1

The television camera went close up, lingering on Kirsty Fowler’s rubbed-red eyes, a nervous flickering of her mouth and her blotched face framed by lank, mousy-brown hair: a study in misery.

A male voice said, ‘I can’t imagine the state I’d be in if that was my father. Do you know if he’s been in touch with anyone, anyone at all?’

Kirsty’s expression changed from abject to accusing. Her eyes flashed in the lights of the studio and with something else, something feral and fierce. ‘A man called Cal McGill,’ she replied. ‘He talked to Daddy. He spoke to Daddy on that bridge. He drove Daddy’s car.’

‘They went to a café. Do you know what was discussed?’

‘No,’ Kirsty wailed. ‘McGill won’t say.’

The camera zoomed out as Greg Lane, the show’s host, leaned closer to his guest and said something inaudible, apparently reassuring because she mumbled, ‘I’ll try.’

Their proximity accentuated their differences: Greg, tanned, with short-cut black hair, neatly parted, wearing a pink shirt and dark blue trousers; and Kirsty, whose clothes were as messy as her emotions. She wore an oversized moss-green sweater, blue-denim skirt and scuffed white ankle boots.

‘Before he went missing,’ Greg continued, ‘your father had some very bad news about his health?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s important he has medical treatment as soon as possible. That’s right, isn’t it?’

Kirsty nodded.

‘And your father going off like that, telling no one in the family, that’s totally out of character, yes?’

‘Yes.’

Greg turned to the camera. ‘Kirsty’s done all she can to find her father. Now it’s over to you, our wonderful and, more to the point, vigilant viewers.’

On a large screen behind Kirsty flashed a photograph of a silver-haired, stooped man in a tweed jacket. Greg said, ‘As you know, Kirsty’s father is called Harry Fowler. He’s seventy-six and this is what he looks like.’

Beside the picture of Harry appeared a maroon-coloured Vauxhall with the registration number enlarged. ‘And this is his car. It hasn’t been found, has it, Kirsty?’

‘No.’

‘If you see this car or Harry, please ring the phone number at the bottom of your screens.’

Kirsty blurted, ‘We’re so frightened. Please come home, Daddy.’ She paused and looked straight at the camera. ‘Please help us find him.’

Greg squeezed Kirsty’s hand and said, ‘On Kirsty’s behalf we tracked Cal McGill to a light industrial estate in the east of Edinburgh where he appears to be based. Here’s what happened.’

On the same screen a youngish man with short, dark brown hair, wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, opened then quickly closed a door. It banged shut.

‘As you can see, he’s not exactly helpful …’

Greg picked up a sheet of paper from the sofa. ‘This is what Cal McGill said when one of our researchers reached him by phone. “I have assisted the police to the best of my ability. Any questions about Mr Fowler should be addressed to Mr Fowler himself. He is, after all, an adult, has every right to privacy and, when we parted company, was in full command of his faculties.”’

Greg let out an exaggerated sigh. ‘Isn’t that the point, Cal McGill? We can’t ask Mr Fowler. Nor can Kirsty, nor the police. No one has the faintest idea where he is, with the exception, perhaps, of you.’

He referred again to the printed sheet. ‘You might be interested to know more about Mr McGill, or should I say Dr Cal McGill? He runs a rather unusual business called the Sea Detective Agency.’ One of Greg’s black eyebrows arched like a crow swooping on rotting carrion. ‘I’ll say it is …’

Newspaper headlines flashed behind Kirsty. ‘Sea detective tracks body of drowned schoolgirl’. ‘Hebridean murder mystery solved by oceanographer detective’. ‘Marine scientist joins hunt for missing fishermen’.

Greg said, ‘Apparently, Dr McGill finds bodies which are lost at sea by being able to calculate the different effects of tides, currents and winds on their speed and direction of travel. He’s been involved in murder inquiries, marine accidents …’ He glanced at Kirsty. ‘And suicides.’

Kirsty blurted, ‘If Daddy’s dead, it’ll be that man’s fault.’

Greg’s mouth twisted in sympathy. ‘Your father isn’t the kind of man who’d cause anyone unnecessary trouble or distress, is he?’

‘No.’

‘He said as much to you before this latest diagnosis. What did he say, Kirsty?’

She blinked.

‘Take your time, Kirsty.’

‘He said if he was ill, seriously ill, he’d go off and hide himself away …’ Kirsty sniffled, wiped her eyes.

‘That must have been difficult for you to hear.’

Kirsty nodded.

‘You told him you’d look after him?’

‘Yes, yes …’

‘Of course you did.’ Greg waited before carrying on. ‘Kirsty, you have a particular worry about this Dr McGill. Would you share it with our viewers?’

