The Jump (15 page)

Having teenagers in the back of the car, her hands on the steering wheel, made Ellie remember times with Logan, giving him lifts to McDonald’s to meet his mates, to school on rainy days, home from football, the car filling up with the earthy stink of mud and grass.

Ellie’s fingers trembled on the gearstick as she shifted up, leaving the marina and turning left. Under the bridge once more, always back and forth under the damn bridge. She remembered when Logan was little, she and Ben read
The Three Billy Goats Gruff
to him at bedtime and it became a favourite. Later they got a CD with the story on it. The troll lived under the bridge, trolls always lived under bridges in fairy tales, and that became a running joke. One time with Logan still in a car seat, not yet promoted to a booster, so he must’ve been five or so, they drove under the bridge to the marina to go and meet Daddy from work, and Logan wondered aloud about trolls living under the Forth Road Bridge. Ellie laughed and played along, the in-joke between them escalating every time they passed the same spot. They set up ‘trollwatch’, keeping eyes peeled, Logan in the back making the shape of binoculars round his eyes, peering at the fenced-off area around the bridge legs, the tangle of wire, the slabs of concrete, the diggers and other works vehicles that were always parked there doing nothing. Maybe it was a troll den, a lair where a bunch of hairy, warty creatures slept and ate and farted and picked their ugly noses, feasting on goats and little children.

Ellie thought about Sam and Libby. Did they have in-jokes like that in their family? A million secrets, meaningless stuff, between Libby and Sam, Alison and Jack. Were they a happy family, despite it all, despite what Jack had done? What Ellie, Sam and Libby had done today had destroyed that family forever, no chance of redemption, cursed now, a lie that the kids would have to tell their mum forever. Ellie wondered how they’d cope.

They were already home. She pulled into the drive, felt the gravel crunch under the wheels, then stopped and switched the engine off. She ushered Sam and Libby out the car, opened the front door and pushed them inside.

Libby pulled her cap off and flapped at her mussed-up hair. Sam removed his cap too, ran a hand through his hair and looked around. Ellie wondered how much he remembered from his first visit here, that morning. She remembered him half-naked in Logan’s room and felt ashamed. She’d led them to this, hadn’t protected them like she promised that first day.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said, heading for the kitchen. She nodded at the living room. ‘Make yourselves at home.’

This was ridiculous, no amount of hot tea could make things normal.

Ellie placed her forehead against a kitchen cupboard, one hand on the kettle. She weighed it in her hands, it was half full already, so she switched it on. She placed both hands on the metal surface of the kettle, felt the heat rise quickly, kept her hands there until she couldn’t stand the pain any more.

She looked at her hands. Dried blood caked in the lines on her palm, the joints of her fingers. Burn marks beneath her thumbs from the kill cord, the cut from the scissors across the flesh. She went to the sink and squirted washing-up liquid, rubbed hard, rinsed them off, repeated until they were clean, revelling in the stinging, throbbing pain.

She got the first-aid kit out a cupboard and opened it. Rubbed at her hand with an antiseptic wipe. The cut wasn’t deep, a plaster would do, no need for a bandage. She raked in the box and pulled out the biggest one she could find, about half the size of her palm. She peeled the adhesive off the back and pushed the edges down on her skin, flexed her fist a couple of times to work the stiffness out.

She made mugs of tea, took them through to the kids in the living room like a normal day, two young visitors in need of sustenance. She put the mugs down on the coffee table. Sam stood at the back window, looking at the sea carved out between the bridges. He turned to stare at the road bridge.

Libby was looking at Logan’s most recent school photo on the mantelpiece.

‘Are you two OK?’ Ellie said.

They both turned and nodded but neither spoke.

‘I mean physically,’ Ellie said, squeezing her hand tight. ‘Are either of you hurt?’

Sam rolled and cricked his neck. ‘We’re fine.’

‘What about . . .’ Ellie didn’t know what to say. ‘You know, back there.’

Libby shook her head and looked down. Ellie put an arm round her. Libby flinched and shirked it off, and Ellie was left with her arm hanging in midair.

Libby touched the picture of Logan, lifted it from the mantelpiece.

‘Is this your son?’

‘Yes,’ Ellie said.

Sam spoke. ‘Libby.’

‘It’s OK,’ Ellie said.

‘The one who killed himself?’ Libby said.

Ellie nodded. ‘Jumped off the bridge.’

‘When was that?’

‘Six months ago,’ Ellie said.

‘What’s his name?’

‘Logan.’

‘He’s cute.’

‘Yeah, he is.’ Ellie was aware of the present tense.

