Stonemouth

‘Jeez, Murdo,’ I say, trying to shrink back from the hole. There’s a wind from it, coming rushing up and out, cold and laced with rain or spray.

They aren’t going to throw me down there, are they? The line about not shitting my pants and it not being dark wasn’t just a way to get me to comply this far, was it? I guess I could still try to make a break, to run. They can’t force me down there, can they? It’s not wide enough to just push me; I could grab the sides.

‘Night is better,’ Murdo’s saying. ‘Mist or fog is best.’

I can’t take my eyes off the waves, far below, moving slowly, cresting and breaking.

‘Better yet, if there’s earlier video from the CCTV of the person on the bridge, specially in the same clothes,’ Murdo says.

Oh, fuck. They have that. I was on the bridge waiting for Powell, just a couple of days ago. Wearing this jacket, too.

‘You tear the tape off their mouths,’ Murdo says. ‘They think they’ll get to scream or shout then,’ he tells me, ‘but you just do this.’

His right fist comes whipping round and punches me in the belly. I’m not ready for it and it sends the breath whistling out of me as I double up, folding around the ball of pain in my guts. Murdo and Norrie let me collapse, falling to my knees right in front of the hole, the wind from it buffeting my face. They’re still holding my jacket.

‘Bit harder than that, actually,’ Murdo says thoughtfully. ‘And there’s this really cool knot you can do, with rope, like. You just drop them through and keep a hold of the end. They canny move much or do anythin for the first wee bit but then the slack runs out and the knots come loose and you’ve got all the rope and they’re fallin like they were never tied up in the first place.’

‘Ellie taught us that knot,’ Norrie says proudly.

‘Norrie,’ Murdo breathes.

‘No sayin she knew what for,’ Norrie grumbles. ‘Or,’ he says brightly, like he’s just remembered, ‘you can just whap them over the back of the heid.’

Norrie illustrates his point with a light blow to the back of my head. I hardly notice. I’m too busy wheezing some breath back into my lungs, still convinced Murdo’s ruptured my spleen or prolapsed my stomach or something.

‘Aye,’ Murdo says. ‘No with a bat, though,’ he points out. ‘Injury’s too distinctive.’

‘Aye. Traumatic-injury blunt-profile object match,’ Norrie says, stumbling over the words and patently relishing getting to display some garbled snippet from CSI or Bones or whatever the fuck.

‘Old-fashioned lead-shot cosh,’ Murdo’s saying, with what might be professional pride or just outright relish. ‘That knocks them out so you can bundle them through. Chances are the signs won’t show up suspicious among all the other injuries from hitting the watter.’

‘No complaints so far, eh, Murd, eh?’ Norrie says.

‘No too many,’ Murdo says, then his voice alters, coming closer as he bends down, his mouth beside my ear. ‘So just watch what you ask about Callum,’ he says quietly. ‘Okay, Stewie?’ He clacks the iPhone painfully against my nose and lets it drop, sending it tumbling away, a glistening black slab somersaulting towards the grey waves.

I lose sight of it before it hits and its splash is lost amongst the breaking crests. I hear myself groaning. There was stuff in there I hadn’t backed up.

I’m dragged back to my feet, bundled back in the van.

They throw me out in the southern viewing area car park — the place where I sat with Powell Imrie in his Range Rover two days ago — sending me flying into the whin bushes that form one edge of the coach bays.

I don’t really notice the scratches from the whin thorns; just before they kick open the doors, Murdo says, ‘You won’t forget what we said about Ellie, eh?’ and punches me hard in the balls, so it’s a good ten minutes before I care about anything besides the astounding, sickening, writhing gouts of pain heaving out of my groin and wrapping themselves round my guts and brain.

Christ, it’s like being a wee bairn again. I have to waddle, to give my poor assaulted nuts sufficient room to hang without causing further excruciating pain. The last time I walked wide-legged like this, I was barely out of nappies and I’d just wet my pants getting all excited about being given a new balloon or something.

I make my way, gingerly, to the bridge control office. There’s an entry-phone guarding the deserted foyer on the ground floor of the three-storey building, where the tourist information office used to be, back when we could still afford such extravagance. I press the button. With any luck I’ll know somebody on duty. Ask them to call a taxi. I don’t think I’m capable of walking all the way over the bridge and back into town.