‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said.
She took his hand and placed it on her breast. Finn could feel her heart underneath, and her scent filled his nose. She put her hand to his crotch and squeezed through his jeans until he became hard.
‘You can’t just . . .’
She stretched up and kissed him, long, her tongue deep in his mouth. She pulled away and placed a finger on his lips.
He was stroking her breast as she pushed against him.
‘I want you,’ she said. ‘Inside me. Now.’
He thought of the bodies piled up in the hospital mortuary in Kirkwall, the dead passengers and crew. He thought of Kevin lying in a pool of his own blood at home. He thought about Maddie and the money, the crash and the police and the journalist and everything he’d let himself slide into without fighting. But he didn’t stop, just kept going, letting himself sink further into Maddie.
23
‘You are out of your mind,’ he said.
He tried to give her a serious look but his eyes moved down her body, her breasts, stomach, the dark hair beneath. She was darker-skinned than Amy, more curvy, and her eyes just killed him.
‘My face is up here,’ she said, a deliberate echo of their first meeting. She kissed him and ran a finger down his body then along his cock. He felt it stir in response.
‘Don’t,’ he said but he didn’t mean it. ‘You’re crazy.’
She shook her head. ‘It’s the only way.’
‘I’m not doing it.’
Her hand stopped on his cock and she flicked at the head.
‘Ow,’ he said.
‘Then I’ll do it myself.’
Finn looked round. They’d made it to the Lewises’ bedroom, just, and fallen on to the flowery duvet while pulling at each other’s clothes, pain shooting up Finn’s arm from his hand as he struggled to get his T-shirt over his head, more pain across his chest as he stretched. She pushed him on to his back and hauled at his jeans and shorts then unpeeled her bra and slid her trousers and panties off. She straddled him, already wet, and guided him inside, her hair falling over her face, breasts moving as Finn reached for them. She came, collapsing on top of him, breathless, the smell of gin and sweat, and he flipped them both over, kept thrusting until her nails dug into his buttocks and he came inside her.
Now here they were, a damp patch on the duvet between them, little ornamental seals on the bedside cabinet staring at them.
Finn looked from the ornaments to her. ‘You’re going to take your husband’s boat and sail it to mainland Scotland.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What kind of boat?’
‘A wee thing with a cabin and an outboard motor.’
‘And you’re going to take it across the Pentland Firth, one of the most dangerous stretches of water in Europe, in the middle of winter.’
‘What else can I do?’
Finn shook his head. ‘Anything but that.’
‘There isn’t anything else. I need your help.’
‘No way.’
‘At least take me there. I can’t get to the boat unless you drive me. You don’t have to do anything else, no one needs to know we’ve been in touch. Just drop me at the boat and I’ll take it from there.’
‘Do you have any experience in boats?’
‘I’ll work it out.’
‘You’ll die on the firth.’
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘You need maps, GPS, distress flares.’
‘They’re on the boat, I think.’
‘You think?’
‘Kev used it all the time for salvage and that was at night so it’s obviously possible.’
‘It’s different taking a boat out in the shelter of Scapa Flow if you’re experienced.’
‘I don’t have any option.’
‘Go to the police.’
Maddie sat up and turned away. ‘Let’s not go through that again.’
Finn ran a finger down her spine. He thought of the bones in the tomb up the road, imagined a Stone Age man doing the same thing to his wife thousands of years ago.
‘You think you can just fuck me and I’ll do whatever you want?’ he said.
He felt her body stiffen and she flinched from his touch. She picked her panties off the floor and pulled them on, then her jeans. She didn’t bother with her bra, just whipped her blouse over her head and pulled her hair back into a ponytail.
‘Is that what you think this is?’
‘Isn’t it?’ He felt vulnerable, lying naked on the bed, now that she was dressed.
‘Fuck you,’ Maddie said.
‘You just did.’