‘You must miss him,’ Libby said, putting the photograph down.

‘All the time,’ Ellie said.

Libby looked at Sam, then past him out the window.

‘I won’t miss Dad,’ she said. ‘He was evil.’

Ellie wondered if it was as simple as that. Just decide someone is evil, then you never had to care. But Jack must’ve been nice to his daughter sometimes. Did the bad behaviour annihilate the good, wipe it away so all that was left was a monster?

Ellie thought about the fight on the boat. Jack had been aggressive, trying to reclaim his daughter, his family. Libby made accusations about him, he was stressed. Did that mitigate his aggression? Or theirs? They killed a man, and Ellie wasn’t entirely sure why. She knew what Sam said he saw, but what if Jack was right, what if Sam was unstable, imagining things? What if Libby was lying?

It didn’t matter now, it was done, they just had to deal with it the best they could.

‘I better go,’ Ellie said. ‘Stay in the house until Ben and I come back. Don’t answer the door to anyone. Understand?’

Libby stared at her for a moment.

‘We understand,’ she said.

Ellie took a lungful of air as she stood at the berth. This felt like it might be the last time she’d see the marina, her small world, before the weight would be too heavy on her shoulders, the pressure on her chest too much to breathe.

She was standing next to the Porpoise. She ran her hand against the name, painted in blue on the bow. It was faded and chips of paint fell away as she swept her hand along it, catching on her fingers. She turned to the sea and took in the size of it, the span of the bridges, the workmen on the new foundations in the distance.

She went on board and down into the cabin.

Ben was sitting at the table, head in hands. He turned when he heard her footsteps. He looked flushed, blood just under the skin, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He wiped at it with his sleeve.

On the floor next to Jack’s body were a kit bag and two rucksacks.

Ellie nodded at them. ‘What’s going on?’

Ben got up.

‘Ballast.’

Ellie shook her head. ‘We use water ballast, I don’t get it.’

‘Not for the boat,’ Ben said. ‘For him.’

Ellie looked at the bags, then at Jack, then at Ben. She knelt down and opened one of the rucksacks. It was full of rocks and broken bricks. She opened the other two bags and they were the same.

‘Where did you get this?’

Ben lifted his head. ‘From the old warehouse over there. Took three trips.’

Ellie zipped the bags and stood up. ‘We’re going to dump his body in the firth?’

Ben nodded. ‘It’s the only way.’

‘We’ll have to make sure the weights stay attached,’ Ellie said. ‘If they come loose he could wash up anywhere along the coast.’

‘Let’s just make sure we attach them properly,’ Ben said. ‘We can tie knots, can’t we?’

Ellie laughed despite herself. She raised a hand to her face and covered her mouth, ashamed, then felt tears come.

‘This is fucking awful,’ she said.

‘I know.’

They sat like that for a few seconds in silence.

‘We’ll have to scuttle the boat,’ Ben said.

Ellie looked round the cabin and sighed. There was blood all over the floor, soaked into the boards, seeped into the hull. Forensic trail everywhere, there was no way it could be cleaned without leaving evidence.

‘I know.’ She looked at Jack. ‘But we do the body separately?’

Ben nodded. ‘If we leave the body in the boat and scuttle her, it’s too big a target to find. It can be spotted on sonar, or by diving teams. If we do the body first, make sure it’s weighed down, we can dump Jack further out in the middle of the firth, away from prying eyes, then bring the boat in closer to shore, so that we have a chance of getting back to land.’

‘But we’ll have the life raft,’ Ellie said.

Ben shook his head.

‘Draws too much attention,’ he said. ‘The coastguard would be called out. Then we’d have to explain what happened with the boat.’

Ellie stared at him. ‘You’re saying we swim to shore?’

Ben nodded. ‘Will you manage?’

Ellie was the better swimmer. ‘Will you?’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Ben said.

‘OK.’

They were both silent, thinking. Ellie looked at Jack’s body. Images flashed into her brain, the smell of his sweat as she tightened the kill cord round his neck. The sound of his breath catching in his throat. The red swill of blood around them. The scratch and scrape of his feet against the wall as his legs thrashed about.

She turned away. ‘We have to get this right.’

‘I know.’

They had to think it through. This was a logistical problem to be solved, nothing more, they couldn’t let it be anything else.

‘Do we wait until dark?’ Ellie said.

Ben frowned. ‘Too suspicious, who goes out on the Forth at night? It’ll draw attention.’

‘But it’s more risky in daylight.’

