Finn, I don’t know what kind of hold she has over you, but I hope she’s worth it

The cop, Linklater, shook her head at Finn’s story. “How did you know about her? How did you know Claire was Madeleine’s best friend?” “It’s not hard to find stuff out. You told me Maddie lived in Stromness so I went there. I walked into the hotel bar and asked, the same in the harbour cafe. They were all talking about the crash and Maddie. Some old dear told me about Claire, where she lived. I went and asked the same thing you did. That’s it.” “That’s ludicrous.” “It’s what happened.”

“You know we’ll check your story.” “Go ahead.” “You don’t want to change it?” Finn shook his head. “What exactly did you and Mrs Buchan say to each other?”

“I asked if she’d heard from Maddie since the crash.”

“Did you mention Kevin Pierce?” Finn thought about that. “No.” “You don’t sound too sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“And what did you say to Lenny?”

“Who’s Lenny?”

“The husband.”

“Nothing. He just told me to leave.”

“So you left.”

“Yeah.”

Mistake

Linklater sat back in her chair. “I hope you realise what an almighty mess you’re in.”

“OK, I admit going round there was stupid,” Finn said. “But it was an innocent mistake.”

“We’ll check your story and when it doesn’t pan out you’re going to have a lot more explaining to do. Just to warn you. And between now and the next time we meet, I’d advise you to stay at home, OK?” “Sure.”

“Leave the police work to us,” Linklater said. “And maybe spend some time finding a solicitor. You’re going to need one.”

“Are we finished?” Linklater sighed. “No. We’ve spoken to Sean Bayliss.”

“He’s out of his coma?”

“We got his account of events on the plane. He admits fighting with you, but claims he only retaliated after you hit him first.”

Finn shifted in his seat. “I told you, that’s not how it was. He was harassing Maddie, I was trying to help.” “By starting a fight on an aeroplane.”

“By trying to get him away from her.”

“Charlotte Woodside confirms Mr Bayliss’s version of events.”

“She didn’t see the whole thing. She was busy up front.”

“It’s very likely you’ll be charged with assault and causing a disruption on an aircraft to the risk of fellow passengers.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Count yourself lucky. It could be seven counts of culpable manslaughter.”

“I was trying to help.”

Linklater narrowed her eyes. “Well, without Madeleine’s version of events, we can only go with what we have. If we find her alive, maybe she can back up your story. But as it is...”

She let that hang between them. Finn’s chest rose and fell, his lungs like rocks. He thought about the blood he’d coughed up last night. “Are we finished?”

Linklater reached over and switched the recording app off. “For now. But you’ll be hearing from me again.” Finn stood up and felt light-headed. He opened the door. “Finn?” Linklater said, concerned. “I don’t know what kind of hold she has over you, but I hope she’s worth it.”

Decision

Finn was surprised there were no police or hospital security. It had taken him less than 10 minutes to walk up the hill from the police station to the Balfour. When he left the station, Ingrid was in the Skoda with her head in a paperback and he made a decision, turned left round the side of the building, left again along the bank of the Peedie Sea where she couldn’t see him.

He came out at the supermarket car park and followed the road round, collar turned up partly against the wind, partly to hide his face.

And now here he was next to Sean Bayliss’s bed. He’d just walked into the hospital and checked the signs, looked in every ward as if he knew what he was doing, a confident stride covering the shakiness in his legs. It felt like he was trespassing somehow. Was there a law against going to see someone in hospital? Maybe there was, if you were about to be charged with assault against them.

He found Sean after 10 minutes of sticking his head in each door as he went past. No stern matron warning him off, just overworked nurses scurrying about trying to hold the place together.

Sean looked contented. He was sleeping, propped up on pillows, a clean white bandage around one ear and the side of his head. Finn tried to remember what he looked like in the wreckage but all he could picture was the other guy on the floor with the metal sticking out from his spine.

One of Sean’s friends. Three of his best friends dead. How did that feel? Or maybe they weren’t his friends at all, maybe just colleagues, bonding over a trip home. Perhaps they all hated Sean, the show-off of the group, the one who would go up to women and harass them with impunity. Or maybe they loved him for that, for daring to do what they couldn’t.

Finn stood over Sean, watched his chest rise and fall. “Hey,” he said. Sean snuffled and turned his head, shifted under the sheets a little. “Hey,” Finn said, louder this time.

Hesitated

Sean’s eyes fluttered open, unfocused for a moment, then he recognised Finn. He pushed himself up on his elbows, away from Finn, who was so close to the bed he was touching the sheet wrapped around the side of the mattress, his leg pressing against the metal support underneath. “What the hell do you want?” Sean said. “Just to talk.”

“I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

“You had plenty to say about me to the police.” Sean looked past Finn at the entrance to the ward. There were three other beds in the room, none of them occupied though two had signs of patients, flowers on one bedside, the remains of a meal on a tray at the other.

“I have a button,” Sean said, lifting a small box from the side of the covers. “If I press it, a nurse comes running.”

“Go ahead,” Finn said. Sean hesitated. “I just told the cops what I remembered.” Finn narrowed his eyes. “You seemed to miss out the bit where you assaulted Maddie.”

“I never touched her,” Sean said. “I was just talking to her.” Finn looked around. “There’s no need to lie when it’s just the two of us. I know what happened. I saw you. You had hold of her arm.”

“So what? She wanted me to touch her, she was flirting.”

“It wasn’t flirting and you know it.”

“Some women like a bit of rough, what can I say?”

More on Monday.