Chapter 37
They walk together to the Seabird Centre. Matthew is still tongue-tied, still shaken, barely daring to look up at the sky in case the Devil’s head re-forms. The haar is still heavy. Not the weather for fish and chips on the beach, even if the lobster shack were open.
‘I checked,’ the woman says. ‘That was the main draw here, if I’m honest.’
Common ground. Non-contentious. ‘Me too. But it’s not open?’
‘Not for another few weeks,’ she says. ‘Out of season still. We’ll just have to come back.’
We. Not I. He allows himself to envisage a future with her in it for a second.
The thought does not displease him. This is even more ridiculous than the affair with Olivia, though.
He can’t go down this route. The thing with Olivia is immoral.
This would be bordering on illegal. His hangover isn’t up to it.
The interior of the Seabird Centre couldn’t be more at odds with the menace of the cloud-formed shape that loomed above him only minutes ago.
It’s bright, cheerful, with displays full of soft toys in the shape of puffins and seals.
The air smells of coffee and toast, chocolate and carrot cakes sliced up next to the till in irresistible arrays.
He pays for his coffee, the blonde woman’s too, and they sit at a table overlooking the water.
It’s so overcast he can barely make out the Bass Rock, despite its normal prominence.
‘What’s your name?’ he says. Then he stops himself, surprised. He wasn’t planning on being so direct. The mystery has been part of the appeal, after all. But he can’t keep calling her the blonde.
‘Isn’t that against the rules?’ she says, one eyebrow raised.
Rules are made to be broken. Rules are made to be broken. He controls himself. Says nothing.
‘You may call me Gill,’ she says. ‘Gill Martin.’
‘Is that your real name?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘I suppose not.’
The morning is full of surprises. None of it has turned out as planned, though to say that would imply that there was a plan to begin with.
He’s probably still drunk, reminders of the whisky from the night before still lingering underneath the coffee on his breath.
The clouds swirl together over the sea and he flinches, fearing a return of the demonic head, but they subside. He’s nervous as a cat.
‘Why are you watching the trial?’ he says, remembering only too late that they talked about that days ago.
‘It’s interesting,’ she says. ‘I think I’m going to write about it. It’s such a fascinating case. I know a bit about law but I haven’t seen something like this before. I’m finding it very curious the way the prosecution is running it.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I mean it’s obvious the poor girl was being bullied.
But less obvious that they knew it might kill her.
Maybe they’ve got some more evidence that’ll establish that.
The internet is all over this one. They think the girls are being persecuted because of their beliefs.
’ She shakes her head slowly, as if to marvel at the strangeness of the world.
Back off. Run away. Stop talking.
‘You know I can’t discuss this,’ he says.
‘You’re not. I’m discussing it. But I can stop if you like.
’ She smiles. It’s a nice smile, reassuring.
The vestiges of fear still clutching at him slip further away.
‘It’s funny how much you get drawn into it.
I had no real idea what it was all about beyond the headlines – now I’m totally engrossed.
And despite the way they’re being portrayed, it’s hard not to relate a bit to the girls in the dock.
Isobel, especially . . .’ Her voice trails off.
‘How so?’ He knows he shouldn’t ask the question – the words leave his lips regardless.
Gill pauses. She looks away from him, out of the window, her face lost in thought for a moment.
‘She reminds me a bit of me at that age. I had terrible acne, too. Greasy hair. People weren’t always very kind to me – I was very angry.
I didn’t end up dabbling in witchcraft, but maybe, if the right people had come along .
. . I can see how this has all ended up happening. ’
He looks at her, all shiny hair and clear skin. Hard to imagine her as a spotty, unloved teen. ‘You feel sorry for Isobel?’ Matthew says. She’s the first person he’s heard saying anything like that.
‘Perhaps a little. More for Christian. I just hate the way that the Elizas of this world get away with things. Life is so much easier for them. Anyway, I would love to know what the jury are thinking. It must be incredible to have so much power over people’s fates like that.’
The room’s cold, suddenly. Dark. As if the lights have snapped off as they did in court.
They’re still on, though; it’s just that Matthew can’t see, a cloud before his eyes, a roaring in his ears, the smell of rot strong in his nostrils.
Gill is transforming before his eyes, the skull emerging beneath the skin, her teeth now fangs, her hands a pair of grasping claws.
Her eyes . . . he can’t even look at her eyes.
He pushes his coffee mug away from him and he runs.
To begin with, he doesn’t look where he’s going, wanting only to escape from the roaring sound, the predator that Gill has become.
He stumbles fast as far away from her as he can get, his back to the sea.
When he finally stops to take stock of his surroundings, he’s got himself to the foot of North Berwick Law, a hillock he hasn’t climbed since he was a child, dragged complaining up each step by his long-suffering father, now long dead.
That phantom is beside him now, urging him to climb, climb, the top isn’t far off now.
Look, from here you can see the sea. Matthew can’t see the sea, though, the head of the hill cut off from its body by mist, still that damned mist that hasn’t cleared yet, won’t go away even though by now the sun should be high in the sky.
Now he’s at the top, standing underneath the great jawbone of the whale, hands outstretched to touch either side of it, breath catching heavy in his chest. The connection to something once living, skin on bone, brings him to himself.
What kind of man has he become? A coward, running from shadows, scared by ghosts.
But look at him now, king of the world! Or at least, he should be.
He turns around to view his kingdom, rolling swathes of grey below him, above, that pale disc in the sky the only hint that light may come.
He sits down, head in hands, pulling his strength together. Light will come. This darkness is only for now. He’s spent enough time cowed, a coward, doing what everyone tells him to do, like a good boy.
That’s it, you stand up to them. His father’s voice again, an echo from when he was bullied at school. You know exactly how to stand up to them.
He’s let himself be tossed by fortune’s tide quite long enough.
The jury needs him to step up. The court needs him to step up.
Not for him the fetters of caution – they all know he can be trusted with information that less intelligent members of the jury can’t handle.
Matthew has the skill to separate the wheat from the chaff.
The internet is all over this, Gill said.
It’s time that Matthew was too.
He’s going to take control.
Yet even as the words form in his head, he’s defeated again by the futility of it.
He’s not in control at all. As his head clears, along with the clouds around him, his reality hits him again in the face.
He’s a speck of a man, minuscule on this giant planet.
Nothing he can do will make the slightest difference.
Any agency he had has disappeared, as he follows the judge’s lead like a little lemming.
A sheep. A cardiologist who can’t even work out what the issue is with the medical evidence. It’s pathetic.
Not just the trial. In his own life, too.
He’s not even allowed in his own home, barred from it like a dog even though he pays for the whole thing.
The sad little flat comes before his eyes, the inadequacy of his existence.
He’s so cowed he won’t even look this case up, despite all the information that’s so readily available.
Well, that’s one thing he can change. When everything else is falling apart, control what you can.
He can at least start by doing some research.
Damn it, this is a case about a girl with a heart condition.
He is a fucking heart surgeon. At the least he can make some calls, see what he can find out about her.