‘I don’t for a minute think he was in on the still operation, but that doesn’t mean we should go blabbing everything to him. Like I said to Roddy, he’s not Jim’ll Fix It, just an old copper who happened to know my dad.’
‘But maybe he can help.’
‘Maybe we won’t need any help. If we could’ve got a hold of him last night, maybe he would’ve come and got us, but we’re rescued now, I don’t know how much help he can be. Let’s just stick to the story. We don’t want to start telling different versions to different people, we’re bound to trip ourselves up that way. Let’s just wait and see what the police have found at the still, if they’ve found anything. If me, you and Roddy stick to our story and don’t fuck it up, we won’t be implicated in anything.’
‘You really think so?’
Molly stared at him. ‘Just stay calm. Don’t start embellishing anything, just stick to the basic facts — we crashed, we found Ethan, we searched for Luke, we couldn’t find him, we lit a fire, we got found in the morning. OK?’
‘OK.’
Their boat pulled in alongside the dock and tied up, Adam and Molly thanking the crew profusely, words they waved away. Eric helped Molly then Adam out of the boat as the ambulance crew took Roddy and Ethan on stretchers into the back of their vehicle. The bloke with the camera began taking pictures of it all.
‘Not now, Dean,’ the policeman said, then turned to Molly. ‘Sounds like you’ve been through the wringer, dear.’
‘Hi, Eric,’ said Molly. ‘Yeah, quite something. Thought we’d never be found. This is Adam, by the way.’
Adam stuck his hand out, but Eric put an arm on his shoulder.
‘Let’s get you in the car,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a lift to the hospital.’
Adam stopped. ‘Shouldn’t we go in the ambulance?’
Eric looked at him with narrow eyes. ‘You’ll be fine with me.’
They got in the back of the police car, leaving the photographer to take a couple of nonchalant snaps through the window. The ambulance pulled away and they followed. Adam noticed the lifeboat untying and heading back out to sea.
‘Where are they going?’ he said, pointing.
Eric followed his finger. ‘Back out to look for your missing friend, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘They’ve rustled up a couple of coastguard boats to help. They’re going to sweep the whole southern coastline of the Oa.’
‘Reckon they’ll find him?’
Eric looked carefully at Adam in the rear-view mirror. ‘Better prepare yourself for the worst, son. If he’s been in that water nearly twenty-four hours, the only thing they’ll be finding is a corpse.’
They drove out of Port Ellen towards Bowmore. Adam remembered coming the other way less than two days ago, Roddy driving like a maniac, the world still full of possibilities. They passed the place where Joe had first pulled them over for speeding, and Adam felt sick at the sight of it.
‘Didn’t think you’d be working the weekend, Eric,’ said Molly.
He replied over his shoulder. ‘I don’t normally. In fact I’ve almost retired these days, but there’s been an emergency today.’
Adam looked at Molly, who gave him a silencing stare.
‘What kind of emergency?’ she said.
‘I’m not meant to say,’ said Eric. ‘But I suppose you’re connected to it.’
‘Connected? In what way?’ said Molly.
Adam looked at her. She sounded and looked calm. He couldn’t believe it was all unravelling like this already.
‘Seems they found two dead bodies first thing this morning.’
‘Bodies?’
Eric nodded. ‘In a burnt-out distillery.’
‘One of the distilleries has burnt down?’ said Molly.
‘No, an illegal still. Quite a big operation, by all accounts. Just a few miles from where you were found, actually.’
‘Really?’
‘They haven’t formally identified the bodies yet, but evidence on the scene suggests it was Joe and Grant.’
Adam could see Eric looking in the mirror for a reaction from Molly.
‘Joe and Grant?’ She sounded shocked and incredulous. ‘In an illegal still?’
Eric nodded carefully. ‘Place had burned down to the ground with them inside it.’
‘Jesus,’ said Molly.
Eric considered the pair of them in the back. ‘Quite something. I know you and Joe were all over, but I thought you should know, given that you were man and wife for years.’
‘Yeah, thanks Eric. I appreciate that. Joe and Grant, wow.’
‘Anyway, I’ve been called in as emergency cover,’ Eric said. ‘Same with young Kyle who was called out to the scene of your accident. Obviously we’re understaffed. But some big guns from the mainland are coming over on the ferry, to investigate the whole thing further. I was just told to get you to hospital, make sure you’re OK.’
‘We appreciate it, Eric, we really do,’ said Molly.
‘That’s right,’ said Adam, feeling totally redundant to the conversation, to this whole place.
They were approaching Bowmore now, swinging past the round church and down the main street, then hanging a right. The hospital was little more than a converted house with an NHS sign outside. Adam watched as the ambulance pulled up and the crew began moving Roddy inside.
Eric stopped and got out. He opened the door for Molly and helped her up.
‘You’ve been through a lot,’ he said, looking at her carefully. ‘So just take it easy. They’ll give you the once- over here, make sure you’re OK, then I’ll give you a lift back to Port Ellen.’
He turned to Adam, struggling out of the car. ‘You might want to hang around, make sure your pal is OK.’
‘Of course.’
‘Well, let’s get you inside, get you both checked out.’
Molly and Adam followed behind him, looking at each other, Adam’s stomach buzzing with nerves.
37
They sat in a beige room with cheap plastic furniture waiting for a doctor to examine them. Outside the dirty window they could see Eric sitting in his police car reading a paper and smoking a pipe. Wasn’t there a law against smoking in work vehicles?
‘Think he suspects anything?’ Adam said to Molly.
Molly looked out the window. ‘Maybe, but I’m more worried about the mainland police. I don’t know if anyone on Islay was working with Joe and Grant, but even if they were, they’d surely just want all this to go away after what’s happened.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘You don’t know what it’s like living on an island. There’s a certain mentality, a community feeling. We’ve always been separate from the mainland, they’ve ignored us for centuries, that’s just the way we like it. We like to sort things out our own way.’
‘I thought you didn’t like it here that much?’
‘I don’t, but that doesn’t mean I’m not part of it.’
‘So if you islanders look out for each other, where does that leave me and Roddy?’
Molly frowned. ‘Let’s just concentrate on the mainland cops coming over on the ferry. For all we know, they