Incredible views from here, the castle sharp against the sky, Fife lurking behind. She could see the new bridge over to the left, the Pentlands behind her, Arthur’s Seat, East Lothian, miles and miles of land, hundreds of thousands of people, lives just trundling along, people minding their own business, getting through as best they could.
She tried to think as her breathing regulated. A couple of crows were hopping about on the grass close by, looking for worms. She could smell the gorse blossom from the yellow bushes down the slopes, weirdly like a sharp version of coconut.
So everyone knew. Hal, Brendan, Alice. The police. The rest of the department.
Was this the same person as the one sending the texts to Tom’s phone? If so, it meant that whoever it was had been following her and Tom around for a while now, at least two weeks. Why?
She looked out over the view to the north, the spread of expensive houses directly below, fanning out from the pond at the base of the hill. Tom’s house was down there, in Mortonhall Road, easy walking distance to KB. She thought about Alice down there, sitting at her kitchen table, a mug of tea, opening her laptop to find that email. Or maybe that’s not how it played out. Maybe Alice wasn’t surprised at all by this news. Maybe Alice was behind it.
Surtsey stood there for a long moment, then began running down the hill.
*
15 Mortonhall Road was a fresh-faced Victorian semi with high hedges and sturdy gates leading into a smooth driveway. A builders’ van was parked in the street and a large skip sat outside the garage, full of old bits of tiling, a toilet, hand basin and bath. The front door was open and two workies in overalls were carrying packets of tiles inside.
‘You after Mrs Lawrie, love?’ the older one said.
Surtsey steeled herself. ‘Yeah.’
The old guy nodded. The younger one looked Surtsey up and down and smiled at her.
‘I’ll let her know,’ the older one said. ‘She’s inside.’
Surtsey didn’t know why she was here. Except she had to be. She had to face this down eventually, why not now?
She heard the guy shouting inside. ‘Mrs L? Someone to see you.’
Part of her had hoped Alice wouldn’t be in, would be off doing whatever grieving widows did. She looked behind her along the driveway to the road, thought about running away, but her feet wouldn’t move underneath her.
Alice came to the doorway holding a glass of white wine. Surtsey resisted the urge to look at her watch, but it was definitely still morning. But who the fuck was she to judge anyone else?
Alice wore black designer jeans, tight, showing off great legs, a sky blue shirt and navy blue jacket. Her blonde bob was shiny, her eyes red. She stopped and stared when she saw Surtsey.
‘You,’ she said. She took a big swig of wine. ‘Wow, you’ve got a lot of nerve.’
‘Excuse me.’ This was the older builder, squeezing past and back out to the van in the street.
Alice waved her hand up the stairs behind her. ‘Getting a new bathroom fitted. Although Christ knows how we’re going to pay for it now. Listen to me, “we”, there is no “we” any more.’
Surtsey’s mouth was dry, and she had to peel her tongue from the roof of her mouth to speak. ‘I’m sorry about Tom.’
Alice narrowed her eyes. ‘Really? That’s all you’ve got? You were fucking my husband and you’re sorry?’
‘So you got the email.’
Alice shook her head. ‘Christ almighty.’
The workman excused himself past again, leaving the smell of plaster dust and an awkward silence in his wake.
‘You don’t seem very surprised,’ Surtsey said eventually.
‘I am so close to putting this glass in your face right now.’
‘Well, you don’t.’
Alice sighed. ‘You think I didn’t know already? I’ve loved him for twenty-four years, since you were in fucking nappies. You think I didn’t know he was up to something? My God, it was obvious. The spring in his step, the extra workload, suddenly looking after himself. So many clichés. Every women’s magazine in the world tells you to look out for the same signs, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t know it was you specifically, but what difference does it make now?’
Surtsey frowned. ‘Did you send the email?’
Alice went bug-eyed. ‘Are you insane?’
‘Maybe you were following him. Following us.’
