‘I thought you were overboard,’ she said.

He filled the kettle. ‘Is that what this is about?’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’

‘It was my fault, I was in charge of the boat and I wasn’t paying attention. You could’ve died.’

Ben put the kettle on. ‘Nobody died.’

There was silence as those words hung in the air like poison.

Ben turned. ‘I meant . . .’

‘I know what you meant.’ Ellie’s tone was gentle.

She thought of sitting at this table, talking to Sam yesterday morning. Trying to bring him down from the edge, keep him alive. She preferred being the one doing the comforting, it was a million times easier. She rubbed at the surface of the table where Sam’s cup of tea had been, wiped away imaginary biscuit crumbs, just as Ben placed her own tea in the same spot.

‘I need to tell you something,’ Ellie said.

Ben sat down opposite. ‘What?’

He had his mug in his hand. Ellie stared at it. It was from the high school up the road, picked up at a spring fair the first year Logan was there. It had the school crest on it, an abstract thing with a yellow cross and three red flowers. It said Mente et Manu underneath – ‘with mind and hand’. That had always seemed so vague as to be almost meaningless. She knew what they were getting at but it was hardly inspirational. She stretched her fingers out in front of her and stared at them. Her hands seemed so disconnected from her mind, as if she had no power over them. She imagined her hands slapping her cup of tea on to the floor, or rising up to her own throat and squeezing, or picking up a kitchen knife and burying it in the belly of a child abuser.

She should tell Ben, she knew that. Now was the time, before things unravelled. But they’d already gone too far, she couldn’t imagine starting this conversation now. She tried to think of all the different ways into this story, what had happened since yesterday morning, but in the bleached autumn light coming through the window they all felt ridiculous. What seemed like a simple case of doing the right thing had become more tangled. She’d wanted to help someone in trouble, and she still wanted to help, but her possible courses of action were disappearing. As long as she didn’t tell Ben she had a sliver of control over this whole situation.

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

He blew the steam from his tea and stared at her. ‘Are you sure?’

She knew he wouldn’t force it; that was one of the million little things she loved about him.

‘Yeah,’ she said.

‘OK.’

She lifted her own mug, blew on the tea and tried to smile.

21

She checked the local news app on her phone as she strode back to the marina. The grumble of traffic overhead as she walked under the bridge made her feel insignificant as always, the thick bridge legs seemingly growing out of the earth.

There was nothing new on the story, the police still appealing for witnesses. She thought about how she’d been at that house twice now. No, three times. She’d been to Inchcolm Terrace three times, hadn’t she? God, she was losing it. And the police were still seeking to trace the whereabouts of Sam McKenna, the victim’s seventeen-year-old son. ‘Seeking to trace the whereabouts’ and ‘appealing for witnesses’ – why did the police succumb to their own clichés of language, their own verbose patterns? It was a unique and awkward vocabulary, as if the public couldn’t handle the truth of crime delivered to them in plain language. There was a hint of Orwell about it. Maybe it wasn’t sinister, just that the organisation found it easier to fall into that language as a comfort, a code handed down from generation to generation of copper, sticking to their own obscure linguistic rules.

While she still had her phone out she stopped walking and opened Facebook, went straight to Logan’s page. Nothing new. She sent a quick message, just Love, Mum xxx. She flicked to Sam’s page, then Libby’s, then back to Logan and swiped through the pictures. Touched her thumb to the screen, zoomed in on one he was tagged in with her and Ben. He’d said it was embarrassing, talked about untagging himself so his friends wouldn’t see it, but he never did. They were in France, sitting outside at a table next to a vineyard, three glasses of red wine raised in a cheers. The owner of the vineyard had taken the picture, a fat, happy man who insisted on pouring a glass for Logan even though he was only thirteen. Logan had that weird mix of embarrassment and excitement about alcohol, and they let him drink it. He sipped and winced at first, but kept drinking. She zoomed in as far as possible on the photograph until it was just a grainy blur of colour, the burgundy of the glass, the green of his T-shirt, the paleness of his skin. She rubbed her finger on the screen as if trying to get a stain out.

She closed Facebook and stared at the icons on her phone. Her thumb hovered over Video. She pressed it. Just the one clip on there, from the bridge. She pressed play, stared at the grainy screen, the grey, blank bridge, then the figure of Logan coming into shot, his back to the camera. She wished he’d been facing the CCTV. He stopped at the railing, looked up and down, then faced out to sea. Flicked at his hair. Waited for a moment. Ellie paused the video and raised a hand to her forehead. Closed her eyes then reopened them. Pressed play. Logan hoisted himself up and over the railing, stood on the ledge. She paused it again. Touched the screen. Play. A short wait then her son stepped off the edge and the bridge was empty again. She wiped a tear off the screen and closed the app. She bent double where she stood, and put her hands on her thighs, trying to breathe. She felt something come over here and puked into the grass verge at the side of the lane, her throat convulsing three, four times. She spat sick out her mouth and wiped tears from her eyes. Waited like that, crouched over, for a few moments then straightened her back and put her phone away.

She began walking, stumbling at first like an old woman unsure of her footing. She skirted round the back way to the warehouse, avoiding the likely huddle of activity at the marina this time of day. The wind was fresh and the leaves were beginning to fall from the trees in the woods opposite as the branches swayed in the breeze. They rustled in competition with the bridge traffic and the faint shush of the water. Things were never quiet around here, she couldn’t remember a time of peace and tranquillity.

She heard voices and her shoulders tensed. They were coming from inside the warehouse. She crept to the window and listened. Two voices, both young. One a girl, the other Sam. She looked through the empty frame and saw Sam and Libby standing together next to a decrepit workbench in the corner of the room.

‘What’s she doing here?’ Ellie said, clambering through the window.

Sam and Libby turned as Ellie landed in a scuff of rubble.

‘I could hear you arguing a mile away,’ she said. ‘That’s not exactly safe. She has to go home.’

Sam approached her, Libby behind.

‘I was just telling her that,’ he said.

Libby folded her arms. ‘I’m staying here.’

Her body language was full of exaggerated, pre-teen melodrama, hip stuck out and pouting.

‘You have to go,’ Ellie said.

Libby threw a thumb in her brother’s direction. ‘He’s here, why not me?’

Ellie tried to keep her voice calm. ‘Because you’re an eleven-year-old girl.’

‘I’m almost twelve,’ Libby said.

Ellie held in a laugh. ‘Your brother is technically an adult, but a missing eleven-year-old girl is an entirely different story.’

Sam turned to his sister. ‘I told you, Lib.’

‘This is bullshit,’ Libby said.

‘Does your mum know where you are?’ Ellie said.

Libby shook her head. ‘She thinks I’m at school.’