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She scowls at me like I’m a complete moron, before dropping her head back on my shoulder.
For the next hour we listen to the waves slapping against the hull, throwing salt spray higher and higher over the bow, blurring the air. Cliffs appear on the horizon. Two lighthouses. A harbour. Lead-grey clouds edged in silver are rolling across the sky.
A police launch meets us and provides an escort for the final few miles, directing us to a mooring near the Port Authority headquarters. The Watergaw is now under tow, but Willie Radford has stayed on board, under guard, handcuffed in a cabin, keeping Angus company on his final journey.
There are detectives and ambulance crews waiting on the dock. We are taken in separate unmarked cars to the same police station and kept in different interview rooms for the interrogations. The detectives are from Aberdeen, not St Claire. I don’t know where Ogilvy has gone, but I don’t see him at the station or hear his name mentioned.
After the first round of interviews, I feel like I’ve revealed my entire life story. I am taken over every detail of my time in Scotland, my conversations, phone calls, movements and interactions. Why did I make certain choices? Did I consider the consequences? Who gave me the authority?
Evie endures the same, but has Florence sitting in with her, making sure the detectives give her regular rest breaks and something to eat. Her hands are swabbed for shotgun residue and her clothes are taken away for testing, but they let her change into her own spare clothes because nothing at the station will fit her.
I worry about her mental state and how this will affect her. I have pulled a trigger and killed a man. In the aftermath of that shooting, I relived the moment for months, replaying it in slow motion in my mind, feeling the weight of the pistol in my hand and my finger pulling the trigger, pushing the hammer backwards, compressing a metal spring. I felt the kick of the weapon and saw the twist of his body and the look of surprise on his face. I don’t want Evie to have similar nightmares. At the same time, this could help draw a line under what happened to her. Psychologists use terms like ‘closure’ and ‘resolution’, but I don’t think it’s possible to wrap things up in neat and tidy packages. Life is real and passionate and messy; and closure means something is done, when it’s never done and it’s never going to be done.
New interrogators arrive. Border Force has sent a team to investigate allegations of human trafficking and illegal immigration. They unpack every detail of Evie’s journey to Scotland on board the Arianna II. There is talk of searching for the wreck, but the depth of the water and the passing of the years makes discovery unlikely and salvage even less so.
After Border Force comes the National Crime Agency. I’m surprised when they send Derek Posniak, my old university friend, who even dresses like a spook in a trench-coat and a small porkpie hat, tilted over his eyes. We talk in a holding cell, rather than an interview suite, without cameras and recording equipment.
‘Everything is off-the-record,’ he says, lowering his voice, as though he doesn’t trust anyone with this scant piece of information. The Ferryman is real, I tell him, and give him Simon Buchan’s name, outlining the clues that point to his involvement. Maybe it’s a condition of employment for spies that they never look surprised or act as if anything they hear is unexpected or out of the ordinary. Derek was like that. He didn’t turn a hair. Could he have known already? Maybe nothing is secret in a world that trades in secrets.
‘Are you going to investigate him?’ I ask.
‘Who?’
‘Simon Buchan.’
‘That’s above my pay grade.’
‘But you’ll pass on the information.’
‘I’ll make my report to my superiors, who will report to their superiors and so on and so on.’
‘You don’t sound confident.’
‘Not my job,’ he replies, straightening his sleeves after shaking my hand.
‘There is a way to link Simon Buchan to this,’ I say, hesitating, suddenly unsure if I can make the argument. A thought has been loitering at the edge of my consciousness like a truant schoolboy. It involves several notebooks and a hotel register, each with a famous painting on the cover. Florence has a notebook with Monet’s Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge on the cover. Her friend, Natalie Hartley from the anti-slavery charity, had an almost identical book, which featured Van Gogh’s Starry Night. And when Evie and I checked in to the Belhaven Inn, Maureen Collie used a guest house register with the Girl with a Pearl Earring on the cover. These were all part of the same series, produced by a stationery provider.
‘Follow the paper,’ I whisper to Derek.
‘You mean the money.’
‘No. The paper.’
He raises an eyebrow.
‘Most companies and government departments choose a single supplier for their stationery and office supplies – pens, notebooks, paper, ink cartridges, staplers. Economies of scale. Bulk orders save money.’
‘I still don’t understand,’ says Derek.
‘Simon Buchan has a large number of business interests, some for profit, others not-for-profit. I think they all use the same stationery and office products supplier. That supplier can be your link to all of his businesses – the charities, labour hire firms, employment agencies, laundries, nail salons, restaurants, commercial kitchens, hotels, factories and construction sites. Follow the paper and you’ll uncover the network.’
Derek finally looks surprised. ‘You really are an odd fish, Cyrus.’
‘Why?’
‘Other people might say they care, but you actually try to make a difference.’
‘Is that wrong?’
