Each blow was deserved, pain sweeping over him like a blanket as he gave up control of himself

The order of service trembled in Finn’s hand. He stared at the names as Ingrid touched his back. “Are you all right?” He felt as if his legs would buckle and put out a hand to steady himself. The stone wall was cold and he rubbed a finger up and down, watching as tiny grains of sand fell to the floor.

He pictured a Stone Age family going about the business of staying alive down at the South Ronaldsay cliffs – starting a fire, cooking fish, mending clothing, huddled in the warmth of their homestead, happy to be thriving. Now just a row of skulls.

He thought about Maddie in the Lewis house, pulling her clothes back on as she got out of bed; he thought of Maddie walking in on Kevin and Claire.

He pictured Kevin with a look of surprise on his face, a knife hanging out of his gut, blood sprayed over his chest, the mess of it slithering around him as he lay there trying to breathe.

Finn felt pain in his chest and coughed. Something came into his mouth, metallic, and he knew it was blood.

He swallowed it back down, felt it slide into his gut. He choked a little, coughed again, seemed unable to stop.

Crumpled

He leaned against the wall, the order of service still in his hand, crumpled up against the stonework. Eventually he got control of his lungs and straightened up.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “We should go.” Just then the organ music swelled, sombre minor chord changes, tones bouncing around the chapel and back down the nave, sweeping over the mourners. Finn breathed in, chest tight.

“Come on,” Janet said, guiding him. Ingrid flanked him on the other side. They stayed close to the wall, the light from the stained glass coming in over their heads.

They passed a couple of headstones set into the wall, comical depictions of skeletons, skulls and crossbones, the grim reaper with a scythe in one hand and an hourglass in the other.

On the walk back to the exit they were facing the congregation. This time Finn kept his eyes to the wall, the piece of paper still clutched in his hand.

“Hey.” A woman’s voice from the seats. “Keep walking,” Ingrid said under her breath. “Hey.”

The organ music blossomed then drained. It felt like a living thing, as if the cathedral was a giant lung and the music was the breath sweeping in and out of it. Finn looked up.

A woman in a black dress was excusing herself from her row, walking towards him.

He stopped. “Come on,” Janet said, pulling him. “No.” Finn straightened up to face the woman. This was what he was here for, this was what he deserved.

The woman was short and thin, raven hair in a high ponytail. She was in a black dress and heels, a tissue crumpled in one fist.

Her mouth was turned down, her eyes red, and he could sense anger radiating off her.

“You’re the guy from the plane,” she said in a soft Glasgow accent. Everyone in the place was watching.

The organ music thrummed in Finn’s ears. Ingrid stepped close to him. He wanted to push her away. This wasn’t something he needed protection from, quite the opposite.

He nodded.

“Because of you, my husband and his friends are dead.”

Stumbled

Finn wondered which one was her husband. One of the oil workers, but which? The guy with the spike through his back?

He wanted to uncrumple the order of service, hold it out to her and ask.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

The woman was crying, shaking. “You b*****d.” “It wasn’t my fault.”

“You started a fight,” she said. “The plane turned round.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Finn said. “There was fog.” “Shut up,” the woman said. “Don’t speak to me. You don’t get to speak.”

He offered himself up to it, hands by his sides, leaving himself open. He waited for the hit and blinked heavily.

She threw her weight into a punch, a jab to his chest that doubled him over.

He stumbled forward and she lifted her foot and kicked her heel into his groin. He curled up and collapsed, felt her sharp toe as she jammed it into his back, his kidneys aching.

“You b*****d,” she said, kicking and kicking. He accepted it, embraced it. Each blow was deserved, pain sweeping over him like a blanket as he gave up control of himself.

But it didn’t last. He heard Ingrid and Janet intervene, then a male voice, older, calming, whispering to the woman as she sobbed and sniffed and made noises which sounded more like an animal than a person.

The music swirled around and through him, and he imagined that his curled-up body was a blood clot waiting to be expelled from this enormous lung, an infection ready to spread through the islands.

The Highland Park was a shot to his brain. He felt the burn rising from his gut. He put down the empty whisky glass and picked up the bottle of Dark Island, took several slugs, the gulps hurting his rib.

Ingrid and Janet sat across from him with nips of their own.

Finn took the crumpled order of service out of his pocket and laid it on the table. He carefully smoothed it out, bending the corners back over where they’d creased, until it was as flat as he could get it.

He traced his fingers over the list of names as if he was blind and it was written in Braille. He stared at the names and listened to his own breathing then lifted his beer.

“Here’s to them.”

“Slainte,” Janet said, then sipped.

Respect

Ingrid’s phone buzzed. “It’s Amy wondering where you are. You’re not answering your phone.”

Finn had put it on silent in the cathedral out of respect. As if it was that easy to show respect.

Ingrid began texting and Finn looked round. The Bothy Bar was brown and dingy, framed black-andwhite fishing and farming pictures on the wall. A stuffed puffin in one corner, some flotsam from a wreck in another.

Half a dozen locals lined the bar but the tables were empty apart from Finn and the women, everyone still at the memorial.

It was only a hundred yards down the road, but the pub was hidden in a wee nook between roads, the side door of a hotel that never had any visitors.

More tomorrow.

Crash Land is published by Faber, paperback priced £7.99. dougjohnstone.co.uk