‘I think Daddy might have … I’m worried he might be …’ The final words of the sentence were too hard to say.

Greg prompted, ‘You think your father might take his own life? Is that right?’

‘Yes, yes.’

‘And, knowing your father as you do, you think he arranged to meet McGill?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why would he have done that, Kirsty?’

‘I … I …’ A tear rolled down her cheek, followed by another.

‘Correct me, Kirsty, but you think your father met Dr McGill on that bridge for advice …’

Kirsty nodded.

‘The river was in flood that night …’

‘Yes, yes,’ Kirsty wailed.

‘That part of the river is also tidal, isn’t it?’

Kirsty nodded.

‘You think your father was asking Dr McGill when or where he should jump into the water so his body would be carried out to sea and wouldn’t ever be found, wouldn’t cause anyone distress. You think that’s why they were together on the bridge. Is that right?’

Another tremulous ‘yes’ emerged from Kirsty.

‘And you think that’s why McGill is unwilling to talk, because he was giving a sick old man advice on how to kill himself?’

Her eyes flashed wide. ‘What other reason could there be?’

‘Kirsty, do you have a message for your father, in case he’s watching?’

‘I love you, Daddy.’

The camera closed on Kirsty’s doleful face as Greg announced, ‘Time’s up, I’m afraid. Tune in next week and let’s hope there’s good news about Harry Fowler. This is the show which lets the missing know their families still love them and want them back. Isn’t that right, Kirsty? Thanks, folks, for watching Missing Not Forgotten.’

Cal slammed shut his laptop, swore. The next time he drove across a bridge at night and saw someone staring into a river he’d be the one shouting, ‘Jump, you mad old bastard.’ He wouldn’t park on the far bank, return on foot and talk to the man. He wouldn’t play the Good Samaritan or concerned citizen.

He clicked on his inbox. New emails were arriving by the second.

He read two.

If Harry Fowler’s found dead, I don’t know how you’ll be able to live with yourself.

Sea detective? Fucking wanker more like. Why don’t you find a nice high bridge and take a leap off it yourself?

He deleted both before scrolling from one screen of bile and invective to the next, 427 unread emails since Kirsty Fowler’s Facebook appeal for her father, which included the Sea Detective Agency’s email address and an invitation to ‘Let McGill know what you think of his refusal to say what he and Daddy discussed and why they met.’

Cal’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen – the caller was Alex Lauder, a friend from Cal’s student days. Like Cal, Alex was a marine scientist. Unlike Cal, Alex was sociable. He enjoyed long ‘catch-ups’, inquiring about Cal’s work, telling Cal about his. Cal, increasingly, preferred not talking. Recently, he’d ducked Alex’s calls. He did the same now. He’d ring Alex later, he told himself: his usual, insincere get-out. Too much else was going on.

His attention returned to the angry emails, mesmerized by their rush to judgement and, worse, hatred. He paused at a familiar name: Jim Arthur. Jim was a retired head teacher, who’d asked Cal to look for his missing daughter, Maureen. A fortnight ago, after a storm, her dinghy had been found abandoned and empty off Portsoy, north-east Scotland. Her body hadn’t been recovered.

Dear Cal (if I may),

In view of the publicity about Mr Fowler, I would be grateful if you did not involve yourself in trying to find Maureen. I am concerned about your sudden and, I am sure unjustified, notoriety drawing the wrong kind of attention to your search.

With sadness,

Jim

Jim was the fifth client lost in the last thirty-six hours. Only one remained. Her name was Elaine Mawhinney. Her sister, Cath, had been on holiday on the Scottish island of Islay and had gone night swimming as the tide ebbed. She’d been carried away.

As Cal refreshed his inbox, an email from Elaine appeared with the other new arrivals.

I think it will complicate matters for you to be involved in looking for Cath right now. The police assure me her remains are likely to appear in their own time. In the circumstances, I’ve decided to let nature take its course. For all I know, Cath might prefer not to be found since she was always so in love with swimming and the sea.

Cal’s final client had gone.

He leaned back in his chair. Under his breath he said, ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ Then, throwing himself forward, he crossed his office, stopping by the door and pressing his eye to the spyhole: was another gang of accusers gathering outside? All he could see was bare tarmac and brick-built shuttered units opposite. Moments later, in the dim yellow glow of a streetlamp, he was hurrying from the industrial estate to stone steps which descended to a long-disused rail line. By day it was busy with walkers and cyclists. By night it was a netherworld, sunk between deep and overgrown cuttings, a haunt of foxes, owls and, when the walls of his office appeared to be closing in, of Cal. Sometimes he would stay out until sunrise, traversing the city unseen. This night, as he walked beneath a dome of skeletal branches interlocking like bare, bony fingers, he thought of Harry Fowler (he couldn’t have killed himself, could he?) and how arbitrary life was. A virtual mob was baying for his blood because he’d shown consideration for another human being. Yet Alex Lauder, who had reason to complain about Cal’s evasive, probably hurtful behaviour, was never critical, always dependable.

