She went on board and down into the cabin.
Ben was sitting at the table, head in hands. He turned when he heard her footsteps. He looked flushed, blood just under the skin, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He wiped at it with his sleeve.
On the floor next to Jack’s body were a kit bag and two rucksacks.
Ellie nodded at them. ‘What’s going on?’
Ben got up.
‘Ballast.’
Ellie shook her head. ‘We use water ballast, I don’t get it.’
‘Not for the boat,’ Ben said. ‘For him.’
Ellie looked at the bags, then at Jack, then at Ben. She knelt down and opened one of the rucksacks. It was full of rocks and broken bricks. She opened the other two bags and they were the same.
‘Where did you get this?’
Ben lifted his head. ‘From the old warehouse over there. Took three trips.’
Ellie zipped the bags and stood up. ‘We’re going to dump his body in the firth?’
Ben nodded. ‘It’s the only way.’
‘We’ll have to make sure the weights stay attached,’ Ellie said. ‘If they come loose he could wash up anywhere along the coast.’
‘Let’s just make sure we attach them properly,’ Ben said. ‘We can tie knots, can’t we?’
Ellie laughed despite herself. She raised a hand to her face and covered her mouth, ashamed, then felt tears come.
‘This is fucking awful,’ she said.
‘I know.’
They sat like that for a few seconds in silence.
‘We’ll have to scuttle the boat,’ Ben said.
Ellie looked round the cabin and sighed. There was blood all over the floor, soaked into the boards, seeped into the hull. Forensic trail everywhere, there was no way it could be cleaned without leaving evidence.
‘I know.’ She looked at Jack. ‘But we do the body separately?’
Ben nodded. ‘If we leave the body in the boat and scuttle her, it’s too big a target to find. It can be spotted on sonar, or by diving teams. If we do the body first, make sure it’s weighed down, we can dump Jack further out in the middle of the firth, away from prying eyes, then bring the boat in closer to shore, so that we have a chance of getting back to land.’
‘But we’ll have the life raft,’ Ellie said.
Ben shook his head.
‘Draws too much attention,’ he said. ‘The coastguard would be called out. Then we’d have to explain what happened with the boat.’
Ellie stared at him. ‘You’re saying we swim to shore?’
Ben nodded. ‘Will you manage?’
Ellie was the better swimmer. ‘Will you?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Ben said.
‘OK.’
They were both silent, thinking. Ellie looked at Jack’s body. Images flashed into her brain, the smell of his sweat as she tightened the kill cord round his neck. The sound of his breath catching in his throat. The red swill of blood around them. The scratch and scrape of his feet against the wall as his legs thrashed about.
She turned away. ‘We have to get this right.’
‘I know.’
They had to think it through. This was a logistical problem to be solved, nothing more, they couldn’t let it be anything else.
‘Do we wait until dark?’ Ellie said.
Ben frowned. ‘Too suspicious, who goes out on the Forth at night? It’ll draw attention.’
‘But it’s more risky in daylight.’
Ben went over to a drawer and pulled out the OS map of the firth. It was folded over at the area around the marina, the creases worn and weathered. He flattened it out on the table and they both studied it.
‘We have to get away from the bridges,’ Ellie said. ‘Upstream.’
Ben nodded. ‘Less traffic on the water.’
They were talking it through so they did it right. It was how they always planned sailing trips, back when they used to take trips together. The planning was the most important part, that way if anything unexpected happened, they were ready. It felt good to be doing this, like a proper couple again. Ellie touched Ben’s arm.
‘And we’ll need to go past the new bridgeworks, quite a bit past.’
‘But not too far, because we’ll have to walk home once we get ashore.’
Ellie nodded. ‘So not on the north shore either, obviously.’
She traced her finger along the south shore of the Forth.
‘But the coast road runs up here for miles,’ she said. ‘Anyone driving along it could spot us.’
Ben put his finger down on a little blue symbol.
‘Not here,’ he said. ‘The road goes inland round Hopetoun House. They’ve got all those grounds around the castle. We could come ashore at Bog Wood or North Deer Park.’
Ellie nodded. It made sense. There were woodland walks in the grounds of the big house, but none of them went down to the shore, leaving space for the deer to roam.
‘OK.’ She looked at Ben, held his gaze. ‘Are we really going to do this?’
‘We have to.’
Ellie nodded.
35
The wind was freshening as they made their way past the breakwater into the firth. They’d run the engine out this far but now Ellie cut the power as Ben untied the main boom and hoisted the sail. It had to look like a normal sailing trip if anyone on shore or the bridge saw them. It made sense to do everything as if they didn’t have a dead body down below, that way no one would remember them, just another couple out on the waves, enjoying the freedom.
They tacked west, Ellie at the tiller, Ben scurrying up to the foredeck to fiddle with ropes and the smaller sails. The breeze had them scudding across the surface of the water in good time. There was no great swell in the waves, so the hull eased through the water with little resistance.
They headed into the middle of the firth, giving the new bridgeworks a wide berth. It was more risky sailing out here in the middle of the Forth, the main shipping channel up and down the river, but there were no large ships in sight.
As they got further out Ellie looked back the way they’d come. She lifted the binoculars from the seat and examined the coast. All the problems of everyday life back there, all the worries and stresses of the world left ashore, as they headed into open water. Who was she kidding? As if they were free of anything out here. You carry that baggage with you wherever you go and no amount of fresh air and sea spray changes that.
She swept the binoculars past the new bridge foundations. They were busy pouring concrete into the cofferdam. She’d read somewhere that the process took days, millions of tons of the stuff poured continuously. She imagined heaving Jack’s body into that, destroying the evidence forever, making him a permanent part of the new bridge. But it was a stupid idea, how could they get the body up the side of the cofferdam? There were security guards patrolling it and workmen on top, everyone paying close attention, obeying health and safety. No, what she and Ben were doing was the only way.
She dropped the binoculars and turned to him. He didn’t have his lifejacket on, and she realised that she didn’t either. She imagined the boom arm swinging round and catching him on the head, knocking him overboard. She locked the tiller, darted into the cabin and grabbed two lifejackets, turning away from Jack’s body on the floor. She ran back up and shouted to Ben, threw a lifejacket his way.
They made good time heading west. They stayed nearer to the south than the north bank, no point getting too close to the Rosyth naval base, they had tight security there.
There were hardly any other boats on the firth, and the ones that were out were a good distance away. People tended to sail under the bridges, sticking close to the icons, while the Porpoise was heading the other way, upstream towards solitude.
Ellie watched Ben work the sails and smiled. For a moment this felt like the old days. They were a man and a woman in love, working together towards a goal, getting on with their lives. Ben looked up, saw her face, smiled back.