Free The Skeleton Road by Val McDermid Page B

preferable to the interior. Laurie was wearing baggy sweat shorts and a grey T-shirt advertising a city-centre gym. He had the stringy muscles and skinny build of a distance runner or a climber, but today it was mismatched with yellow-tinged eyes and skin, scrubby black stubble and breath that would have stripped the Forth Bridge back to the bare metal. Karen didn’t envy his wife-to-be.
    He waved them towards a baggy leather sofa that looked as if it had originally been expensive but had been serially maltreated. Laurie himself slumped into a matching armchair that faced a vast plasma TV where a fireplace had once stood. ‘So,’ he said. ‘What’s this serious matter?’ He didn’t look or sound convinced.
    ‘I’ll get to that in due course,’ Karen said. ‘I wanted to talk to you about something you said to Fraser Jardine.’
    Laurie scratched his armpit and yawned. ‘Fraser? What did I say to Fraser?’
    ‘When he said he was going to the John Drummond School building, one of your mutual pals asked if he was going up from the inside or the outside. And that jogged his memory and he came up with something you’d said about climbing the John Drummond.’
    Laurie straightened up and looked wary. ‘Never happened. A wee joke, that’s all.’
    ‘Mr Laurie, I’m not looking to nick anybody for trespassing. But I am looking for some help. There’s no catch here. I’m just trying to fill in a bit of background.’
    ‘I’ve never been in the John Drummond,’ he said, quickly and firmly. ‘There’s absolutely nothing I can tell you about the place. Nothing.’
    ‘What is it you do for a living, Mr Laurie?’ Karen asked casually. The framed monochrome photographs of black jazz musicians that lined the walls were not, she suspected, a clue. More of a style statement.
    ‘I work for RBS.’ Seeing her lip curl, he added hastily, ‘I’m not a banker. I’m a buildings services executive.’
    Karen smiled. ‘What? You count the chairs? Not so many of them as there used to be, I guess. So, like most people you don’t have anything to do with the police on a daily basis. I just want to explain that it’s nothing like the telly. I’m a lot smarter than most of those dozy detectives you see on the box. And I’m a lot less patient. I’m trying to do this the polite and quick way. But we can do it down the police station in a way that’ll make you very late for your work tomorrow.’ She gave him a smile that her colleagues had learned the hard way not to trust.
    Laurie looked at the Mint as if he was expecting some male solidarity. The Mint looked stolidly at his feet.
    ‘I’ve not done anything,’ he said plaintively.
    ‘Free climbing,’ Karen said. ‘What do you know about free-climbing buildings, Mr Laurie?’
    ‘I’ve seen videos on YouTube. That kind of thing.’
    ‘I think you can do better than that. I don’t know why you’re being so cagey, Mr Laurie. I couldn’t give a toss about what you do in your spare time. All I’m trying to do is find out how a murder victim might have got on to the roof of the John Drummond School without any trace of a break-in.’
    ‘Murder?’ Laurie’s voice was a squeak. ‘You never said it was a murder.’
    ‘I was trying to spare your feelings. Now, are you going to tell me about the John Drummond or not?’
    ‘I want a lawyer,’ Laurie stammered.
    The Mint looked up. ‘Like the boss said, we’re not accusing you of anything. We’re just looking for information. You get a lawyer, you start to look like a man who’s done something wrong.’
    Karen looked at the Mint with new respect. Twice in two days he’d said something that wasn’t stupid. Was there some new drug going the rounds that she hadn’t heard about? ‘So, the John Drummond?’ she said.
    Laurie hunched his shoulders and folded his arms. ‘It’s not like we do anybody any harm, right? It’s the challenge.’
    Karen wanted to give him a verbal slap but she held back. A bunch of