‘So, come on,’ Halima said, swigging her large Cabernet.
‘What?’ Brendan said.
‘Let’s have the theories,’ Halima said.
Surtsey frowned. ‘What theories?’
Halima did the eye roll and fake-punched her. ‘About what happened to Tom, of course. Our esteemed colleague and boss found with his head caved in.’
‘Christ, Hal,’ Surtsey said. ‘The man’s dead.’
Halima shrugged. ‘Of course it’s awful, but it’s a puzzle, right?’
‘You can’t help wondering,’ Brendan said.
Surtsey looked from one to the other. She loved Halima, but wasn’t sure she could use the same word for Brendan. He was just a bit of fun, maybe ‘fuckbuddy’ applied better to him. She knew that she and Tom couldn’t have lasted but she realised now she’d invested more in that relationship than the one with Brendan.
‘I’m not wondering,’ Surtsey said.
‘Come on,’ Halima said, incredulous. ‘What was he doing there? How did he die? Was it an accident? If so, how? During last night’s earthquake? If it wasn’t an accident then it was murder, so who did it? Did they know him? How did they get on the island? Where’s Tom’s boat? Is there any trace of this other person?’
She’d been counting on her fingers.
‘That’s ten unanswered questions right there.’
Her voice had got loud and two middle-aged tourists glanced over. The young mums splitting a bottle of Pinot in the corner while their kids threw Connect Four counters at each other were oblivious.
‘I don’t know,’ Surtsey said.
‘Of course you don’t,’ Halima said. ‘I’m looking for speculation here.’
‘It was probably an accident,’ Brendan said. ‘Maybe a rock dislodged during last night’s quake and hit him.’
‘A rock from where? He was on the beach.’
‘Maybe he wasn’t knocked out,’ Surtsey said. ‘Maybe he got concussed and staggered to the beach.’
Halima was wide eyed. ‘So where’s his boat?’
Brendan shook his head. ‘Maybe he didn’t moor it properly.’
‘That’s not like him,’ Surtsey said. She was surprised to find herself contributing to this.
‘True,’ Halima said.
‘Hey, how are my favourite nerds?’
It was Iona standing over the table, faded Snoopy T-shirt with the cleavage cut out of it, tied in a knot at the bottom so it clung to her body. Short black skirt over black leggings. Surtsey noticed Brendan glancing at the curve of her body. She was sexy but she looked exhausted.
‘Hey,’ Surtsey said.
‘I-ball, you’ll never guess what happened,’ Halima said.
‘You got laid for once?’ Iona said.
‘I’m serious,’ Halima said.
Iona looked around the table and put on a frown. ‘Judging by the looks on your faces, something sad. Did a report come out that said rocks were really boring?’
Iona had a thing about knowledge. Nihilistic bullshit, nothing was worth doing, the whole world was full of crap, might as well stay dumb and revel in it. Of course it was all a front but you couldn’t say that, just had to wait for her to grow up, find something she wanted to do with her life.
‘Our boss, Tom, is dead,’ Halima said. ‘Suspicious circumstances. Brendan found him.’
‘Really?’ Iona tried to hide her interest.
Brendan nodded. ‘Out on the Inch.’
Iona looked over the fish tank out the window. ‘Wow, that stupid rock just got interesting. Was the body decomposed?’
‘Come on,’ Surtsey said.
Iona held her hands out. ‘Just asking.’
Brendan shook his head. ‘He could only have been there a day, he was in the office yesterday. His eyes were gone, the birds got them.’
‘Get any pics?’
‘First thing I thought of when I found him,’ Brendan said, deadpan. ‘Snapped a few close ups, put them on Instagram.’
Surtsey smiled and remembered why she liked Brendan.
Iona gave him a look. ‘Just asking.’ She turned to the others. ‘You were there too?’
Surtsey pictured Tom, grains of sand stuck to his face, the angle of his feet. ‘We were on the other side of the island.’
‘And you didn’t go for a peek?’
‘We’re not all as freaky as you,’ Halima said.
