Complicity

McDu

McDu

I'm still terrified, even though McDu

I'm getting paranoid about that, determined not to sign anything, worried that maybe I already have when they first brought me here and said it was just a receipt for personal effects or a legal-aid application or whatever, and I worry about them getting me to sign something when I'm tired and they've been interviewing me in shifts and all I want to do is go to bed and sleep and they say oh do us all a favour and sign this and you can sleep, come on now; it's just a formality you can always deny it later, change your mind, but you can't you can't of course, they're lying and you can't; I even worry about signing something in my sleep, or them hypnotising me and getting me to do it that way; hell, I don't know what they get up to.

"Cameron," McDu

"Oh, Jesus." I accept a fag; McDu

"You sure you can't think of anything?" McDu

I shake my head, rubbing my face in my hands, not caring that the smoke from the fag goes in my eyes and my hair. I cough a bit. "Sorry. No. No, I can't. I mean, I've thought of lots of stuff, but nothing —»

"But you're not telling me about it, are you, Cameron?" the DI says, sounding regretful. "You're keeping it all locked up inside you; you won't share it with me." He shakes his head. "Cameron, for God's sake, I'm the only one who can help you. If you have any suspicions, any doubts, you have to let me know about them; you have to name names."

I cough again, looking down at the tile floor of the room.

"This might be your last chance, Cameron," McDu

I take a deep breath.

"If there's anybody you can think of, Cameron, just give me their name," McDu

I stare at him, still uncertain. My hands are still splayed over my lower face. I take another drag on the fag. Fingers shaking again. McDu

I shake my head, frightened to speak in case I break down.

"Names; a name; anything that might save you, Cameron," McDu

I feel like a worker in Stalinist Russia denouncing his comrades but I say, "Well, I thought of a couple of friends of mine…" I look at McDu

"Yes?"

"William Sorrell, and… well, it sounds daft, but… his wife, umm, Yvo —»

"Yvo

I don't know what to think or feel. Yes, I do: I feel sick.

"Are you having an affair with Yvo

I stare at him. I really don't know what to say now.

He waves his hand. "Well, maybe it doesn't matter. But we've looked into Mr and Mrs Sorrel's movements. Discreetly, once we knew they were friends of yours." He smiles. "Always have to be alive to the possibility it's more than one person, Cameron, especially with a group of crimes spread out over so much territory, and fairly complicated ones at that."

I nod. Looked into. Movements looked into. I wonder how discreet is discreet. I want to cry very much now because I think I'm admitting to myself that, no matter what happens, life is never going to be the same again.

"As it turns out," McDu

I nod again, feeling like my guts have been ripped out. So I've denounced them and there wasn't even any point to it.

"I thought of Andy," I tell the floor, looking down there, avoiding McDu

"Funeral's tomorrow," McDu

God, I could use some dope; I need to mellow out, I need to calm down. I'm almost looking forward to prison; plenty of dope in there, if I'm allowed to mix with other inmates. Christ, it's going to happen. I'm accepting it, I'm coming to terms with it. Christ.

"Tomorrow?" I say, swallowing. I'm trying not to cry and I'm trying not to cough, either, because that might make me cry. "Yes," McDu

"Strathspeld," I tell him. I look at him but can't tell if he really forgot the name or not.

"Strathspeld." He nods.,'Strathspeld." He rolls the word around his mouth, as if savouring a good malt. "Strathspeld on the Carse of Speld." He sucks air through his teeth again. I wish he'd get his teeth seen to; do they have special police dentists or do they have to go to the ones everybody else goes to and hope the dentist doesn't have some… have some grudge… some grudge against…?