‘Maybe he was concussed and confused.’
‘He wouldn’t just wander off.’
‘Or maybe he got out of the car before it went over the cliff.’
‘What?’ Adam could feel himself getting flustered. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Maybe he realised you were heading over a cliff, and somehow got out before the car went over.’
Adam shook his head. ‘Then he would’ve gone for help, wouldn’t he?’
‘We just have to consider all the possibilities,’ said Ritchie. The DI was absent-mindedly staring out the grimy window. ‘You understand that, don’t you?’
‘Of course.’
Ritchie turned back. ‘So, tell me what happened in your own words.’
‘Doesn’t there have to be two of you present for a police interview?’ said Adam.
Ritchie smiled. ‘I think you’ve been watching too much Taggart, Mr Strachan. This isn’t a formal interview, just a little chat to establish what happened. There’s no need to be so defensive.’
‘I’m not being defensive,’ said Adam, his blood pumping faster.
‘So tell me what happened.’
‘We were driving back from Stremnishmore, and …’
‘What were you doing there?’
Adam took a moment. ‘Looking at the old distillery.’
‘Why?’
‘What does this have to do with anything?’
‘Context, Mr Strachan.’
‘Fine, I had plans to renovate it, get it working again.’
‘And?’
Adam stared at Ritchie. ‘I was trying to persuade Roddy to invest in the idea.’
‘I take it from your tone he said no.’
Adam nodded. ‘We were on our way back when a sheep came out of nowhere, and Roddy swerved to avoid it. Unfortunately we were right at the edge of the cliff, and went over.’
‘Mr Hunter was driving?’
‘Yes.’
‘Had he been drinking?’
‘What?’
‘It’s a simple question. Had Mr Hunter been drinking?’
Adam thought back to the hipflask Roddy was glugging from as he drove.
‘No,’ he said.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Pretty sure.’
‘Had he been taking any drugs?’
‘What’s this all about?’
Ritchie stared hard at Adam. ‘A blood sample taken from Mr Hunter during surgery reveals a high level of cocaine in his system.’
Adam felt the air buzz around him. ‘You’d have to take that up with Roddy.’
‘I’m asking you.’
‘And I’m telling you I don’t know anything about it. Look, we’ve been through a hell of a lot here, I don’t need you …’
Ritchie raised a placating hand. ‘Settle down, Mr Strachan, I’m only asking a few questions.’
Adam could feel his pulse in his forehead, thumping away. Without realising it, he pressed the button on his broken watch. Serenity now.
‘So,’ said Ritchie. ‘You’re a whisky expert.’
‘Not so much an expert,’ said Adam. ‘More an enthusiastic amateur.’
‘And you wanted to start a distillery.’
‘That was the plan.’
‘Had any previous experience of distilling?’
‘No.’
‘Not even a little moonshine set-up at home?’
Adam realised he was rubbing at his hands, picking under his fingernails. He made a conscious effort to stop.
‘That would be illegal.’
‘That’s a no, then?’
‘That’s a no.’
‘Do you know anything about illegal stills?’
‘Why would you ask something like that?’
Ritchie looked out the window. ‘Just chatting.’ He turned. ‘So, back to the crash. What happened next?’
Adam rubbed his forehead. ‘I woke first. I’d been thrown clear, landed further up the slope. I found Molly and Roddy in the car, got them both out. Then we went looking for the others. I found Ethan, his head was totally …’ He stopped to take a breath. ‘We took his body back to the car and waited there.’
‘See, this is what I don’t quite understand.’
‘What?’
‘You just sat there all night waiting by the car?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You didn’t think to go and get help?’
‘We couldn’t get back up the cliff.’
‘But you could’ve walked round the coast. Maybe found a way up.’
‘We didn’t think Roddy was up to it, he was pretty badly injured. And we didn’t want to just leave him.’
‘So you didn’t leave the scene of the accident at all?’
‘Except to search for Luke in the surrounding area, no.’
‘You didn’t head west along the coast for a few miles.’
‘I told you, no. What are you talking about?’
‘I’m surprised you haven’t heard from the local busybodies.’
‘Heard what?’
‘Your friend Ethan was not the only person to die on the Oa last night.’
‘What do you mean?’
Ritchie examined Adam closely. Adam felt his stomach clench and he struggled to swallow.
‘There was an incident a few miles along the coast.’
‘What kind of incident?’
‘Two bodies found in a burnt-out building.’
‘That’s terrible,’ said Adam, his voice sounding flat in his own ears.
‘It was an illegal still.’
Adam raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s what the whisky questions were about? You think I had something to do with that? Come on.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘No, but you’re bloody well implying it.’
Ritchie stared at him. ‘So you never came across an illegal still last night.’
‘I told you, we didn’t leave the car.’
Ritchie looked away. ‘I believe you were acquainted with the people we found in the still.’
Adam could hardly breathe. ‘I doubt it, I don’t really know anyone here. I’ve only been on the island for two days.’