Ben went over to a drawer and pulled out the OS map of the firth. It was folded over at the area around the marina, the creases worn and weathered. He flattened it out on the table and they both studied it.

‘We have to get away from the bridges,’ Ellie said. ‘Upstream.’

Ben nodded. ‘Less traffic on the water.’

They were talking it through so they did it right. It was how they always planned sailing trips, back when they used to take trips together. The planning was the most important part, that way if anything unexpected happened, they were ready. It felt good to be doing this, like a proper couple again. Ellie touched Ben’s arm.

‘And we’ll need to go past the new bridgeworks, quite a bit past.’

‘But not too far, because we’ll have to walk home once we get ashore.’

Ellie nodded. ‘So not on the north shore either, obviously.’

She traced her finger along the south shore of the Forth.

‘But the coast road runs up here for miles,’ she said. ‘Anyone driving along it could spot us.’

Ben put his finger down on a little blue symbol.

‘Not here,’ he said. ‘The road goes inland round Hopetoun House. They’ve got all those grounds around the castle. We could come ashore at Bog Wood or North Deer Park.’

Ellie nodded. It made sense. There were woodland walks in the grounds of the big house, but none of them went down to the shore, leaving space for the deer to roam.

‘OK.’ She looked at Ben, held his gaze. ‘Are we really going to do this?’

‘We have to.’

Ellie nodded.

The wind was freshening as they made their way past the breakwater into the firth. They’d run the engine out this far but now Ellie cut the power as Ben untied the main boom and hoisted the sail. It had to look like a normal sailing trip if anyone on shore or the bridge saw them. It made sense to do everything as if they didn’t have a dead body down below, that way no one would remember them, just another couple out on the waves, enjoying the freedom.

They tacked west, Ellie at the tiller, Ben scurrying up to the foredeck to fiddle with ropes and the smaller sails. The breeze had them scudding across the surface of the water in good time. There was no great swell in the waves, so the hull eased through the water with little resistance.

They headed into the middle of the firth, giving the new bridgeworks a wide berth. It was more risky sailing out here in the middle of the Forth, the main shipping channel up and down the river, but there were no large ships in sight.

As they got further out Ellie looked back the way they’d come. She lifted the binoculars from the seat and examined the coast. All the problems of everyday life back there, all the worries and stresses of the world left ashore, as they headed into open water. Who was she kidding? As if they were free of anything out here. You carry that baggage with you wherever you go and no amount of fresh air and sea spray changes that.

She swept the binoculars past the new bridge foundations. They were busy pouring concrete into the cofferdam. She’d read somewhere that the process took days, millions of tons of the stuff poured continuously. She imagined heaving Jack’s body into that, destroying the evidence forever, making him a permanent part of the new bridge. But it was a stupid idea, how could they get the body up the side of the cofferdam? There were security guards patrolling it and workmen on top, everyone paying close attention, obeying health and safety. No, what she and Ben were doing was the only way.

She dropped the binoculars and turned to him. He didn’t have his lifejacket on, and she realised that she didn’t either. She imagined the boom arm swinging round and catching him on the head, knocking him overboard. She locked the tiller, darted into the cabin and grabbed two lifejackets, turning away from Jack’s body on the floor. She ran back up and shouted to Ben, threw a lifejacket his way.

They made good time heading west. They stayed nearer to the south than the north bank, no point getting too close to the Rosyth naval base, they had tight security there.

There were hardly any other boats on the firth, and the ones that were out were a good distance away. People tended to sail under the bridges, sticking close to the icons, while the Porpoise was heading the other way, upstream towards solitude.

Ellie watched Ben work the sails and smiled. For a moment this felt like the old days. They were a man and a woman in love, working together towards a goal, getting on with their lives. Ben looked up, saw her face, smiled back.

After twenty minutes more sailing they were on their own. Ellie couldn’t see another craft anywhere. They were a long way past the workmen on the bridge, an equally long way from Rosyth on the opposite coast. The bridges looked like models from this distance. Ellie imagined Sam and Libby sitting in her living room right now, looking out the window. She had a flash of Logan jumping, the footage of him stepping into nothingness, 5.6 seconds of gravity.

Ben took in the main sail and tied the boom as Ellie locked the tiller. She scanned the horizon with the binoculars. A couple of sailing boats miles away, over near North Queensferry, but nothing else.

She felt a hand on her shoulder.

‘Let’s do it,’ Ben said.

They went into the cabin and stood over Jack’s body.

Ellie picked up his hands, held them tight, as Ben lifted the legs and tucked the feet under his armpits.

‘After three,’ Ellie said. ‘One, two, three.’

