Page 89 of The High Island

‘Unfortunately, they weren’t fast enough,’ Erling said.

43

Jo had wakened as the early light found its way in through the sea-facing window of what she now considered Rhona MacLeod’s room.

She’d slept fitfully at first, imagining herself still battling the waves in her efforts to get theAngelback to shore. In this version of events, Ethan was nowhere to be seen, and she believed him already drowned.

Forcing herself awake, she’d sat up for a while hoping that anchoring herself in the here and now, with Ethan alive and well somewhere nearby, might soothe her obviously tortured brain.

Eventually this had worked and the latter part of the night had produced an easy sleep, until she’d eventually been met with the soft red light of dawn.

She’d come to fully when the message had pinged in fromDIFlett. It had been brief, merely instructing her to ask Magnus for a lift to Mackie’s house, because of an incident overnight in Kirkwall, and that Ivor’s diary was in the porch at Langwell. Conscious that the incident in Kirkwall likely had something to do with the drugs operation, her thoughts had immediately gone toDSGowan.

Had she been able to admit her knowledge of Gus, she might well have managed to confide in Erling regardingDSGowan’s policing methods. Tell him that sending Gus out incognito would make him think he had the right to do anything he thought necessaryto win, as he put it.

At this point in her thoughts, there was a soft knock at the doorand Magnus’s voice told her that breakfast would be served in fifteen minutes.

Thanking him, she decided that asking for a lift to Mackie’s could wait until then. Also, should it be necessary for Magnus to tow Ethan back to Lyness, she could make her way up the hill to Mackie’s on foot. No doubt, Erling would send a car for her later to return her to Kirkwall.

The delicious scent of food met her as she headed downstairs and she found Ethan at the table with a mug of coffee and a large fry-up, already partially consumed. The broad smile he gave her made her think maybe theAngelhad survived her adventure of the previous night.

‘TheAngel’s okay?’ she checked.

‘She is. Hence my quick breakfast. With luck I might even make it to work on time. You sleep well?’

She nodded, without mentioning the fact that he’d apparently drowned at least twice in her dreams.

‘Good,’ he said with a smile aimed strictly at her.

Quickly breaking eye contact, Jo chose that moment to address Magnus, asking if he might give her a lift to Auld Mackie’s place as Erling had been called back to Kirkwall.

Reading her expression, Magnus said of course he’d be happy to, without asking what Erling’s swift return to duty was about.

‘Right, what would you like from the various food on offer?’ He gestured to the display of possibilities.

Jo, feeling suddenly very hungry, chose black pudding, haggis and a fried egg.

‘A toasted bannock to go with that?’ Magnus checked.

‘Definitely,’ she accepted with a grin.

When Ethan declared he was off, she offered her thanks and a goodbye, but didn’t follow the men out to the jetty. Ethan’s reactionto her this morning, and in truth during their time alone together, both on theAngeland on Cava, had unsettled her a little.

Ethan was a member of the public whereas she was a police officer, she reminded herself. They’d gone to Cava on a reconnaissance expedition approved byDIFlett. They had then informed the boss what they’d found there. Ethan Howie’s role in the investigation was now at an end.

She gave Mackie a call as soon as she felt he would be up and about, and the speed with which he answered suggested he was as keen as she was to begin deciphering his old friend’s jottings.

As they drew up outside Langwell, Jo thanked Magnus and said she’d walk along to Mackie’s from there, once she’d picked up the diary from the porch. ‘You can’t get a car up his drive anyway,’ she added.

‘You’re right about that,’ Magnus said. ‘Well, good luck deciphering Ivor’s writing. And I hope what it says proves useful when you do.’

She located the notebook easily enough, tucked in an evidence bag behind a coat stand, heavily festooned with waterproofs, and wellie boots below. No brollies, obviously, because such implements were a waste of time in windy Orkney, and also in her homeland of Caithness.

The breeze this morning was moderate to strong and, looking towards Hoy, she noted white horses on Scapa Flow, which made her think about Ethan again, heading back across to Lyness on theAngel Heart.

Casting such thoughts from her mind, she set off along the road to Mackie’s house.

Giving a shout at the open porch door as before, she was rewarded by a call to ‘Come away in, lass’ and found Mackie seatedin his big armchair in front of the fire with a small table strategically placed before him.