Fault Lines

by Doug Johnstone

‘OK, take it easy,’ he said, shoulders slumped.

  Surtsey scrolled down on the screen, moved the cursor over the link to Tom’s department page, but didn’t click.

  *

  She picked at a stale panini in the KB Café and gazed at the concrete and metal clutter out the window as Halima prattled on, something about Iona that Surtsey probably should be listening to. She looked around, couldn’t see Brendan anywhere. Maybe he went to the union for a burger. She felt sick at the thought of eating, stared at her tuna melt in disgust.

  ‘Anyway, we’d better get our shit together,’ Halima said, standing up and lifting her empty plate.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Sample trip,’ Halima said. ‘Not like you to forget.’

  Oh shit. Fucking shit. They were due to collect rock samples from the Inch and Surtsey had blanked it from her mind. She couldn’t, she just couldn’t.

  ‘I can’t go,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, you love it on that rock, come on.’

  Surtsey shook her head. ‘I forgot, I have something on.’

  ‘No you don’t, what’s up?’

  Surtsey thought for a moment. ‘I don’t feel well.’

  Halima shook her head. ‘You’re just hungover, a bit of sea air will sort you out. The minibus is going in ten minutes.’

  ‘Seriously, Hal, I can’t.’

  Halima frowned. ‘You’re coming, missus, if I have to drag you myself.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Look.’ Halima’s voice was serious all of a sudden. ‘I need your help out there. You know Rachel has been riding me for better data. I need as many samples as I can get and this is the last scheduled trip for a fortnight. I can’t wait that long. And you’re the best there is with a rock hammer.’

  Surtsey sighed and got up, leaving her sandwich where it was. It would look worse if she didn’t go, and maybe this was what she deserved. It had been coming ever since she left the Inch, left him, last night.

  9

  Her lifejacket was too tight under the arms, the fabric biting her skin. The spray in her face reminded her of last night, and she turned to look back at Portobello beach as it receded. The symmetry of the groynes breaking up the sand, the scattered blocks of tenements and houses, the Beach House, the Espy, then the amusements and an ice cream stand. All of it busy, people getting on with their lives, a handful of tourists taking selfies with the view. She’d lived her whole life on this piece of coast but she’d never felt more disconnected from it than right now.

  The sea was choppy today, the colour of sludge, as they powered to the island. She stared at the wash spreading back to shore, disappearing amongst the expanse of water. They were skimming the surface of this territory, interlopers, only passing time until the water decided to take everything back.

  This boat was much bigger than her one, a twelve-seat rigid hull with decent horsepower. It had the Edinburgh Uni logo on the prow, and they kept it at the Portobello Yacht Club lock-up next to the Beach House. Rachel – Dr Worthington – was steering, swinging the rudder and turning the prow to point at the Inch. There were six PhDs in the boat, Surtsey, Halima and Brendan, along with three first years for whom this was an exciting new adventure.

  Surtsey took in gulps of air and turned to look at the Inch. It was much more dramatic than the other islands in the Forth which were worn by millions of years of weather and erosion, covered in thick grass and derelict war defences. In comparison the black cliffs on the eastern side of the Inch were monolithic and ominous, and the spreads of volcanic rock and lava were a moonscape. The peaks were hollowed out cones, the promise of smoke and flames lingering, although they hadn’t erupted in five years. In geological time, of course, the Inch wasn’t even the blink of an eye, not even a tick on the clock. Which was one of the reasons scientists came here, to study how new land adapted after being born and to find out how life colonised the space, birds, seaborne plants and the rest.

  She was relieved that the roar of the engine along with the wind and spray made it impossible to speak, she couldn’t handle conversation. Brendan caught her eye, a look that said he was worried, and Halima too, maybe thinking Surtsey might puke over the side because of last night.

  Surtsey held on to the side of the boat as it bumped over waves. Rachel angled them towards the northern point of the teardrop, the short jetty. They slowed on approach, turned alongside the jetty and cut the engine.