‘I thought you were supposed to have enquiring scientific minds?’ Iona said.
Surtsey had enough. ‘Show some respect. This is someone we knew, someone we worked with every day. What the fuck is wrong with you?’
Iona held her hands up like a gun was pointing at her. ‘Who rattled your cage?’
Surtsey took a swig of her wine and put the glass down too heavily on the table. She saw Iona giving the other two a look, trying to make them complicit in the idea Surtsey had lost it.
‘Have you been to see Mum?’ she said.
‘Not today.’
‘When was the last time you went?’
‘I’m busy at work, Sur, you know that.’ Iona threw a thumb at the bar. ‘I’m just going on shift now.’
Surtsey kept her voice level. ‘So what have you been doing all day?’
Iona sighed. ‘Don’t start.’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘Don’t bother.’
‘Unbelievable.’
‘You sanctimonious shit.’ Iona turned towards the bar.
Surtsey felt her face flush.
‘She’s your fucking mum too,’ she shouted across the bar.
Everyone in the pub paused mid-conversation and stared at her.
Halima and Brendan sipped their drinks and stayed silent as Iona slammed the bar hatch and disappeared into the kitchen through the back.
Surtsey raised her wine but realised the glass was empty.
‘Hey, look.’ Halima was pointing at the television screen mounted high on the wall in the corner of the pub. BBC News was on, a reporter standing on a familiar beach, the knuckle of the Inch behind her. The sound was down but the ticker tape across the bottom of the screen was already declaring that a body had been found, and naming him as Tom Lawrie. Christ, they didn’t hang about.
Surtsey stumbled out of her seat and grabbed the remote from the corner of the bar, punched the volume up. A police spokeswoman was explaining that Tom was an earth science professor who carried out research on the Inch. She used the phrase ‘unexplained circumstances’ and asked for witnesses. She went on to explain that there was no CCTV on the island, but that someone might have seen a boat embarking or landing sometime the previous evening along the coast. Surtsey thought of her boat in the shed. Could forensics tell anything from that? A trace of black sand on the hull could’ve been from any time in the past. There was no digital navigation tool to geolocate where she’d been, nothing else to tie her to the scene. As far as she could think.
‘Maybe they’ll want to interview us,’ Halima said.
‘They already have,’ Surtsey said.
‘Not the police, the news people.’
‘How would they find us?’
Halima stared at her. ‘They’re called journalists, you might’ve heard of them. They look into events, find out stuff, track people down.’
‘Yeah, OK.’
‘They’re got Tom’s name so I presume they’ll be at the department tomorrow sniffing around.’
Surtsey tried to imagine sitting there tomorrow, looking at Tom’s empty office, the picture of Alice and the girls on his desk, the huge map of the Inch on the wall behind, every nook and cranny of the island there to be discovered.
The reporter on the news was now standing in front of a handful of protestors on Portobello beach. There were eight of them, some holding hands and chanting. Two of them held a banner that read: ‘Leave New Thule in Peace’. Someone else had his hands aloft, cupped together with a gap in between. It was supposed to represent the teardrop shape of the Inch, but Surtsey thoug
ht it looked like a vagina.
‘Oh shit,’ Halima said. ‘I’d forgotten about these guys.’
They were the Children of New Thule, a cult that sprang up once the clouds of steam and ash settled back in 1990 and it was clear that the Inch was here to stay. They were led by some guy called Bastian in square glasses and a neck scarf, an outdoor activist who claimed to have visions that the Inch was spiritual ground never to be desecrated by human feet. They didn’t call it the Inch, they called it New Thule, a mythical northern land, somewhere beyond the borders of the known world.
They’d been active in the first few years, protesting against scientific trips to the island, petitioning the public and lobbying government in an attempt to make the Inch protected land. It did end up protected, but by UNESCO as a Site of Special Scientific Significance, not some earthly shrine to a higher power. Bastian and his band of enthusiastic followers took the huff, and spent a couple of years protesting more aggressively, sabotaging boats, vandalising the geophysics department at King’s Buildings. It got them noticed in the media but things moved on, most people accepted the Inch was fair game for scientists, and the Children of New Thule slunk back into their hole.
