Suddenly they heard a nasal whine. It grew louder, encroached on the thick silence of the night around them. They stopped and looked at each other.
‘Torch,’ Molly hissed, glaring at Roddy.
He flicked it off just as the police speedboat from earlier fizzed round the headland, close to the shore. It had a large searchlight mounted on the front, sweeping its beam along the coastline, back and forth over rocks and cliffs. The three of them stood for a second, frozen, then darted behind the cask. Adam was confused — had they had that searchlight before, just not used it? He couldn’t remember seeing it, but that didn’t mean anything, his mind was worn out with it all.
The three of them and the barrel were quite far inland, a spread of jagged boulders between them and the sea, maybe far enough away that they wouldn’t be spotted. The searchlight arced past them higher up the slope, then swept back lower down, rippling over the rocks below, then moving further on. Adam could hear himself breathe heavily as the sound of the boat’s engine receded, then it was gone past the next headland.
‘Why are they looking for us?’ said Adam. ‘I thought we’d left no trace.’
‘Calm down,’ said Molly. ‘We don’t know they’re looking for us specifically, do we?’
‘Then what the fuck are they searching the coast for?’ said Roddy.
‘Maybe just making sure,’ said Molly. ‘If you were a cop and you were running a big bootlegging operation that went tits up, wouldn’t you want to make sure there were no potential witnesses in the area?’
‘But why would they think there were any witnesses?’ said Adam.
‘I don’t know, OK?’ Molly snapped. ‘Like I just said, maybe they don’t know anything. One thing’s for sure, if they see us we’re screwed, so let’s just be extra careful from now on.’
They trudged on, nervy and exhausted, Adam swithering between numb desolation and flurried panic attacks, unable to stop his mind churning over events, everything that had happened, all the potential pitfalls that still waited for them round every corner.
Finally, drained of all emotion and energy, they reached the headland before the crashed car. They scuffed round in silence, Molly and Adam still heaving the cask in front of them with worn-out shoves, Roddy staggering uncertainly with every step. They stopped when they caught sight of the Audi. It was almost submerged in water, just the wheels and undercarriage poking up through the waves.
Adam tried to think about tides. There were two a day, right? How long had they been away? What time was it now anyway? He thought he could detect a lightening in the sky in the east, the black grading to purple at the edge of the horizon, and distant clouds brightening a little.
They picked up the pace, urged on by the sight of the car, still casting nervous glances out to sea. There was no sign of the police boat, just the slick undulations of the vast expanse of water stretching to infinity.
They finally slumped exhausted just uphill from the car, Roddy easing himself down to lie flat out on the snow-covered grass, Molly and Adam heaving the barrel onto its end next to Ethan’s body. The sight of Ethan brought everything back to Adam, the sick feeling in his gut, the terrible guilt. He felt rage bubble up inside him, but was too weak to do anything about it.
He slumped down onto the ground next to Roddy and put his head on the cold land. The clouds above him seemed to whirl round in a complicated dance, and he felt sick and disoriented looking at them.
He tried to take deliberate breaths, stop the nausea, but he felt bile rise in his gut. He sat up just in time to puke, angling his head to the side but still dribbling down his clothes. The vomit left a taste of bitter moonshine in his mouth, reminding him of the still and everything that had happened there. He sat panting and spitting for a while, then grabbed a handful of snow and washed his mouth out with it.
He looked up at the cliff towering over them. It was insane to think they had driven off that ledge and crumpled underneath less than twenty-four hours ago. This time yesterday he’d been sitting in Molly’s flat in Port Ellen drinking her thirty-year-old and talking quietly, sharing that one clumsy, tender kiss. He couldn’t imagine ever kissing her again.
She was gazing at the Audi, playing with the torch Roddy had dumped, deep in her own thoughts. In one way he felt closer to her than anyone else in the world now, but the shared experience was a barrier as well — they would always remind each other of this nightmare.
And anyway, it wasn’t over yet, not by a long way.
He looked at the car. The tide was receding; there was more of the undercarriage showing and now part of the boot as well. He was distracted by Roddy coughing violently, his body convulsing with the force of it. He put a hand on Roddy’s chest and felt his breath rattling. His whole right side was soaked in blood, his face totally white now, ghostly.
‘We need to get help soon,’ said Molly, looking at Roddy.
‘Roddy?’ said Adam.
Roddy opened his eyes and a faint smile appeared on his blue lips. He winked slowly.
‘I wouldn’t go to sleep if I were you,’ said Adam. ‘You might not wake up again.’
Roddy coughed.
‘Fuck you,’ he croaked. ‘You’re not getting rid of me that easily.’
‘So,’ said Adam, turning to Molly. ‘It feels like I’m always saying this, but what do we do now?’
She sighed, got up, walked over to the barrel and put one hand on the rim.
‘The bullet in Luke’s head. We have to get it out.’
‘Jesus.’
‘Yeah.’ She carefully tipped the barrel over onto its side and sat down, bracing her legs against the rim. ‘Help me get him out, then.’
Adam sat next to her and took one of Luke’s arms as she took the other. They both pulled, leaning back, pushing their legs against the barrel to prise him free. A handful of heaves and he was out.
They rolled him onto his back, then peered into the mess at the side of his head, Adam feeling his stomach clench at the sight. There was a mash of skull fragments, brains, blood and matted hair.
‘Are we sure the bullet’s definitely still in there?’ said Adam, turning away.
‘That’s what Joe thought, anyway.’
‘Maybe it worked its way out on the trip back here.’
Molly smiled a joyless smile. ‘Wishful thinking.’
‘So what do we do?’
Molly dragged her hands down her face in a tired movement and looked at him. ‘Get it out.’
‘How?’
‘How do you think?’
Adam stared at her. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’
Molly raised her eyebrows and shrugged.
‘We can’t leave the bullet in there,’ she said. ‘It ties us to Joe, Grant and the still. You know that.’
Eventually Adam nodded. ‘I know.’
‘One of us has to get in there and get the bullet out.’
Adam stared at Molly, then glanced at the mess of Luke’s head. He looked away as he felt his mouth start to sweat. Luke was his friend. It was his fault they were in this mess, his fault Luke was dead. It was his responsibility.
33
Nothing could’ve prepared him for the gut-wrenching, visceral sickness of this.
Of course he’d seen autopsies on television dramas, but those were sterilised, one step removed from reality.
They’d searched their pockets for a useful implement, but all they came up with was a pen of Molly’s. Adam cursed their stupidity for not bringing tools from the still.
He took a deep breath and began tentatively poking into the gaping wound in Luke’s head with the pen, his trembling hands making it impossible to control it with any precision. There was a deep fluttering in his stomach, teetering on the brink of vomiting at any minute.
