The jump, p.7
The Jump, page 7
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.’
‘Like what?’
‘Normal police crap. Backhanders from criminals, payoffs from drug dealers, a protection racket. I don’t know. Could be anything. Word is he has a big gambling problem. Some are saying he’s had affairs, so it could be tied up with that.’
Ellie let out a breath. ‘The internet is such a scurrilous bastard.’
Ben smiled. ‘You get a lot of bullshit, but that’s the price you pay for the truth to come out as well.’
Ellie looked at him. ‘You believe that, don’t you?’
He turned to her. ‘Of course.’
She put out a hand and touched the rough stubble of his cheek. So different from Logan’s soft skin, from Sam’s. She tried to remember what Ben’s skin had felt like the first time she touched it. She sometimes thought the two of them were aliens inhabiting these worn out bodies they had become. In just a blink of time they’d gone from tight-skinned, giggling sex maniacs to saggy, toughened bags of bones.
Ben looked confused at her touch, as if the very idea of his wife stroking his cheek was weird. She pulled his head towards her and kissed him on the mouth, thinking how different it was from the touch of Sam’s lips earlier. This was the man she loved, she still loved him, they just had to find a way back to that.
She kept kissing him, felt his surprise as her tongue explored his mouth. This is what kids did, not a couple in their forties eroded by life. She pulled him close, stroked her hands along his arms and chest. This was her man, still. She felt his hand on her breast and leaned into it. She reached inside the duvet and pushed against his body, rubbed at the crotch of his shorts and felt him harden. She pushed the laptop to the side and wriggled out her jeans and pants, then pulled the covers off and sat on top of him. She was already wet and he slid in. Years of practice, knowing exactly which movements got them there quickest. She moved up and down as he whispered under his breath, looking up at her. She liked that, the look in his eyes, still hungry for her after all these years. She closed her eyes and focussed on the feeling in her groin, but Sam’s face appeared in her mind, his skinny cheekbones, his lithe body as he got changed earlier in Logan’s room. She opened her eyes again, felt Ben push into her and come inside her, then felt a swell through her own body, spreading through her as she ground her pelvis against his, her legs trembling as she slumped forward and hugged Ben, running her hands through his hair, reminding herself all the time that this was her husband, this was the man she’d promised to love and honour forever.
‘It’s been a while,’ he whispered in her ear, breathless.
‘Shhh.’
‘That’s the first time since . . .’
She kissed him. She didn’t want him to end that sentence.
14
Back at the Binks. She cradled a black coffee in her hands, shoulders hunched against the breeze. The sun was crawling into the sky behind the rail bridge, columns of light stretching upriver. Traffic was still light on the road bridge but the noise was there all the same, the never-ending rush of it.
She’d dreamed of Logan again. She knew dreams meant nothing, and she hated hearing other people talk about their own, people’s subconscious activities were never as profound as they thought they were. In fact, the subconscious was a pretty blunt instrument. So she dreamed of Logan, big deal, what did that tell you? That she was heartbroken about her dead son. How did that help her in everyday life?
She looked down at her bare feet. She’d come out here to put her feet in the water, wanted to feel her body intermingle with it, feel the force of the waves, the tidal power, the immense connectivity of it all.
She climbed down to the beach, careful not to spill her coffee. Tensed her toes against the tiny stones and shells under her feet. She walked into the water lapping at the shore, held her breath for a moment against the cold. Wiggled her ankles and kicked a stone at the water’s edge. A few more steps, nothing crazy, just up to her pyjama shorts. But as she moved deeper into the water she felt the urge to throw her coffee mug away and dive under the surface. She poured the coffee into the sea, watched the brown liquid swirl and disappear as it was diluted. Then she dropped the mug and watched it weave its way to the bottom then nestle in the sand.
She looked out over the Forth to North Queensferry. People over there just waking up, getting ready for work, hurrying the kids along so they weren’t late for school. The stuff of life.
She stretched her arms in front of her, put her hands together and dived into the wash, kicking with her legs, pushing the water away with every stroke of her hands, feeling the tension and stretch of the muscles in her arms and legs. The cold hammered at her chest, tried to push the air from her lungs with the shock, but she resisted. A few strokes underwater, shoulder blades flexing, breath held, then she surfaced, already some distance from the shore.
