The Jump

Текст добавлен: 24 сентября 2016, 04:31

Текст книги "The Jump"

Автор книги: Doug Johnstone

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

That first step on the bridge, the thrum of the traffic shuddering through her feet, like a homecoming. She kept walking, Ben at her side. It was rush hour, cars and vans, trucks and buses filling all four lanes, thudding past in a blur, a mass of metal and plastic, humanity on the move. Ellie slid her hand along the railing, the vibrations of the bridge running up her arm. A couple of cyclists overtook them heading to Fife, as Ellie felt Ben’s hand slip into hers. She turned and saw him smile. They walked on without speaking, the roar all around them, a gust of wind trying to throw them off balance. It was squally out on the firth, if it settled a little it could be a decent day for sailing.

Ellie’s pace slowed as she approached the middle of the bridge. She felt Ben’s hand tighten in her own. He hadn’t been up here since Logan jumped, didn’t see the point. They had their own ways of dealing but maybe that was changing, maybe there was a way forward together.

She stopped when she reached the spot, hesitated, then turned.

‘Is this it?’ Ben said, raising his voice over the noise.

He’d seen the footage, but only once. Said he never wanted to see it again, then weeks later confessed that he regretted ever watching it, couldn’t get it out of his mind.

Ellie nodded. ‘This is it.’

Ben watched the cars storming past. ‘It’s so exposed.’

They both looked out to sea. The sun was up, no clouds. The colours of everything seemed ultra-sharp, like the world had finally been pulled into focus. Ellie felt as if she could almost see the rusty paint flaking off the rail bridge from here.

Ben turned and looked back at the Ferry. He was squinting, searching for their house. His face relaxed when he spotted it. He looked straight down at the drop.

‘Jesus,’ he said, lifting his head back up. He turned to Ellie. ‘I still can’t believe he did it, you know. I expect him to walk through the front door every day. I wake up in the morning and think he’s going to need shaking out of his bed again.’

‘I know,’ Ellie said.

They both had their hands flat on the railing. She moved hers until it was touching his.

‘Nothing helps, does it?’ Ben said.

Ellie shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Why do we try?’

‘What else can we do?’

Ben looked down. ‘Jump?’ He turned to her. He wasn’t serious, but a tiny part of him meant it, she understood that.

‘We aren’t brave enough,’ she said. ‘We couldn’t go through with it.’

Ben stared at her for a long moment, their eyes locked.

‘He was a brave boy,’ he said. ‘Our boy.’

Tears filled his eyes. Ellie felt the same coming to her.

‘We have to keep living, don’t we?’ she said.

Ben wiped at the wetness on his cheeks. ‘Yes.’

They were both silent for a while, hands touching on the railing. Ellie wondered if there were any of Logan’s atoms here, on the railing, perhaps a single molecule of him rubbed off on the bridge before he went over. Or not even a part of his body, a fleck of rubber from the sole of his trainer, a thread from his hoodie.

She’d come here every day looking for a second chance. Finding Sam wasn’t what she had in mind, but it was something. She’d tried to help. She felt needed for the first time since Logan died, and it felt good. She was in charge of her life again, responsible for others. She had no idea how to recapture that control.

She turned to Ben.

‘I’ll stop coming up here if you stop with the conspiracy theories,’ she said.

Ben didn’t speak, kept looking at the water.

Ellie followed his gaze and spotted something. She imagined for a moment it was a porpoise, a sign from the universe, but she couldn’t make it out.

‘I’ll try,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll try.’

Swim until you can’t see land.

The song ran through her mind again as she pushed her arms through the soupy water, kicking her legs, feeling the burn from yesterday in her thighs and arms, the tension in every muscle. Her breathing settled as she got used to the rhythm of the strokes, and she began to feel at home in the water.

She wasn’t aiming for anywhere, just heading into the Forth, powering through the choppy waves, feeling the ebb and flow, the tug of the tide underneath. The beat of her heart was a drum in her ears, the gulp of her breathing, in out, in out. As her head lifted to the side she could see the road bridge towering over her, legs in the water, its span defying gravity, the grey towers reaching to heaven.

