The Distant Echo

Suspect, Witness or Victim? Sometimes It Is Hard to Tell One From Another

The Distant Echo by Val McDermid is an evocative tale of St Andrews in the late 1970s, where four university students find a dead girl. Twenty-five years later, the girl comes back to haunt them.

A crisp, concise thriller and the first to feature the young Scottish detective Karen Pirie. The book was long-listed for the Gold Dagger and won the 2014 International Deutscher Krimipreis.

Synopsis

Four students at the University of St Andrews stumbled over Rosie Duff whilst lurching home from a late-night party. Rosie had been raped, stabbed and left bleeding to death. One of the boys ran for help whilst another — a medical student — struggled in vain to keep her alive. After an exhaustive investigation, the police failed to find Rosie’s killer. The only suspects were the four blood-splattered young men who tried to save her.

Twenty-five years later, the police started a cold case review; technological advances should help convict Rosie’s killer. Within weeks, two men who found Rosie’s body are dead, and another has been beaten to within an inch of his life. The police, however, are reluctant to connect the incidents. The only way the remaining witness can survive is to find out who murdered Rosie all those years ago.

Review

In The Distant Echo, McDermid writes an vivid tale of St Andrews in the late 1970s, her local knowledge — she grew up in Fife — creates a powerful sense of place.

More visceral is the mistrust she establishes between the four friends, the police and the murdered girl’s family. She keeps you believing that first one, then another of the four was responsible for Rosie McDuff’s death.

The book’s second half remains sharp and concise but lacks the threatening atmosphere generated at the start. It will, however, keep you guessing who the real murderer is. The clues are neatly planted throughout the novel, though I couldn’t help but think the solution was a little too tidy — like an Agatha Christie novel — in the way it came together. But if you are looking for a sharp, succinct thriller, the novel is no less enjoyable for that.

Excerpt

His fall was broken by something soft. Alex struggled to sit up, pushing against whatever it was he had landed on. Spluttering snow, he wiped his eyes with his tingling fingers, breathing hard through his nose in a bid to clear it of the freezing melt. He glanced around to see what had cushioned his landing just as the heads of his three companions appeared on the hillside to gloat over his farcical calamity. 

Even in the eerie dimness of snow light, he could see that the bulwark against his fall was no botanical feature. The outline of a human form was unmistakable. The heavy white flakes began to melt as soon as they landed, allowing Alex to see it was a woman, the wet tendrils of her dark hair spread against the snow in Medusa locks. Her skirt was pushed up to her waist, her knee-length black boots looking all the more incongruous against her pale legs. Strange dark patches stained her flesh and the pale blouse that clung to her chest. Alex stared uncomprehendingly for a long moment, then he looked at his hands and saw the same darkness contaminating his own skin. 

Blood. The realization dawned at the same instant that the snow in his ears melted and allowed him to hear the faint but stertorous wheeze of her breath. 

‘Jesus Christ,’ Alex stuttered, trying to scramble away from the horror that he had stumbled into. But he kept banging into what felt like little stone walls as he squirmed backwards. ‘Jesus Christ.’

The Distant Echo by Val McDermid