The Distant Echo

by Val McDermid

  Alex hung up his funeral suit and shirt, leaving the rest of his clothes in the suitcase. He'd spent most of the transcontinental flight sketching, and he tore out the one sheet he was satisfied with and propped it up against the mirror. Ziggy stared out at him in three-quarter profile, a crooked smile creasing his eyes. Not a bad likeness from memory, Alex thought sadly. He checked his watch. Almost midnight at home. Lynn wouldn't mind the lateness of the hour. He dialed the number. Their short conversation eased the sharpness of the grief that had threatened to overwhelm him momentarily.

  Alex ran a basin of cold water and dashed it over his face. Feeling slightly more alert, he trudged across to the bar, its Christmas decorations seeming incongruous in the face of his sadness. Johnny Mathis crooned saccharine in the background and Alex wanted to muffle the speakers as horses hooves had once been muffled in funeral processions. He found Paul in a booth nursing a bottle of Pyramid ale. He signaled to the barman for another of the same and slid in opposite Paul. Now he had the chance to look at him properly, he could see the signs of strain and grief. Paul's light brown hair was rumpled and unwashed, his blue eyes weary and red-rimmed. A patch of stubble under his left ear showed uncharacteristic carelessness in a man who was always neat and tidy.

  "I called Lynn," he said. "She was asking after you."

  "She's got a good heart," Paul said. "I feel like I got to know her a lot better this year. It seemed like being pregnant made her open up more."

  "I know what you mean. I thought she'd be paralyzed with anxiety throughout this pregnancy. But she's been really relaxed." Alex's drink arrived.

  Paul raised his glass. "Let's drink to the future," he said. "Right now, I don't feel like it has much to offer, but I know Ziggy would give me hell for dwelling in the past."

  "To the future," Alex echoed. He swallowed a mouthful of beer and said, "How are you holding up?"

  Paul shook his head. "I don't think it's hit me yet. There's been so much to take care of. Letting people know, making the funeral arrangements and stuff. Which reminds me. Your friend Tom, the one Ziggy called Weird? He's coming in tomorrow."

  The news provoked a mixed reaction from Alex. Part of him longed for the connection to his past that Weird would provide. Part of him acknowledged the unease that still wriggled inside him when he recalled the night Rosie Duff died. And part of him dreaded the aggravation Weird would trail in his wake if he went off on his fundamentalist homophobia. "He's not going to preach at the funeral, is he?"

  "No. We're having a humanist service. But Ziggy's friends will have the opportunity to get up and talk about him. If Tom wants to say something then, he's welcome."

  Alex groaned. "You know he's a fundamentalist bigot who preaches hellfire and damnation?"

  Paul gave a wry smile. "He should be careful. It's not just the South that does lynch mobs."

  "I'll have a word with him beforehand." Which would be about as effective as a twig in the path of a runaway train, Alex thought.

  They sipped their beers in silence for a few minutes. Then Paul cleared his throat and said, "There's something I need to tell you, Alex. It's about the fire."

  Alex looked puzzled. "The fire?"

  Paul massaged the bridge of his nose. "The fire wasn't an accident, Alex. It was set. Deliberately."

  "Are they sure?"

  Paul sighed. "They've had arson investigators crawling all over the place ever since it cooled down enough."

  "But that's terrible. Who would do something like that to Ziggy?" "Alex, I'm the cops' first pick."

  "But that's insane. You loved Ziggy."

  "Which is exactly why I'm the prime suspect. They always look at the spouse first, right?" Paul's tone was harsh.

  Alex shook his head. "Nobody who knew you two would entertain that idea for a minute."

  "But the cops didn't know us. And however hard they try to pretend different, most cops like gays about as much as your friend Tom does." He swallowed a mouthful of beer, as if to take the taste of his sentiment away. "I spent most of yesterday at the police station, answering questions."

  "I don't get it. You were hundreds of miles away. How are you supposed to have burned your house down when you were in California?"

