Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone (best ereader manga .TXT) 📗

‘It’s what she does,’ I say. ‘This is exactly the kind of thing she’d do. Give it a few more days and she’ll come waltzing back through the door, demanding a weekend break in Paris and an apology,’ I glance at Ross, ‘for whatever it was you did.’ Beside me, Logan takes another ponderous breath, and I round on him, face hot. ‘Do you speak?’

Logan blinks, and then grins, revealing good teeth and better dimples. ‘Aye.’

‘Okay,’ Rafiq says. ‘You’re right, Catriona, we don’t know El as well as you do, but we have to treat her as a missing person till we know otherwise, that’s just our job. Let’s start all of this over again, eh?’ Her smile is warmer, but I know that I should have kept my mouth shut. Said nothing at all.

‘I’m the SIO on El’s missing-person case. That means, to all intents and purposes, I’m in charge of it.’ She turns her head. ‘Logan, why don’t you prove you’re not actually mute, and give us a quick recap before we go through any updates?’

Ross finishes pouring the coffee and sits heavily down as Logan nods, takes out a tiny notebook, flips its pages.

‘Okay. Ellice MacAuley was first reported missing by the Royal Forth Yacht Club’s boatman at approximately six-thirty p.m. on April the third. He took her out to her swing mooring in the East Harbour at eight a.m., about quarter of an hour after high tide.’

The only time to set sail for the high seas. I think of darkness and a cold red sky, the wide and choppy firth and the smell of blood: sour and dark.

‘CCTV saw her arrive at Lochinvar Drive on foot. Examination of her laptop shows that she accessed AIS that morning to check shipping positions in the Firth of Forth.’ Logan looks up. ‘Apparently that’s normal procedure before going recreational sailing. She told the boatman that her plans were to sail to Anstruther, have lunch, and then sail back. She left in her daysailer, The Redemption – alone – about ten minutes later.’

He licks his right index finger, turns over the page without looking up. This irritates me too, seems like a ridiculous affectation. Don’t they have smartphones or tablets for that kind of thing these days?

‘One Robert McLelland, the skipper of an inshore fishing vessel called Sea Spray, later reported having seen the boat one nautical mile northeast of Inchkeith at eight-fifty a.m. According to the Coastguard, the conditions, specifically wind speed, were such that she should have arrived in Anstruther around eleven a.m., noon at the latest. When she had not returned to Granton Harbour by six p.m., the boatman contacted Anstruther, who had no record of her arrival. It was then that the yacht club reported a Concern for Person to police and HM Coastguard.

‘Following initial witness statements and risk assessment, the attending officer reclassified Ellice MacAuley as a high-risk Missing Person. Her husband, Dr Ross MacAuley, was contacted, and he communicated that he was on his way back from a conference in London. Sorry,’ Logan says, glancing up, briefly flashing his dimples again. ‘Bit clunky, that bit.’

Rafiq rolls her eyes.

‘Em, okay. The MRCC – that’s the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre – in Aberdeen appointed James Paton as search-and-rescue mission co-ordinator.’

The fat, smug, jowly gunslinger. In those conditions, a person could be expected to survive no more than three hours in the water.

‘Local Coastguard units and rescue teams were deployed to search the coastline. Two RNLI lifeboats were launched, from South Queensferry and Kinghorn, and a SAR helicopter was sent from Prestwick to cover that last known sighting near Inchkeith in the north, and Anstruther Harbour in the northeast.’

Logan’s careful, nit-picky delivery is beginning to drive me to distraction. Despite myself – and all that resentment and certainty – I’m beginning to feel uneasy. Queasy. I have another sudden and unwelcome flashback to El clinging to a rattling mast and wildly flapping mainsail; shouting, laughing, baring her teeth to the wind and swinging lanternlight – and I want to stand up again. I clasp my hands together instead, stare hard at the drips of condensation inside the empty cafetière.

‘By eight p.m., there had been no confirmed sightings of either the sailboat or Ellice MacAuley, and the MRCC were advised that bad weather was moving in from the North Sea. Hang on …’ More flipping of tiny pages. ‘I’ve got the Shipping Forecast somewhere …’

Ross’s head drops lower, his hands moving to clasp behind his neck. I swallow.

‘Skip it,’ Rafiq says.

‘Right. Okay, so, the case was then reported to the UK Missing Persons Bureau, with CID taking over, DI Kate Rafiq as SIO. Upon the arrival of Ross MacAuley at his address in Leith at approximately eleven p.m., I carried out a review of the initial MPI form and drove him, at his request, to Granton Harbour.’

I suddenly realise that it was Logan who had been standing next to Ross in that second terrible photo of him staring out to sea, arms held in front of him like a shield as he screamed.

‘The search was suspended at eleven forty-five p.m. because of the rapidly deteriorating conditions, and resumed at nine a.m. on April the fourth. It was hampered by continuing poor visibility and considerable media interference. By the afternoon, the search area was widened to the North Sea. All commercial craft within the area were alerted and issued with a description of both The Redemption and Ellice MacAuley. As of now, there have been no reported sightings of either.’

Logan clears his throat, turns another tiny page. I realise that I’m holding my breath and force myself to let it go.

‘It’s the opinion of the MRCC that if the boat got into difficulty on its outward voyage to Anstruther, there is a high probability that this would have been witnessed, either by other vessels or from the coast. Also, the dimensions of the mainmast are such that it would be highly unlikely that it could have sunk