‘I have better things to do with my time than follow my husband around. For a start, trying to keep this family together. So much for that.’
Surtsey took a deep breath. ‘Maybe you killed him.’
Alice slapped her hard across the cheek. Surtsey saw the hand coming but didn’t do anything to stop it.
‘How dare you,’ Alice said. She was glassy-eyed from the wine, or maybe crying. ‘Gracie and Belle don’t have a dad any more. Do you want to come back after school and explain to the girls why their daddy is never coming home?’
Surtsey shook her head. ‘Have you been texting me?’
Alice stared icily at her. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Nothing.’
Alice put a hand on the doorframe, maybe to steady herself. ‘All I know is that you were fucking my husband, and now he’s dead.’
‘That’s not my fault.’
Alice went to close the door, the conversation was over.
‘Isn’t it?’ she said.
19
DCI Yates looked as if he’d always been old. The gut, the pockmarked skin, the slump of his shoulders. Surtsey tried to picture him as a young boy chasing a football or flying a kite in the Meadows. Her mind came up blank.
Yates and another cop were sitting in her living room, bulky uniforms and jackets on despite the warm day outside. Surtsey had hoped to see Ferris, but he was obviously just a lowly uniform grunt. This other cop was younger than Yates but not by much, pale flesh in a double chin, thick, stubby fingers. The two of them were like something from last century, an anachronism. They were probably no older than Tom but seemed like a different species, dinosaurs still roaming the earth. As if to highlight their old-fashioned nature Yates had a small notepad and pencil out. He actually licked the pencil before he started writing.
‘Let’s start at the beginning,’ he said.
Surtsey sighed and looked out the window. The rowing club were out on their afternoon training session, the green seven-seater easing through the calm of the Forth. She watched the rhythm of their oars for a few strokes, tried to breathe in time with it, but they rowed too slowly for her racing heart. She had to decide. Tell them everything and implicate herself, or tell them as little as possible, damage limitation.
She turned to Yates and the other cop. His name badge said Flannery. Flannery and Yates sounded like a bad vaudeville act or failed solicitors. They were squeezed into the sofa, cups of tea on the low table in front of them. Surtsey and Halima got stoned on that sofa last night, and she wondered if there were any threads of grass spilt down the sides. She had a quick panic, scanned the room for the hash pipe and ashtray, but saw nothing.
‘Well?’ Yates said.
Flannery had a sheaf of papers in his chubby fist. He hadn’t shown them to her, but she assumed they were pictures of her and Tom.
‘We were seeing each other,’ Surtsey said.
‘We know that,’ Flannery said, giving the papers a shake. ‘Since when?’
‘Six months.’
Flannery pursed his lips.
Yates wrote in his pocket book. ‘Tell us how it started.’
She kept it as dry and factual as possible but it still felt seedy, talking about her relationship to two strangers, two middle-aged men who would give their back teeth to have someone like her interested in them. Two fat old bastards who would probably wank off in the police station toilets thinking about it. It was a kind of abuse, having to detail her interactions with Tom, it debased the idea of the two of them. When they were together it had felt sincere, fun, innocent someh
ow. She realised how stupid that seemed as she talked about it.
She felt ashamed as they asked for details. The truth was she hadn’t really cared about Alice and the girls, hadn’t given them any thought while she grabbed Tom’s hair as he went down on her.
Of course it was his fault as much as hers, in fact more so. He was the married one, for God’s sake, the one being unfaithful. She imagined saying that to Alice: It’s not my fault, it’s your dead husband who slept with someone behind your back; he’s the one who betrayed you and his children. He’s the one thinking with his dick and not caring about the consequences.
She looked at Flannery and Yates. They were on Tom’s side, men like them always would be. They might be having affairs too, using their position to impress or manipulate someone younger into sleeping with them. Wasn’t that exactly what Tom had done? Surtsey bristled at the idea she was an innocent ingénue, swayed by his charm, but the more she talked about him the more it sounded like that’s exactly how it was.
