‘We need to speak to you again,’ Yates said.
‘I could use some good news,’ Surtsey said, slipping past what he’d said.
‘Can we come in?’
‘Do you want to know why I could do with good news?’
Yates frowned. ‘We either talk here or down at the station.’
‘Because my mum just died,’ Surtsey said, like it was the cops’ fault.
Yates’s eyebrows went up and down like they were trying to send a message. The other guy – Flannery on his jacket, that was it – shuffled awkwardly, looked at his scuffed Clarks shoes, fat blobs on the ends of his legs.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Yates said like he couldn’t give a shit. ‘But we still need to talk to you.’
Surtsey’s eyes went wide with sarcasm.
‘Sure, come in, make yourself at home. Wipe your fucking feet.’
She was in no fit state for this but a large part of her didn’t give a flying shit.
She walked to the living room. ‘Should I rustle you both up a sandwich?’
For a moment it looked like Flannery took her offer seriously.
She glared at him and he looked away.
‘Sit.’
She pointed at the sofa and threw herself into a chair. She laid the flat of her hand against her cheek, liked the coolness of her own touch. That inherited poor circulation, cold hands, warm heart, all that bullshit. Iona was straight up hot-blooded in comparison, the angry cuckoo in the nest.
‘Mrs Lawrie came to see us,’ Yates said.
‘Good for her,’ Surtsey said. The image of Alice standing with the girls on the doorstep in the night came to her and she felt a pang of something. Those girls.
‘She made some accusations.’
‘I’m sure she did.’
‘She thinks you killed her husband.’
‘That’s what she told me.’
‘When?’
‘Last night. She came to the house with the girls. She was drunk.’ Surtsey thought about mentioning that she had driven, but didn’t.
‘Why didn’t you report that to us?’
‘Why should I?’
‘It’s harassment.’ This was Flannery speaking for the first time.
‘So the police now want to arrest everyone who has ever shouted at anyone else after a few drinks. I’m sure you have the manpower for that.’
‘It’s pertinent to the case,’ Yates said.
‘Pertinent?’ Surtsey laughed. ‘My God, listen to yourself.’
Yates made some notes in his wee book.
‘Joined up writing, well done,’ Surtsey said, craning her neck and pretending to peek.
Silence.
‘Perhaps we could go over your movements on the night before Mr Lawrie’s body was found,’ Yates said eventually.
‘We’ve done that,’ Surtsey said, eyes narrow.
‘I know, but it helps me get things straight.’
Surtsey sighed. ‘I was in the office at KB.’ She swallowed, her mouth dry. ‘Then I was back here with Halima.’
‘All night?’
‘Yes.’
Yates looked at Flannery, then out the window.
‘You know there’s CCTV all the way along the prom,’ he said.
Surtsey needed a drink of water. She chewed on her cheek.
‘OK.’
‘We’ve looked at it, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘And we saw this.’
He pulled a folded sheet of A4 from his notebook, unfolded it and passed it over.
It was Surtsey pulling the boat off the sand, towards the street at the back of the house. It wasn’t the clearest picture in the world but it was definitely her. The boat was identifiable too.
Surtsey sat with the piece of paper trembling in her hand.
‘That is you, isn’t it?’ Yates said.
She tried to balance things in her mind, but it had stalled. She just stared at herself in the picture, her fingers tight on the paper. She imagined having the power to teleport away from here, or travel back in time.
‘Miss Mackenzie?’
‘It’s me.’
She handed the paper back to Yates, who folded it away.
‘I got confused,’ Surtsey said. ‘Got my nights mixed up. I thought that was the night before.’
‘So you admit you were out on your boat the night Mr Lawrie was murdered.’
‘How do you know he died that night?’
‘Guys at the morgue gave us time of death. It was definitely that night.’
‘And you know he was murdered?’
Yates smiled. ‘Post-mortem confirmed it was assault with a blunt object, not an accident.’
‘How can they know?’
Yates gave her a look. ‘That’s their job.’
He leaned back into the sofa like he was reeling in a fish. ‘So you were out in the boat on the night in question.’
‘I suppose I must’ve been.’
‘When?’
‘Between being in the office and coming home.’
‘So before you were back here with your housemate.’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s funny Miss Malik never mentioned that in her statement.’
Surtsey frowned. ‘She didn’t know. I was out before she got back from the office. What she said was true.’
Yates smiled. ‘Very noble of you.’
‘I just forgot.’
‘That doesn’t seem very likely.’
Surtsey wondered if the other guy was ever going to speak again.
‘It’s the truth,’ she said.
‘Were you on the Inch on the night Mr Lawrie died?’
Surtsey frowned. ‘No, of course not.’
‘I just presumed…’
‘I went out in the boat. I got mixed up with the nights. But I wasn’t anywhere near the Inch. I went east towards Fisherrow, round the coast to Cockenzie and the Pans.’
‘Why?’
‘Why not?’ Surtsey was angry now. ‘I like it out there, it clears my head. I’d just seen my dying mum and I wanted some fresh air.’
Yates shook his head, glanced at Flannery. ‘You don’t expect us to believe that.’
‘Believe what you like.’
Surtsey had a sudden flash of Tom’s collapsed skull, the blood glistening like ink on the sand, the sun low in the sky shading everything, the sea in her nostrils, the sound of gulls, the smell of them.
Tom’s mobile phone, upstairs right now in her room. A simple search would find it.
‘We need to bring forensics round to look at the boat,’ Yates said. ‘Where is it?’
Surtsey felt suddenly defeated. ‘In the shed out the back.’
‘And we’ll need the clothes you were wearing that night.’
Surtsey couldn’t summon up the energy to speak.
‘Flannery will stay here to keep an eye on the boat,’ Yates said. ‘And you.’
‘He can’t stay unless I give permission,’ Surtsey said. Even as she said it, it felt pointless.
‘Yes he can,’ Yates
