Can I go?’ Yates laughed. He lifted his hands from the table. ‘People keep dying around you, Surtsey.’

Yates consulted the notepad in front of him, ran a pencil in a line. Surtsey couldn”t see if he was scoring something out or underlining it. “Do you think Brendan wanted to patch things up with you?” Surtsey sat for a moment looking at Yates, then the tape machine. “I don’t know. Maybe.” “And did you want to patch things up?”

“Yes,” she said. “I think so.”

“You don’t seem very sure.”

“I miss him.” She pictured his body on the floor in Tom’s office. That stare.

“What makes you think he wanted to get back together with you?” Yates said.

“He mentioned going for a walk up Blackford Hill to the observatory, where we went on our first date. I thought maybe he wanted to remind us of that.”

Yates made another pencil mark on the pad. Flannery never took his eyes off Surtsey.

“What next?” Yates said.

Surtsey shook her head. “I got the bus over, went to the office, couldn’t find him. So I phoned and heard his mobile ringing. I went to Tom’s office and…”

The slightest movement of Yates’s head. “You didn’t touch him?”

“No.”

“Not at all?”

“I said no.”

“Did you touch anything else in Mr Lawrie’s office?” “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, OK?” She could feel her eyes wet, tried to contain the tears. No use showing these two any weakness. “It was the paperweight, right?” Flannery seemed to wake up. “Sorry?”

“He was hit on the head with the paperweight,” Surtsey said. “Wasn’t he?”

Evidence

A glance between the two of them. “What makes you say that?”

“It was bloody. Heavy and sharp. I saw the state of Brendan’s head. It doesn’t take a genius.”

Yates sighed. “We leave the forensic stuff to the experts, Ms Mackenzie.” He made a show of that “Ms”, zedding it out long and sarcastic. He peered at her. “You don’t seem very upset.”

“Should I be gnashing my teeth and tearing my hair out? Is that what good girlfriends do?”

Yates raised his eyebrows, a smile to Flannery. “I just thought you might be more upset by your boyfriend’s death, that’s all.”

Surtsey tightened her mouth. “You don’t know me.

You don’t get to have an opinion about how I react to things.”

She sat back in the seat, felt the metal frame against her spine. “Can I go?”

Yates laughed. He lifted his hands from the table. “People keep dying around you, Surtsey,” he said. She noted the use of her first name, tried to think if that was significant. “That’s a problem in my line of work.”

“I wasn’t near either of them when they died,” Surtsey said.

“That remains to be seen.”

“I’m telling you I wasn’t.”

“But we can’t just take your word for it.”

“Do you have any evidence?”

A look from Flannery to Yates suggested they hadn’t had much luck.

“We know you were on your boat in the Forth on the night Tom died,” Yates said.

“So, no evidence.”

“And you discovered Brendan’s body.” “Again, no evidence of me doing anything wrong.” “Then there’s your mother.”

Surtsey felt a tremor in her legs and wondered if it was a small quake. She stared at the men, flushed cheeks and shaving rashes on their necks, white shirts too tight across bellies.

“Don’t bring Mum into this.” She spoke as calmly as she could manage.

“That’s three people close to you who have died in the last four days.”

“I’m warning you.”

Flannery guffawed at that. Surtsey was shocked at the sound.

“You’re warning us?” he said, suddenly animated. “We’re the police, darling.”

Yates frowned at him, then at the tape machine. “Don’t darling me,” Surtsey said. “Language,” Flannery said, drenched in sarcasm. Flannery sank back in his seat smiling as Yates lifted a hand to quieten them both.

Surtsey turned to him. “Are you suggesting I had something to do with my own mum’s death?

“Miss Mackenzie, please,” Yates said.

Choking

Surtsey’s hand was at her neck as if she was being choked.

She pushed her chair back with a scrape on the thin carpet and lowered her head to her knees, heaved air into her lungs.

She blinked three times and black spots drifted across her eyeline. She could see the cops’ shoes under the desk, worn brown leather, square toes. She and UK must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement.

US presidential candidate Joe Biden wades into the Brexit row. concentrated on the frayed lace of Flannery’s left shoe but it went out of focus. She realised she hadn’t breathed in a while and sucked in air. Eventually the dots disappeared from her vision and her head stopped throbbing. She sat up and leaned back in her seat. The two cops looked at her like her hair was made of snakes.

Avoided

“We spoke to your housemate, Miss Malik.” Surtsey’s eyes widened. “Where is she?”

“At home.”

“But I was just there.”

“It seems you missed her.”

“Is she OK?”

“Why wouldn’t she be OK?” Yates said, eyes like slits.

“I just haven’t seen her. Maybe she’s avoiding me.” “Why would she avoid you?”

Surtsey stared at Yates. “No idea.”

Yates consulted his notes. “She confirmed your new, improved alibi – that you were out in the boat earlier and had forgotten. It seems she forgot as well, until recently.”

“There you go.”

“It stinks,” Yates said, sighing. “It’ll never stand up.” “I’m innocent,” Surtsey said. “And you don’t have any evidence against me.”

“We’re working on that,” Flannery said. “Good for you.”

Yates took over. “We should have the results from the boat and your clothing in the next few hours. That will be interesting.”

“You think?”

“And we have this,” he said, lifting a piece of typed paper from the desk. “It’s a warrant to search your house.”

“This is harassment.”

“You’d know it if we were harassing you,” Flannery said.

Yates frowned and shook his head at his colleague. Surtsey felt weariness in her bones. She eased out of the seat and stood up.

“Are we done?”

“Sit down,” Yates said.

“Are you going to arrest me?”

Yates stared at her for a long time before shaking his head. “Not yet.”

“Then I’m leaving.”

She walked towards the door, hands shaking, legs weak. She made it out of the room, down the corridor and round the corner before she burst into tears.

More tomorrow.