She walked out of the room in her bare feet. Her socks, boots and bra lay on the floor like bits of discarded lizard skin. He threw his clothes on and went after her, found her at the drinks cabinet fixing another gin.
‘Maddie.’
He touched her shoulders and realised she was crying. She whipped round and threw a punch at his chest, then another. Both hits screamed in his body and he felt a pop at his ribcage. His hands went to his sides.
‘I wish I’d never met you,’ she said.
‘Come on.’
She stepped back and wiped her nose. ‘Ever since I laid eyes on you people have been dropping dead around us. You’re a curse. Yesterday morning my life was shit, but at least I knew what to expect. Then I walked in on Kev and Claire and decided that was it. Even then, I thought I knew what I was doing. But now look at me.’
‘Take it easy.’
She fixed him with a stare. ‘Don’t you dare say I fucked you so that you’d do what I want. I did it because I wanted to, because I’m scared and lonely and don’t know what the hell to do.’
‘Come here.’ He pulled her into a hug, sobs against his chest, throbbing pain through him, his hands at her back. He closed his eyes and smelt her hair.
She lifted her head up. ‘I can’t stop thinking about the plane. Every time I close my eyes the cabin is breaking apart, you’re back there, I’m up front, and I think it’s the end. We fell out of the sky, Finn, we fell out of the sky and lived. Sometimes I wonder if that means something.’
‘I know.’
‘But it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just luck. Why did the others die and not us? I don’t deserve to live ahead of them.’
‘It’s not a matter of deserving it.’
‘I’m not so sure.’
‘It’s just chance.’
Maddie looked at him and something flitted across her face, something like shame. ‘I’m glad it was them and not us. Isn’t that terrible?’
‘No.’
Her voice lowered. ‘I feel like I can do anything now. We lived, we’re indestructible. I know it sounds crazy, but if anyone can understand it’s you. You understand, don’t you?’
‘I understand.’
24
He stood with a skull in his hand, aware of what it looked like if anyone could see him. Not that anyone would be around at this time of night, this time of year, way out here.
The Tomb of the Eagles was freezing, his fingers numb as he replaced the skull next to its compadres. He thrust his hands into his pockets and stamped his feet to get the blood flowing. On the walk up here in the dark he’d been pummelled by the westerly and imagined himself being carried over the cliff into the sky, blissfully swept into the upper reaches of the atmosphere above the clouds where aeroplanes still flew, criss-crossing the planet with their vapour trails.
He had told Maddie he was heading back to Ingrid’s but instead had turned right when he left the Lewis place. He needed quiet and this was the quietest place he knew. The torch on his phone threw a thin beam of light up from where he’d placed it, enough to see by, but the corners of the cairn were shrouded in darkness. He pictured the dead rising, zombified bodies of the seven crash victims clawing their way out of the gloom towards him, dragging their feet and moaning. Each one a husband, father, wife, mother, daughter or son to someone. Each person leaving the d
eepest hole where their life had been, an absence as shocking as any explosion.
Finn kicked at the floor and disturbed some dirt. He coughed, his lungs straining in pain. The cough escalated, he couldn’t shake it out, each new spasm making more daggers slide between his ribs. His mouth filled as he coughed something up, then spat it on the floor. He grabbed his phone and pointed the torch at the ground. There was darkness amongst the phlegm. Blood. Had they mentioned that in hospital? Maybe he hadn’t escaped death after all, maybe death was stalking him, waiting for its chance to take him like the others. Perhaps he and Maddie were on borrowed time, the whole thing a chain reaction that would still claim them both.
He thought about Maddie’s idea to steal the boat and sail it across the firth. He couldn’t picture it, but then he couldn’t picture saying no to her either. The more he thought about her the less he understood. Maybe she killed her husband and took the money. And yet Finn had just screwed her in his neighbours’ bedroom. Maybe she walked away from the dying and injured on the airfield, yet he went to the cowshed and saved her, hid her from the police, from everyone.
