Adam examined his fingers closely. It felt like he still had something under his fingernails, but when he dug into them he found nothing. He spotted a small, dark fleck of something on his finger. He peered at it. It was the skelf he got from the cask at Laphroaig, when Molly gave them the tour. He prodded it, feeling a slight twinge under the skin.
‘Forget about the truth?’ he said quietly.
‘Yes.’
He hauled himself up with immense tiredness, his entire body aching beyond words, his mind blank.
‘Come on then,’ he said. ‘Let’s throw Luke in the sea.’
34
‘Wake up.’
Adam shook Roddy, gently at first, then harder when he didn’t respond.
‘Wake up.’
He felt Roddy’s neck. For a moment, all Adam could feel was his frozen fingers pressing against warm flesh, then he thought he detected something. A faint pulse, slowing and speeding up haphazardly, leaping all over the place.
‘Roddy!’
He removed Ethan’s jacket from him and grabbed the front of Roddy’s coat, lifting him up and shaking him.
‘Fucking Jesus,’ said Roddy, his eyes snapping open, his hand reaching for his shoulder. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’
Adam let go, not realising Roddy wasn’t supporting himself. Roddy slumped to the ground with a thud.
‘Fucking hell, Strachan, you trying to kill me?’
‘Sorry,’ said Adam. ‘I panicked. I thought you were dying.’
Roddy smiled and winced. ‘Wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.’
‘Don’t be a dickhead all your life,’ said Adam.
‘Hey, gorgeous,’ said Roddy as Molly appeared. ‘I’m in need of some TLC here. Fancy it?’
His voice was weak and croaky, despite the bullshit.
Molly gave him a withering glare. ‘We need to get our stories straight.’ She looked around. ‘When we get rescued.’
‘If we get rescued, you mean,’ said Adam.
Molly looked at him. ‘I mean when. I’m not going through all this shit just to die here.’
Roddy struggled on his good elbow to sit up. ‘Someone give me a fucking hand, eh?’
Adam lifted him to a sitting position and sat next to him. Molly stood over them, scanning the horizon. The sea was black glass.
Roddy tried to get something out of his jacket, grimacing.
‘Help me out here,’ he said, pointing at his pocket.
Adam delved in and pulled out the coke case. He looked at it.
‘I can’t believe you’re still taking this shit,’ he said.
Roddy grabbed it from him and opened it one-handed with practised skill. He lifted a mound out on his finger and snorted it, wiping the leftovers on his gums.
‘Purely medicinal,’ he said, licking his teeth and snorting again.
‘Does coke even have any painkilling properties?’
Roddy stared at him. ‘When you’ve got a fucking gaping wound in your shoulder with a piece of fucking metal sticking out of it, feel free to come back and ask me about pain relief, OK?’
He looked around.
‘Where’s Luke?’
Adam and Molly exchanged a glance.
‘In the sea,’ said Adam.
‘Want to tell me why?’ Roddy seemed immediately bolstered by the coke.
‘We thought it was best,’ said Molly.
‘Why?’
‘Adam got the bullet out, but…’
‘Wait,’ Roddy turned to Adam. ‘You got the bullet out?’
Adam looked down. ‘Yeah.’
‘How?’
Adam stared at his hands, then lifted them and showed them to Roddy, waggling his fingers solemnly.
‘Jesus,’ said Roddy.
‘Yeah.’
Molly cut in. ‘Anyway, we didn’t know if they could still tell it was a gunshot wound, so we dumped him in the sea, from that ledge over there.’
Roddy followed her finger.
‘Couldn’t we have just done that miles back, instead of rolling him all the way here in that thing?’ He pointed at the barrel.
Molly looked out to sea again. ‘We needed to get away from the still fast, didn’t we? And we had to get the bullet out, remember. Anyway, it’s better that we threw him in here, maybe some smart police bastard knows the tides in this area. If we’d thrown him in along the coast, he might have washed up somewhere that conflicts with our story. All we have to say now is that we have no idea where Luke is. He must’ve been thrown clear in the crash, all the way into the water. That could’ve happened.’
Roddy and Adam looked at each other.
‘It could’ve,’ insisted Molly.
‘You sound like you’ve got it all worked out,’ said Roddy.
‘Not really,’ said Molly. ‘I’m just trying to think logically.’
‘So what’s the rest of our story?’ said Roddy.
‘Simple,’ said Molly. ‘We tell the truth about Ethan. We moved his body, but so what? And we just say that we’ve been here by the wreckage the whole time.’
Roddy shook his head. ‘Why the fuck would we just sit here and do nothing all that time?’
‘We just did, OK?’ said Molly. ‘When we came to, we searched around this area for Luke for a while, then we thought it best to stay with the vehicle and wait to be rescued. Maybe we thought it wasn’t safe for you to move with your injury, you weren’t up to it, and we didn’t want anyone going off and looking for help alone.’
Roddy nodded. ‘I suppose that makes sense.’ He looked around. ‘So how do we actually get rescued, then?’
Molly looked at the car. The tide was going out, the undercarriage and half the chassis now exposed.
‘We need to start a fire, get some attention.’
She walked down to the car. The boot was above the waterline, so she leaned in and flipped the catch. It popped open downwards and a gush of seawater poured out along with a handful of bits and bobs which floated around in the gently lapping tide. She lifted a petrol canister from the debris in the water, then pushed herself away from the car. She turned to them, opened the canister and sniffed.
‘Bingo. If we pour this over the undercarriage and tyres, strike a match, should make a pretty big smoke signal.’
Roddy pulled a lighter out of his pocket with a groan of pain.
‘Go on then,’ he said offering it. ‘I could do with getting saved. I’m in fucking agony here.’
‘Not so fast,’ said Molly. ‘We have to get rid of the barrel, the gun and the torch first.’
Roddy looked out to sea. ‘Shouldn’t we keep the gun in case those bastards in the speedboat come back?’
Molly put the canister down and searched the horizon. The sky was light in the east now, high feathering
