‘Fucking right it is.’
‘You never take responsibility, do you?’
‘Not if it’s not my fault.’
‘Bastard!’ Adam shouted, rushing towards Roddy and swinging for him.
Roddy stumbled backwards clutching his shoulder and fell to the ground as Adam threw punches at his head and body. Roddy covered his face with his good arm, ducking out the way of the fists as best he could.
‘Adam,’ cried Molly, pulling at him. ‘Leave him.’
Roddy brought his knee up into Adam’s groin, making him collapse, then slid out from underneath, pinning him with his knees and punching with his left hand. Molly was forced back by the struggle as they swore and raged at each other like boys in the playground.
‘What the hell are you guys doing?’
The voice was quiet but it made them stop and turn.
Luke was standing on a rock above them. He made an agile leap down as Roddy and Adam rolled apart, wheezing and coughing.
Luke was about to speak when he saw Ethan’s body. He walked over and knelt down next to him. He touched Ethan’s neck in a tender gesture then put a hand on his own brow. ‘Jesus.’
He shook his head and walked back to where they were standing.
‘What happened, man?’
‘We came over that cliff,’ said Molly. ‘Adam came round first and got me and Roddy out of the car. You and Ethan must’ve been thrown clear. Where were you?’
Luke nodded behind her. ‘Up the slope, thick heather.’ He looked at Ethan. ‘I was lucky, I guess.’ He noticed Roddy’s shoulder. ‘What happened to you?’
‘That’s the last time I buy a fucking Audi,’ said Roddy. ‘Came apart like balsa wood.’
‘Looks sore, man.’
‘Correct, Einstein.’ Roddy grimaced. ‘Give the man a medical degree. So I guess we go get help now.’
‘Fucking hell,’ said Adam.
‘What?’
‘Ethan’s lying there dead, for Christ’s sake.’
‘So what?’ said Roddy. ‘We’re supposed to sit around and grieve? Nothing we do changes what’s happened. But we have to start thinking about getting the fuck out of here and saving ourselves.’
‘You heartless bastard.’
‘Heartless doesn’t come into it. He’s dead, that’s that.’
‘Jesus, someone is going to have to tell Debs,’ said Adam.
They all stood in silence looking at the body.
‘We have to get rescued first,’ said Luke eventually. ‘Phones?’
‘Nothing,’ said Molly.
‘So what do we do now?’ said Roddy.
‘We need to think logically,’ said Molly. ‘Option number one is to stay by the car and wait to get spotted.’
‘What are the chances of that happening?’ said Adam.
Molly shrugged. ‘Not great. We’re very remote, and I don’t think you can see the bottom of the cliff from the road. We could light a fire, that might get some attention, but not if there’s no one nearby to see it.’
‘Fuck that,’ said Roddy. ‘We need to do something. I’m not sitting around on my arse waiting to freeze to death.’
Molly nodded. ‘Fair enough.’
She looked up at the cliff face. It was completely unclimbable.
‘Well, there’s no chance of getting back up that way,’ she said, and turned to look both ways along the coast. ‘Looks like we’ll have to start walking, but it’s not going to be easy.’
‘Why not?’ said Roddy.
‘It’s freezing cold, almost dark and the tide is coming in. Judging by where the grass starts, the water could come up another thirty yards.’
They all looked along the coastline. The shelf in the cliff petered out in both directions after a few hundred yards. Lower down, the beach was peppered with huge boulders in one direction, and hidden by a jutting headland in the other.
‘We need to do something,’ said Luke.
‘Let’s just start walking,’ said Roddy.
‘Which way?’ said Adam.
‘Well,’ said Molly. She pointed in the boulder-strewn direction. ‘That’s east, so Port Ellen is that way, but it’s quite a few miles away, and I’ve no idea what the coast is like between here and there. What we can see from here doesn’t look too easy to get across.’
She turned towards the headland. ‘That way is the American Monument, it’s definitely closer. I know there’s a farm near it, Upper Killeyan, and a clifftop path at the monument, but I don’t know if there’s a way up from the beach.’
‘What about mobile reception?’ said Luke. ‘Which way’s better for getting a signal?’
Molly shook her head. ‘There’s no reception anywhere on the Oa. Hardly anyone lives here, there’s never been a need.’
Roddy turned to Adam and laughed. ‘You were going to start up your own business in a place that doesn’t even have mobile reception? Jesus Christ.’
Adam glared at him.
‘Oh, fuck you,’ said Roddy, getting his coke tin out and tooting a line.
‘I don’t think that’ll help,’ said Adam.
‘Fuck off, I need it for the pain.’ Roddy waved the box around. ‘Anyone want a line?’
They all stared at him, incredulous.
‘Suit yourselves.’
‘So which way?’ said Luke eventually.
Snowflakes disappeared as they hit the wet ground around them, but left a thin white layer on their shoulders.
Adam shrugged.
‘I think west,’ said Molly, turning. ‘The terrain looks easier and we know there’s a farmhouse not too far away.’
‘West it is,’ said Roddy, snorting another line and sniffing.
19
The light was almost gone and snow covered the ground by the time they reached the bottom of the headland. Adam looked back the way they’d come, thin threads of footprints trailing back to the crumpled car, now being lapped by waves. He could just make out Ethan’s body. He and Luke had dragged him the short distance to the car so he would be easier to find, and placed him above high tide, so he was lying twenty feet further up, a snowy bump marked by a small cairn.
Adam looked at the dried blood on his hands and felt sick, Ethan’s death a rock in his stomach. How the hell had it come to this? Why Ethan? He was always the cautious one, the safe guy, the one who took out insurance and made sensible career moves and never did anything out of place. Surely he would’ve been wearing a seat belt? If not, why the hell not? Either way, he was now laid out at the bottom of a cliff, snow soaking into his bones, and the whole thing was Adam’s fault, despite what he’d yelled at Roddy earlier. This morning outside the B amp;B, Ethan had talked about going home to see Debs, but Adam had talked him out of it. Jesus Christ. He felt his stomach heave.
‘Look.’