His phone rang. Ingrid. Her fourth call in the last two hours. Always wondering where he was. He didn’t blame her, he would be the same in her position. But he didn’t answer the call. The truth was, he didn’t know what to say to her.
*
‘Switch it off,’ Ingrid said.
But Finn couldn’t. He sat forward in his seat watching Sky News, unable to look away. The glossy young presenter was in the car park of Kirkwall Airport, the runic lettering of the terminal building behind her. The crash story would’ve been enough to bring them here and keep them for a couple of days anyway, but the mysterious and beautiful missing woman, that was much more newsworthy. Only Finn knew that she had walked away unharmed. At the moment they were still just describing her as unaccounted for, but something in the tone of the reporting suggested they suspected. One of the air crash investigators held a press conference explaining that if a body had been thrown clear during the crash, it was highly unlikely they wouldn’t have found it by now. The possibility had been raised of Maddie leaving the scene and the investigator hadn’t ruled it out. He was a reedy man in a short-sleeved shirt, buttoned-down collar, thin oblong glasses. The press jumped on his refusal to deny it and ran with the idea of a hunt, the search for a pretty young woman, possibly injured or suffering from amnesia, in the vicinity of the airfield.
There was a lot of space in Orkney. The police had brought in reinforcements from mainland Scotland and roped in half the population of Kirkwall to trek through the adjoining fields searching for Maddie as well as wreckage. It was as if the world needed to find her to make sense of it all. She was the missing piece of the puzzle, the resolution they needed for the crash to finally go away, so they could move on to the next terrible trauma that the world would throw at them. But Maddie was no missing jigsaw piece, no easy closure, Finn knew that.
And then there was the media’s treatment of Finn. The BBC, ITV and Sky hadn’t found him on South Ronaldsay yet, but it was only a matter of time. The tabloids would be here first, the girl from the Orcadian was right. They would rip him to shreds because everyone loves a scapegoat. Finn, the fist-fighter on the plane, the abuser of the crew, would fit perfectly.
He gleaned from the coverage that Sean Bayliss was still in an induced coma. Charlotte the stewardess had returned home from hospital. She was said to have suffered severe shock. The presenter named her as Charlotte Woodside. Finn looked around the room for his rucksack, spotted it on the floor in the corner. He heaved out of his seat and over to it, pulled out his notebook, a pencil and the Mackay Brown novel. He sat back down with a sigh and opened the notebook. He went to a clean page and tried to write ‘Charlotte Woodside’ but the splint on his knuckle made it impossible to lean his hand on the paper, so his fingers hovered over the page like a nervous insect. He wrote slowly, a wobbly scrawl that he could only just make out. He went through the same process writing down ‘Sean Bayliss’. He had to keep a note of their names.
He flicked back through the notebook, looking at the sketches he’d done at Brodgar and Skara Brae. Further back in the notebook were detailed drawings of some of the jewellery pieces he’d been working on for the degree show. Brooches and bracelets, delicate stuff with stones reflecting the colour palette of the islands, simple silver settings, slight nods towards runic text in the curve of the shapes, a hint of the past in what were supposed to be modern pieces. He thought about the stuff he’d been making back in Dundee. He’d been on course for graduating well, had a lot of things nearly finished for the end-of-year show, but what now? At least six weeks for his hand to heal, that’s what the doc said. And that was just to get the splint off, then there would be stiffness in the knuckle, across the fingers, maybe physio, scar tissue under the surface. He thought about the way he used his jewellery instruments. There was no chance he’d be able to finish what he’d started making in time. And that was just the physical side of it. At the moment, he couldn’t even imagine having the will to complete the work. Everything from before the crash seemed ghostly now, faded grey shadows of a life he used to lead. In comparison, everything since that night seemed too bright and vivid. Colours saturated his mind’s eye when he thought about Maddie. Life was too loud now, too real to be thinking about going back to who he was and what he did before.