A line from a song came into her head, like it did every time she swam in the firth. That band Logan liked, Frightened Rabbit, Scottish guys singing in their own accents. That had been unthinkable when she was a teenager, there were no Scottish voices in rock music. The line was ‘swim until you can’t see land’. A lovely idea. Impossible here, though, surrounded on both sides, you’d have to go a dozen miles out into open sea. Suicidal.
She breathed deeply and ducked under the surface. A few long strokes, enjoying the purity of the movement, at one with the ocean and the currents, the seals and the crabs, gliding through this world as if she belonged.
She came up for air. Treaded water as she looked back to shore.
She was not suicidal, not today. Today she had things to do, people to help.
She took a mouthful of seawater and swallowed, the saltiness burning her throat, and imagined grains of Logan’s ashes slipping silently through her stomach lining into her bloodstream.
She looked at her house, small from here, like something made of Lego. She turned to the road bridge. The same feeling. She imagined a giant child building all this in their playroom, the town, the bridge, the boats in the marina, all of it. A three-year-old god in charge of their lives. But she knew that wasn’t true. No fate, no destiny. We were all in charge of our own lives, for better or worse.
She swam back to shore.
*
Ellie checked her watch as she stepped on to the bridge. Still only quarter past eight. Ben wouldn’t surface for a couple of hours yet, he always stayed up into the small hours with his little gang of internet-conspiracy buddies.
She’d gone back to the house to strip, towel off and change, throwing her sodden jammies in the machine. She thought about Sam’s clothes, the jeans she’d washed but then dumped in the sea along with the bloodstained top and hoodie. The forensic trails that we left behind all the time, a frightening concept, no chance of living on earth without trace thanks to modern science. Was it so hard to just disappear? The trick was to have no one looking for you, at least not in the right place, then it was easy.
The rumble of trucks and vans as they thudded past was like a hug to her. The shudder of the walkway under her feet was as comforting as old slippers. She strode along the bridge, immersed in the noise, revelling in the anonymity, the wind flicking at her hair. She walked past the first security camera and wondered about the footage from yesterday. Did they have anything of Sam and her? Had anyone in the control room put together the boy on the bridge and the missing boy from the police officer’s house? The trick was to have no one looking for you, that’s how you disappear.
She was close to the middle of the bridge now. She’d walked along the east side, the same as yesterday, the same as every day, the side Logan jumped from. That meant she couldn’t see the marina from here, over to the west. She presumed Sam was still asleep, two of those pills were usually good for twelve hours, she knew from experience.
She got to the spot and stopped, just like every day before. Except this wasn’t the same, Ellie felt different. She thought about Sam, here on the bridge yesterday, almost catatonic at her house, nervous and distraught later, then finally sleeping below deck on the Porpoise. She thought about seeing his sister and mum through the kitchen window. She thought about stepping round the pool of blood on the floor as it spread out from Jack McKenna’s stomach. Had Sam’s mum cleaned up yet?
Ellie leaned over the railing and looked down. Light from the sun scudded off the ripples in the water, blinding her for a moment. She raised a hand to shield her eyes and thought she saw something down there, a dark shape shifting through the water. Could be a seal, a basking shark, a piece of junk, anything. A porpoise, maybe, in its element, living only for the moment.
She leaned back, gazed out past the rail bridge and thought of Logan. Pictured him standing in the hall of their house, thirteen years old, playing with his hair and peering at the mirror, the smell of Lynx wafting into Ellie’s nose as she watched from the kitchen doorway. He was going out on his first date, at least the first that she knew about, with a girl called Maddie. Going to the cinema then Pizza Hut up the road. Logan was trying to pretend it wasn’t a big deal, shrugging his shoulders and avoiding Ellie’s gaze, but she knew different, could tell straight away that he liked her. She worried, of course, he was her baby, going into the world to get his heart broken a hundred times by a hundred different girls. Or maybe he was out there breaking hearts himself, either way it was horrible to think about. She didn’t mind the physical stuff so much, the idea of him doing things with girls. They’d had the talk a long time before, he knew all about being safe, even at thirteen. It was the emotional stuff. He wasn’t a typical boy, full of bravado and bluster. He was soft and kind and cared about what people felt. That was better, of course, she was proud that she and Ben had raised such a caring person, but it also left him open to hurt. By girls, by other boys, by the world. And she couldn’t do anything to protect him, that was the worst of it. She just had to be there and cuddle him when it went wrong. Except she never got that chance.
