Detective Constable Burnside. We need to have a wee chat about what happened tonight." He nodded toward Burnside. "My colleague will take notes and then we'll prepare a statement for you to sign."
Ziggy nodded. "That's fine. Ask away." He straightened up in his seat. "I don't suppose I could get a cup of tea?"
Maclennan turned to Burnside and nodded. Burnside rose and left the room. Maclennan leaned back in his chair and checked out his witness. Funny how the mod haircuts had come back into fashion. The dark-haired lad opposite him wouldn't have looked out of place a dozen years earlier in the Small Faces. He didn't look like a Pole to Maclennan's way of thinking. He had the pale skin and red cheeks of a Fifer, though the brown eyes were a bit unusual with that coloring. Wide cheekbones gave his face a chiseled, exotic air. A bit like that Russian dancer, Rudolph Nearenough, or whatever his name was.
Burnside returned almost immediately. "It's on its way," he said, sitting down and picking up his pen.
Maclennan placed his forearms on the table and locked his fingers together. "Personal details first." They ran through the preliminaries quickly, then the detective said, "A bad business. You must be feeling pretty shaken up."
Ziggy began to feel as if he was trapped in the land of clich. "You could say that."
"I want you to tell me in your own words what happened tonight."
Ziggy cleared his throat. "We were walking back to Fife Park?
Maclennan stopped him with a raised palm. "Back up a bit. Let's have the whole evening, eh?"
Ziggy's heart sank. He was hoping he might avoid mentioning their earlier visit to the Lammas Bar. "OK. The four of us, we live in the same unit in Fife Park so we usually eat together. Tonight, it was my turn to cook. We had egg and chips and beans and about nine o'clock we went down into the town. We were going to a party later on and we wanted to have a few pints first." He paused to make sure Burnside was getting it down.
"Where did you go for your drinks?"
"The Lammas Bar." The words hung in the air between them.
Maclennan showed no reaction, though he felt his pulse quicken. "Did you often drink there?"
"Pretty regularly. The beer's cheap and they don't mind students, not like some of the places in town."
"So you'll have seen Rosie Duff? The dead girl?"
Ziggy shrugged. "I didn't really pay attention."
"What? A bonnie lassie like that, you didn't notice her?"
"It wasn't her that served me when I went up for my round."
"But you must have spoken to her in the past?"
Ziggy took a deep breath. "Like I said, I never really paid attention. Chatting up barmaids isn't my scene."
"Not good enough for you, eh?" Maclennan said grimly.
"I'm not a snob, Inspector. I come from a council house myself. I just don't get my kicks playing macho man in the pub, OK? Yes, I knew who she was, but I'd never had a conversation with her that went beyond 'Four pints of Tennent's, please.' "
"Did any of your friends take more of an interest in her?"
"Not that I noticed." Ziggy's nonchalance hid a sudden wariness at the line of questioning.
"So, you had a few pints in the Lammas. What then?"
"Like I said, we went on to a party. A third-year mathematician called Pete that Tom Mackie knows. He lives in St. Andrews, in Learmonth Gardens. I don't know what number. His parents were away and he threw a party. We got there about midnight and it was getting on for four o'clock when we left."
"Were you all together at the party?"
Ziggy snorted. "Have you ever been to a student party, Inspector? You know what it's like. You walk through the door together, you get a beer, you drift apart. Then when you've had enough, you see who's still standing and you gather them together and stagger off into the night. The good shepherd, that's me." He gave an ironic smile.
"So the four of you arrived together and the four of you left together, but you've no idea what the others were doing in between?"
"That's about the size of it, yeah."
"You couldn't even swear that none of them left and came back later?"
If Maclennan had expected alarm from Ziggy, he was disappointed. Instead, he cocked his head to one side, thoughtful. "Probably not, no," he admitted. "I spent most of the time in the conservatory at the back of the house.