Fault Lines

by Doug Johnstone

  Surtsey held the empty box like a holy relic.

  ‘You think that’s what she did?’

  Donna shrugged. ‘Not necessarily. She could’ve been taking them in dribs and drabs in addition to her hospice medication.’

  They stood in silence. Surtsey looked out the window at the boatshed.

  ‘Thank you for bringing this,’ she said. ‘I mean it.’

  ‘No problem.’ Donna finished her tea and rinsed the mug at the sink. ‘I’d better go.’

  She made towards the kitchen doorway then turned. Surtsey had followed her, and Donna placed a hand on her arm. ‘If you need anything at all, just ask. I mean it.’

  Surtsey saw her to the door and watched as Donna walked down the path then along the prom. She closed the door then went back to the kitchen. Picked up the tablet packet again, turned it over in her hand. She looked at the prescription label stuck on the box. One corner of it was curled away from the cardboard. All the information on the label seemed correct, but something nagged at her mind. The red of the box, that dog-eared corner of sticker.

  She put the box down and finished her tea, went to the sink and rinsed the mug. She got a tea towel and dried the mug, along with Donna’s and put them back in the cupboard, as if Donna had never been here. Surtsey had never been tidy before, never cleared up after herself, had allowed Louise to do all the grunt work of keeping the house ticking over. But after Louise went into St Columba’s, Surtsey had taken over that role. Someone had to, or the place would go to the dogs.

  She looked out the window and it came to her. She went to the table and picked up the pill box again. She’d seen it before, she recognised it. She thought hard, closed her eyes.

  She ran upstairs clutching the box and burst into the bathroom. Opened the mirrored cabinet full of bottles and packets, cotton pads and nail clippers. She pulled things aside, stuff clattering into the sink, and exposed a space.

  This morphine had been in their house recently. Surtsey saw it a couple of weeks ago when she opened the cabinet to get out cotton buds. That meant her mum hadn’t taken it with her to the hospice when she moved in, and she hadn’t been home since.

  Someone else got them and gave them to her. Within the last fortnight.

  She ran out the bathroom and threw open the door to Iona’s room. Her sister was still crashed out on top of her covers.

  ‘Did you do this?’ Surtsey shouted, waving the empty morphine packet, now crumpled in her fist.

  Iona squinted and rolled over. ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘Don’t turn away from me,’ Surtsey said, grabbing at her arm.

  Iona curled into herself.

  Surtsey threw a punch at her shoulder, connecting with the meat of it. That got her attention. Iona pulled her arm away and scuttled backwards, sitting against the headrest of her bed.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘Mum took these,’ Surtsey said, throwing the box at her.

  Iona flinched and screwed her eyes shut, then opened them. ‘Hang on, I’m still asleep here.’

  She fumbled for the packet, looked at it but clearly couldn’t focus.

  ‘It’s Mum’s morphine.’ Iona looked up. ‘So she killed herself?’

  ‘And you helped her do it.’

  Iona shook her head.

  ‘Don’t lie to me.’ Surtsey hammered her fist at Iona’s chest.

  Iona’s hands came up to defend herself, scrambling Surtsey away. ‘Get off me, psycho.’

  ‘All that shit on the beach earlier, seeing her in the hospice, all along you were responsible for her death.’

  ‘Whoa, I’m not responsible for anything.’

  ‘You killed her.’

  ‘Sur, let me speak.’

  Surtsey stood over her sister, hands on hips, breathing hard. ‘I don’t want to hear anything you’ve got to say.’

  ‘Just listen,’ Iona said. She’d sharpened up, eyes wide, and she held the packet by her fingertips like it was radioactive. ‘Where did you get this?’

  ‘They found it in her room after she died.’

  ‘And she definitely took them?’

  Surtsey thought about that. ‘They think so.’

  Iona shook her head. ‘I didn’t give these to Mum.’ She examined the box, ran a finger over the label. ‘They’re her prescription, Sur.’