She thought again of Sam in the boat, closed her eyes and held tight to the railing, the tremor in it carrying up her arms. She had to save Sam. She still didn’t know how, but she would save him.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for this second chance.’
15
The lone clank of a hammer on metal greeted her from one of the boat sheds. She walked past the cafe and clubhouse, then the coastguard Portakabin, no activity there. She went past the Bosun’s Locker supply shop. Rumour was the rich owner was going to buy the marina from the council, reopen the sailing school. Ellie would believe it when she saw it.
She hurried past the boats in the dinghy park, their worn undersides exposed to the elements, then she turned on to the pier. Punched the code into the door lock and scurried down the stairs to the berths.
One or two old men were tinkering on their boats. This was the sailing fan’s equivalent of a shed, retired men came here and hid from their wives, women who were equally keen to get their husbands out from under their feet. The vast majority of boat owners were old men, partly because they were the only ones who could afford them, partly because they were the only ones who had the time to dedicate to such an all-consuming hobby. Not that they would call it a hobby, to these salty dogs it was a way of life, just as it had been for Ben before the sailing school had closed down.
Ellie had a sudden flit of tension in her chest – what if Ben had got up early and come here already? But then Ellie spotted the Porpoise in its berth, scruffier and smaller than the boats on either side, needing a paint job and a caulking coat. Ellie and Ben’s ability to focus on such things had evaporated in the last six months, no energy to think about anything other than their grief, so the Porpoise was in need of some serious TLC. Ellie resolved to take care of it once this was all over.
She was at the boat now, no sign of life. She tugged on a rope, pulled the vessel alongside the pontoon then climbed on board. She had a quick look round. Just the same old men fiddling with brass fittings, sails, ropes. She ducked below deck.
She knew straight away he was gone.
She rushed to the berth in the forward cabin, just a jumble of sheets. She flipped the covers over, picked them up and shook, as if he’d tumble out somehow. She lifted the pillow to her face and breathed in. His smell. She looked round the tiny cabin, checked the toilet. It had been used, water droplets around the sink. She opened the bin in the main cabin, just the remains of food packaging in there.
She glanced round the cabin one last time, picturing herself spotting something like a television detective, but it was just her little boat, giving away nothing.
She hurried up the steps and out on deck. Looked around, more urgently this time, watching for any human movement amongst the bobbing boats and swaying masts. The clack of rigging filled the air with a constant chatter. You got used to it down here, but suddenly it seemed like gossipers to Ellie’s ears, mocking her attempt to control this situation.
She saw old McNamara working on his keel boat a few berths down, and leapt off deck towards him.
‘Hey, Ronnie,’ she said.
He looked up and smiled. All these old guys felt paternal about Ellie, especially since what had happened with Logan. She liked that but also hated it a little, an uneasy mix of comfort and condescension. Ronnie had wild eyebrows and leathery skin, a lifetime of wind and waves toughening his face into a mask.
‘Ellie.’
‘Have you seen anyone down here this morning?’
‘You mean Ben?’
Ellie thought for a second. ‘Yeah, he said he was going to take the Porpoise out today.’
Ronnie shook his head. ‘Haven’t seen him.’
‘Have you been down here long?’
‘A while. I don’t sleep like I used to, like to come down and potter about.’
‘Have you seen anyone else come along this pontoon since you got here?’
‘Like who?’
‘Just anyone.’
Ronnie frowned. ‘Is there a problem with your boat? Has someone tampered with it?’
Ellie shook her head. ‘No, nothing like that, I was just wondering.’
Ronnie gave it some thought. ‘No dear, there’s been no one near the Porpoise that I’ve seen. I was below deck for a few minutes, but I’ve mostly been up top.’
‘When did you get here?’
‘Are you sure everything’s OK?’
‘Fine,’ Ellie said. ‘Just, when did you get here?’
‘About an hour ago.’
‘OK.’
Ellie began to walk away.
‘Ellie?’ It was Ronnie behind her.