Surtsey hadn’t heard from them in ages and had presumed they had disbanded. But now here they were on the national news, Bastian decrying Tom and the department, the entire scientific community, local and national government, anyone who disagreed with his vision. This, he said, was payback from nature, a warning to stay away.
‘Surely this dick must be a suspect,’ Halima said.
Brendan frowned. ‘Then why go on national television with his cronies?’
‘Double bluff, it’s the last thing anyone would expect.’
Surtsey squinted at the television. Bastion was in his forties, the same generation as her mum. Louise had faced some of the brunt of those early protests, paint splattered across office windows, the department boat filled with fish guts at the lock up. For a while, Bastian had popped up in another guise, a figurehead for the anti-fracking movement. The government had placed a moratorium on fracking across Scotland but hadn’t banned it outright. Plenty of companies still ran research and testing voyages in the Forth, hoping one day they’d be able to beat the government and swoop in, start making money. To his credit Bastian had marshalled public support against them, no one wanted toxic sludge and poisoned water supplies on their doorsteps. But the oil companies were still out there collecting data and running feasibility studies.
Then there was the added complication of the Inch. There’s no way any company would be allowed to drill for shale anywhere near a UNESCO site. And since Scotland already had earthquakes from the new fault line, it seemed insane to compound that with the possibility of more seismic disturbance from fracking.
With fracking on the backburner, the Inch was clearly back on the agenda for Bastian. He was a charismatic figure, slim, grey beard, sparkling eyes. He was articulate, even if what he said was rubbish. Maybe that’s how he’d managed to keep his band of followers for so long. And this was perfect for them, an unfortunate occurrence on the Inch played into their hands, gave them a new lease of life. Or maybe it was more than that, maybe Hal was right, and they had something to do with it. Hiding in plain sight, protesting angrily. Surtsey thought about the text message on her phone.
She dropped the remote control and strode out the pub towards the beach.
12
The dry sand sucked at her trainers as she picked up speed.
‘Sur, wait.’ Halima’s voice, some way behind.
She didn’t look back, kept focussed on her target. She noticed over to her right that the BBC outside broadcast van was parked at the bottom of Bellfield Street, across three disabled parking spaces. The reporter from earlier was chatting to her cameraman and a guy wearing headphones and carrying a boom mic. They were clearly off air at the moment, maybe working on what she would say next time they were live.
Ahead of Surtsey the small gang of protestors were chilling too, as if they only put on a show for the camera. The homemade banner was dropped, scuffing the sand, and a young woman with dreadlocks and a long flowing skirt was congratulating Bastian, her body language deferent and submissive.
‘Hey,’ Surtsey said, loud enough for Bastian and the others to turn around.
Bastian smiled at her like a benevolent teacher, a smile that made Surtsey angry.
She reached them and stopped.
‘I saw you on the news,’ she said.
Bastian nodded. The calmness of his movements infuriated Surtsey.
‘Indeed,’ he said.
‘How dare you,’ Surtsey said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
Surtsey waved an arm around, taking in the sea, the beach and the Inch.
‘Capitalising on a man’s death,’ she said.
‘I see,’ Bastian said, angling his head.
‘You should be ashamed.’
‘Thule has spoken.’ This was the young woman, making that dumb fanny shape with her hands, like a Hindu blessing or something.
Surtsey shook her head. ‘A good man has died, and all you can do is spout your spiritual shite. What about his wife and children? His friends?’
Bastian put on a concerned face. ‘I take it you were one such friend?’
Surtsey didn’t know what to say. Halima and Brendan had caught up with her, she felt a hand on her back, but they didn’t speak.
Surtsey thought about Tom’s phone, the message.
‘Do you recognise me?’ she said.
Bastian examined her closely, then shook his head. ‘Should I?’
‘Did you text me last night?’
Halima touched Surtsey’s arm. ‘Sur, come on.’
