Surtsey stared at him. He probably loved dominating young women in this kind of situation, using his privilege.
‘You can’t arrest me unless you have proof,’ she said.
‘Don’t worry.’ Yates levered himself off the sofa. ‘We’ll get proof.’
34
Surtsey stood in the kitchen watching the activity out the window. Three forensics in white overalls were examining the boat in the shed. They had the small door on this side open, and the large corrugated door on the other side open too, plus three spotlights on stands. It was so bright it hurt her head to look. Boxes of instruments and containers were spread on a tarpaulin in the garden. A uniformed officer stood next to them checking his phone. Surtsey tried to think if there was anything they could find out from the boat, but her mind wouldn’t function.
She called Halima, trying to remember the last time she’d seen her. She still hadn’t told her about Louise. Surtsey was losing control, the threads of her life unravelling.
It went to voicemail.
‘Hey, Hal, it’s me. Listen, I’ve spoken to the police again. Nothing has changed, but … I was out in the boat that night, not on a date. You’re OK, what you told them is still fine. It’s just … Mum died last night. Call me.’
She watched as one of the forensics climbed into the boat, the other two examining the hull.
Flannery had left with her clothes from that night. It was a humiliating few minutes while Surtsey raked through her wash basket, riffling through tops and dresses, bras and pants while he looked on. So much unwanted male attention, so many tiny abuses of power.
She walked upstairs to her bedroom, past Iona’s door. She wondered where her sister was right now.
In her room she spotted Halima’s empty hash pipe. Christ, that must’ve been sitting out when Flannery was in here. Lucky he spent his time ogling her and her clothes instead of paying attention. She looked round for a bag of grass but couldn’t see any. Hal would have some hidden away in her room, but she didn’t go and look.
The ping made her stomach sink. Tom’s phone.
She lunged for it under the pillow, checked the screen:
I see the police are back.
Surtsey went to the window. A middle-aged jogger with a pot belly, an elderly woman walking two border collies. How would you recognise the person doing this anyway?
Ping:
Not long now.
Surtsey frowned, replied:
Why are you doing this?
She waited a few seconds, staring at the screen:
You’ll find out soon.
Her thumbs were straight there:
What do you want?
The reply came straight away:
It’s all for the best, you’ll see.
Surtsey was angry now:
Best for who?
A few seconds:
You.
Surtsey couldn’t think of a reply. She lifted her face from the screen and looked out of the window. The phone was sweaty in her grip. She imagined it was possessed by an evil spirit, a malevolent being trapped inside, preying on her worst fears. Maybe it was the darkness in her own mind, her Mr Hyde bubbling to the surface, or some form of wraith exacting revenge for an unknown slight.
She ran downstairs and threw open the front door, strode down the path and through the gate onto the prom. She jumped up on the sea wall. The tide was in, just twenty feet of sand then soft waves bubbling up the slope, the shush of it constant, the most familiar memory of her childhood, the backdrop to everything she’d ever done in her life.
She stared up and down the prom. No one in sight now except the dogwalker from earlier sitting on a bench outside the Dalriada. Out at sea the oil tankers were nailed to the horizon. Berwick Law like a cancerous growth to the east, the Inch over to the west mocking her.
‘I’m coming for you,’ Surtsey shouted at the sea.
She whipped round, faced the house then looked along the prom. ‘You hear me? This is bullshit.’ Her voice dropped. ‘I’m coming for you.’
But she didn’t even convince herself.
A phone rang in her pocket. Not Tom’s, her own.
Brendan.
She puffed her cheeks out as she stared at the screen. Exhaled loudly. Thought about diverting the call but didn’t.
‘Hello?’ she said.
Silence for a moment. She pictured him the last time they met.
‘Hi, Sur.’
The sound of his voice was comforting. She’d forgotten how much she liked those Irish vowels, even just two syllables in her ear. She thought about his body next to hers.
‘Brendan.’
The breeze off the sea made it hard to hear him on the other end. Salt in her nostrils, a tanginess like coke at the back of her throat as she spoke.
‘How are you?’ she said.
‘OK. I think we should talk.’
Surtsey was still standing on the wall. She spun to look out to sea. Imagined being on the prow of an old pirate ship, an elaborate carved figurehead, pointing her chin towards the horizon. She vaguely remembered an old movie where a ship’s figurehead came to life, but she couldn’t remember if the animated siren was good or evil.
‘I’m so sorry about everything,’ she said.
‘Me too.’
‘Where are you?’
‘In the office.’
‘Is Hal there?’
A slight pause. ‘No, I haven’t seen her. Can you come meet me?’
Surtsey looked at the Inch, always in her eyeline as long as she stayed here. A trip across town would do her good.
‘Maybe we could go for a walk,’ Brendan said. ‘Up Blackford Hill.’
It wasn’t a random choice, it was where they’d had their first kiss, ten minutes up the road from King’s Buildings. They’d wandered off together after someone’s birthday drinks in the union, enjoying that first buzz, flirting madly, bumping each other deliberately, arm in arm, round the side of the observatory to the trig point where she grabbed him and made the first move.
‘That would be nice,’ she said.
For a moment she forgot everything else, her mum and the pills, Tom and Iona, the CCTV, police and forensics, the phone messages. She thought about Brendan and how nice
