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The moment has passed. I hold out my hands. He binds them at the front and not the back, adding an extra loop around my waist to keep my hands tightly pressed against my stomach.
‘OK, this way,’ he says, shoving me towards the kitchen. ‘Don’t try to run, or I’ll put a bullet through your spine.’
We pass through the kitchen and a storeroom before reaching the outer door. A car is waiting – a dark four-wheel drive. The doors are open. Another nudge.
‘Where are we going?’ asks Cyrus.
‘To see a man about a boat.’
28
Cyrus
My face is pressed into the nylon floor mat of the car and Angus Radford is resting his feet on the small of my back. Evie is next to him, leaning as far away as possible, braced against the door. Another man is driving. I recognise him. The jeans, the gelled hair, the crooked teeth, the face like a ferret – he’s the man who offered to help me change a tyre, moments before he clubbed me and bundled me into the boot of the Fiat and abducted Arben Pasha.
I try to slow my breathing and to think rationally, but my mind keeps wanting to review rather than plan. This is my fault. I have put Evie in danger. My arrogance. My carelessness. My mistaken belief that I could fix her if she confronted her past and remembered what had happened to her mother and sister.
Evie has been right all along. She’s not broken. I’m the one with the missing pieces. I left a part of myself in the kitchen next to the body of my slain mother, and another piece in the living room, where my father lay dying, and two more upstairs with my dead sisters. That’s why I became a psychologist. It’s why I visit my brother Elias, every fortnight, in the secure psychiatric hospital. And why I punish myself in my weights room and run like I want to never finish. It is my survivor’s guilt – not hers.
The car is moving. ‘What happened to Arben?’ I ask, trying to appear calm.
‘We didn’t touch him,’ says the driver. ‘He fell into a coma.’
‘You could have saved him.’
Angus lifts one foot and rams his boot heel into the back of my head, telling me to shut up.
‘Hey!’ protests Evie, lunging at him. I try to warn her, but it’s too late and he knocks her head against the side window. She cries out in pain. I struggle against the tape around my wrists, wanting to protect her, but the boot heel presses against my neck.
I decide to conserve energy and to concentrate on the journey, feeling my body weight shift through each corner and estimating how far we have travelled from St Claire. Eventually, the car bumps over a grate and comes to a halt. Radford and the ferret get out. Evie and I are alone.
‘Cruden Bay,’ she whispers. ‘I saw a sign.’
I twist myself around and straighten, until I’m sitting next to her. We are parked on the edge of a small concrete harbour, which is three hundred feet long and half as wide, with low concrete walls and a narrow channel separating it from the sea. The parking area is dotted with boats which are covered and wheel-clamped. More boats are moored in the still water inside the break-wall. The only dwellings I can see are two cottages with pebbledash exteriors overlooking the parking area, and a smaller building with a blue-painted door and matching window frames that could be some sort of harbour office. Closed today.
Angus points out to sea. A sleek-looking boat appears from behind the headland, bouncing over the swells. Within minutes it has reached the inner harbour and pulled up alongside a set of stone steps. I know this boat. It’s where I met Willie Radford when he summoned me to St Claire Marina. The name is painted on the stern: Watergaw.
The two men return to the car and drag me out. Evie follows, walking next to me, close enough for our shoulders to touch. I look around, hoping there might be witnesses, but the harbour looks deserted and the cottages are empty.
A figure appears on the gangplank. Willie Radford is wearing a rain slicker and bib and braces. He steps back and sweeps his arm across his chest, welcoming us on board. The boat moves under my weight. Evie stumbles. Willie reaches out to help her, but she knocks his hand away.
‘Welcome on board, Dr Haven,’ he says. ‘And you also, lassie.’
‘Have we met?’ she asks.
‘Aye. Many years ago.’
Willie points us to a bench seat at the stern. Evie sits next to me. My hands are bound behind me and hers in front, tight against her stomach.
Mooring ropes are cast aside and the twin engines engage, churning up the oily water. The cruiser pulls away from the dock and turns towards the harbour entrance. A swan glides past, rising and falling on the ripples.
Angus takes a seat near the ladder, resting the shotgun between his spread knees. His father has the helm, steering us into open water. The ferret has stayed behind to clean up and remove any trace of our visit to the Waterfront Inn.
‘What does Watergaw mean?’ I ask, trying to engage Angus in conversation.
‘It’s a Scottish word,’ he says. ‘You ever seen a broken rainbow – one of those wee patches of colour that disappear into clouds and don’t have a beginning or an end? That’s a watergaw.’
Looking back to shore, I can still make out the gorse and the nettles and the stunted trees and the outlines of buildings. Sheep dot the pastures. Farmhouses are the same chalky white.
