of suppressing a giggle and she felt herself chuckle too.
‘What are you laughing at?’ said Amy, a vision in coordinated bottle-green T-shirt, trousers and trainers today.
‘Nothing, love,’ said Nicola.
‘Tell me.’
Just then their captain’s voice boomed through the small PA on board the boat, much to Nicola’s relief.
‘Up ahead is the Signal Tower Museum, and beyond it is Inchcape Park. The park doesn’t see much action through the year, just the occasional military display, circus big top or travelling show in the summer. As you can see there’s nothing to see there at the moment. The Signal Tower was originally built in 1813 as the shore station and family living quarters of the famous Bell Rock lighthouse, which lies eleven miles out to sea, built on a dangerous semi-sunken reef. The Bell Rock lighthouse was a tremendous feat of engineering, built by Robert Stevenson, founder of a dynasty of lighthouse engineers and grandfather to writer Robert Louis Stevenson…’
Nicola tuned out. She knew all this stuff more or less off by heart from her time working at the abbey. Although the Signal Tower wasn’t run by Historic Scotland, all staff at their sites were encouraged to bone up on local history, so she knew the ins and outs of the Bell Rock lighthouse, the Stevensons and all the rest of it.
She stared at the park bench where they’d been last night. Although drunk, she’d been very much in control, there’d been enough pissing about and it was time to get it on. The sex had taken the tension out the air, the strange tension of not having done something they both clearly wanted to do. The rest of the night had been like a bit of a weird dream, walking and talking and kissing and shagging in places she’d been a hundred times before but seemed to be seeing fresh. Then again, maybe she was just drunker than she thought. But she didn’t regret a minute of it. And the way David had been today, didn’t that indicate that he didn’t regret it either? He seemed to be one of the good guys, and Christ knows there aren’t too many of them around, she thought.
By this time they were past the breakwater and had turned left (Port? No, starboard? Fuck it, she thought) and were heading past the tiny, squatting fishermen’s cottages in the oldest part of the harbour called the Fit o’ the Toon. Thick walls, tiny windows and narrow streets were all designed to keep the fearsome sea weather at bay, and despite a bright coat of paint the cottages looked like they had always expected, and received, a hard time from the sea.
They were gathering speed now and heading east, out past Victoria Park to the start of the cliffs. Nicola had never seen the cliffs from this angle, and it was disorientating seeing a place you were familiar with from thirty years of visits, but from the completely opposite direction. If anything they looked more sinister than she had ever imagined them, more imposing, dominant and immovable. There were dark nooks and crannies everywhere, birds nesting improbably on tiny ledges, small partially-submerged rocks. It looked a long, long way down from the top, much further than it ever seemed from up on the grassy ledge. Even with the sun beating down and the water relatively calm, there was something ominous and unsettling about the place, or maybe she was just projecting the deaths of Gary and Colin on to her feelings about what was, after all, just a simple slab of sandstone rock.
The captain cut the engine not long after they reached the cliffs and started a commentary about the geology of the area and the birdlife you were likely to find. A few of their fellow passengers whipped out binoculars. There were nine passengers apart from themselves, and as Nicola looked at them she realized that most of them were birdwatchers – there was just something about the way they dressed that gave it away, the geeky waterproofs, the shorts and hiking socks and boots, the insulated jackets with pockets everywhere. The captain was talking now about cormorants and shags; terns, oystercatchers and curlews; kittiwakes, razorbills and, if we were lucky, maybe the odd puffin. There seemed a slight flurry of excitement at the mention of the bird world’s comedy character.
With the geology and wildlife taken care of, the captain quickly got on to what was clearly his favourite topic, the shady history of the cliffs. Every