a junior doctor in Edinburgh, but when they did arrange a night out together, the old intimacy was still as strong.
At the gate, Ziggy paused and said, "Fancy a pint?"
Alex shook his head. "If I start, I'll not want to stop. And this isn't a good part of the world for you and me to be pissed in. There are still too many people round here who think we got away with murder. No, I'll get away back to Glasgow."
Ziggy pulled him into a tight hug. "We'll see each other over the New Year, right? Town Square, midnight?"
"Aye. Me and Lynn, we'll be there."
Ziggy nodded, understanding everything contained in those few words. He raised a hand in a mock-salute and walked away into the gathering dark.
Alex hadn't been back to the grave since. It hadn't helped, nor was that how he wanted to encounter Ziggy. It was too raw, too loaded with stuff they both wanted to avoid coming between them.
At least he didn't have to suffer in secret, the way he believed the others did. Lynn had known everything about the death of Rosie Duff right from the word go. They'd been together since that winter. He sometimes wondered if that was the single thing that had made it possible for him to love her, that his biggest secret was already common currency between them.
It was hard not to feel that the circumstances of that night had somehow robbed him of a different future. It was his personal albatross, a stain on the memory that left him feeling permanently tainted. Nobody would want to be his friend if they knew what lay in his past, what suspicions still hung over him in the minds of so many. And yet Lynn knew, and she loved him in spite of it.
She'd demonstrated it in so many ways over the years. And soon, the ultimate proof would come. In two short months, please God, she'd be delivered of the child they'd both desired for so long. They'd both wanted to wait till they were settled before they started a family, and then it had begun to look as if they'd left it too late. Three years of trying, the appointment already set up at the fertility clinic, then out of the blue Lynn had become pregnant. It felt like the first fresh start he'd had in twenty-five years.
Alex turned away from the window. His life was going to change. And maybe, if he made a determined effort, he could loosen the grip of the past. Starting tonight. He'd book a table at the restaurant on the roof of the Museum of Scotland. Take Lynn out for a special meal, instead of sitting at home and brooding.
As he reached out for the phone, it began to ring. Startled, Alex stared stupidly at it for a moment before he reached for it. "Alex Gilbey speaking."
It took him a while to connect the voice on the other end with its owner. Not a stranger, but not someone he expected to call any afternoon, never mind this one in particular. "Alex, it's Paul. Paul Martin." The recognition was made all the more difficult by the caller's obvious agitation.
Paul. Ziggy's Paul. A particle physicist, whatever that was, with the build of a quarterback. The man who'd been bringing a dazzle to Ziggy's face for the past ten years. "Hi, Paul. This is a surprise."
"Alex, I don't know how to say this? Paul's voice cracked. "I got bad news."
"Ziggy?"
"He's dead, Alex. Ziggy's dead."
Alex nearly shook the phone, as if something mechanical had caused him to misapprehend Paul's words. "No," he said. "No, there must be some mistake."
"I wish," Paul said. "There's no mistake, Alex. The house, it went on fire in the night. Burned to the ground. My Ziggy?he's dead."
Alex stared at the wall, seeing nothing. Ziggy played guitar, his brain hummed pointlessly.
Not anymore he didn't.
Chapter 21
Although he'd spent half the day scribbling the date on assorted pieces of paper alongside his initials, James Lawson had managed entirely to avoid its significance. Then he came across a request from DC Parhatka for authorization of a DNA test on an emerging suspect in his inquiry. The combination of the date and the cold case review team made the tumblers of his mind clatter into place. There was no escape from the knowledge. Today was the twenty-fifth anniversary of Rosie Duff's death.
He wondered how Graham Macfadyen was dealing with it, and the memory of their uncomfortable interview made Lawson shift