  ‘But look at the date,’ Surtsey said. ‘They’re from before she moved up the road.’

  ‘So?’ Iona said. ‘She kept hold of them, probably for this purpose.’

  It was Surtsey’s turn to shake her head. ‘No, these were in the bathroom cabinet recently.’

  ‘Come on, you don’t know that. There’s tons of junk in there.’

  ‘I saw them,’ Surtsey said. ‘With that same label on them.’

  ‘She had hundreds of pill packets,’ Iona said. ‘Remember? When she was managing it at home. We were swimming in pain relief and sleeping pills.’

  ‘No,’ Surtsey said. ‘I know what I saw. These were in the cabinet recently. You took them and gave them to her.’

  ‘You’ve lost your mind.’

  Surtsey tried to keep her voice level. ‘She said you went to see her two days ago. Did you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She’s my fucking mum.’

  ‘That didn’t mean anything before. You never went to see her before. Why now?’

  Iona shrugged. ‘I just felt like it, OK?’

  Surtsey breathed through her nose. ‘No. She asked you to bring these to her, and you were only too willing to help.’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘Did you know?’

  Iona stood up, faced up to her sister. ‘About what?’

  ‘About Tom being your dad?’

  Iona looked incredulous. ‘How could I know, you just saw me read the letter.’

  ‘You didn’t seem that surprised.’

  Iona tried to touch Surtsey’s arm, but she threw it off. ‘I think you’d better go before you say something you regret.’

  Surtsey stood her ground. ‘Maybe you knew. Maybe she already told you.’

  Iona shook her head. ‘If I had known you were fucking my dad, don’t you think I would’ve told you to stop?’

  ‘Maybe there was another way,’ Surtsey said. ‘Maybe you killed him.’

  Iona shoved her sister and Surtsey shoved back.

  ‘Get the fuck out of my room, and get the fuck out of my life,’ Iona said.

  Surtsey’s eyes were wide. ‘It makes a lot of sense. You resented him for never being there for you. You discover that he’s been spending time with me. That he loved me, not you.’

  Iona threw out a hand and punched Surtsey, a swing that connected with her jaw and made spit fly from her mouth. Surtsey held her face for a moment, shaking her head.

  Iona stood over her, fists clenched. ‘Get out.’

  Surtsey stood tall. ‘No. You need to tell me the truth.’

  Iona stepped back. ‘I don’t have to listen to this shit.’

  She went to walk past her sister but Surtsey grabbed her arm and held on. Iona threw another punch to her shoulder and her grip loosened.

  ‘Get your hands off me.’

  She pulled away and ran down the stairs then straight out the door, leaving Surtsey standing there, jaw aching, tears in her eyes.

  33

  Doorbell. Fucking doorbell. Just one damn thing after another.

  Surtsey ignored it. She was stoned, several hits to the good. Her bedroom smelt pungent. She stared at the morphine box in her hand, one of the last things her mum touched before she died. Surtsey imagined her mum’s spirit imbued in the cardboard box. No schmaltzy rainbows or bubbles that people claim to see, a sign their loved ones are happy in the afterlife. Louise was alive and thriving in an empty box of painkillers.

  The doorbell didn’t stop.

  Surtsey sat up on her bed and took a drink of water. Breathed in through her mouth, out through her nose.

&nbs
p; Doorbell.

  She put the pill box in her pocket and trudged down the stairs. Looked through the spyhole in the front door. Cops.

  ‘Please answer the door, Miss Mackenzie.’ It was the older one. Yates. What was the other one called? Something Irish and stupid.

  She sniffed the air. Her nostrils were full of the stench of hash.

  Fuck it.

  ‘Hello, officers,’ she said, opening the door. Her tone was perky, mocking both herself and their presence on her doorstep. ‘Good news, I hope?’

  ‘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 said. ‘Unless you want to come down to the station with us now?’

  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 sto
od 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: