‘Hello, could I speak to someone on the ward looking after Jack McKenna please.’

‘Who shall I say is calling?’ An older female voice.

‘It’s his wife, Alison.’

‘Do you know which ward it is?’

‘Sorry, I’ve forgotten. I was just there earlier, as well.’

‘It’s OK, dear, I’ll search the database.’ Ellie heard tapping on a keyboard. ‘It’s ICU, I’ll put you through.’

Hold music, classical and tinny.

‘Hello, ICU?’ A more serious woman’s voice.

‘Hi, sorry to bother you. This is Alison McKenna, I was in earlier seeing my husband Jack. I wondered if there had been any change?’

‘Just a minute.’

More hold music, a thin swell of strings and brass.

‘Hello?’ The woman was back. ‘Mrs McKenna, the doctor has been round and your husband has seen some improvement. Dr Evans said we’ll keep him in ICU tonight, then probably move him to G.I. tomorrow if he continues to get better.’

Ellie realised she’d been holding her breath. ‘Oh thank you, that’s great news. Thanks so much.’

‘No problem, happy to help.’

Ellie hung up. She knew Sam’s dad was alive, and that he was still in hospital.

She began jogging along the dark lane, past the legs of the bridge and the old sheds then into the marina, along the pier, punching in the numbers with sweaty hands, her breath heavy from running.

She felt the surface sway under her feet as she scooted over the pontoons to the Porpoise and climbed on board. She looked around, couldn’t see anyone else about, just the lights from the bridges and the cranes at the new foundations.

She headed below deck and saw the tiny table where she’d left the sleeping pills for Sam. They weren’t there. He was curled up in the single berth at the bow of the ship, squeezed into the space, the small fan heater whirring away on the floor, the duvet and blankets in a tussle over him. He was snoring but not like Ben did, not a big, throaty rasp, more like a gentle collapsing of air, a small animal at rest.

She wanted to wake him up. His sister was OK, back at home, his dad wasn’t dead, it wasn’t murder. She lay down on the bed facing him and stroked his head. He was so pretty. The small, stubby nose, his long eyelashes, the tightness of the skin across his cheeks. He looked peaceful. She leaned in and kissed him on the lips, just a touch of her skin on his, then pulled away and sighed.

She stared at him for a long time then got up and headed home.

13

She put the key in the door and steeled herself.

‘Hi, it’s me,’ she called.

No answer. But he was in, she knew it. She wandered through the rooms downstairs but he wasn’t there. She went upstairs and stopped at the door to Logan’s room. Felt the urge to go in but resisted. Felt the itch to check his Facebook, but didn’t. She stroked the lettering on his door again, another ritual, touch wood for luck.

She walked to her and Ben’s bedroom and stood at the open doorway. Ben was under the covers, laptop open on his knees, creases across his forehead as he frowned in the light from the screen.

‘Hey, honey,’ he said without looking up.

‘Hey.’ She walked over to the dresser and opened the jar of Neutrogena, rubbed some into her hands then the skin under her eyes. ‘How was the flyering earlier?’

‘OK, I suppose.’ He looked up from the screen. ‘Where have you been? It’s late.’

She looked at her reflection in the mirror. ‘Just out for a walk. You know.’

He nodded. She often went for long walks, especially in the evening. It was part of the whole thing, the swimming and the other rituals, the physical act helped to empty her mind. She preferred it at night as well, fewer prying eyes, fewer accusations. She liked to think of herself as shrouded by the darkness, letting the essence of it soak into her bones as she drifted through it, osmosis transferring blackness from her to the night and back again, two porous entities combining.

Ben glanced down at the screen then back at her. ‘I think I’ll go out in the boat tomorrow.’

Ellie rubbed her hands together, letting the last of the cream soak in. Her skin was so dry these days, as if the world’s moisture couldn’t get any purchase in her body.

‘Oh yeah?’ she said, putting the lid back on the jar. ‘You haven’t been out for a while, why now?’

Ben pointed at the laptop. ‘I want to go and check out the new bridge foundations again.’

‘Why?’ Ellie said.

‘Been talking to this guy online, says he has evidence they’re using chemicals in the concrete process that release toxins into the atmosphere. Stuff that causes depression, hallucinations, all sorts.’

Ellie sighed. ‘Who is this guy, and how would he know?’

‘Calls himself Truthteller21, says he got sacked by the company for asking too many questions.’

Ellie turned round to face him. ‘Really? Come on, Ben.’

‘I know, a pinch of salt and all that, but he sounds like he knows his stuff.’

‘For God’s sake, you say that about all of them. Every bampot on the internet, every conspiracy nut and lunatic loner convinced the world is out to get them.’

Ben stared at her. ‘Like me, you mean.’

Ellie rubbed at the skin below her eyes. ‘That’s not what I mean.’

‘I believe all this shit, so that makes me as much of a nutjob as them.’

‘I just don’t think it’s very realistic to believe a respectable company, commissioned by the government under all the strict health and safety checks, is pumping chemicals into the sky that are making people suicidal, that’s all.’

Ben shook his head. ‘Of course not, that’s what they want you to think.’

‘Oh come on, listen to yourself.’

‘The bigger the lie, the easier it is to make people swallow it,’ Ben said. ‘I’m telling you, it’s right under our noses and nobody is doing anything about it.’

Ellie took a deep breath. ‘Anyway, I don’t know if going out in the boat tomorrow is such a good idea, the forecast said it’s going to be blowy. Up to thirty knots out on the firth.’

‘I hadn’t heard that.’

‘In the morning, anyway, maybe it’ll ease off in the afternoon.’

He could check online, of course, and he would, so she didn’t know why she bothered saying it. She just had to make sure she got Sam out of the boat before Ben was up and about tomorrow.

She stood up and went over to the bed, sat down next to him, nodded at the half dozen open browsers on the laptop screen.

‘Did you find out any more about the thing up the road, the cop that got attacked?’

He brought Twitter up and began searching. ‘A little bit. Nothing new in the mainstream, obviously, but quite a lot of chat on social media. The guy’s name is McKenna, do you know him?’

Ellie shook her head. It was a fair enough question, it often felt like people in a small town all knew each other.

‘He has two kids at the high school, an older boy and a younger girl.’

Ben meant older and younger than Logan. It was an instinctive thing to say, something Ellie found herself doing all the time, but it was redundant now. Logan was never going to age so the comparison was irrelevant. But it was a thing they had together, her and Ben, a frame of reference only the two of them understood.

Ben was clicking and scrolling. ‘The interesting thing is that the son is missing. He’s seventeen, so he’s within his rights to do what he likes, I guess, but it looks pretty suspicious, vanishing from a crime scene where your own dad has been stabbed.’

‘The cop was stabbed?’ Ellie said.

‘Didn’t I say that already?’

‘Is he going to be OK?’

‘The chat is that he’ll be fine. You can’t keep anything a secret from the collective consciousness, can you? Insiders at the police station and the hospital have already put everything out there.’

‘So everyone thinks it was the son who did it?’

Ben shook his head. ‘There are quite a lot of rumours that this McKenna guy was into something dubious.’