‘I know,’ Ellie said.
They both had their hands flat on the railing. She moved hers until it was touching his.
‘Nothing helps, does it?’ Ben said.
Ellie shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Why do we try?’
‘What else can we do?’
Ben looked down. ‘Jump?’ He turned to her. He wasn’t serious, but a tiny part of him meant it, she understood that.
‘We aren’t brave enough,’ she said. ‘We couldn’t go through with it.’
Ben stared at her for a long moment, their eyes locked.
‘He was a brave boy,’ he said. ‘Our boy.’
Tears filled his eyes. Ellie felt the same coming to her.
‘We have to keep living, don’t we?’ she said.
Ben wiped at the wetness on his cheeks. ‘Yes.’
They were both silent for a while, hands touching on the railing. Ellie wondered if there were any of Logan’s atoms here, on the railing, perhaps a single molecule of him rubbed off on the bridge before he went over. Or not even a part of his body, a fleck of rubber from the sole of his trainer, a thread from his hoodie.
She’d come here every day looking for a second chance. Finding Sam wasn’t what she had in mind, but it was something. She’d tried to help. She felt needed for the first time since Logan died, and it felt good. She was in charge of her life again, responsible for others. She had no idea how to recapture that control.
She turned to Ben.
‘I’ll stop coming up here if you stop with the conspiracy theories,’ she said.
Ben didn’t speak, kept looking at the water.
Ellie followed his gaze and spotted something. She imagined for a moment it was a porpoise, a sign from the universe, but she couldn’t make it out.
‘I’ll try,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll try.’
46
Swim until you can’t see land.
The song ran through her mind again as she pushed her arms through the soupy water, kicking her legs, feeling the burn from yesterday in her thighs and arms, the tension in every muscle. Her breathing settled as she got used to the rhythm of the strokes, and she began to feel at home in the water.
She wasn’t aiming for anywhere, just heading into the Forth, powering through the choppy waves, feeling the ebb and flow, the tug of the tide underneath. The beat of her heart was a drum in her ears, the gulp of her breathing, in out, in out. As her head lifted to the side she could see the road bridge towering over her, legs in the water, its span defying gravity, the grey towers reaching to heaven.
She dived under and pushed downwards. She imagined seeing the wreck of the Porpoise drifting slowly back up, its mast magically upright again, breaking the surface and reaching skywards, signalling its existence to the world. She imagined Jack coming back to life, wriggling free of his bonds, slipping the knots used to weigh him down, laughing as he propelled himself towards land to tell his story.
She stroked and kicked, ever downwards.
She imagined a splash above her, the thunk of a body hitting the water and plummeting past her. Logan, her little baby, come to join her on the ocean floor. She pictured him reaching the bottom of his dive then opening his eyes, his body still intact, smiling at her then swimming over, embracing her, pulling her with him to the surface.
She couldn’t see anything around her any more, she was deep enough that the sunlight didn’t penetrate.
She stopped swimming for a long moment.
Then she pushed upwards, shoving herself towards the surface, flexing her feet like a propeller, making her body as sleek and streamlined as possible. Her lungs ached and she longed to breathe, but she held her mouth clamped shut as she came closer to the surface. She could see it now, the light glimmering up there, the sun beaming down on the planet, and she craved to be part of that world, to stand on the shore and soak up the energy like a lizard on a rock. She stroked and kicked, stroked and kicked, the shimmer of the surface closer and closer, her lungs burning, the oxygen in her blood thinning and dispersing, her muscles screaming.
She broke the surface and gasped in air, felt the molecules enter her lungs. As long as she kept breathing she was a part of the universe. She took a deliberate mouthful of water, swallowed it, imagining atoms from Logan’s ashes slipping down her throat, being absorbed into her blood, her heart, her bones.
She looked at the shore. She was a long way out, but she could make it back. On the beach in front of their house she could see Ben holding a towel. He had a hand shading his eyes, searching for her.
She threw an arm into the air.
Waving not drowning.
Then she began swimming back to shore.
Also by Doug Johnstone
The Dead Beat
If you’re so special, why aren’t you dead?
The first day of your new job – what could possibly go wrong?
Meet Martha.
It’s her first day as an intern at Edinburgh’s The Standard.
Put straight onto the obituary page, she takes a call from a former employee who seems to commit suicide while on
the phone, something which echoes events from her
own troubled past.
Setting in motion a frantic race around modern-day Edinburgh, The Dead Beat traces Martha’s desperate search for answers to the dark mystery of her parents’ past. Doug Johnstone’s latest page-turner is a wild ride of a thriller.
‘Riveting. Fearless. Twisted. If Tartan Noir was a family with an irreverent rebel child, his name would be Doug Johnstone.’ Daily Record
‘There’s a tangible sense of expectation and excitement to this rollercoaster tale of dark secrets.’ Lancashire Evening Post
‘A twist-laden tale of family secrets.’ Howard Calvert, Mr Hyde
Gone Again
A missing wife –
A father and son left behind
As we learn some of the painful secrets of Mark and Lauren’s past – not least that this isn’t the first time Lauren has disappeared – we see a father trying to care for his son‚
as he struggles with the mystery of what happened
to his wife . . .
‘A major discovery.’ Spinetingler
‘Excellent . . . sharp and moving.’ The Times
‘Calling to mind the best of Harlan Coben‚ Johnstone shows us how quickly an ordinary life can take one dark turn and nothing is ever the same again.’ Megan Abbott‚ author of Dare Me and The End of Everything
‘Deeply poignant and compelling . . . it’s hard to take your eyes off the page.’ Daily Mail
‘Riveting from start to finish.’ The Skinny
Hit & Run