He closed the notebook and looked at the Mackay Brown book. Maddie had touched it at the airport lounge. It had been through the plane crash with him, and he felt like that had sullied it, destroyed its purity somehow. A simple story about a dreamer kid who preferred stories to real life. He wished he were more like Thorfinn in the book, conjuring up fictional worlds to escape into. By the end of the book, though, his namesake had given up writing stories and was content to just live, to exist in the world and be a part of humanity, linking what went before with what was to come. Finn tried to imagine himself settling down with Amy, with Maddie, with some unknown woman, faceless in his imagination, formless in his mind.
There was nothing on the news yet about Kevin Pierce. It would be unbearable when the police released that information. Imagine how the hunt for Maddie would escalate once they knew her husband had been murdered.
Finn rubbed his eyes and felt exhaustion sweep over him. All this chewing things over wasn’t going to change anything. He had to act. But that presupposed he knew what to do.
The television was now showing a different glossy woman standing outside St Magnus Cathedral in the centre of Kirkwall. It looked bitterly cold. A few members of the public were there too, lined up for soundbites. The presenter spoke to the first person, a stocky, middle-aged woman Finn didn’t recognise.
‘Grace,’ Ingrid said. ‘She should know better.’
Finn couldn’t focus enough to listen to Grace. The usual platitudes about tragedy, no doubt, inane stuff that filled airtime on news channels these days.
Glossy Presenter moved on to the next soundbite then the next, then walked to the doorway of the kirk and let the camera look inside. Dozens of people were milling about and holding candles, and the woman mentioned a vigil. She said it would go on through the night until tomorrow’s memorial service for the seven dead. Finn listened closely but she didn’t say the names of the deceased. He turned to Ingrid, who was sitting with her knitting on her lap, staring at her hands.
‘They’re having a memorial service?’ he said.
‘Don’t get any ideas.’
‘What do you mean?’
She gave him a sympathetic look. ‘You can’t go, Finn.’
‘Why not?’
Ingrid raised her eyebrows at the television. Glossy Presenter had stepped back outside and was wrapping up her report, gliding away from the old stonework and furrowed brows inside.
‘You know why not,’ Ingrid said. ‘The world’s media will be there.’
‘So?’
‘You’re not naïve, don’t pretend to be. They’ll
crucify you.’
‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’
He thought of Maddie at the visitor centre. He imagined he could still taste her on his tongue.
‘They blame you,’ Ingrid said. ‘There will be relatives there.’
‘I have to go.’
‘Don’t you dare.’
Finn sat upright. ‘If I don’t, it looks like I don’t give a shit. That’s worse.’
‘Do you give a shit?’ Ingrid said.
That stopped him in his tracks. ‘What?’
‘You’ve been acting very strange.’
Finn laughed. ‘I was in a plane crash, Gran.’
‘I just don’t think you’re in the right frame of mind for this.’
‘What frame of mind should I be in?’ Finn said.
Ingrid picked up her knitting. ‘You have a meeting with Janet at eleven tomorrow morning.’
Finn rubbed at his forehead. ‘Who the hell is Janet?’
Ingrid began the click-clack of her needles. ‘The counsellor. She spoke to you in hospital.’
‘Christ, I’m not going to that.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Janet spoke to me,’ Ingrid said. ‘I trust her. She said you definitely need help. I’ll take you to the appointment.’
It wasn’t a question.
The phone rang. Ingrid lifted her knitting off her lap and placed it on the table next to her, then got out of her seat and picked up the receiver.
‘Ingrid speaking.’
Finn watched her face as she listened down the line. After a couple of moments she held the receiver out to him.
‘It’s the police, they want to talk to you.’
Finn took it from her. She went into the kitchen and Finn heard the kettle going.
‘Mr Sullivan?’
‘Yes.’
‘DI Linklater here. We’d like you to come to the station tomorrow morning for a chat.’
‘Am I under arrest?’
‘No, we just want to talk about a few things.’
‘Like what?’
‘Some new information has come to light.’
Crash Land Page 11