Fault Lines

by Doug Johnstone

  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 it would be to walk up the hill with him again, to put her arm through his.

  35

  She got off the bus at the corner of Mayfield Road then crossed over to the campus. She went in past the sign and the benches. She was old enough to remember when this was just overgrown hedge and staff parking. At some point someone had decided to actually make the sciences seem appealing to prospective students.

  She walked past the biology building and into the Grant Institute, glancing at the masonry above the door like she always did. Some muscle-bound Greek guy in a wreath with ‘Geology 1934’ carved above. She wondered who he was, maybe Atlas.

  How many students and academics had walked through these doors in the last nine decades? How many had gone on to become famous in their field, or dropped out completely, turned to something else in life? Hundreds of thousands of different paths, lives that weren’t hers, less complicated, less full of death.

  She went up the stairs and along the corridor. The place was quiet but then it varied so much, postgrad hours weren’t reliable. You did the work when you could, when the notion took you, whenever you were awake and sober, if the weather was crap. Maybe that’s why it was less busy, students tended to take rare sunny days off, try to get as much vitamin D as possible before the darkness of winter.

  She entered the office. She’d expected at least a couple of folk, but it was empty.

  No Brendan, no Halima, no Rachel, no one else.

  Maybe the Tom thing had hit everyone hard.

  She walked over to Brendan’s desk. His jacket was on the back of the chair, screensaver on his computer. She moved the mouse and the swirls blinked away, replaced by his desktop. Nothing out of the ordinary. Folders, files, a couple of applications open, a browser. She clicked on that. An article from Earth magazine on the changes in groundwater chemistry in Iceland that preceded the recent activity of Katla.

  She looked at his desk. Piles of printouts, a notebook, stationery. A picture of the two of them on Blackford Hill, smiling. Not that first time, they were too drunk and too early into the relationship to take pictures. But a later visit, a trek along the Hermitage, up over the hill and down to Blackford Pond then back along the road to the office. Easy to do on a lunch break. In the picture the sun was beaming on their faces and the criss-cross sprawl of suburban houses all the way to Arthur’s Seat and the castle in the distance. Trees everywhere, not just in the Meadows and Bruntsfield, but large oaks in the gardens nearby. Such a green city, so much space compared to other places. Lucky to live here.

  She examined Brendan’s face in the picture. Long eyelashes, those green eyes, smooth skin. So young and pretty, so much kindness. Why had she looked elsewhere for love? Why had she fallen for the oldest bullshit in the world, the attention of an older man in a position of authority? She’d felt in control of both relationships at the time, but that was a lie she told herself. It turns out she wasn’t in control of anything. Just look at how quickly things fall apart.

  She looked into her own eyes in the photo. Tried to see a hint of the chaos on the horizon, some foreshadowing of what was to come. But there was nothing, just happiness in the moment.

  She put the picture back and wandered over to Halima’s desk. No sign of activity there, no jacket, no coffee mug, her computer off.

  Surtsey pulled out her phone and checked. Nothing from anyone.

  She dialled Brendan’s number. Maybe he’d nipped over to the union for something to eat. It took ages to connect, her signal struggling to escape the thick walls. The electronic puttering noise, interference as the call bounced around the planet.

  She heard the ringtone in her ear, then a moment later the ring of Brendan’s phone. Her head jerked up and she looked around the office. No one. She angled her head to hear better. On the second ring she realised it was coming from the end of the office. She began walking. By the third ring she was back at Brendan’s desk, looking around. But it wasn’t there, the sound was further on. She walked. Fourth ring. Tom’s office was up ahead, the door ajar. She kept walking. By the fifth ring she’d run out of open-plan space. The ring was louder but she wasn’t at it yet. She could see into Tom’s office through the window, but didn’t see anyone.

  ‘Brendan?’

  Another ring. She still had the phone to her ear for some reason, the tone like a ghost, echoed in the real world by the phone at the other en
d. She imagined a thin thread connecting the two, rocketing into the atmosphere then back down, tunnelling through the roof of the building to get back in.

  She put a hand on the door. Another ring.

  ‘Brendan.’

  She blinked then pushed.

  Eighth ring, clear now.