  Surtsey looked at the beach where her footprints had been, wiped away by the last high tide. She wondered about the nearby cove. Did she leave any trace above the tide line? She tried to think. All she could picture was the matted hair at the top of Tom’s skull, the spread of black on the sand, the sound of birds squabbling.

  Halima tied up the boat and they trooped off carrying sample kits and tools in branded backpacks. They headed southeast away from the cove to the site next to the cliffs. The idea was to examine different marked-out areas, compare soil types, rock formations, the effects of erosion already, and also any plant or animal life. The last wasn’t in their remit but they notified the biology department about it.

  They spread out and began working. The sun was high and Surtsey built up a sweat in T-shirt and jeans as she scraped at the soil, shovelling samples into ziplock bags, marking coordinates, date and time, all the mundane stuff of science that never made it onto TV shows. Hundreds of days like today, students doing grunt work so that professors could present findings and come to conclusions, be awarded prizes and appear at conferences and dinners. Not that Tom would see any more of that.

  It came as a strange relief when she heard the screams. Finally it was happening, something to react to.

  They were on a break, two hours after arriving. Juice bottles and chocolate, the odd piece of fruit.

  Surtsey had her face to the sun, the burn on her skin. She kept her eyes closed for a moment when the screaming started, tried to guess who it was. Rachel? Kezia?

  She opened her eyes and squinted, tried to focus. Kezia and Brendan were the only ones not here, so it must be her. Were those two friends now? Was Brendan moving on to someone younger and happier?

  Halima and Rachel stood, shielding their eyes as they looked west over the edge of the hill. Watching, waiting. Alex and Sean began walking up the rise towards the noise.

  The screaming stopped and was replaced by shouts, Brendan’s voice.

  Surtsey got up as Brendan appeared on the horizon, waving for them to come. Alex and Sean hurried towards him as Kezia appeared behind.

  Halima threw Surtsey a look. ‘What the hell?’

  They all went, Surtsey at the back, tethered to them by an invisible rope.

  Brendan was already explaining something to the boys, holding Kezia’s shoulder as she buried her face in her hands. Rachel was with them now, then Halima, Surtsey yards behind. Brendan repeated himself for Rachel then again for Halima. Surtsey watched the rest of them, how they reacted, searching for clues about how to behave. Shock, horror, disbelief. She tried them on, see how they felt.

  ‘It’s Tom,’ Brendan said. ‘We found his body. He’s dead.’

  Shock. Horror. Disbelief.

  Surtsey really felt them, let her face feel them.

  ‘Tell us exactly what happened,’ Rachel said. She suddenly seemed much older than the rest of them, someone in charge.

  Brendan was out of breath. He swapped a glance with Kezia whose face crumpled in tears.

  ‘We went for a walk,’ Brendan said. ‘Back to the jetty then round to the next cove. There was something on the beach, the gulls were on it. I thought it was a dead seal at first but we got closer and I spotted shoes. Christ.’

  Kezia sniffled, not looking up.

  ‘We went to look,’ Brendan said. ‘It’s Tom.’

  Rachel had her authority face on. ‘You’re sure?’

  Brendan nodded.

  ‘He’s dead?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did you check his pulse?’


  Brendan shook his head. ‘He’s been there a while. He had no eyes. His eyes are gone. Fucking birds.’

  Kezia let out a burst of tears and snot.

  Halima put a hand to her mouth.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Rachel said.

  Surtsey pictured Tom in bed with her, gazing at her body, kindness in his eyes. Maybe more, maybe love. Who knew what someone else was ever thinking?

  ‘I’ll call the police,’ Rachel said, getting her phone out. She turned to Brendan. ‘Can you show me?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Come on.’ Rachel took him by the arm, touching her phone screen as she went.

  The only sound was Kezia sniffing.

  ‘I can’t get my head round it,’ Halima said.

  Alex and Sean swore under their breaths.

  ‘This is going to kill Alice,’ Halima said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Surtsey said.

  ‘What was he doing out here?’ Halima said.

  Surtsey shook her head. ‘The police will sort it out.’

  Halima looked around at the four of them. She pulled the hash pipe and grass out of her pocket. ‘I could use a smoke. Anyone else?’

