Mirrorland by Carole Johnstone (books for 6 year olds to read themselves txt) 📕

Her office is cold. I can barely remember the car journey from the mortuary to the police station. I feel sick and my head is pounding. My eyes are so swollen I can hardly see.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to see someone? A doctor, or—’

‘How did she die? I didn’t ask how she died.’

Rafiq looks at me, shows me the flat palms of her hands. ‘We can’t be sure. Not enough to satisfy the procurator fiscal anyway. The most obvious CODs would be drowning or hypothermia. But … there wasn’t enough intact lung or circulatory tissue to confirm either.’

Comestible marine predators, I think, and I see that black maze of sinus passages, those deep eyeless holes.

‘What we do know is that El had very high levels of diazepam, fluoxetine, and oxycodone in her bone marrow.’

I think of those pill bottles behind the bathroom mirror. ‘Enough to kill her?’

‘We can’t be sure of that either. The time that toxins are deposited in bones can’t be accurately calculated, and samples measured in bone marrow are generally found to be higher than those in blood specimens.’ She leans forwards. ‘Oxycodone is an opioid, commonly used for severe pain. Stronger than morphine. Her GP never prescribed them. Do you know if your sister had a history of drug abuse? Recreational drug use?’

‘What? No. Of course not.’ I can no more imagine El taking opioids than Valium. She didn’t even like to drink. Could never risk letting go of control for even a moment. I look down at Rafiq’s desk, at a photo of a grinning man in scrubs. ‘Is that what killed her, then?’

‘It’s probable that they contributed to her death, one way or another.’

I think of standing on cold wet stone. Looking out at the eastern breakwater wall and the volcanic rise of the Binn behind stony studs of houses. At the white-frilled waves of high tide and the distant flat of the North Sea. And thinking that this place – the place we once ran to – was the place El had disappeared from. But she hadn’t. She’d been right there, all that time, under the howling wind and rain and all those grey waves, down in the thick black murk of the deepwater channel.

‘When will you be bringing the boat up?’ I manage. ‘For forensics or whatever. Because someone removed that drain plug and drilled holes in the hull. They took down the mast. They—’

‘They also disabled the onboard toilet,’ Rafiq says. And not in the manner of somebody who’s on my side. ‘So that it would let water in instead of flushing it out.’

I look at the heavy white day through the window: the city’s gothic and steel towers, its distant green hills. My skin itches and shivers. I inhale as if I’m getting ready to hold my breath, dive underwater.

‘El didn’t kill herself. She wouldn’t.’

‘Well, you say that, and I can understand you needing to believe it, but in 2005, she—’

‘For fuck’s sake, I already told you that she never tried to kill herself back then! She did it to piss me off, to get Ross’s attention, to make me leave. It wasn’t – she took just enough paracetamol to have to go to hospital and have it pumped out of her, that’s the—’ I stop. Will myself calm. ‘Ross doesn’t think she killed herself either,’ I say, even though I suspect that might no longer be true. ‘We won’t leave this alone. If that’s what you want, neither of us is going to do it. This isn’t her fault. Someone else did this to her. I know it.’

Rafiq doesn’t remind me that I also knew El wasn’t dead, but the look she gives me says she’s thinking it.

‘Listen,’ she says. ‘Neither the Marine Accident Investigation Branch nor the Scottish Environment Protection Agency will fund a recovery of The Redemption. It’s not a commercial vessel, and we already know how—’

‘So you’re just going to leave it down there to rot?’

‘Sometimes, CID will get an amount granted by the government to fund further investigation in certain cases of murder. But this is not one of those.’

The finality in her voice makes me want to punch something. ‘But what about the cards? Someone was threatening her. And I’ve had more! I’ve kept them. There’s a kayak in the shed! And I’ve also been getting—’

Rafiq shakes her head, holds up a hand. ‘I don’t think that the cards are connected to what’s happened to El. We investigated them, followed up on every suggestion Ross and El gave us, but the cards never explicitly threatened El’s life – or yours. If anything, Ross was the target, and we’ve already investigated him too. They weren’t getting on. Maybe El was seeing someone. Maybe he was. People always love to meddle, to interfere in dramas that have nothing to do with them.’

I feel numb, frustrated, backed into a corner. For days, I’ve been emailing El, I’ve been angry with El. And all the time, it really was Mouse. And if Ross is right, and the cards are from her, too, then I should tell Rafiq. I should show her the emails. Because even if they’ve already investigated her, Mouse is involved. She’s been telling me that she knows what’s going on from the very start. I KNOW THINGS. THINGS HE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO KNOW. EL IS DEAD. I CAN HELP YOU. I think about Ross’s text on Marie’s phone. Stay away from her. Stay away or you’ll regret it.

‘Catriona.’ Rafiq reaches her hands across the table. ‘Listen to me, okay? El’s previous suicide attempt, her depression and the drugs she was taking at the time of her disappearance, the leaving behind of her wallet, her phone, her passport, The Redemption not being found anywhere near where she’d told the boatman she was going – all of these things point to either accident or suicide. And you’ll not want to accept this either, but we’ll probably never know for sure which.’ She lays a