She dived under and pushed downwards. She imagined seeing the wreck of the Porpoise drifting slowly back up, its mast magically upright again, breaking the surface and reaching skywards, signalling its existence to the world. She imagined Jack coming back to life, wriggling free of his bonds, slipping the knots used to weigh him down, laughing as he propelled himself towards land to tell his story.

She stroked and kicked, ever downwards.

She imagined a splash above her, the thunk of a body hitting the water and plummeting past her. Logan, her little baby, come to join her on the ocean floor. She pictured him reaching the bottom of his dive then opening his eyes, his body still intact, smiling at her then swimming over, embracing her, pulling her with him to the surface.

She couldn’t see anything around her any more, she was deep enough that the sunlight didn’t penetrate.

She stopped swimming for a long moment.

Then she pushed upwards, shoving herself towards the surface, flexing her feet like a propeller, making her body as sleek and streamlined as possible. Her lungs ached and she longed to breathe, but she held her mouth clamped shut as she came closer to the surface. She could see it now, the light glimmering up there, the sun beaming down on the planet, and she craved to be part of that world, to stand on the shore and soak up the energy like a lizard on a rock. She stroked and kicked, stroked and kicked, the shimmer of the surface closer and closer, her lungs burning, the oxygen in her blood thinning and dispersing, her muscles screaming.

She broke the surface and gasped in air, felt the molecules enter her lungs. As long as she kept breathing she was a part of the universe. She took a deliberate mouthful of water, swallowed it, imagining atoms from Logan’s ashes slipping down her throat, being absorbed into her blood, her heart, her bones.

She looked at the shore. She was a long way out, but she could make it back. On the beach in front of their house she could see Ben holding a towel. He had a hand shading his eyes, searching for her.

She threw an arm into the air.

Waving not drowning.

Then she began swimming back to shore.

Also by Doug Johnstone

The Dead Beat

If you’re so special, why aren’t you dead?

The first day of your new job – what could possibly go wrong?

Meet Martha.

It’s her first day as an intern at Edinburgh’s The Standard.

Put straight onto the obituary page, she takes a call from a former employee who seems to commit suicide while on

the phone, something which echoes events from her

own troubled past.

Setting in motion a frantic race around modern-day Edinburgh, The Dead Beat traces Martha’s desperate search for answers to the dark mystery of her parents’ past. Doug Johnstone’s latest page-turner is a wild ride of a thriller.

‘Riveting. Fearless. Twisted. If Tartan Noir was a family with an irreverent rebel child, his name would be Doug Johnstone.’ Daily Record

‘There’s a tangible sense of expectation and excitement to this rollercoaster tale of dark secrets.’ Lancashire Evening Post

‘A twist-laden tale of family secrets.’ Howard Calvert, Mr Hyde

Gone Again

A missing wife –

A father and son left behind

As we learn some of the painful secrets of Mark and Lauren’s past – not least that this isn’t the first time Lauren has disappeared – we see a father trying to care for his son‚

as he struggles with the mystery of what happened

to his wife . . .

‘A major discovery.’ Spinetingler

‘Excellent . . . sharp and moving.’ The Times

‘Calling to mind the best of Harlan Coben‚ Johnstone shows us how quickly an ordinary life can take one dark turn and nothing is ever the same again.’ Megan Abbott‚ author of Dare Me and The End of Everything

‘Deeply poignant and compelling . . . it’s hard to take your eyes off the page.’ Daily Mail

‘Riveting from start to finish.’ The Skinny

Hit & Run

The worst night of your life just got worse . . .

High above Edinburgh, on the way home from a party with

his girlfriend and his brother, Billy Blackmore accidentally

hits a stranger.

In a panic, they drive off.

The next day Billy, a journalist, finds he has been assigned to cover the story for the local paper.