  Alex and Sean frowned and shook their heads.

  Kezia looked disgusted. ‘The police will be here soon.’

  Halima turned to Surtsey. ‘Sur?’

  Surtsey stared at her. ‘Spark it up.’

  10

  It took ninety minutes for the police to show up and the wait was excruciating. What do you do in that vacuum? They couldn’t go back to work, out of the question. They didn’t want to be near the body, too horrifying. Surtsey and Halima had a quick smoke before Rachel came back with Brendan. Surtsey was stoned and scared she might start giggling at the absurdity of it all, stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere with a dead body. Rachel decided they should pack up and wait at the jetty. More awkward silence there, Kezia still blubbing away like she personally owned the shock. Fuck that, thought Surtsey, I was close to him, not you. I should have first dibs on the grief here.

  Brendan tried to reassure her, seeing it as his boyfriend duty, but she just shrugged, gave him a hug then wandered off to be alone on the beach. She had to be away from it all, couldn’t stand the silence of the others. She wanted to scream, pick up clumps of wet sand and hurl them into the sea, smash rocks with her hammer, run up the side of the hill and throw herself into the crater, plummet into the searing magma oceans at the earth’s core, cause a chain reaction that would detonate the planet from the inside, throw pieces of the world into the universe where they could never be reassembled.

  She sat on the sand and listened to the waves.

  Eventually she heard an engine and saw the police markings on the black boat as it thrust round the coast towards the jetty. She watched as everyone else got up to meet them. She took juddering breaths, trying to calm her heart, then stood up, wiped the sand from her hands and walked to the jetty.

  By the time she got there most of the police were out of the boat. Two tall officers in uniform with black lifejackets, and two women and a man in plain clothes carrying boxes and backpacks of equipment. They were presumably forensics. The last one out of the boat was an older guy with a beer gut who needed a hand from one of the younger officers to keep his balance as the boat bobbed. He had a red face and patchy beard, the skin of a heavy drinker. He didn’t look comfortable in the sunshine, sweat patches on his shirt.

  ‘I’m DCI Jason Yates,’ he said, once everyone had gathered round. ‘We got a call from Rachel Worthington?’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘OK, love, how about you get me up to speed.’

  Rachel bristled at ‘love’ but didn’t say anything. Surtsey caught Halima’s eye roll and suppressed a smile. It amazed her that pricks like this still existed in the modern world, but she came across them all the time.

  Rachel went over everything, introduced Brendan and Kezia, pointed in the direction of Tom’s body, then the opposite direction where they’d been working.

  Yates frowned. ‘And the rest of you haven’t been over there?’

  Shaking heads.

  Yates pointed at Rachel, Brendan and Kezia. ‘You three show the body to me and the boffins. The rest of you stay here and give statements to my officers.’

  Boffins, what an arsehole.

  Kezia let out a whimper but went along with the others, leaving the four of them with the two uniforms, a man and a woman about the same age as Surtsey. She wondered what made people sign up for the police force, did they really think they could make a difference? Maybe it was just the salary and pension. She couldn’t imagine having that moral certainty, the presumption of superiority over another person. Upholding the law was such a weird phrase. Did anything else get upheld? Surtsey wondered how stoned she was.

  She got the male officer to talk to. His name badge said ‘Ferris’ which made Surtsey think of that 80s movie her mum loved. She glanced towards land but of course she couldn’t see Joppa from here, just the spread of Cockenzie and the Pans.

  The interview with Officer Ferris took three minutes, the cop leaning in to hear her better, despite the fact he was recording the conversation with a handheld Sony device. Surtsey tried not to sound stoned. She kept her voice level but that just made it sound like a robotic monotone in her ears. She gave her details and explained she hadn’t seen the body.

  ‘And when did you last see Mr Lawrie?’ Ferris said.

  Surtsey stood for a moment. She heard an insect buzzing somewhere, wondered briefly about pollination, the spread of life.

  ‘Yesterday,’ she said. ‘At the department, same as everyone else.’