  Coming from Brendan’s body lying on the floor. His head was caved in on the left hand side, the scalp coming away from the bone underneath, blood streaked down his face and thicker in a pool under his neck.

  Surtsey lowered the phone from her ear but she could still hear both rings, the signal and the reply. She took a step forward. Brendan’s eyes were open. His face wasn’t filled with shock or contorted in pain, just blank, like he was daydreaming.

  Surtsey could see brain. Shit, that was his brain where his skull should’ve been. Blood had already coagulated around his hair on the side of his head. His ear was untouched and Surtsey focussed on that. How could someone’s head be destroyed, but their ear still intact? How was any of this real?

  The phone finally stopped ringing in Brendan’s pocket. Surtsey looked at her own phone. She could hear that it had gone to voicemail. Brendan’s voice. Leave a message after the tone. She ended the call.

  Blood rushed to her face. Her eyelids felt heavy and she lost focus for a second.

  She looked around the office. Everything seemed normal. Then she spotted it. The large piece of white volcanic quartz Tom had used as a paperweight was sitting out of place, in the middle of the desk.

  And its nearest edge was dark red.

  Surtsey stared at it for a long time in silence.

  Then she looked at Brendan.

  Then she dialled.

  36

  Yates’ lips were moving but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. Just muffled vowels like the sound was turned down on the world. She looked around. The station interview room was a low-quality office space, stained ceiling tiles, laminate floor, plastic and metal furniture. A long strip light made everything too sharp. It felt like a job interview. She could see the police station car park out of the window, where a male and female officer were leaning against a squad car, their body language flirty. Beyond that was Beach Lane Social Club, sclaffy and beaten up, then the small, litter-strewn alleyway that led to Towerbank Primary and the beach. This was the scruffier end of the prom, away from the gentrified terraces of Joppa, the amusements at the bottom of the road attracting wayward teenagers.

  She thought about Brendan’s stare. She closed her eyes but that made it worse, made the image pull into focus. So she opened them again and looked at Yates and Flannery across the desk.

  Flannery was faffing with the recording machine on the desk. Amazing they still used cassettes in this day and age. Such a weird concept, recording sounds onto magnetic tape.

  Through the fog she realised someone was saying her name. She touched her hair, flicked it behind her ear, just to make sure her hands were real, that she could feel something. She imagined Brendan touching her in bed, a stroke of the upper arm, his fingers walking down to her thigh. Like he was tracing a path across an unpopulated place.

  She saw the mess of hair and skin. Blood, bone and brains. The bloodied piece of quartz on the desk. His phone ringing in his pocket, never answered. His voicemail message all that was left of him. She suddenly had the urge to call him now, hear that voice again. How long would it be available? Could she call him and hear his voice for the next few weeks, months, years? Keep him alive forever?

  Then she thought of Tom, and her mum. Their phones and voicemails. She could keep all of them alive with a few simple calls – leave long messages about her day, ask how they were doing, make plans to meet up over coffee or wine.

  The long, loud beep from the cassette machine broke through the fog.

  Yates said some official stuff as a red light flashed on the tape player.

  He placed his hands on the table. ‘Tell us how you came to find Brendan’s body.’

  This was easy, just tell them everything, the truth. This time.

  ‘I said already,’ Surtsey said.

  ‘Tell us again.’

  Same tactic as before, trying to trip her up. But there was nothing to trip up. She gritted her teeth. She would be let go. This was all a mistake, the whole thing from day one. Why couldn’t Tom have just been alive when she got to the Inch? Then maybe her mum would still be here, and Brendan, and Halima and Iona. Where the hell was Halima? Surely she should’ve been in the office, she should’ve been the one to find Brendan, she should’ve been sitting here getting bullshit from two police officers who didn’t have a clue about anything.

  ‘He called me,’ Surtsey said. ‘Wanted to meet up.’

  ‘At the Grant Institute in King’s Buildings?’

  ‘At the office, yes.’

  ‘Did that seem normal?’

  Surtsey touched her eyebrow with her fingertips. Shivered at the feel of it. ‘He wanted to talk about us.’

  ‘Your relationship?’ Yates was doing all the talking. Flannery just sat there like a sack of tatties, staring at her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How was your relationship with Mr Curtis?’

  ‘We split up.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When he found out about Tom.’

