Ben had the rucksacks up and was tying them to Jack’s thighs and torso.

She tested her handiwork, pulled on the rope and it seemed secure. She looked around. A small dinghy was heading down the firth, but way over on the north side, too far away to be any bother. Ben saw it too and shook his head. He yanked on the ropes tied around Jack’s corpse, checking them, and everything held well.

He ran his hands through his hair and stood up. Ellie looked at her hands. She had pulled on the ropes so tight she’d given herself more burns. All these little reminders.

‘Let’s do it,’ she said.

Ben nodded.

The two of them pushed at Jack’s body with the bags on it. For a moment nothing happened, the mass of it creating inertia, but slowly he began to inch towards the edge of the deck, and as they shoved harder he gained momentum against the slippery surface, then slid over the edge legs first, hitting the water with a thick splash and disappearing straight down.

Ellie stared at the waves where he’d gone in. No sign of anything untoward amongst the brown chop and swell of it. She imagined Jack sinking to the bottom and wondered how long it would take. More than 5.6 seconds anyway. She turned. Ben was rubbing at his stubble. A thin trail of pink water led from the edge of the deck into the footwell, then along to the cabin door.

Evidence everywhere.

36

They ran the engine for ten minutes, puttering closer to the coast, heading further west until Ellie couldn’t see the road on the shore through the binoculars. She took Jack’s phone out of her pocket, slid the back off and removed the battery and sim card. Snapped the sim in half, weighed all the pieces in her hand then hurled them as far as she could into the water. She scanned further west, past the small copse of oaks and beech that made up Bog Wood, then the open shoreline of North Deer Park. Sure enough, she spotted half a dozen deer, male and female, grazing on a patch of grassland by the beach, stopping to chew and look around.

The Porpoise was about half a mile from land when she cut the engine. The boat bobbed and swayed. She thought about that phrase ‘sea legs’. It was a real thing, some people naturally more able to cope with the constant shifting of weight, the continual balancing act. And it worked the other way round, after a long day’s sailing the first quarter of an hour on dry land was disorientating, the flatness of the world under your feet, the banality of a solid planet. Her body missed the shifting of the sea when she was away from it.

Ben went into the cabin and came back out with wetsuits. He threw one to her. She took her lifejacket off and stripped, pulling the rubber against the skin of her legs, feeling the tension of it.

She watched Ben do the same, admiring his body. He’d thickened over the years but not unpleasantly. There was no potbelly or love handles, just a stocky torso, a welcome solidity. She pictured Sam semi-naked in Logan’s room, so lithe and skinny. Entirely different creatures.

She looked down at her own body. Gazed at the tattoos covering the real her. She scratched at the new one of the bridge on her arm, it was starting to heal. She looked at Logan’s name and dates of birth and death on her left wrist, touched the ink under the surface. Not that she needed a permanent reminder, of course, the tattoos were more than that, a penance.

Ellie pulled her arms into the suit, stretching the fabric till her hands were free. She zipped up, feeling the looseness at her hips. She went over to Ben who was frowning, looking past her at the shore. She kissed him firmly on the mouth and stroked his arm.

‘We’ll make it,’ she said.

She stepped over the discarded lifejackets. They would be no use to them in the water – they were for floating, not swimming. They kept you alive if help was coming, but if you wanted to save yourself, the only way was with your arms and legs, willpower and stamina.

Ellie and Ben went into the cabin. She pulled up the hatch in the floor, and Ben lifted another hidden hatch at the bow. Ellie reached in and took the wrench from a hook and began opening the through-hulls, small valves built into the bottom of the boat. They were used to expel excess water or sometimes to let water in to cool the engine, but if they were left fully open the hull would fill with water. She undid one, seawater rushing in over her hand, pouring into the hull. She quickly did three more, the water up to her ankles already. She looked up and saw Ben doing the same at his end.

‘I’ll cut the sink drain,’ Ellie said. ‘You do the hoses at the front.’

She had to shout over the water rushing in, up to her shins already, a sudden sense of urgency in the cabin. They’d started this thing, it had to be done quickly.

She reached over to the emergency pack behind her and opened it. Lifted a small axe and a serrated knife. Scuffed the knife along the cabin floor to Ben who grabbed it with a splash. She shifted her weight and picked up the axe, swung it down at the sink drain. Cutting it meant nothing would prevent the cabin from filling up. Two quick hacks and it was severed. She shunted herself out the cubbyhole in the cabin floor and reached for the bilge pump. She turned it off then went back to the trap door. She took a couple of quick practice swings, then brought the axe down on the bottom of the boat, next to the through-hulls she’d opened. Everything they’d done so far was fine, but the boat might not fill quick enough, better to make sure.

She hacked at the hull, water splashing in her face. She felt the wood splinter and crack so she swung again and again, heaving her arms, putting her weight behind it, feeling the planks of wood break open, one giving way under her foot and making her slump forward. She dropped the axe, throwing her hands out to regain balance, pulling her foot out of the hole.

She looked up and Ben was standing above her holding out his hand. She took it, stood up. The water was already halfway up the legs of the table in the middle of the cabin. The boat lurched to the port side. With the water rushing in, the balance was shifting and erratic.

They went upstairs.

Ellie looked around, then up. ‘We should drop the mast. It might show at low tide.’

She went over and disconnected the forestay, then pulled the mast pin out and dropped it. Ben joined her and together they pushed at the mast, watched as it toppled, bounced and clattered off the deck.

They stepped over it as they went back to the stern, Ellie looking out, making sure no one was around to offer them help. If they got assistance, the boat might be salvaged. They would have to explain everything to the coastguard, the police. She looked at the shore. Small brown dots of deer munching on grass were the only movement.

Ben was at her side, resignation on his face.

‘The end of the Porpoise,’ he said.

Water was already at the top of the cabin, a slurp of it washed around their feet on deck. The boat sat low in the water, it had filled much quicker than Ellie imagined, she thought they’d have to wait a while. It was as if the boat wanted to sink to the bottom, give up battling against the waves every day, struggling to tame the wind whipping down the Forth. Their boat wanted to be at peace at the bottom of the sea.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Our little purpose.’

Ellie knew it was stupid to fill an object with memories, to connect it to other things in your mind, but she remembered the first time they’d taken Logan out on the boat when he was five. A dead calm day, a short potter round the bay with the motor running, Ellie panicking every time he got up or bumped on to his bottom, every time he ventured near the side of the boat. She followed him like a shadow that day, hands outstretched, prepared to catch him if he fell, ready to jump in after him if he went in the water. He had a mini life-jacket on but all the protection in the world wasn’t enough for a mother looking after her son, making sure he came to no harm.