back here. They'll be determined to save us whether we want to be saved or not. Losing the band is going to be the least of our worries. No more, 'All for one and one for all.' "
"I feel bad about this," Alex said.
"Why?" Mondo said. "You didn't drag him off and make him listen to Ruby Christie."
"He wouldn't have gone off like this if he hadn't been feeling really shit. I know he seemed to be the most cool of all of us about Rosie's murder, but I think deep down it must have affected him. And we were all so wrapped up in our own reactions, we didn't pick up on it."
"Maybe there's more to it than that," Mondo said.
"How do you mean?" Ziggy asked.
Mondo scuffed the toes of his boots against the floor. "Come on, guys. We don't know what the fuck Weird was doing running around in that Land Rover the night Rosie died. We've only got his word for it that he never saw her."
Alex felt the ground shift beneath his feet. Ever since he'd hinted at suspicion with Ziggy, Alex had forced himself to suppress such treacherous thoughts. But now Mondo had given fresh shape to the unthinkable. "That's a terrible thing to say," Alex said.
"I bet you've thought it, though," Mondo said defiantly.
"You can't think Weird would rape somebody, never mind kill