Blog Tour: Peter May's Coffin Road exclusive extract as part of Peter's blog tour

Read on for an extract from Coffin Road.  Also, if you want to receive a free copy of Coffin Road by Peter May email:  thecrimewarpblog@yahoo.co.uk  with 'Coffin Road' in subject heading and your name and address in the body of the email. One lucky winner will be selected at random on 2nd February 2016.

The Big Coffin Road Blog Read

Part Four: Sally & Jon

I have no idea how long I have slept. Consciousness returns from a dark, dreamless sleep, bringing with it the physical pain of a still traumatised body, and the recollection that I recall nothing. Of myself, or what happened to me in the hours before I was washed ashore on Tràigh Losgaintir.

But I am startled, too. Heart pounding, aware that the sun has slipped beyond the hills and sunk somewhere in the west, sprinkling pink dusk, like dust, on the dying day. Something has wakened me. A sound. Bran has raised his head from his slumbers, sniffing the air, but doesn’t seem alarmed.

A voice from the boot room calls out my name. ‘Neal?’ A woman’s voice. And she is not alone. I

hear a man, too, as they shut the outside door behind them. I am on my feet in an instant, my empty whisky glass rolling away across the floor. Bran pulls himself up and looks at me quizzically.

Even before my visitors can open the door into the kitchen, I am out into the hall and turning towards the bedroom. ‘Neal, are you home?’ They are in the kitchen now, and I search through the clothes on the bedroom chair to find a pair of jeans, hopping from one leg to the other as I pull them on, falling back on the bed to drag the waistband over my thighs and button them shut.

‘Be right with you.’ I drag a T-shirt over my head. No time to find socks or shoes. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I hurry from the bedroom, face pale beneath my tan, hair a mess of curls.

They are standing in the sitting room when I come through. People, clearly, who know me. And yet I detect in myself not a flicker of familiarity in either of them.

They are both younger than me. Late twenties, perhaps early thirties. His blond hair is cut short at the sides, left longer on top and gelled back from a narrow forehead. He is good-looking, a man conscious of his image, a tightly trimmed beard that is longer than designer stubble dressing a lean face with almond-shaped green eyes. He wears what I am certain is a designer-labelled hoodie, and immaculate jeans above pristine white Adidas trainers that look as if they are just out of the

box. With his hands pushed into the pockets of his jacket, he has a certain slouch, but you can tell from his shoulders and narrow hips that he is well built. He grins at me, a wide, open, infectious grin, and nods through the hall towards the bedroom. ‘Christ, have you got a woman through there? Hope we didn’t disturb anything.’ His accent is very different from mine. North of England, but refined. Middle class. My guess would be public rather than grammar school.

‘Sorry.’ I run a hand self-consciously back through my hair. ‘I fell asleep.’ My own voice sounds quite coarse by comparison. Scottish, but not island. Central belt perhaps.

She laughs. ‘Well, that’s nice. Invites us for drinks then buggers off for an early night.’ Her accent is similar to his, but broader. A soft voice, with a slight catch in it. Almost hoarse. Seductive. She is six inches shorter than him, but still quite tall. Five six, perhaps, or seven. Short, boyish, auburn hair frames an almost elfin face. Deep brown eyes enhanced by a reddish brown eyeshadow. Wide lips a slash of red. She is slim, a well-worn leather bomber jacket hanging on square shoulders over a white T-shirt and fashionably baggy jeans. ‘When we didn’t see the car out front, we thought maybe you weren’t here.’

So I have a car, but no idea where it is. And I am suddenly overcome by an urge to tell them everything. Which is almost nothing. Just that I was washed up on the beach and haven’t a clue who I am. These people know me. They could tell me so much. But I am scared to give shape or form to that black cloud of anxiety that hangs over me. Of events beyond memory. Things simply wiped from my mind that I fear I might never even wish to acknowledge. And all I say is, ‘I forgot.’

‘That’s just what Sally said. “Bet he’s forgotten.”’ And he does a very good imitation of her accent.

‘So where is the car?’ Sally says.

And I find myself panicking. ‘Pranged it.’

‘Aw, shit.’ She bends down to ruffle Bran’s head, and he pushes his face up into her hand. ‘What happened? Is that how you cut your head?’

My hand goes instinctively to my hairline, where the blood I had seen earlier has dried now to a scab. But I don’t want to go any further down this road. ‘Oh, it wasn’t anything very much. I’ll get the car back tomorrow.’

He says, ‘How did you get home?’

My mind is racing. You can’t just tell one lie, and I’m very quickly learning that I am not a good liar. ‘The garage gave me a lift back.’

