Free Lawless by Alexander McGregor Page A

flicked a switch. Floodlights flashed inside his head and with the light came the blinding certainty that he had been headed in the wrong direction – not in the route he had taken that morning but in the course of his mind ever since he had left the frozen file room of The Courier .
    The riddle of the missing section of the Bryan Gilzean murder trial report that had taken him up a succession of mental blind alleys and culs-de-sac was finally making some sort of sense. The sentences that had been excised had not been removed by a warped souvenir hunter – they were making a statement. ‘The bastard!’ he suddenly spat out, oblivious to the astonished looks from a pair of dog walkers. ‘He didn’t take something away from the library – he left something behind.’
    The realisation that he might have cracked the problem that had swirled almost ceaselessly round his head for days took McBride completely by surprise. He had not even been aware that he had been wrestling with it at that moment. With the dawning came physical release. He subconsciously lifted his pace, lengthened his stride and pushed hard up the first, and steepest, of the short hills, feeling the urgency to somehow make use of the new information.
    As he ran, McBride inwardly repeated the words that had become etched into his brain, though this is not unique. These activities happen from time to time and can be confusing. Care has to be taken to ensure a dispassionate analysis and conclusion. It wouldn’t be the first time someone got it wrong and it won’t be the last . McBride became convinced that whoever had taken the passage away from the filed newspaper in the Central Library was giving out a message. The more he contemplated its meaning, the more he began to wonder if the most important part wasn’t the opening five words – the ones which did not even form a sentence. He cursed himself for not having come to that conclusion the second he laid eyes on them. Unless they had deep significance, why leave them standing alone, sentence-less and otherwise meaningless? ‘Christ,’ he muttered, ‘they should have been in capital letters!’
    McBride covered the remaining four miles back to his new flat faster than he would have believed possible. By the time he arrived, the volume of sweat that usually only poured from his body on warm, heavy days was dripping on to the off-white carpet of his bedroom, leaving a trail of damp stains. Instead of following his usual routine of stretching then showering, he hurriedly towelled his face and armpits while simultaneously lifting his mobile with his free hand.
    He rang the offices of The Courier but did not ask for Richard Richardson. Instead, he requested to be put through to Cuttings, the department that every newspaper office cannot exist without. As he waited to be connected, he offered a prayer that Gwen Kissock was on duty. Long before the paper had invested in an electronic retrieval system for recovering selected news items, she had performed the same function as fast as any computer, especially when the story being sought related to crime. She was a human encyclopaedia and could have enjoyed a prosperous existence if she had been interested in television quiz shows on the subject. At the very least, she should have become a police officer. Happily, she had done neither and had remained as one of the paper’s most valuable but underappreciated assets.
    She answered the phone and recognised McBride’s voice instantly for she had also been born with a ‘photographic’ ear. It had been more than a year since they had spoken – back when he had called her from London for assistance with research for his book. ‘Hello, Campbell,’ she said confidently, before he had a chance to announce himself, ‘what do you want this time?’ She could also be direct.
    ‘I just wanted to hear your dulcet tones once again,’ he replied with what he hoped was humorous charm. ‘It’s been more than a year and