Guilty conscience made Cal turn back. Even though it was late, past midnight, he would contact Alex. Cal would apologize for being a stranger. He’d let Alex talk, even if the prospect made Cal resentful, then reflective. Was he becoming more solitary in his habits, too comfortable in his own company and silence? He thought so.

After opening his office door, he noticed a light on his worktable: someone ringing his mobile phone. The call ended as Cal approached. One of five during his absence, he discovered. Three were from Alex, one from Helen Jamieson, a detective sergeant with Police Scotland who was another friend – his only other friend – and the last from Olaf Haugen, a beachcomber, Norwegian by origin, who lived on the island of Texel off the Dutch coast. Olaf was a mutual acquaintance of Alex’s and Cal’s. The sea was their connection; for Cal and Olaf there was also a particular interest in the movement of flotsam.

Cal thought that perhaps a body had washed up somewhere. Were Alex and Olaf alerting him to a potential case? Alternatively, more likely, they were ringing to commiserate about his monstering on television and Facebook. That would also explain Helen’s call.

On ringing Alex’s number, Cal was surprised at a woman answering, especially as the rasp in her voice made her sound older than Alex’s girlfriend. ‘Is that Flora?’ he asked doubtfully.

‘Caladh?’ was the brusque reply.

Apart from Alex and Olaf, no one referred to him by the longer version of his name, which, in Gaelic, meant ‘harbour’ or ‘haven’. Alex used to protest at the abbreviation ‘Cal’ because, he said, Caladh was such a resonant, characterful name that anyone lucky enough to be born with it would be bound to be a haven in a storm or at a time of crisis. Whenever Alex called him ‘Caladh’ – recently in phone messages – he was jolted into realizing how much the opposite of a haven he’d been.

‘Yes,’ Cal replied hesitantly. ‘Sorry, who are you? Is Alex there?’

‘I’m Alex’s mother, Rosemary Lauder.’

‘Oh, hello, Mrs Lauder, how are you?’ Cal remembered a severe-looking woman with hair turned prematurely grey. ‘Is Alex there? He rang me just now. I’m sorry for ringing so late.’

‘It wasn’t Alex. It was me. I’m borrowing his phone. It’s easier for contacting his friends.’ Her voice was monotone, lifeless.

‘Mrs Lauder, what’s wrong? Has something happened?’

‘Alex is dying.’

‘Dying?’ Cal repeated, shocked. ‘Dying how? What’s happened?’

‘The cancer’s returned. He can’t fight it, doesn’t want to fight, he’s given up. There’s no hope, none. Two days, possibly three, possibly one.’ She gasped at that unbearable and imminent prospect.

‘I didn’t know,’ Cal managed to reply, a response as inadequate as the conduct of his friendship. ‘He had cancer years ago, didn’t he … before we met …? Dying, God, that’s awful …’ He gabbled in the hope of hitting on some appropriate words or sentiment. ‘I thought it was dealt with then … Oh, I’m so sorry, Mrs Lauder. Two days, did you say? Poor Alex. What can I do? Is there something? Anything?’

Mrs Lauder, in contrast, was precise, matter-of-fact. ‘You made a promise to Alex once … about where Alex would like to be buried. Can I tell him you’ll do that for him?’

Do that for him at least.

Cal heard himself say uncertainly, ‘If that’s what Alex wants, yes.’ He was thinking: Does Mrs Lauder know what she’s asking? It’s a criminal offence.

‘Do I have your word?’

Should Cal warn her? He decided not to because, being a minister’s wife, she would know the regulations about burial. Also, she sounded implacable; nothing would be allowed to frustrate her dying son’s wish, not even the law. Cal replied, ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

‘You won’t let me down? You won’t let Alex down?’

‘No. I promise.’

Silence.

Then Mrs Lauder said, ‘It was a pity you two drifted apart. I don’t know what happened. As far as I’m aware, Alex didn’t either, but he missed you, you know. He was a good friend to you, even if you weren’t ever really one to him.’

Mrs Lauder ended the call and Cal swore.

What was wrong with him? He thought of Alex’s unanswered calls. Why didn’t he ever feel the need of friends, the company of other people, even someone as loyal as Alex?