Macdonald turned to him. ‘That’s enough, Jay.’
Her voice was sharp, and Wood slumped in his seat.
‘It’s something else I can’t explain,’ Ellie said. ‘I just have to go up there. It’s a compulsion. It’s the only connection I have with Logan now, that’s how it feels. My God, I sound crazy.’
Macdonald reached out and touched Ellie’s hand. ‘You don’t sound crazy, Ellie.’
Wood made a noise in his throat suggesting that’s exactly what Ellie was, but he didn’t say anything.
‘I need to get help,’ Ellie said.
Macdonald took her hand away, looked at her notebook.
‘You think?’ Wood said.
Macdonald glared at him.
‘It might be a good idea,’ Macdonald said. ‘Didn’t anyone offer you counselling after your son’s death?’
Ellie nodded. ‘I went for a while. Didn’t help. Nothing helps. Except walking and running and swimming.’
Ellie could feel the muscles in her arms and legs ache from the swim earlier. She was suddenly aware of the acid building up in them, and she longed to soak in a hot bath for hours.
‘That clearly hasn’t worked either,’ Wood said.
‘Jay, I told you already,’ Macdonald said.
Wood turned to her. ‘What? We get these crazies all the time, people hanging around victims or criminals, deluded folk who see stuff on telly and think it’s real, it’s part of their lives. She’s been hassling this family since it started. It’s a waste of police time.’
Macdonald had a look on her face that said Wood was going to get a solid bollocking as soon as he was out the door.
Ellie pressed her lips together in a sign of meekness. If she was just another crazy person wasting police time then that was fine.
Macdonald smiled at her. ‘I think we’re done here.’
‘But we might be back in touch,’ Wood said.
‘If there are any developments,’ Macdonald added.
They all stood up.
Ellie put an arm out, showing them towards the kitchen door.
‘I hope Mr McKenna shows up soon,’ she said. ‘I hate to think of that family without him.’
‘We have other lines of enquiry,’ Macdonald said in the hallway.
Ben spoke. ‘Like what?’
Wood made a noise, bringing yet another look from Macdonald.
‘It seems there might be some irregularities with PS McKenna’s police work,’ she said. ‘Internal Affairs are investigating. That’s all I can say.’
‘I’m sure he’ll show up soon,’ Ellie said, opening the door.
They were outside when Macdonald turned. Ellie thought of Wood and his Columbo moment, but he didn’t speak.
‘Thanks for your time, Ellie,’ Macdonald said.
‘Not at all,’ Ellie said, her hand on the doorframe. ‘Thank you for being so understanding. I’m sorry for any trouble I’ve caused.’
She closed the door with a trembling hand then kept it there for a long time, feeling the grain of the wood under her fingers.
41
She couldn’t sleep. Too much going through her mind, so much so she found herself grabbing at the bed sheets beneath her, her fingers like witches’ claws. She thought about Sam and Libby in their house, in their beds. Were they able to sleep? What about Alison, standing at the kitchen window with a glass of red wondering where her husband was? Ellie thought about the trail they’d left getting rid of Jack, but she honestly didn’t care, she would take whatever came her way.
She got out of bed and padded downstairs. Put the kettle on and made green tea. Seemed like half her life was spent tied to the kettle, the kitchen, cooking and cleaning up. It was her space in the house, a room her two men only entered to open the fridge or a cupboard and stuff their faces. And while she always used to moan about that, the stereotypical domestication of a woman in the home, she loved the headspace, the corner of isolation it provided. She longed to see Logan loping in, flinging the fridge door open too hard and shoving slice after slice of ham into his mouth.
She stared out the window and thought of him. In hindsight she began to think there had been signs, just maybe towards the end. Nothing specific and nothing like you hear about in other cases. No cries for help, no near misses, but there had been a closing down, perhaps, a withdrawal from his family and, it turned out, his friends too. Nothing drastic, no fights, no throwing himself on his bed in tears or rage, or smashing his room up. Just a gradual build up of resistance to life, like he was becoming petrified, slowly transforming from flesh to stone. She tried to talk to him but could never get him to open up. She should’ve tried harder, but how could she have known? She thought it was that worst of clichés, ‘just a phase’, and he’d come through it like 99 per cent of teenagers did.
But he was the one per cent. She tried to see what marked him out as different, as special, but there was nothing. That was the worst thing, what happened could’ve happened to any child, any teenager, any person on earth. It just happened to be him. Whether he was in his right mind or not didn’t matter. That didn’t even mean anything, ‘right mind’. In the end words completely failed to explain any of this experience, any of her son’s emotions or actions, any of Ellie’s reactions or distress, anything at all.
Words were useless, utterly useless.
You just had to try to keep living. Continue being in the world, keep on acting as if it meant something, there was a reason, behave like your actions were meaningful. It was much harder than it sounded.
Ellie finished her tea, slipped upstairs and got dressed. She patted the keys in her pocket, put her jacket on and left the house, pulling the front door behind her.
She started walking. Not aimlessly, this wasn’t just a way of freeing her mind. No, this time she had a purpose, she was compelled, there was somewhere she needed to go.
She checked her watch. 2.35 a.m. She walked past the police station to the end of Hopetoun Road then hooked right, following the road up the hill. Her stride had vigour as she passed the two churches and the turn off for Station Road, then the primary school and the park. What did it mean to know a place so well? To know every bench in every park, every bin and postbox on every corner. Did it amount to anything?
She turned off Kirkliston Road at Viewforth and headed into the warren of residential streets. A left then a right and she was on Inchcolm Terrace. She hadn’t walked past a single soul since she left her house down by the water. Not even a car or a taxi had swished past in the streetlights. The town was hibernating.
She got to number 23 and stopped. Glanced up and down the street then looked at the house. The lights were off. She opened the gate and walked up the path. When she got to the front door she stopped. Looked at the glass and wood of the door, the doorbell, the handle she touched that first time.
She got the keys out of her pocket, Jack’s keys, slid the Yale into the lock and turned. The door clicked open and she stepped into the McKennas’ home.
42
She stood with the door closed at her back and listened. Just her own breath in her throat, a pulse in her ears. She took a step forward and heard her ankle click. Just a joint thing, it happened occasionally after she’d been swimming, but the sound of it was outrageous in the dark.
She angled her head to listen upstairs. Nothing. She crept towards the kitchen and stopped in the doorway. She looked at the floor to the left, where Jack had been lying that first day. She walked over to the spot and knelt down. Rubbed at the laminate flooring. No sign of blood. She brought her fingers to her nose and smelled. Particles of dust and grit between her fingers, nothing more. She stood up and looked along the work surfaces. A knife block with one knife missing. Presumably still at the police station as evidence. She wondered what they’d been able to make of that.
She went to the patio door at the back of the kitchen. Looked at the handle, the one she touched. People must’ve come and gone out this door since then. She wondered how many remnants of fingerprints had been left over the years. If the house was fifty years old, say, think of the hundreds of people passing through, new owners, friends, family, parties, a slice of mundane humanity in this insignificant corner of the world.