‘A great slice of noir.’ Ian Rankin

‘This noirish crime novel builds into something more substantial: an existential thriller where a man crumbles as he tries to scream the truth in a house of liars. Thus Hit & Run becomes a grisly parable for our times.’ Irvine Welsh

‘With this book‚ Doug Johnstone hits YOU and then HE runs‚ and you never catch him until the last word of the last sentence on the last page. Cracking stuff.’ Alan Glynn‚ author of Graveland

‘Fantastic: sparse and fast-paced but believable and emotionally satisfying. You feel you could be Billy – and you thank God you’re not. His best yet.’ Helen FitzGerald‚ author of The Cry

Smokeheads

Four friends. One weekend. Gallons of whisky.

What could go wrong?

Four friends‚ spurred on by whisky-nut Adam‚ head for a weekend to a remote Scottish island‚ world famous for its single malts. They have a wallet full of cash‚ a stash of coke‚ and a serious thirst. Determined to have a good time and to relive their university years‚ they start making friends: young divorcee Molly, whom Adam has a soft spot for, her little sister Ash, who has all sorts of problems, and Molly’s ex-husband Joe, a control freak who also happens to be the local police.

But events start to spiral out of control and soon they are thrown into a nightmare that gets worse at every turn . . .

‘It lulls the reader with the warm glow of a good dram on a winter’s night‚ then ambushes him with all the bitter nastiness of a brutal whisky hangover.’ Christopher Brookmyre

‘A hugely atmospheric thriller soaked in the spirit of life . . . sip and savour.’ The Times

‘It is so well written . . . there is plenty of flesh and blood here‚ much of it splashing across the page.’ Scotsman

Table of Contents

Epigraph

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About the Author

also by Doug Johnstone

About the Author

Doug Johnstone (@doug_johnstone) is the author of six previous novels, most recently The Dead Beat (2014). A freelance journalist, songwriter and musician, he is also the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Queen Margaret University. He lives in Edinburgh.

www.dougjohnstone.com

Praise for The Dead Beat:

‘When it comes to writing crime novels, Johnstone blows the cobwebs away from the traditional “there’s-been-a-murder-build-up-conclusion” approach. Sharp, clean prose that moves at break-neck speed, there’s no stopping once you’ve started.’ The Puffin Review

‘The Dead Beat still sees Johnstone in fine stride, and in Martha Fluke he has the perfect foil through which to view the bands, songs, technology and culture of his own misspent youth. Her soliloquys on cassettes, The Breeders and Teenage Fanclub charm effortlessly. As ever, Edinburgh is a central character, her geography tightly coiled around the plot’s serpentine twists and turns. This is superior crime fiction, a level up from the repetitive procedurals and thinly-veiled politicising of more mainstream tartan noir.’ The Skinny, 4/5 stars

‘I was tremendously impressed with this novel. It manages to combine an undeniably dark plot with an extraordinary freshness and liveliness, largely owing to the wonderfully conceived character of Martha, who is carried through the increasingly upsetting revelations she uncovers by her spirit, energy and determination.’ Harriet Devine, Shiny New Book

‘Just when you think an author can’t possibly get any better – he does. I love this book! It stands head and shoulders above Johnstone’s earlier work and I am rapidly running out of superlatives to describe him with.’ Eurocrime

‘Doors are kicked in, guns are fired, pints are glugged and wrestling occurs. As with Hit & Run, this is a novel which leaves you breathless.’ Scots Whayhae

‘There is almost a tangible sense of expectation and excitement to this rollercoaster tale of dark secrets as Johnstone weaves his way into the mind of the rebellious, straight-talking and energetic young woman as she carves a rocky road through the wall of silence into a past she never knew existed.’ Lancashire Evening Post

also by Doug Johnstone

Tombstoning

The Ossians

Smokeheads

Hit & Run

Gone Again

The Dead Beat

First published in 2015

by Faber & Faber Ltd

Bloomsbury House

74–77 Great Russell Street

London WC1B 3DA

This ebook edition first published in 2015

Typeset by Faber & Faber Ltd

Cover design by Faber.

Extract from ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’ reproduced with the kind permission of Frightened Rabbit

The right of Doug Johnstone to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

ISBN 978–0–571–32159–9

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