She ran out of words for the cops.
They gave each other a look as if they’d just smelt something rotten.
‘And you didn’t think to mention any of this on the Inch when his body was discovered?’ Yates said.
Surtsey pictured Tom’s body.
‘I was in shock,’ she said.
‘Maybe you felt ashamed,’ Flannery said.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Sleeping with a married man.’
‘I’m not ashamed.’
‘Guilty, then.’
‘You don’t get to judge me,’ Surtsey said.
The temperature dropped a few degrees in the room.
Yates narrowed his eyes. ‘We’re just trying to establish the situation.’
‘No, you’re not,’ Surtsey said. ‘You’re harassing me. Making moral judgements about my sex life. It’s not relevant.’
‘It’s very relevant,’ Yates said. ‘It gives you a motive.’
‘A motive for what? You don’t even know if Tom was killed yet.’
‘We’re working on the presumption he was,’ Yates said. ‘Forensics should confirm it soon.’
‘It doesn’t give me a motive,’ Surtsey said. ‘I loved him.’
She was surprised to say it, but it felt like the truth.
Flannery’s eyebrows shot up. ‘So you loved him and he wouldn’t leave his wife.’
Surtsey couldn’t help rolling her eyes. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I knew what I was getting into.’
Yates sucked through his teeth. ‘It sounds like you didn’t know what you were getting into, given that your married lover has just been found dead.’
‘I shouldn’t even have to say this but I had nothing to do with it.’
Yates moved his tongue around, like he was trying to dislodge food from his molars. ‘Please tell us your whereabouts leading up to the discovery of Professor Lawrie’s body.’
‘I was at the Grant Building from about ten in the morning. Before that I went to see my mum at the St Columba’s hospice up the road. Before that I was here with my housemate Halima and sister Iona.’
‘And what about the day before he was found?’
‘The same. At the hospice seeing mum in the morning, then the office all day, then back here.’
Yates watched her carefully. ‘And you were at home for the whole evening?’
Surtsey thought about coming in the back door and meeting Halima in the kitchen. ‘Yes.’
‘Can anyone confirm that?’
Surtsey felt her leg tremble, tried not to look at it.
‘Halima. I was here with her all night.’
‘What did the two of you do?’
She thought about the grass, the red wine, the image of Tom in her mind, her wet dress from the sea spray, the saltiness on her lips.
‘Drank wine and watched crap TV.’
‘What did you watch?’ Flannery said. He hadn’t spoken in ages, and his voice unsettled her.
‘Comedy stuff. Parks and Rec, Kimmy Schmidt.’
Yates diligently wrote that down in his book.
Flannery took a deep breath and shifted his weight on the sofa, making it creak.
Yates tapped the pencil against the pad, then closed it.
‘We’ll speak to your housemate and get back to you. Until then, try not to sleep with any married men.’
Surtsey dug a fingernail into her own leg to stop from blurting out a string of expletives.
The two men got up and headed for the door, trailing an air of entitlement.
Flannery was already in the hall when Yates turned in the doorway and fixed Surtsey with a look.
‘Is there anything else you want to tell us, Miss Mackenzie?’
Surtsey held his gaze, blinked, and shook her head.
20
‘Come on.’ Surtsey listened to the burble of the phone ringing, five times then it went to voicemail.
Halima’s recorded voice. ‘Leave a message.’
‘Hal, it’s Sur, call me back soon as you can. It’s super-urgent. Seriously.’
She scuffed over the sand and kicked at a rope of seaweed, releasing a squelch of liquid over her shoes.
‘Shit.’
She looked along the beach. The tide was in, a soft shimmer of waves throbbing against the coast. The sky was gauzy, high haze diffusing the light into a veil over the world. The Inch was a spectre out there, Fife unknowable behind it. She squinted against the fuzzy brightness, longed to see a pillar of smoke driving up from the island, lava spewing from the vents. It was crazy but she missed the island even now. It was so much a part of her, integral to her life, that she couldn’t bear to be away from it for too long.