‘They were police officers,’ said Ritchie. ‘Joe McInnes and Grant Nichol. You had an altercation with them in the Ardview Inn on Friday night.’
‘Those two? I wouldn’t say I knew them.’
‘You knew them enough to throw punches at them.’
‘They attacked us, completely unprovoked.’
‘You were having a drink with McInnes’s wife.’
‘Ex-wife,’ said Adam. ‘And I didn’t think having a drink with someone was a bloody crime.’
‘And police records have a note of Mr Hunter receiving a speeding ticket from McInnes earlier in the day.’
‘I don’t know what you’re getting at here.’
‘Why was Ms Gillespie in the car with you yesterday?’
‘What?’
‘I was wondering why someone you’d just met was going with you to a disused distillery.’
‘I’ve met Molly on previous trips to Islay.’
‘So you knew her when she was still McInnes’s wife?’
‘It’s not like that,’ said Adam, feeling sweat under his arms and on his palms. ‘You’re twisting everything round.’
‘I’m just trying to work out what your relationship is with these people.’
‘I don’t have one.’
‘And yet Ms Gillespie was in the car yesterday.’
‘She just came along for the ride.’ Adam could hear his voice rising, couldn’t stop it. ‘I’d told her my plans for the distillery, she wanted to see the place.’
‘So she was just unlucky to be in the car when you crashed.’
‘We were all pretty bloody unlucky, don’t you think?’
Ritchie examined his fingernails calmly.
‘So, back to the crash.’
‘Jesus, I’ve told you everything.’
‘You waited at the car all night.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Setting it on fire to create a smoke signal?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And the fire burned all night?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How?’
‘What?’
‘How did you keep it going all night?’
‘We found a canister of petrol in the boot.’
‘And that was enough to keep it going all night?’
‘We had to ration it, we didn’t know when we would be found, if at all.’
‘Don’t you think it’s a bit odd that you had a smoke signal going all night, but no one saw it till morning?’
Adam shrugged. ‘It’s pretty remote out there. I don’t suppose many folk are out and about on the Oa at night in the middle of winter.’
Ritchie gave him a sideways look. ‘So you didn’t see anything while you waited there.’
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know, you tell me.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘You didn’t see any boats out at sea?’
‘Boats?’
‘Yes.’
Adam shook his head, thinking of the police speedboat. ‘If we’d seen a boat, we would’ve tried to get their attention, wouldn’t we?’
‘So you didn’t see anything out at sea the whole time you were there.’
Adam shook his head again.
‘And you didn’t see any smoke or flames round the coast to the west?’
‘From this illegal still, you mean?’
‘Precisely.’
‘Nothing. We were pretty much concentrating on trying to stay warm and stay alive, you know.’
‘So you don’t know anything about the still?’
‘We’ve been over this already,’ Adam said, getting angry. ‘If we were there, wouldn’t there be some evidence of that?’
‘Don’t worry, a forensic team is on its way from the mainland to examine the scene.’
Adam swallowed hard, struggled to breathe. He felt incredibly hot. ‘Well, if they come up with anything, which they won’t, we can chat again then.’
Ritchie watched him closely. Silence buzzed around the room.
‘Do you know how many suspicious deaths there have been in Islay in the last twenty years?’ Ritchie said eventually.
‘Of course I don’t.’
‘Before last night, none.’
‘So what?’
‘So you don’t think it’s a little odd?’
‘What?’
‘That not one single person has died in strange circumstances for twenty years in the whole of this island, then suddenly two separate incidents within five miles of each other throw up three, probably four, dead bodies?’
‘There is such a thing as coincidence, you know.’
‘In my line of work, coincidences almost always turn out to be connected. So I’m wondering if these two incidents are really coincidental at all.’
‘I can assure you they are.’
‘Can you?’
‘Yes.’ Adam stuck his chin out in an act of defiance he didn’t really feel. ‘Look, are we finished here? Any chance I can go and get some sleep? I’ve been through a pretty traumatic experience, you know, I don’t need all this bullshit.’
‘You’re free to go, Mr Strachan. We have your details. Please don’t leave the island until we’ve finished our inquiries.’
‘I have got a life to get back to, you know.’
Ritchie glanced at him. ‘But of course you’ll want to stay until the coastguard have finished their search for your friend?’
Adam blinked, his eyelids heavy as slabs. ‘Of course.’
‘We’ll be in touch again soon, once forensics have taken a look at the two sites.’
‘You do that,’ said Adam, heading out the door as calmly as he could. He felt his legs shake beneath him and hoped he would get out of sight before they gave way.
40
Adam drifted in and out of a fitful sleep in the back of the police car, harrowing images gnawing at his mind. He jerked awake as they bumped over a pothole, his eyes focusing on the officer at the wheel. It was the kid who’d been called out by the old woman to the crash site earlier today. Adam could see nasty boils lining the back of his neck at his collar line, and felt the urge to reach forward and squeeze.
