She walked into Dirleton trying to breathe normally. It was early morning, low sun making her squint. It had been easy to dump the Renault. She’d taken the car from the garage, drove to Archerfield, turned off along a farm track between fields and woods, then driven it between the trees into a ditch. It wouldn’t stay hidden for long but it bought them some time.
She crossed the green and saw the police car outside her house. Thought about running, felt her cheeks flush and tried to calm them, opened her eyes and mouth wide to oxygenate herself. She wondered if Ewan had spoken to them, but she thought not. He told them to hide, after all.
The two officers at her door spotted her as she got closer. Both were half her age, a man and a woman.
‘Mrs Banks?’ the woman said.
‘Is something wrong?’ Heather was surprised her voice sounded calm.
‘Can we maybe talk inside?’
Her badge said De Vries, the other officer was Fisher. Heather pictured Sandy in the campervan in Archerfield, sprawled in the sink full of water, tentacles dangling over the side. They’d shown no signs of life since last night. Maybe they needed to be in the sea, or wherever they came from.
‘What is this about?’
‘Can we go inside?’ De Vries was young and pretty, black hair, sharp blue eyes.
‘I’d rather get this over with.’
De Vries and Fisher shared a look. De Vries held out a tablet. ‘Do you know either of these people?’
It was the pictures of Lennox and Ava they used on television. Heather swallowed. ‘I met them in hospital.’
‘Lennox Hunt and Ava Cross, you were in the same ward together, right?’
‘Two days ago, yes.’
‘You all had strokes.’
‘That’s right.’
Fisher butted in. ‘You look OK for someone who just had a stroke.’
De Vries glared at him.
Heather smiled. ‘Thank you.’ The sarcasm was obvious.
De Vries tried to pull things back. ‘But you haven’t seen them since hospital?’
Heather pretended to think about it. ‘I did see them on the beach yesterday.’
De Vries’ eyebrows went up, although she knew already, that’s why she was here. ‘Really?’
Heather nodded. ‘I was out for a walk along Yellowcraigs, my usual exercise. I saw something happening by that thing that washed up, went to take a look. The two of them were arguing with some council workers, I think.’
De Vries narrowed her eyes. ‘You didn’t go there with them?’
‘Goodness, no, I told you, I don’t know them.’
The ‘goodness’ was a mistake, she was overegging it. Calm yourself, fuck’s sake, you’re not Miss Jean Brodie. It seemed obvious that she was lying, but if she’d learned one thing from Rosie’s suffering and her own marriage, it was that people don’t see what’s really going on.
‘What were they arguing about? De Vries said.
Heather stuck her lip out. ‘They were going to remove the octopus and the boy didn’t want them to.’
‘Why not?’
Heather held out her hands. ‘No idea.’
‘And they were together, Lennox and Ava?’
‘They were standing together, that’s all I know.’
De Vries was shorter than Heather but she had a steeliness to her.
‘I have to tell you, Mrs Banks, that doesn’t tally with other witness statements.’
‘I’m just telling you what I saw.’
Fisher had wandered off for a look around the side of the house. De Vries watched Heather for a reaction.
‘We also traced a phone call to this area,’ she said eventually.
‘OK.’
‘A journalist called Ewan McKinnon. He spoke to my boss about these missing people.’
‘He came to see me, yes.’
‘Why?’
‘He asked about my stroke. Said he was working on a story for the paper.’
‘Did he ask about the others?’
Heather chewed her lip like she was thinking. ‘He never mentioned them.’
‘But all three of you had the same stroke and recovery. How do you explain that?’
Heather shook her head. ‘I’m not a doctor.’
Fisher appeared back from the side of the house. ‘Can we see inside the garage?’
‘Sure.’ Heather led them round the corner, opened the garage door, just a few cardboard boxes around the walls.
‘Do you have a car, Mrs Banks?’
She shook her head. They could check this, of course. They might have already.
De Vries looked back along the lane. ‘Have you seen a grey Renault around here recently?’
‘Is this to do with these people?’ She deliberately didn’t use their names.
Fisher was annoyed. ‘Just answer the question.’
‘No.’ She lowered the garage door without checking it was OK, fuck it, time to be a bit bolshie.
Fisher’s radio crackled and he stepped away to answer.
De Vries lowered her voice. ‘Mrs Banks, this will go much better for you if you cooperate.’
‘I am.’
De Vries stared at her. She knew.
‘We have to go,’ Fisher said, getting off the radio.
‘What’s up?’
Fisher looked at Heather. ‘Those clowns at the beach have lost the squid.’
‘What?’ De Vries looked flustered. She handed Heather a card. ‘We’ll be in touch. Don’t go anywhere.’
Heather watched as they walked away.
When they were around the corner, she leaned over and put her head between her knees, breathed heavily, gulping in air, trying to feel normal. She stayed like that for a long time. Then she heard an engine and straightened up as a Range Rover turned into the lane. It skidded to a halt a few feet away and she saw the windscreen was a spider’s web of cracks.
A man in a suit jumped out and she recognised him as Ava’s husband from the hospital. He strode towards her. ‘Where the fuck is my wife?’
‘Who are you?’
He punched her face and a bolt of white pain sliced through her nose, tears in her eyes, adrenaline coursing through her as she began to shake. He grabbed her hair and yanked her head back then threw his fist into her stomach. She tried to suck in air. Her knees buckled but the guy’s grip on her hair kept her upright.
‘Don’t play the daft cunt,’ he said. ‘My wife, Ava. You know where she is. If you don’t take me to her right now, I will make you wish you’d never been fucking born.’