  "You remember the layout of the house?" Alex nodded and Paul continued. "They're saying the fire started in the basement, by the heating-oil tank. According to the fire department guy, it looked like someone had stacked up cans of paint and gasoline at one end of the tank, then piled up paper and wood around them. Which we certainly didn't do. But they also found what looks like the remains of a fire bomb. A pretty simple device, they said."

  "Wasn't it destroyed in the fire?"

  "These guys are good at reconstructing what happens in a fire. From the bits and pieces they've found, they think it went like this. They found the fragments of a sealed paint can. Fixed to the inside of the lid, the remains of an electronic timer. How they think it worked was that the can had gasoline or some other accelerant in it. Something that would give off fumes. Most of the space inside the can would have been occupied by the fumes. Then when the timer went off, the spark would've ignited the vapor, the can would've exploded, cascading burning accelerant on the other flammable materials. And because the house is wooden, it would have gone up like a torch." The blank recital wavered and Paul's mouth trembled. "Ziggy didn't stand a chance."

  "And they think you did this?" Alex was incredulous. At the same time, he felt profound pity for Paul. He knew better than anyone the consequences of baseless suspicion and the toll they exacted.

  "They've got no other suspects. Ziggy wasn't exactly a guy who made enemies. And I'm the main beneficiary of his will. What's more, I'm a physicist."

  "And that means you know how to make a firebomb?"

  "They seem to think so. It's kind a hard to explain what I actually do, but they seem to figure, 'Hey, this guy's a scientist, he must know how to blow people up.' If it wasn't so fucking tragic, I'd have to laugh."

  Alex signaled to the barman to bring them fresh drinks. "So they think you set a firebomb and went off to California to give a lecture?"

  "That seems to be the way their minds are working. I thought the fact that I'd been away for three nights would put me in the clear, but apparently not. The arson investigator told my lawyer that the timer the killer used could have been set anything up to a week in advance. So I'm still on the hook."

  "Wouldn't you have been taking a hell of a chance? What if Ziggy had gone down to the basement and seen it?"

  "We almost never went down there in the winter. It was full of summer stuff— the dinghies, the sailboards, the garden furniture. We kept our skis in the garage. Which is another strike against me. How would anybody else know their setup was secure?"

  Alex dismissed the point with a wave of his hand. "How many people go down into their basements regularly in the winter? It's not as if your washing machine was down there. How hard would it have been to break in?"

  "Not too hard," Paul said. "It wasn't wired into the security system because the guy who does our yard work in the summer has to get in and out. That way, we didn't have to give him details of the alarm system on the house. I guess anyone who was determined to get in wouldn't have found it too hard."

  "And of course, any evidence of a break-in would have been destroyed by the fire," Alex sighed.

  "So you see, it looks pretty black against me."

  "That's insane. Like I said, anybody who knows you would realize you could never have hurt Ziggy, far less killed him."

  Paul's smile barely twitched his mustache. "I appreciate your confidence, Alex. And I'm not even going to dignify their accusations with a denial. But I wanted you to know what's being said. I know you understand how terrible it is to be suspected of something you had nothing to do with."

  Alex shuddered in spite of the warmth of the cozy bar. "I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy, never mind my friend. It's horrible. Christ, Paul, I hope they find out who did this, for
your sake. What happened to us poisoned my life."

  "Ziggy too. He never forgot how fast the human race could turn hostile. It made him real careful in the way he dealt with the world. Which is why the whole thing is so insane. He went out of his way not to make enemies of people. It's not that he was a pushover—"

  "Nobody could ever have accused him of that," Alex agreed. "But you're right. A soft answer turns away wrath. That was his motto. But what about his work? I mean, things go wrong in hospitals. Kids die or they don't get better like they should. Parents need somebody to blame."

  "This is America, Alex," Paul said ironically. "Doctors don't take any unnecessary risks. They're too scared of being sued. Sure, Ziggy lost patients from time to time. And sometimes things didn't work out as well as he'd hoped. But one of the reasons he was such a successful pediatrician was that he made his patients and their families his friends. They trusted him, and they were right to do that. Because he was a good doctor."