  ‘Mr Lawrie?’

  ‘Of course,’ Surtsey said. ‘You think I was fucking a bunch of Toms?’

  Yates narrowed his eyes. ‘I don’t know about your relationships with men.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Surtsey said. ‘You think I’m a slut, is that what you’re saying?’

  Yates glanced at the cassette recorder. Waited.

  ‘So, you and Brendan split up,’ he said.

  Surtsey pulled her earlobe. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who ended it?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘When he found out you’d been having relations with Mr Lawrie.’

  ‘“Having relations”?’ Surtsey said.

  ‘Well, how would you describe your relationship, Miss Mackenzie?’

  ‘It’s “Ms Mackenzie”, thank you. We were sleeping together.’

  Yates consulted the notepad in front of him, ran a pencil in a line. Surtsey couldn’t see if he was scoring something out or underlining it.

  ‘Do you think Brendan wanted to patch things up with you?’

  Surtsey sat for a moment looking at Yates, then the tape machine. ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  ‘And did you want to patch things up?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think so.’

  ‘You don’t seem very sure.’

  ‘I miss him.’ She pictured his body on the floor in Tom’s office. That stare.

  ‘What makes you think he wanted to get back together with you?’ Yates said.

  ‘He mentioned going for a walk up Blackford Hill to the observatory. That’s where we went on our first date. I thought maybe he wanted to remind us of that.’

  Yates made another pencil mark on the pad. Flannery never took his eyes off Surtsey.

  ‘What next?’ Yates said.

  Surtsey shook her head. ‘I got the bus over, went to the office, couldn’t find him. So I phoned and heard his mobile ringing. I went to Tom’s office and…’

  The slightest movement of Yates’s head. ‘You didn’t touch him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not at all?’

  ‘I said no.’

  ‘Did you touch anything else in Mr Lawrie’s office?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Christ, I’m sure, OK?’ She could feel her eyes wet, tried to contain the tears. No use showing these two any weakness. ‘It was the paperweight, right?’

  Flannery seemed to wake up. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘He was hit on the head with the paperweight,’ Surtsey said. ‘Wasn’t he?’

  A glance between the two of them. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘It was bloody. Heavy and sharp. I saw the state of Brendan’s
head. It doesn’t take a genius to work it out.’

  Yates sighed. ‘We leave the forensic stuff to the experts, Ms Mackenzie.’ He made a show of that ‘Ms’, zedding it out long and sarcastic. He peered at her. ‘You don’t seem very upset.’

  ‘Should I be gnashing my teeth and tearing my hair out? Is that what good girlfriends do?’

  Yates raised his eyebrows, a smile to Flannery. ‘I just thought you might be more upset by your boyfriend’s death, that’s all.’

  Surtsey tightened her mouth. ‘You don’t know me. You don’t get to have an opinion about how I react to things.’

  She sat back in the seat, felt the metal frame against her spine. ‘Can I go?’

  Yates laughed. He lifted his hands from the table.

  ‘People keep dying around you, Surtsey,’ he said. She noted the use of her first name, tried to think if that was significant. ‘That’s a problem in my line of work.’

  ‘I wasn’t near either of them when they died,’ Surtsey said.

  ‘That remains to be seen.’

  ‘I’m telling you I wasn’t.’

  ‘But we can’t just take your word for it.’

  ‘Do you have any evidence?’

  A look from Flannery to Yates suggested they hadn’t had much luck.

  ‘We know you were on your boat in the Forth on the night Tom died,’ Yates said.

  ‘So, no evidence.’

  ‘And you discovered Brendan’s body.’

  ‘Again, no evidence of me doing anything wrong.’

  ‘Then there’s your mother.’

  Surtsey felt a tremor in her legs and wondered if it was a small quake. She stared at the men, flushed cheeks and shaving rashes on their necks, white shirts too tight across bellies.

  ‘Don’t bring Mum into this.’ She spoke as calmly as she could manage.

  ‘That’s three people close to you who have died in the last four days.’

  ‘I’m warning you.’

  Flannery guffawed at that. Surtsey was shocked at the sound.

  ‘You’re warning us?’ he said, suddenly animated. ‘We’re the police, darling.’

  Yates frowned at him, then at the tape machine.