McDunn really wants to help, I can see that, but he's under pressure, too; the circumstantial evidence against me is so strong people who don't know the details of the case are getting impatient over the lack of progress. Apart from that fucking business card they have no forensic evidence; no weapons, bloodstained clothes or even minutiae like hairs or fibres to link me with any of the attacks. I suspect they don't think I'd be identified by any of the witnesses or I'd have been on an identity parade by now, but it just all looks so obvious: it must be me. Lefty journalist goes loco, wastes right-wingers. Apparently I've missed some good headlines while I've been in here. Actually, I missed some good ones in the couple of days" holiday I took; if I'd just bothered to look at a single fucking news-stand after I left Stromeferry I'd have seen this story starting to break about this guy — "The Red Panther" the tabloids decided on eventually — murdering these right-leaning pillars of the community.

McDunn doesn't want to charge me with any of the other murders but they're going to have to make a decision before too long because my initial time under the PTA is nearly up and the Home Secretary isn't going to grant an extension; I'll have to appear in court soon. Hell, I might even get a lawyer.

I'm still terrified, even though McDunn's on my side, because I can see he's not so hopeful any more and if they take him off this I might get the bad cops, the ones that just want a confession and Christ I'm in England, not Scotland, and despite the McGuire Seven and the Guildford Four they still haven't changed the law: down here you can still be convicted on an uncorroborated confession even if you try to retract it later.

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," McDunn says. It's day five; the morning. They want to charge you with all the murders and assaults and take you to court, day after tomorrow."

"Oh, Jesus." I accept a fag; McDunn lights it for me.

"You sure you can't think of anything?" McDunn asks. "Anything at all?" He makes that sucking noise with his teeth again. It's starting to annoy me.

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," McDunn tells me softly.

I take a deep breath.

"If there's anybody you can think of, Cameron, just give me their name," McDunn says. "It'll probably be easy to eliminate them from the enquiry; we aren't going to frame anybody or hassle anybody or pull anything heavy."

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. McDunn continues. "There are, or were, people on this case who are very good, dedicated, and enthusiastic officers, but the only thing they're enthusiastic about nowadays is getting you charged with the rest of the attacks and getting you into the dock. I've persuaded the people who matter that I'm the best man to work with you to help us clear this up, but I'm like a football manager, Cameron; I can be replaced at a moment's notice and I'm only as good as the results I get. At the moment I'm not getting any results, and I could go at any time. And believe me, Cameron, I'm the only friend you've got in here."

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

"Names; a name; anything that might save you, Cameron," McDunn says patiently. "Is there anyone you've thought of?"

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 McDunn to see how I'm doing. There's a concerned-looking frown on his dark, heavy face.

"Yes?"

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

"Yvonne," McDunn says, nodding slowly and sitting back. He lights a fag. He looks sad. He taps the cigarette packet round and round on the table surface.

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

"Are you having an affair with Yvonne Sorrell?" McDunn asks.

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," McDunn says, while the fag packet goes tap, tap, "although they are both away from home a lot, their movements are very well documented; we know pretty well what they were doing during all the attacks."

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 McDunn's eyes. "Andy Gould," I say, because — apart from everything else — Andy stayed with me during the summer, round about the time the card with my writing on it went missing. "I thought it might be him, but he's dead."

"Funeral's tomorrow," McDunn says, flicking ash and then inspecting the glowing end of his cigarette. He scrapes it round the edge of the light metal ashtray until the tip of the fag is a perfect cone, then smokes it carefully. My ash falls on the floor. I sweep it to nothing with my foot, guiltily.

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," McDunn says, tapping ash carefully off his cigarette again. "Burying him tomorrow, at the family estate. What's it called again?"

"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…?