Chapter 37
‘That’s Morag’s place,’ Holly said, pointing at a building in the near distance.
It was a little stone house not far from Susan’s, among the clusters of houses about a mile past the pub.
There were groups of revellers staggering up the road towards the village hall, which was hosting a ceilidh.
Traditional Scottish music drifted out on to the road as we went by, several heads turning to watch us.
But as we got closer, another car approached from the opposite direction, slowing down and pulling up outside Morag and Avril’s house.
Susan’s car.
I stepped on the brakes, hard, coming to a halt by the side of the road.
From the back of the car, Miranda said, ‘What the hell?’
‘What are you going to do?’ Holly asked.
I had killed the lights, not wanting Susan to see me. At least she was okay. I saw her get out of her car and approach the house. The door opened – Avril, presumably – and Susan went inside. To deliver the bad news.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I need to think.’
‘Maybe we should go back to the house, talk to Dad. He knows a lot of lawyers. Good ones.’
‘I can’t go to the house,’ I hissed. ‘You know who is probably there.’ Zack.
‘What’s happening? What are you whispering about?’ Miranda asked from the back. To my horror, I saw she was looking at her phone.
‘Did you just text Zack?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.
‘What of it? He’s sent me about a million messages, asking where I am. He wanted to know if I’d seen you.’
So the word was probably out about my escape from custody. I guessed the police must have gone to the Grants’ house to see if I was there.
‘Don’t tell him,’ Holly said.
‘It’s too late.’ She held her phone up. ‘I told him we’re in the Jeep and that we appear to be outside Morag’s house.’
‘Oh, Jesus.’
‘Why have we come here? What were you whispering about before?’
I didn’t answer her. ‘I need some time to think.’
‘I asked what—’
‘Shut up! Please.’
‘Yeah, Miranda. Be quiet.’ Holly was watching Avril’s house. She patted her pockets, searching for a cigarette, then changed her mind and bit her thumbnail instead.
I turned around to face Miranda. ‘I need you to not send Zack any more texts, okay? All will become clear, I promise.’
‘Who the hell do you think you are?’
She lifted her phone again, poised to send a message, and I snatched it out of her hand and sat on it. I’d thought about throwing it out of the window but didn’t want her to get out of the car and attract any attention.
‘What the fuck?’
She reached between the seats, jabbing her hand at my thigh, trying to get to the phone. Holly grabbed her wrist and pushed it back.
‘Miranda. Leave it. Please.’
‘Is this something to do with Lewis?’
My head throbbed with pain and when I closed my eyes I saw bright lights. I was so exhausted, more stressed than I’d ever been in my life. Insides twisted up with tension.
‘Who do you think you are? I demand that you tell me!’ Miranda shouted. ‘And give me back my phone.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ It was my turn to yell. ‘Zack murdered Morag. I watched him shoot her, right in front of me. We think he, or maybe it was Lewis, brought Samir here, too, and killed him. Maybe Zack had something to do with Lewis’s death, too.’
I said all this facing forward, so I couldn’t see Miranda’s reaction, but she went silent for a second before saying, ‘That’s absurd.’
‘I saw it happen. I’m not lying.’
There was a long silence. ‘Why the hell would he kill Morag?’
‘Because we think she saw him and Samir together. Or maybe Lewis and Samir, and Zack and Lewis were working together.’
‘Zack and Lewis would never work together.’
Miranda hadn’t protested that her husband could never kill someone. She hadn’t said, That’s impossible. She didn’t say a word about her husband’s character.
Her next words were, ‘If Zack killed Morag, why aren’t we talking to the police right now?’
‘Because they think Patrick did it,’ Holly replied.
‘Why would they think that?’
‘God, I really don’t want to go through this again. I need to think. I’m going to drive for a while, okay. I just need … silence.’
Susan was still inside Avril’s house. I was, frankly, surprised she was driving again, but at least it told me she hadn’t been badly hurt. The fact there were no other police here told me something else: the road from Inverness must still be blocked.
It wouldn’t be for long, though, now the snow had stopped falling.
I was scared. Terrified that, even having found the place where Samir had been kept, and with the note that linked him to the Grants, no one would believe me.
Leaving Susan’s car had been a gamble because I had thought I might be able to find Jasmine, but it hadn’t worked out.
