Read The Jump for Free Online Page B

scrolled down through the feed. A handful of people had posted.
    WTF I cannae get to my fkn house, cops have closed roads. #viewforthroad #queensferry
    Some shit going down in Inchcolm Terrace, crawling with polis. #queensferry
    #queensferry Counted 6 cop cars, a van and amblnc in Inchcholm Terr, number 25?
    Holy fukk!!! Guys in they white forensic suits in garden of 23 Inchcolm Terrace #queensferry #CSIshit
    Two filth at door just asked if I’d seen anything!! Fuck! #queensferry
    ‘What do you think?’ Ben said.
    ‘I have no idea,’ Ellie said.
    Ben clicked Refresh again and again. One or two new posts appeared but no new info. Ellie thought about the people in white suits going over the garden, the house, the kitchen. Her fingerprints on the doorbell, the front door handle and the glass of the patio. She tried to remember if she’d touched anything else. What about the neighbours, had anyone seen her walking down the street earlier, going up the path, opening the front door? Or running out the back and over the fence? Had they seen Sam or Libby running from the house earlier? Was there CCTV around there, or neighbourhood watch? She thought of the footage of Logan on the bridge. She thought about being up there this morning with Sam, there would be footage of that too. We are always being watched.
    The Twitter feed began to fill up with news flashes. Local STV and BBC services were reporting an incident, but they were an hour behind the action, as always. Then Ellie read something that made her fists tighten.
    My m8’s dad is a cop, says another cop’s been stabbed in his house on Inchcolm T!! At hospital now, could die. #copkiller #queensferry
    Cop killer. This was instantly picked up by other tweeters, the network going at it.
    Polis stabbed at home in #queensferry. His kids missing apparently. Revenge by a crim?! Cop into dodgy shit? Domestic? Shitting hell.
    The speed of it all terrified her.
    Ben was on Refresh.
    Refresh, refresh, refresh.
    More opinions, more facts, more bullshit and nonsense, teeming into the ether like an airborne virus it was impossible to escape.
    She turned away from the laptop and went to the window, looked out at the Forth. The sea was a constant. Changing all the time, yes, but somehow also reliable. It took her son and it would take others too. If sea levels rose, this house would be one of the first to go, submerged beneath all that implacable calm. She pictured water pouring in through the doors and windows of her home, imagined being swept up in it, the taste of salt on her lips as she swallowed it down. Maybe a handful of molecules from Logan’s ashes slipping down her throat.
    The sea had almost taken Sam this morning but Ellie had stopped it, she challenged the water and won. She was scratching at her most recent tattoo. She pushed her sleeve up and looked at the patch of red skin. Maybe it would never heal, maybe it would stay raw and bloody forever.
    ‘What do you think?’ Ben said.
    She clenched her teeth and turned away from the bridges.
    ‘About what?’ she said.
    He pointed at the laptop. ‘All this.’
    She shrugged. ‘I don’t think anything.’
    She heard something, a movement upstairs maybe. She went over to the kettle and switched it on to cover the noise, glanced up at the ceiling once Ben had turned back to the screen.
    The air filled with the hiss and rumble of water boiling. She went over to the washing machine. The load from earlier had finished, Sam’s jeans and pants inside. She could see them bunched in the bottom of the half-empty drum. She wondered about forensics and evidence. She found herself reaching over to push the door button on the washing machine, force of habit, not wanting to leave the sodden clothes in there to go mouldy. She pulled her hand away from the button and turned.
    She should go to the police station round the corner and give Sam up, that was the right thing to do. Then again. She tried to work out the different paths the future