He looked out the window. The same flat expanse of heather, bracken and moor stretching for miles, yet somehow it all seemed so different from the first time they’d driven along here, stopped by Joe for speeding. Back then it had been a land waiting to be discovered, an adventure waiting to happen. Now it was just the backdrop for a nightmare that would forever be playing in his head.
The snow from yesterday had all but melted, tiny pockets of ice and slush lurking in the shadowed crevices of the land. He was suddenly sick of this place, sick to death of the wide open spaces and the never-ending skies and the stench of peat everywhere.
They drove past the airport then past thousands of geese hunkered against a driving wind. He remembered last night and the geese on the frozen loch, everything drenched in eerie purple light from Joe’s flare, a cacophony of noise as the birds filled the black sky.
He wondered about forensic evidence, about tracks in the snow, discarded flares, the hole in the ice, the farmhouse they’d broken into. Shit, he was still wearing someone else’s clothes, for Christ’s sake. His heart tripped over itself as it dawned on him. Fuck, his clothes. His clothes were still sitting in a wet pile in the hallway of that farmhouse. Why the hell hadn’t he thought of it before? All that worry about forensic evidence at the still and the car crash, what about the farmhouse?
He tried to get his fatigue-drenched mind to work. There was nothing to identify him amongst that stuff, nothing obvious like a wallet or phone, but it was surely covered in his DNA. What if the break-in had already been reported, his clothes already handed in to the police, the farmhouse added to the list of places to be forensically examined?
He tried to calm down. The house didn’t seem to be occupied for the winter, it might be months before his clothes were discovered. Maybe there was plenty of time for him or Molly or someone else to go round and sort it. Or maybe the mainland forensic team had already searched the area and found it all. Did they have a reason to go that far from the still? He looked out again at the melted snow. Maybe their tracks had disappeared with the rising sun, then again maybe they hadn’t.
Jesus, he couldn’t stand to think about any of this bullshit any more. But he couldn’t stop either. He churned it all round in his mind, trying to gain some clarity, trying to make sense of the mess of the situation, the mess of their lives, but his brain was mush. Maybe he was in shock. The fact he even thought of that was probably an indication that he wasn’t in shock at all, just hopelessly confused and stressed.
They descended into Port Ellen then crept along the main crescent by the bay. Adam glanced at the Ardview as they passed, a couple of hardy smokers trying to shelter in the doorway from the wind. No sign of Ash.
The policeman dropped him at his B&B without a word, then did a U-turn and drove off. He watched the car disappear round the corner, then stood for a long time looking at the sea, ruffled in the wind, the occasional gull taking a dive-bombing chance into the surf, coming up with nothing. He looked at the B&B, same as every other house on the street. He noticed the nameplate, something in Gaelic that he’d never said out loud, didn’t know how to pronounce. He walked through the front door, dreading seeing the old woman who ran the place. He couldn’t think about having to explain everything to her. He knew she would probably already know, thanks to the island jungle drums, but that didn’t make it any easier. She might be listening out for him, anxious to get the gory details first-hand.
He crept up the stairs and opened the door to his room. He stopped. He’d been sharing the room with Ethan, Luke sleeping next door with Roddy. He looked at all Ethan’s s
tuff – the Samsonite case, his dress shoes, his jumper, T-shirts and underwear neatly folded on a shelf, a plain navy-blue shirt hanging in the wardrobe, his toilet bag on the small dresser. He walked over and lifted a sleeve of the shirt, sniffed it. Smelt of Ethan, whatever deodorant he used. Fucking hell. He walked over to the dresser and sat looking in the mirror at his saggy, hangdog face. This was terrible, the remains of a life, all neatly sitting here, waiting for Ethan to come back. But he would never come back.
A bottle of Laphroaig quarter cask that Ethan had bought from the distillery gift shop sat unopened in a bag. Adam thought back to that tour, Roddy winding him up about Molly’s lack of a wedding ring.
He fetched a glass from the en suite, broke the seal on the bottle and glugged the glass half full. He held it up and pointed it at the hanging shirt.
‘Here’s to you, Ethan.’
It felt empty, a completely hollow gesture. He was just drinking another man’s whisky, a dead man’s whisky, without permission, that was all. He tried to imbue each sip with something, some kind of feeling, but nothing came.
He calmly downed the remains of the dram, then stood up and hurled the glass at the wardrobe. He watched as it smashed, sending chunks and shards scattering across the room. He sat back down with his head in his hands for a long time. When he looked up he realised he couldn’t stand to be here a moment longer.
He crunched across broken glass then sneaked down the stairs and out the front door, feeling the blast of sea air on his face. He stood there wavering for a moment, then walked along the road to Molly’s house.
He stood looking at the doorbell. Nothing about the house had changed since the last time he was here. Why should it have? Everything in his life was different, everything had been turned on its head, but here were bricks and mortar, implacable and unaffected by it all.
He was about to ring the bell when the door opened and Ash came stumbling out, pulling her jacket on. She walked right into him and jumped.
‘Fuck, you gave me a fright,’ she said.
She looked the same – hungover and strung out, sad and lost, bags under her eyes bigger than ever.
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