39
Ellie stood at the door to Logan’s room, her finger tugging on the skelf of loose wood on his name sign. When he was alive she used to go in his room every day to tidy up, a ritual of motherhood. She barely had the time, holding down a job, all the other stuff that went with being a parent, but she would sneak in when Logan was out or even just downstairs and pick dirty clothes off the floor for the wash, scoop stuff off his desk into the top drawer, empty out the bin full of crisp packets, crumpled up pieces of paper and Irn Bru cans.
Then one day there was nothing left to tidy. Two weeks after it happened, all his clothes were put away in the drawers, the bin emptied, the desktop clean, the room caught in a moment of time forever, preserved for the future.
She went in now and closed a drawer. Earlier, she’d given Sam a new set of Logan’s clothes. A quick inspection of the stuff he had on, the clothes he’d borrowed three days before, and she spotted dark stains on the trousers, the top as well. Could be blood, could be something else, either way best to get rid of them, give him a new outfit. She chose the most innocuous stuff she could find, blacks and greys, and if Alison spotted they weren’t his clothes, he was to say he stole them off a washing line when his own clothes got too dirty. It wasn’t ideal, but then none of this was ideal.
She’d given Libby some of her own clothes – a loose sweatshirt and plain jeans. They were about the same size, which had given Ellie a wry smile. Libby made a face at the clothes, but she took them and handed over her own when she realised her father’s DNA was all over her T-shirt and trousers.
How would Ellie feel if her two missing kids turned up on the doorstep just like that? If they were wearing strange clothes, had been hiding out for days, and didn’t know anything about their missing dad. She’d just be glad to have them back. She imagined her doorbell ringing, Logan standing there dripping wet after swimming to shore. She’d pictured it countless times. But maybe Alison wasn’t like her, being a mother didn’t guarantee anything.
Ellie and Ben had ushered Libby and Sam out the door a few hours ago, sending them up the road to their house. There were no hugs on the doorstep, both kids too awkward for that, everyone still in shock.
When the door was closed Ellie stood with her back to it and burst out crying, tears quick to her eyes, her shoulders heaving. Ben hugged her until she had it under control, then she went and gathered all the clothes Libby and Sam had been wearing and stuffed them into a bin bag. She walked out to the Binks, stopping to pick up half a dozen heavy stones from the beach on the way and adding them to the bag. She tied the knot at the top of the bag tight, checked no one was around, then hurled the bag into the water with as much strength as she could muster. The black plastic ballooned as the bag floated for a few moments, then as the water seeped inside and the rocks made gravity do its work, the bag sank like a deflated ball. It wasn’t exactly lost forever, it could be found if anyone was looking, but then that was true of everything they’d done, everything they’d tried to cover up. If someone was really looking, they’d find out. The trick was to not give anyone a reason to look.
When she got back to the house Ben was in the bathroom soaking and rinsing the wetsuits. He put them on a radiator afterwards, not ideal for the neoprene but it was best to get them dried quickly.
Ellie checked her phone. She deleted all the call notifications to and from Sam’s mobile. Wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference if they checked the records, but it was all she could do for now. Before she deleted his number from her contacts she scribbled it down on a piece of paper and hid it under an ice tray in the freezer. She’d thought about throwing the phone away, joining all the other evidence at the bottom of the Forth, but then she pictured the CCTV footage, Logan stepping off the bridge. She couldn’t do it, not yet.
Ellie looked round Logan’s room again. Same posters, same games consoles, same bedsheets. There was a small dent in the pillow where Sam had put his head down to sleep that first day. She sat on the bed and smoothed it with her hand. Lifted the pillow to her nose and breathed in.
She remembered a night, maybe a year before the jump. It was summer and Logan had been hanging out with his mates along the prom on their bikes. They must’ve persuaded someone to go into the offy and get them a carry out, cider by the reek of it. She’d done the same when she was a kid, small-town teenage drinking hadn’t changed over the years. He stumbled in the door half-cut, not hammered, he was too sensible for that, too in control. Even his suicide smacked of control, when she thought about it. The ending of his life looked like a clear and conscious decision, rational thought. She didn’t know if that made it better or worse.
That night with the drink in him he’d popped his head round the door, mumbling about going straight to bed. It was so obvious, it was hard for Ellie and Ben not to laugh. They listened smiling as he clumped around upstairs, a wall shuddering as he bumped off it. Then after a few minutes of silence, Ellie crept upstairs to find him curled on the floor next to his desk, snoring away. She got Ben to help get him undressed and into bed. Then once he was stripped and under the covers she stayed sitting on the bed, right where she was sitting now, for a long time, stroking his head and whispering that she loved him. It’d been so long since he needed her, since he had to be put to bed, since he allowed himself to be touched like that. It felt like coming home, being allowed to touch his face, stroke his hair without complaint.
Ellie stood up and went to the window. The bridge still there, the Firth of Forth still there, the whole of the Ferry still out there, twinkling in the twilight, going about its business, carrying on.
The doorbell went.
Ellie looked at the clock on Logan’s bedside table. Half past seven. It was four hours since she pushed Libby and Sam out the door.
She was surprised it had taken this long for the police to come round.
40
‘Hello, Mrs Napier, we’d like to speak to you for a moment. Can we come in?’
PCs Macdonald and Wood. She wasn’t going over to the station, then, not yet anyway.
‘Of course,’ Ellie said, widening the door and pointing them through to the kitchen. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
She busied herself filling the kettle, switching it on, throwing teabags into mugs, getting milk out the fridge. She tried to focus on her hands, keeping them steady.
‘Has something happened with the McKennas?’ she said, turning to face them.
‘That’s what we’re here to talk about,’ Macdonald said.
She gave Ellie a soft, sympathetic look. Behind her, Wood was mooching around, looking at the shelves of cookbooks, fiddling with the bowl of car keys and other rubbish in the middle of the kitchen table. He looked like he thought he was in a television crime drama, waiting for his Columbo moment.
The kettle clicked off and Ellie poured the tea. Squeezed the bags, fished them out and added milk. She realised then that she hadn’t even asked how they liked it.
‘I hope you take milk,’ she said, turning with two mugs in her hands.
Macdonald and Wood took them.
‘Sit down,’ Ellie said.
Ben appeared in the doorway. ‘Everything OK, love?’
Ellie nodded. ‘It’s about the McKennas.’
‘Ah.’
Ellie faced Macdonald. ‘I told him about our last conversation. He didn’t know I’d been to see Mrs McKenna, but I explained about it. He understands. He knows what I’m like at the moment, we don’t have any secrets from each other.’
‘Mrs Napier . . .’
‘Please, call me Ellie.’
Macdonald gave a deferential nod of her head. She had the same notepad in front of her, the one she’d had at the station. Ellie wondered what she’d written in it since then. A list of suspects, maybe, with Ellie’s name at the top.