The atmosphere in the car was toxic as they crawled over the high ground outside Stromness

Finn pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut, then open again. Floaters darted across his vision. “Let me speak to Amy,” he said. “Do you have the 200 grand?” Lenny asked, his voice a snarl over the phone. Finn looked at Maddie. She’d told him one hundred. “Let me speak to her.” Muffled voices on the line. Finn kept his eyes on Maddie. He wondered where the bag was, maybe outside in Ingrid’s car, or hidden somewhere else.

“Finn?” Amy was crying, her voice cracked. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you OK?”

“Don’t make a deal with him, he won’t stick to it.” She screamed then sobbed. Finn heard a scuffle. “Don’t hurt her.”

“I’ll do whatever I have to,” Lenny said. His voice was more agitated. “You think I like this? You think I like hurting women? If I don’t get the money I’m a dead man. There are bigger things happening than you know. I need that money and you’re going to get it for me or your girlfriend and your gran are going to die.”

“Ingrid?”

“Not kidding”

“Didn’t I mention?” Lenny said. “She’s here too. I started on the girlfriend first, thought that would get quicker results, but now I’m thinking that smacking the old witch might work better.”

“I’ll get the money,” Finn said. “Just leave them alone.” Maddie was inching towards the door. Finn moved to block her.

“Bring it to me.”

“Where?”

“The Italian Chapel. Half an hour.” Half an hour was pushing it.

“Bring the money and you can have your family back,” Lenny said. “If you get the police involved, they die. You know I’m not kidding.” He hung up.

Finn put his phone away and looked at Maddie. “I need the money.”

“It’s mine.”

“He’s going to kill Amy and Ingrid if he doesn’t get it. “He’s bluffing.” Maddie lowered her head. “It’s all I have.” Finn gripped her arm. “You never had it. You never had a chance of getting away with it.”

He pushed his hand into her pocket and felt around. She tried to pull away. “What are you doing?”

He went into her other pocket and pulled out the key for the Skoda. “Give me that,” Maddie said, voice shrill. “I presume the money’s in the car.”

He headed out the front door and across the road in the rain. He could hear her steps behind him. He unlocked the car and looked inside, and there was the bag in the front passenger-seat footwell.

He grabbed it, unzipped, and felt through the clothes for the cash at the bottom. It seemed like the same amount as he’d seen before.

He got into the car and threw the bag under his own legs, put the key in the ignition. The passenger door opened and Maddie climbed in.

“Get out,” Finn said.

“Come on.”

“Get out of the car.”

She gave him a look. “You were right about the money. Of course their lives are more important. Maybe I can help.”

“You’ve helped enough.”

“I know how Lenny works,” Maddie said. “I can make sure he sticks to his side of it.”

Speeded up

Finn looked at her for a long time. The engine grumbled and rain thrummed on the car roof. The wipers swished the worst of it away in heartbeats. He shook his head and pulled on his seatbelt.

They got stuck behind a truck and a tractor. Finn thumped the steering wheel. The atmosphere in the car was toxic as they crawled over the high ground outside Stromness and down to the Loch of Stenness.

Finn darted glances at Maddie but she stared straight ahead. He kept reaching down with his right hand and touching the bag under his knees, tugging on the zip to make sure it was closed. The radio was on low, an incongruous pop station playing Top 40 hits with a tinny rattle.

Eventually the tractor turned off on to the low road south and they all speeded up. Finn looked at Maddie. “Just tell me,” he said.

She turned to look out at the loch. The rain had stopped for now but the surface rippled and chopped, the water a murky grey, a handful of geese and ducks dipping their heads under the surface for food.

Finn had always thought these lochs in the centre of the mainland were the bleakest spot in Orkney. There was something lonely about them, bodies of water cut off forever from the sea by the thinnest strips of haggard land.

“Tell you what?” Maddie said eventually. “Everything, from the beginning.” She tucked her hair behind her ear. It could’ve been flirtatious in other circumstances, but those times had long gone.

“You know,” she said. “I’ve told you everything.” Finn shook his head as he pulled out to overtake the truck. “I don’t know what to believe any more.” “Believe me.”

She placed her hand on his as he changed gear, another move that might’ve been suggestive in another life, in a parallel universe where people didn’t keep dying around them.

Finn imagined Orkney suddenly full of all the people who’d died, all somehow back to life and going about their business – the oil workers heading to their shifts on Flotta, the pilot of the plane arriving home after a hard flight to his wife and young kids.

Upbeat

The song on the radio was an upbeat dance thing, thudding away quietly. Finn removed his hand from the gearstick, pulling it away from Maddie’s grasp.

They passed the large standing stone, traffic slowing as someone up ahead turned for Brodgar and the Stenness Stones. Finn remembered being there the other day, praying for ancient intervention, touching the stones and hoping for something good to happen.

“Did you kill them?” he said.

“No.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

Matter-of-fact, no hysteria. He had to decide what to believe.

They accelerated on to Finstown, more tiny islands out in the bay to the left. Orkney was stupidly beautiful, like God wanted to concentrate all his dramatic views in one small archipelago halfway to the Arctic.

As they approached Kirkwall Maddie fidgeted in her seat and sat on her hands. Another farm vehicle pulled out in front of them at Quanterness and they slowed. The bend in the road meant Finn couldn’t see to overtake.

They were doing about 20 miles an hour. Finn stretched his neck and leaned forward, trying to see past the tractor, but they were coming up to the top of the road on a blind bend.