He was heavier than she expected. Not a big man, but solid enough. Their first heave barely lifted him off the ground. Ellie staggered backwards towards the steps, Ben shuffling after her, the body sagging between them. Ellie felt her palms sweat, the pain in her hand where she’d been cut, the rope burns. She bumped into the first step then lowered her backside on to a higher one and slid herself up, gripping tight. Ben stepped closer into Jack, getting a better grip on his thighs as Ellie bumped herself up the stairs one at a time. As she went up, Jack’s head reached the bottom step, so that Ellie had to heave his weight up and over, his skull bumping on the steps with a solid clunk.

Seven heaves and she was at the top of the steps, sitting on deck, pulling at Jack’s arms. Ben had changed his grip and was pushing at Jack’s arse, lifting it over the top step. Ellie imagined the corpse farting in Ben’s face. Didn’t bodies piss and shit themselves when they died? She was sure she’d read that somewhere.

Jack was on deck. Ellie and Ben slumped at either end getting their breath back. Ellie stood up and did a three-sixty. No sign of any boats. She grabbed the binoculars and scanned again. She wondered about people on shore, if anyone was paying them any notice, just a normal sailing boat on the firth. A high-powered telescope or binoculars would be able to identify them, but no one could see Jack’s body from anywhere except up close, as he was nestled in the footwell of the deck.

She looked at him. His hair was dark and slick, the water around him pink with blood. The wound in his neck was raw and open, a ragged mess of skin and flesh.

She heard a sound. Something alien, electronic. It was so out of place it took her a moment to realise it was a ringtone, a descending scale of notes, coming from Jack’s body. She exchanged a glance with Ben, then crouched down, tilted her head. She went into his trouser pocket and pulled out a mobile. ‘Alison’ flashing on the screen. Calling to find her husband. Ellie thought about GPS, could it be tracked? She switched the phone off and slipped it into her pocket.

Ben headed back into the cabin and she followed. He took one handle of the kit bag and looked at her. She lifted the other handle and took the strain. The two of them waddled with the weight between them to the step, then Ben went up backwards, pulling as hard as he could, Ellie placing her hands under the back end of the bag, pushing as it slid up the steps in short yanks and spurts until it landed on deck with a thunk.

Then she and Ben lifted a rucksack each. Hers was too heavy to get on her back so she heaved it up and cradled it in her arms, using her elbows on the stairs to lever herself on to the deck. She dropped the rucksack with a clack of bricks from inside.

Ben went into one of the small lockers on the side of the deck and pulled out spare ropes and ties. He looked up, checking the water around them, then down at the body.

‘We need to get him on the side here, before we tie the weights on.’

He nudged past the body to Jack’s legs as Ellie took the hands again. The skin of Jack’s hands felt rubbery. They hauled him out of the footwell and up to the port side of the deck. The effort of it made the boat rock, and Ellie and Ben fell on to their knees next to the body, sliding close to the edge.

Jack was in view now if anyone came by. From here, they could just give him a little push and he’d be in the water.

Ellie was down at the kit bag, waiting. Ben took the other handle and they heaved it up and on to Jack’s body. Ellie winced as the weight squashed Jack’s chest and stomach. She picked up a rope and tied the handle of the kit bag to Jack’s arm, then forced the rope beneath him, slid it under his neck and round the other side, connecting with his right arm then the other handle of the bag.

Ben had the rucksacks up and was tying them to Jack’s thighs and torso.

She tested her handiwork, pulled on the rope and it seemed secure. She looked around. A small dinghy was heading down the firth, but way over on the north side, too far away to be any bother. Ben saw it too and shook his head. He yanked on the ropes tied around Jack’s corpse, checking them, and everything held well.

He ran his hands through his hair and stood up. Ellie looked at her hands. She had pulled on the ropes so tight she’d given herself more burns. All these little reminders.

‘Let’s do it,’ she said.

Ben nodded.

The two of them pushed at Jack’s body with the bags on it. For a moment nothing happened, the mass of it creating inertia, but slowly he began to inch towards the edge of the deck, and as they shoved harder he gained momentum against the slippery surface, then slid over the edge legs first, hitting the water with a thick splash and disappearing straight down.

Ellie stared at the waves where he’d gone in. No sign of anything untoward amongst the brown chop and swell of it. She imagined Jack sinking to the bottom and wondered how long it would take. More than 5.6 seconds anyway. She turned. Ben was rubbing at his stubble. A thin trail of pink water led from the edge of the deck into the footwell, then along to the cabin door.

Evidence everywhere.