  "I know that. But sometimes when kids die, logic goes out the window."

  "There was nothing like that. If there had been, I'd have known about it. We talked to each other, Alex. Even after ten years, we talked to each other about everything."

  "What about colleagues? Had he pissed anybody off?"

  Paul shook his head. "I don't think so. He had high standards, and I guess not everybody he worked with could keep up to the mark all the time. But he chose his staff pretty carefully. There's a great atmosphere at the clinic. I don't think there's one single person there who didn't respect him. Hell, these people are our friends. They come to the house for barbecues, we baby-sit their kids. Without Ziggy to run the clinic, they've got to feel less secure about their futures."

  "You're making him sound like Mr. Perfect," Alex said. "And we both know he wasn't that."

  This time, Paul's smile made it to his eyes. "No, he wasn't perfect. Perfectionist, maybe. That could drive you crazy. Last time we went skiing, I thought I was going to have to drag him off the mountain. There was one turn on the run he just couldn't get right. Every time, he screwed up. And that meant we had to go back one more time. But you don't kill somebody because they have anally retentive tendencies. If I'd wanted Ziggy out of my life, I'd just have left him. You know? I wouldn't have had to kill him."

  "But you didn't want him out of your life, that's the point."

  Paul bit his lip and stared down at the rings of split beer on the table top. "I'd give anything to have him back," he said softly. Alex gave him a moment to collect himself.

  "They'll find who did this," he said eventually.

  "You think? I wish I agreed with you. What keeps going through my head is what you guys went through all those years ago. They never found who killed that girl. And everybody looked at you with different eyes because of it." He looked up at Alex. "I'm not strong like Ziggy was. I don't know if I can live with that."

  25

  Through a mist of tears, Alex tried to focus on the words printed on the order of service. If he'd been asked which of the music on the list might have moved him to tears at Ziggy's funeral, he'd probably have settled on Bowie's "Rock and Roll Suicide" with its final defiant denial of isolation. But he'd made it through that, sustained to the point of elation by the vivid images of a youthful Ziggy projected on the big screen at the end of the crematorium. What had done for him was the San Francisco Gay Male Choir singing Brahms's setting of the passage from St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians about faith, hope, and love. Wirsehenjetztdurcheinen SpiegelineinemdunkelnWorte; for now we see through a glass, darkly. The words seemed painfully appropriate. Nothing he'd heard about Ziggy's death made any kind of sense, neither logically nor metaphysically.

  Tears cascaded down his cheeks, and he didn't care. He wasn't the only one weeping in the crowded crematorium, and being far from home seemed to liberate him from his usual emotional reticence. Beside him, Weird loomed in an immaculately tailored cassock that made him look far more of a peacock than any of the gay men paying their last respects. He wasn't crying, of course. His lips were moving constantly. Alex presumed this was meant to be a sign of devoutness rather than of mental illness, since Weird's hand regularly strayed to the ridiculously ostentatious silver gilt cross on his chest. When he'd first seen it at Sea Tac airport, Alex had almost laughed out loud. Weird had strode confidently toward him, dropping his suit carrier to pull his old friend into a theatrical embrace. Alex noticed how smooth his skin appeared and speculated about plastic surgery.

  "It was good of you to come," Alex said, leading the way to the hire car he'd picked up that morning.

  "Ziggy was my oldest friend. Along with you and Mondo. I know our lives have moved in very different directions, but nothing could change that. The life I have now I owe in part to the friendship we shared. I'd be a very poor Christian to turn my back on that."

  Alex couldn't work out why it was that everything Weird said sounded as if it was for public consumption. Whenever he spoke, it was as if there was an unseen congregation hanging on his every word. They'd only met a handful of times over the past twenty years, but on each occasion it had been the same. Creeping Jesus, Lynn had christened him the first time they'd visited him in the small Georgia town where he'd based his ministry. The nickname felt as appropriate now as it had then.