Bastian frowned. ‘How could I text you, I don’t know you.’
‘Thule has spoken,’ the hippie woman said again.
‘Shut the fuck up,’ Halima said. ‘What a moron.’
‘How do we know you’re not involved in this?’ Surtsey said to Bastian.
He looked thoughtful. ‘We are involved. We are the keepers of New Thule, its protectors. Anything happens on the island, we are involved.’
‘I mean, maybe you killed Tom.’
Bastian laughed. ‘You clearly don’t understand. We are peaceful people.’
‘Tom’s death seems pretty handy for you,’ Surtsey said.
Bastian raised his hands upwards. ‘It is divine intervention.’
‘You cunt,’ Surtsey said. She stepped forward and slapped him in the face, and he made no move to evade her hand, almost leaning in to it.
‘Sur, come on,’ Brenda said. ‘This isn’t achieving anything.’
She went to hit him again but Brendan held her arm and pulled her away.
Surtsey stared at Bastian. ‘I’m going to get the police on to you.’ She looked round the small group, bunch of sheep. ‘All of you.’
Bastian smiled.
‘Sorry for your loss,’ he said.
13
Surtsey tried to compose herself as she stood outside her mum’s bedroom at St Columba’s, but the wine and adrenaline were making her twitchy. Memories of being drunk and stoned as a teenager came to her, that dreaded moment before going back into the house, having to act sober for a few minutes before you could escape to your bedroom.
She knocked and waited. Important to be respectful, treat Mum like a normal person.
A few seconds of silence.
‘Come in.’ Wheezy and breathless.
Louise was lying on the bed, a thin crocheted blanket covered in sunflowers spread over her legs. It was a blanket Surtsey’s gran had made long ago, a skill that had failed to be passed down the generations. Surtsey wondered if all that vanishing know-how would eventually make them revert back to apes, banging on rocks and scared of fire.
‘Hey, Mum, how are you?’
‘I’m dying.’
‘Mum.’
The lack of energy in Surtsey’s voice made Louise frown. �
�That’s not the punch line.’
Surtsey sighed. ‘There isn’t a punch line.’
She nodded at the television in the corner of the room, switched off. Might as well get on with it.
‘Have you seen the news today, Mum? We found a dead body on the Inch.’
‘What?’
Surtsey felt the room wobble. She presumed it was the alcohol, but the look on Louise’s face told her it was really happening. Just a small tremor, the kind that happened all the time now in Edinburgh, but still disconcerting. Surtsey spread her feet and tried to balance. She stared at Louise, suspended in the moment, waiting to see if it would escalate into a proper quake or shrug away to nothing. Louise held the sides of her bed. You were supposed to get under furniture or into doorways but usually there was no time for that. A small jolt like this didn’t bring down masonry, it only reminded you the world wasn’t as stable as you hoped.
‘She’s restless.’ Louise had a habit of talking about the earth as a woman. Being raised in the 70s by hippy parents had planted the Gaia earth mother idea in her head, fuelling her love of geophysics. What was Surtsey’s reason? The passing on of the torch, carrying on her mother’s life work, investigating the volcanoes and earthquakes that demonstrated the world was alive.
The tremble under their feet stopped, leaving an unsettling calm. Surtsey had been standing with her arms out, palms down, and she moved her hands back to her side.
‘It’s Tom,’ she said.
‘What about him?’ Louise said.
‘The dead person on the Inch. It’s Tom Lawrie.’
‘My God. What happened?’
Surtsey shook her head. Louise patted the blanket by her legs suggesting Surtsey come closer but she stayed where she was, scared her mum would see the truth. ‘They don’t know, maybe a rockfall during yesterday’s quake. Maybe something worse.’
Louise took a suck on the oxygen mask by her bed, her thin arm barely managing to lift it. She dropped the mask, picked up a tissue and coughed into it. She leaned back on her pillows and stared at the ceiling. She struggled to get breath, the rattle in her chest impossible to shake. She held up a hand like she was trying to stop time. ‘Was it you who found him?’
Fault Lines Page 5