  She expected him to ask what she was up to last night. A tremor in her chest as she thought about what she’d told others, whether it had even been consistent. But he didn’t ask. She wasn’t a suspect, no one here was; they were friends and colleagues. Just answer the questions you’re asked, Surtsey.

  ‘OK, thanks,’ Ferris said.

  He switched the recorder off and looked around at the black sand, the grey rock, the bubbles and crenulations of the lava.

  ‘Some place, this,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Surtsey was so used to the Inch that she worried she would take it for granted. But she never did. It was remarkable, a baby island, a part of the world that hadn’t existed twenty-five years ago.

  ‘Surtsey’s an interesting name,’ Ferris said.

  She got asked about it all the time.

  ‘I’m named after an Icelandic island,’ she said. ‘A volcanic island, like this one, that erupted in the 60s. My mum says it’s her favourite place in the world. She’s a volcanologist, like me. Actually, I was born the day this place erupted.’

  ‘But she didn’t want to call you Inch.’

  Surtsey laughed despite herself. ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘When you think about it, it’s not using much imagination, calling it the Inch.’

  Surtsey touched her hair and smiled. ‘It’s not.’

  Was she really flirting with a cop as her dead lover lay on the beach, eyes pecked out by gulls?

  ‘So you like all this,’ Ferris said, waving his hand. ‘Rocks and stuff.’

  Surtsey laughed again. ‘Yeah, I like rocks and stuff.’

  He laughed with her and she smiled. It was pathetic but she liked it. It felt normal, chatting as if they were in a café or pub, as if there wasn’t something grotesque lying just out of sight.

  There was the scrunch of feet on gravel. DCI Yates appeared puffing up the slope, Rachel, Kezia and Brendan behind.

  Ferris and the female cop straightened up. What was it like having to kowtow to authority all the time, Surtsey thought.

  ‘You got their statements?’ Yates asked.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the female cop said. Surtsey noticed that Ferris had deferred to her, let her speak for them both. Not a big deal in the scheme of things, but a noticeable gesture.

  ‘OK, you can all go,’ Yates
said. ‘We’ll be in touch with you individually if we need anything else. The island is off limits until I say so.’

  He was the kind of man used to authority, it made him feel important.

  Ferris raised his eyebrows at Surtsey, who smiled.

  She didn’t speak as they all trudged towards the boat, she was just desperate to get off this rock and find a drink.

  11

  ‘To Tom.’

  The three of them thrust shot glasses together with a clunk, then downed the Jägers. Maybe a single malt was more appropriate but fuck it, Tom wouldn’t care. Plus he’d always seemed younger than he was, liked hanging out with students, soaking up their youth and enthusiasm. And screwing them, in Surtsey’s case. He would probably have downed a Jägermeister himself, given the chance.

  She thought about the text message. Someone knew something, but she couldn’t work out how much, or who or how. The message was so vague, no specific detail so maybe they were just fishing. She couldn’t fathom how they knew. She and Tom had been cautious about where and when they met, and they had set up his dedicated phone. They occasionally sent emails too, but he set up a new Gmail account for that, not his usual home one, and he never accessed it on his regular phone.

  Surtsey looked around. The Espy was dead this time on a Wednesday afternoon. The lunchtime rush was over and the after work crowd hadn’t pitched up yet. Her, Brendan and Halima were sitting at the long table by the window which housed the huge fish tank, hundreds of tropical sparkles darting across her eyeline. It was a strange decision by the pub to block the sea view but Surtsey was glad at the moment because it meant the Inch was out of sight. It haunted her, that rock. It had nagged at her ever since she could pull herself up to the living room window ledge and see outside.

  ‘Stone,’ she’d apparently shouted, pointing at it, aged two.

  Her mum tells the story best, how she explained it was an island, surrounded by water, a long way away. Toddler Surtsey nodded forcefully.

  ‘Stone.’

  And it was still her stone, a rock weighing her down. The place that had killed her secret lover. It was weird even saying that word inside her head, lover. Felt like she couldn’t do it without sarcastic quotes, without reaching for the sick bag, without it sounding like some 1970s hippy thing. But what else were they? Certainly not boyfriend and girlfriend. Fuckbuddies was too childish.