She felt something under her feet. The sand seemed to vibrate and dance, a yellow blur all around. A gang of seagulls lifted up in a fluster and she felt the first jolt of the quake, a shudder that made her balance shift. She planted her feet, gazed around. Other beach walkers had stopped and done the same, waiting like statues for it to subside. That’s all you could do. A rumble under her shoes as the ground shifted again, grains of sand chasing each other towards focus points, like hourglasses running out. Her fingers were splayed, knees bent like a surfer on a board trying to stay on the big wave. More shifts, a tip one way then the other, the seagulls high in the sky, the air silent like everyone was holding their breath. The shudders gradually subsided replaced by a tremble, a guitar string being plucked, a thin thrum that she felt up her legs and into her hips.
Then it was over.
Surtsey realised she really had been holding her breath. She sucked in air. That was more than just an aftershock. That was as big as the one she’d experienced on the Inch two nights ago. She hadn’t heard any earthquake predictions on the news, but it was a hopelessly inexact science, guessing when earthquakes and volcanoes would fire into action. The earth wanted to keep humankind on their toes.
An old man walked past, highland terrier snuffling at Surtsey’s ankles then scuttling off.
‘Strong one, eh?’ he said.
She watched the man as he walked away. She’d grown up with these disturbances her whole life but he knew a time before them, had spent most of his life on solid ground. She tried to think what that felt like.
She flinched at a ringtone in her pocket. She pulled out her own phone. She was carrying both phones now, in case there were more messages. But this was her phone ringing now. Halima.
‘The earth move for you, babes?’
‘Hal.’
‘Sorry I never got back sooner, been in a dumb meeting with Rachel. “Keeping the ship steady in these turbulent waters,” or some shit. What’s the big panic?’
Surtsey pulled at her earlobe. ‘I need your help.’
‘I’ve got your back, you know that.’
‘Good.’ A pause. ‘Have you spoken to the police yet?’
‘Just on the island yesterday. Why?’
‘They’re coming to see you.’
‘Right.’
>
Surtsey could hear the doubt in Halima’s voice.
‘I need you to lie to them.’
Static on the line for a moment. ‘What’s this about?’
A young mum was sitting with two toddlers along the beach, picnic blanket laid out. Sippy cups and sandwiches, a bunch of grapes. The kids were nonplussed by the recent quake but the mum threw Surtsey a worried look.
‘They just interviewed me,’ Surtsey said. ‘About the whole Tom thing.’
‘We seriously need to talk about that, by the way,’ Halima said.
‘We will, I promise. The cops asked me where I was the night before we found Tom.’
‘You were out on a date.’
‘I said I was at home with you the whole time.’
Silence. ‘Why?’
Surtsey closed her eyes. ‘I panicked. I didn’t want them thinking… they already knew about me and Brendan, and me and Tom. I didn’t want them to know I was out with someone else.’
Halima sighed. ‘I don’t know, babes.’
‘These cops were dicks,’ Surtsey said. ‘Judging me, you know what it’s like.’
‘Still.’
Surtsey breathed in and out.
‘Maybe you should go back and tell them the truth,’ Halima said.
‘I can’t,’ Surtsey said. ‘I already feel stupid, I can’t handle even more guilt.’
‘I can’t believe they’re hassling you. Are they really suggesting you had something to do with Tom’s death?’
‘They’re just fishing, they don’t have a clue about anything. They didn’t like me, that’s for sure, because of my thing with Tom.’
‘But this date guy is your alibi.’
Surtsey paused. ‘No, you’re my alibi now. OK?’ She had her teeth clenched. She made an effort to ease the tension in her jaw. ‘You said you’ve got my back, Hal.’
‘Come on.’
‘It’s not like you need to lie. We did stay in that night drinking, watching TV. That’s all you have to say.’
‘Maybe miss out the part where we got monumentally stoned.’
Fault Lines Page 8