  "And how is Lynn?" Weird asked as he settled himself in the passenger seat, smoothing down his perfectly cut clerical suit.

  "Seven months pregnant and blooming," Alex said.

  "Praise the Lord! I know how much you two have longed for this." Weird's face lit up in what appeared a genuine smile. But then, he spent enough time in front of the cameras for his television mission via a local channel, it was hard to distinguish the assumed from the real. "I thank the Lord for the blessing of children. The happiest memories I hold are of my five. The love a man feels for his children is deeper and more pure than anything else in this world. Alex, I know you're going to delight in this life change."

  "Thanks, Weird."

  The reverend winced. "Gonnae no' do that," he said, reverting to a teenage catchphrase. "I don't think it's an appropriate form of address these days."

  "Sorry. Old habits die hard. You'll always be Weird to me."

  "And who exactly calls you Gilly these days?"

  Alex shook his head. "You're right. I'll try to remember. Tom."

  "I appreciate that, Alex. And if you want to have the child baptized, I'd be happy to officiate."

  "Somehow, I don't think we'll be going down that road. The bairn can make it's own mind up when it's old enough."

  Weird pursed his lips. "That's your choice, of course." The subtext was loud and clear. Damnyourchildto eternalperditionif youmust. He gazed out of the window at the passing landscape. "Where are we headed?"

  "Paul has booked you a cabin at the motel where we're staying."

  "Is it near the scene of the fire?"

  "About ten minutes away. Why?"

  "I'd like to go there first."

  "Why?"

  "I want to say a prayer."

  Alex exhaled noisily. "Fine. Look, there's something you should know. The police believe the fire was arson."

  Weird bowed his head ponderously. "I feared as much."

  "You did? How come?"

  "Ziggy chose a perilous path. Who knows what sort of person he brought into his home? Who knows what damaged soul he drove to desperate measures?"

  Alex thumped the steering wheel with his fist. "For fuck's sake, Weird. I thought the Bible said 'Judge not, that ye be not judged?' Who the hell do you think you are, coming out with rubbish like that? Whatever preconceptions you have about Ziggy's lifestyle, drop them right now. Ziggy and Paul were monogamous. Neither of them has had sex with anybody else for the past ten years."

  Weird gave a small, condescending smile that made Alex want to smack him. "You always believed everything Ziggy said."

  Alex didn't want to fight. He bit back a sharp retort and said, "What I was trying to tell
you is that the police have got some daft notion in their heads that it was Paul who set the fire. So try to be a tad sensitive around him, eh?"

  "Why do you think it's a daft notion? I don't know much about the way the police work, but I've been told that the majority of homicides that aren't gang-related are committed by spouses. And since you've asked me to be sensitive, I suppose we should regard Paul as Ziggy's spouse. If I were a police officer, I would consider myself derelict in my duty not to consider the possibility."

  "Fine. That's their job. But we're Ziggy's friends. Lynn and I spent plenty of time with the pair of them over the years. And take it from me, that was never a relationship that was heading toward murder. You should remember what it feels like to be suspected of something you haven't done. Imagine how much worse it must be if the person who's dead is the person you loved. Well, that's what Paul's going through. And it's him that deserves our support, not the police."

  "OK, OK," Weird muttered uneasily, the façade slipping momentarily as memory kicked in and he remembered the primal fear that had driven him into the arms of the church in the first place. He held his peace for the remainder of the journey, turning his head to stare out at the passing landscape to avoid Alex's occasional glances in his direction.

  Alex took the familiar exit off the freeway and headed west toward Ziggy and Paul's former home. His stomach tightened as he turned up the narrow metaled road that wound through the trees. His imagination had already run riot with images of the fire. But when he rounded the final bend and saw what remained of the house, he knew his powers of invention had been woefully inadequate. He'd expected a blackened and scarred shell. But this was almost total destruction.