‘I don’t believe that.’
Finn smiled and looked her in the eye. ‘Can I come and see you again, just to talk?’
‘Of course.’
‘If I’m not in prison, I mean.’
Janet put her hands flat on the desk.
‘I’m not going anywhere.’
43
Squalls of rain swept across the sky, patches of light and shade dappling the sea like drifting islands. Mainland Scotland sat in the distance like a thick steak, the gristle of Stroma and the Skerries in between. It looked impossible to get across this stretch of water in a tiny boat. Finn tried to imagine being out there, swamped by waves, the prow flipping into the air with each swell, crashing back down into the troughs, hoping every moment not to go under.
Twenty-four hours and the coastguard still hadn’t found anything. Police were patrolling the mainland, but there was too much coastline. It came down to that, the vastness of the land, the smallness of a single person, so easy to disappear.
Divers had retrieved Lenny’s body, which had gone for autopsy and forensic tests. Finn wondered if it would come back that he drowned, or maybe that he was dead already. All those injuries on his body. Finn looked at the splint on his hand, ran a finger along the sharp metal edge.
There was no sign of the holdall in the plane wreckage. It could’ve been thrown clear, of course, or taken by currents. He gave that some thought.
He heard footsteps and turned to see Ingrid coming towards him from the cottage, a newspaper in her hand. As she got closer, he saw it was the Orcadian. They’d run a special edition full of Finn. Freya texted him first thing this morning to say thanks, she already had national papers offering jobs.
‘Want to see it?’ Ingrid said, holding the paper out. She had a cup of tea in her other hand, the steam from it whipped away by the wind.
Finn shook his head and looked out at the Pentland Firth.
Amy was gone. She’d spent the night in the Balfour, then left on the first flight to Edinburgh. Finn imagined her on the plane, the same kind of Loganair junk he’d been in. She’d refused to see him or talk to him, and he was relieved about that. He had no excuses. He’d treated her so badly and had almost got her killed. She deserved better. She’d told Ingrid she would move out of the Perth Road flat but Finn said to tell her that she could stay as long as she liked. He wouldn’t be back any time soon, given that he couldn’t leave the islands.
Somehow Ingrid had arranged bail, on the understanding that he stayed with her. They didn’t consider him a flight risk, the irony of that phrase, and besides, how would he get off the island without being caught?
He’d spent the last twenty-four hours apologising to her. He didn’t know if he would ever stop apologising. She got so sick of him saying sorry that she made him go outside and get some air. So here he was, all the air in the world, and it didn’t make a bit of difference.
‘You forget,’ Ingrid said. ‘Living here, I mean. You sometimes take all this for granted.’
‘Yeah.’
‘You can see why the old guys up the road lived here in the first place, can’t you?’
Five thousand years of living here at the end of the earth. Men and women just staying alive, keeping the species going, no purpose other than living the best life they could. There was banal heroism in that, glory in just eating and drinking and shitting and pissing, laughing and crying and screwing and fighting. And dying. Doing it together because that’s what we’ve always done, trying to make it to the end without too much drama.
Finn had had his fill of drama. And yet all the consequences were still to come.
He thought about what he’d told Linklater, that he believed Lenny was the murderer, not Maddie. Did he really believe that? He’d thrown it around in his mind ever since, picking at it constantly. He had to believe it, he just had to, otherwise what kind of an idiot did it make him, that he was played so easily?
He felt Ingrid’s hand on his shoulder.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said for the millionth time.
She left her hand there. ‘I know.’
A rain shower from the west had reached them now, the first freezing spots on his face.
‘Why don’t you come inside,’ Ingrid said.
‘In a second.’
He listened to her footsteps on the gravel and waited to hear the cottage door open then close. Still looking out to sea, he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He stood feeling the weight of it in his hand for a moment, then opened his messages. There was the text he’d received an hour ago, from a number he didn’t recognise.
I made it. x
He rubbed his thumb across the screen and smiled, then raised his face to the cold rain, felt it sting his skin.
Acknowledgements
Huge thanks to my editor Angus Cargill and everyone else at Faber & Faber for their continued enthusiasm and support – Sophie Portas, Lisa India Baker, Lizzie Bishop, Eleanor Rees, Alex Kirby, Miles Poynton, Lee Brackstone, Hannah Griffiths and Samantha Matthews. Thanks to my agent Phil Patterson and author Alison Miller for invaluable feedback. And big thanks to Tricia, Aidan and Amber for inspiration.
Also by Doug Johnstone
The Jump
What if you got a second chance?
Struggling to come to terms with the suicide of her teenage son, Ellie lives in the shadows of the Forth Road Bridge, lingering on its footpaths and swimming in the waters below. One day she talks down another suicidal teenager, Sam, and sees for herself a shot at redemption, the chance to atone for her son’s death. But Sam’s troubled family has some dark secrets of its own, and even with the best intentions, she can’t foresee the situation she’s falling headlong into.