Now, it looked like a stupid decision, one that made me seem even more guilty.
I had no choice. I was going to have to surrender myself to the police, tell them everything I knew and hope that the evidence would eventually lead to Zack.
Maybe Jasmine would turn up. All I knew was that the longer I stayed on the run – words that seemed too crazy to be applied to me – the guiltier I would look.
I needed to take Holly and Miranda back to the house first, though. I wouldn’t have to see Zack. I could drop them at the end of the drive then go to the visitors’ centre and hand myself in.
I explained my plan to Holly.
‘Will you call a lawyer for me?’ I asked, after I’d made it clear I wasn’t going to change my mind.
‘I can ask Dad.’
‘Holly, your dad will take Zack’s side. He’s far more important to him than I am. He’s only known me for a few days.’
I don’t think I had ever seen her look so sad and worried. Surprisingly, Miranda stayed quiet. She seemed to be deep in thought.
I started the engine and, after making a three-point turn in the road, headed back down the hill towards the coast road.
There were no signs the snow was going to return, but it was still foggy by the water, mist hanging in patches with no wind to disperse it.
I turned on the fog lights and drove slowly, taking it easy around the bends and curves.
The sea, and beyond it the looming shapes of Raasay and Skye, was to our left.
To our right, a wall of rock, rising steeply towards the black sky, stretching towards the moon.
A few feet beyond the left-hand edge of the road, the side I was driving on, there was a sheer drop to the beach below and the fog made visibility on this winding road so poor that I had to sit forward in my seat, squinting at the bends ahead of me.
To make it even trickier, this road was only wide enough for a single car.
Every now and then we would see one of the ‘Passing Place’ signs with a small area where you could pull in to let another car past.
And then the lights of another car appeared in the rear-view mirror. I was still driving cautiously, doing thirty miles per hour. The other car’s headlights pierced the fog, turning the air behind our car a shining white.
They were gaining quickly.
‘What the fuck?’ I said.
‘Do you think it’s Susan?’ Holly asked, looking back. The bright headlights made it impossible to see clearly, but it looked like a large vehicle to me, probably a four-by-four.
‘It’s not her. They must be doing fifty. Sixty,’ I said.
But as they reached us they were forced to slow to the same speed as us, thirty.
They sounded their horn.
‘Why don’t they go past?’ Miranda asked.
‘There’s no room.’
I had to assume it must be a local, someone who was accustomed to tearing along these roads at high speed.
Someone who had been out drinking, or was trying to get somewhere to toast the arrival of the new year.
It was eleven now, and I had a vague recollection that there would be a firework display at the village hall at midnight.
They sounded their horn again, leaning on it, a long, offensive hoooooonk.
‘Arseholes,’ Holly said. ‘Maybe you should speed up.’
‘I’m not speeding up. You want me to kill us?’
The driver behind leaned on their horn again – and accelerated, swinging to the far right of the road and moving closer, like they were trying to overtake us.
‘What the fuck? There’s no room.’
My hands were frozen on the wheel. I was convinced they were going to ram the rear corner of our car, on the driver’s side, but I was stuck.
There was a metal barrier to my left which we were already only inches away from.
All I could do was speed up, try to get away from them, get to the next passing place before they did.
Forty, fifty, sixty miles an hour – but they sped up, too, until we were both doing seventy.
They still had their fogs on, the light filling our car, shining in our mirror.
Beside me, Holly gripped the sides of her seat.
We were going too fast now to pull over. We would have skidded into the barrier or the car behind would have rammed into us. All I could do was keep going.
‘I’m going to be sick,’ Holly said.
The other vehicle had fallen back a few yards, but they were still going fast. My body was flooded with cortisol, my stomach cold, heart banging. How far was it to the turning? I couldn’t think straight.
‘Hold on,’ I said as I saw the bends ahead.
The road was even narrower here. To the left, the barrier, with a sheer drop towards the beach beyond it.
To the right, a wall of rock, with water streaming down it.
I was desperate to slow down, to navigate the bends carefully, but the other car was inches behind us, forcing me to keep going at this insane speed.
‘There,’ Holly said, grabbing my arm.
The right-hand turning was ahead, just beyond this curving stretch.
I was gripping the wheel so hard that the palms of my hands hurt. The car behind was right on our bumper, almost touching it.