From the number-one-bestselling author of Gone Again, The Jump is a hugely moving contemporary thriller, and a stunning portrait of an unlikely heroine.
‘A brilliant psychological thriller, no, domestic noir,
whatever you call it, The Jump is superb.’ Helen Fitzgerald
‘His darkest, heaviest and most heart-wrenching piece of work yet. Very serious stuff but beautifully done.’ Irvine Welsh
The Dead Beat
If you’re so special, why aren’t you dead?
The first day of your new job – what could possibly go wrong?
Meet Martha.
It’s her first day as an intern at Edinburgh’s The Standard.
Put straight onto the obituary page, she takes a call from a former employee who seems to commit suicide while on the phone, something which echoes events from her own troubled past.
Setting in motion a frantic race around modern-day Edinburgh, The Dead Beat traces Martha’s desperate search for answers to the dark mystery of her parents’ past. Doug Johnstone’s latest page-turner is a wild ride of a thriller.
‘Riveting. Fearless. Twisted. If Tartan Noir was a family
with an irreverent rebel child, his name would be
Doug Johnstone.’ Daily Record
‘There’s a tangible sense of expectation and excitement to this rollercoaster tale of dark secrets.’ Lancashire Evening Post
‘A twist-laden tale of family secrets.’ Howard Calvert, Mr Hyde
Gone Again
A missing wife –
A father and son left behind
As we learn some of the painful secrets of Mark and Lauren’s past – not least that this isn’t the first time Lauren has disappeared – we see a father trying to care for his son‚ as he struggles with the mystery of what happened to his wife . . .
‘A major discovery.’ Spinetingler
‘Excellent . . . sharp and moving.’ The Times
‘Calling to mind the best of Harlan Coben‚ Johnstone
shows us how quickly an ordinary life can take one dark turn
and nothing is ever the same again.’ Megan Abbott‚ author of Dare Me and The End of Everything
‘Deeply poignant and compelling . . .
it’s hard to take your eyes off the
page.’ Daily Mail
‘Riveting from start to finish.’ The Skinny
Hit & Run
The worst night of your life just got worse . . .
High above Edinburgh, on the way home from a party with his girlfriend and his brother, Billy Blackmore accidentally hits a stranger.
In a panic, they drive off.
The next day Billy, a journalist, finds he has been assigned to cover the story for the local paper.
‘A great slice of noir.’ Ian Rankin
‘This noirish crime novel builds into something more substantial: an existential thriller where a man crumbles as he tries to scream the truth in a house of liars. Thus Hit & Run becomes a grisly parable for our times.’ Irvine Welsh
‘With this book‚ Doug Johnstone hits YOU and then
HE runs‚ and you never catch him until the last word of
the last sentence on the last page. Cracking stuff.’
Alan Glynn‚ author of Graveland
‘Fantastic: sparse and fast-paced but believable and emotionally satisfying. You feel you could be Billy – and you thank God you’re not. His best yet.’ Helen FitzGerald‚ author of The Cry
Smokeheads
Four friends. One weekend. Gallons of whisky.
What could go wrong?
Four friends‚ spurred on by whisky-nut Adam‚ head for a weekend to a remote Scottish island‚ world famous for its single malts. They have a wallet full of cash‚ a stash of coke‚ and a serious thirst. Determined to have a good time and to relive their university years‚ they start making friends: young divorcee Molly, whom Adam has a soft spot for, her little sister Ash, who has all sorts of problems, and Molly’s ex-husband Joe, a control freak who also happens to be the local police.
But events start to spiral out of control and soon they are thrown into a nightmare that gets worse at every turn . . .
‘It lulls the reader with the warm glow of a good dram on a winter’s night‚ then ambushes him with all the bitter nastiness of a brutal whisky hangover.’ Christopher Brookmyre
‘A hugely atmospheric thriller soaked in the spirit of life . . .
sip and savour.’ The Times
‘It is so well written . . . there is plenty of flesh and blood here‚ much of it splashing across the page.’ Scotsman
About the Author
Doug Johnstone is the author of a number of acclaimed thrillers, including Gone Again, Hit and Run and, most recently, The Jump. He is also a journalist, songwriter and musician, and has a PhD in nuclear physics. He lives in Edinburgh.
www.dougjohnstone.com
also by Doug Johnstone
Tombstoning
The Ossians
Smokeheads
Hit and Run
Gone Again
The Dead Beat
The Jump
First published in 2016
by Faber & Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
This ebook edition first published in 2016
All rights reserved
© Doug Johnstone, 2016
Design by Faber
Cover images © Doug Houghton / Alamy; Stephen Strathdee / Getty
Both the epigraph and the quotation in chapter 31 are reproduced by kind permission of the Literary Estate of George Mackay Brown
The right of Doug Johnstone to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–33087–4
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