Sally says, ‘All the way from Tarbert? Christ, that was good of them. You should have called. Jon would have come and got you.’

Jon unzips his hoodie and allows himself to fall back into the other settee, legs spread, an arm extended along the top of the cushions. ‘More to the point, where’s that drink you promised

us?’ And I am seriously grateful for the change of subject.

Sally slips out of her jacket and throws it over the back of the settee, before dropping down beside Jon, who lets his arm slide around her shoulder. It is clear to me that not only are they regular visitors, at ease in my house, but they are a couple comfortable with each other. ‘Yeah, come on, Neal, we’re dying of thirst here.’

‘Sure,’ I say, happy to escape into the kitchen. ‘What would you like?’

‘Just the usual,’ she calls through.

I feel panic rising again. I should know what they drink. How can I explain that I don’t? I search the cupboards once more, this time looking for drink, but I can’t find so much as a can of beer. Then I open the fridge, and there is a bottle of vodka, two-thirds full, in the door. Somehow I just know that vodka is not my tipple. I scan the shelves for tonic. Nothing. ‘I think I’m out of tonic,’ I call back, hoping I’ve got this right. I hear her sigh. ‘Men! Do I have to do everything myself?’

And she slips through the archway into the kitchen, eyes alight and full of mischief. She puts a conspiratorial finger to her lips and, before I can even react, she reaches arms up around my neck to pull me towards her, mouth open, finding mine and forcing her tongue past my lips and teeth. Something in the scent and touch of her is arousingly familiar, and beyond that first moment of shock I find myself reacting. Hands sliding down her back and pulling her towards me, pressing myself against her. And then we break apart and I am both breathless and startled. She says loudly, ‘Did you check the larder?’

I look around. I have not the least idea where the larder is. ‘No.’

She tuts, taking my hand and pulling me through to the boot room. ‘Let’s see.’ I glance guiltily over my shoulder to make sure that Jon can’t see us. Somehow I have been drawn into a conspiracy of deceit that must have been familiar to me only yesterday, and no doubt long before that. But now, in my ignorance of it, I find its sudden intimacy exciting, almost intoxicating.

To the left of the washing machine, she opens a floor-toceiling cupboard to reveal shelves stacked with tins and packet food, bottles and condiments. She stoops to the bottom shelf and lifts a six-pack of tonic in its plastic wrap. ‘Honestly, Neal, you’d forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on.’ She grins and reaches up to kiss me lightly on the lips, then hurries back through to the kitchen. ‘I’ll fix these. You go through and pour yourself a whisky and keep Jon company.’

I go through to pick up my glass from where it has rolled under the coffee table and set it beside the bottle. I don’t really want another drink. I need to keep my head clear.

Jon smirks. ‘Been at it before we got here, I see. That why you were sleeping?’

I force a smile. ‘No. I just had the one. And it was a while ago.’ I stand up and walk to the French windows and nod towards the far shore. ‘The man in that caravan over there was watching me through binoculars.’

Jon breathes scorn through pursed lips. ‘Buford? He’s a weird one, that. Apparently residents at Seilebost have been at the council to try and get him evicted. But it’s common grazing or something, and he’s claiming travellers’ rights.’ Sally comes in and hands him a glass, and sits down beside him. ‘He must be mad parking his caravan there. He has it guyed and pegged all the way round to stop it blowing away. Must be like living in a bloody wind tunnel.’ He raises his glass. ‘Cheers.’

Sally chinks glasses with him and cocks an eyebrow at me. ‘Not joining us?’

Jon grins now. ‘Think he’s had enough already.’ Then, ‘I guess you didn’t make it out to the Flannans yesterday. It was a real stinker. Start of the equinoctials, the locals say.’

I cannot imagine why I might have wanted to go out to the Flannan Isles, but it seems safer to agree that I didn’t. ‘No, I never made it.’

‘Thought not.’

Sally takes a sip of her vodka tonic and I hear ice clinking in her glass and notice there is a slice of lemon in it. She really does know her way around my kitchen.

Jon says, ‘So how’s the book going?’

Every sentence uttered feels like a trap set to catch me out. ‘Book?’ I frown innocently, or at least hope I do.

Sally chides him. ‘You should know better than ask a writer a question like that.’

Jon laughs and says, ‘What, has inspiration vanished like those lighthouse keepers you’re writing about? Last time we spoke, you said you were almost finished.’

I try to avoid further traps. ‘I expect to wrap it up sometime this month.’ And suddenly I realise that I don’t even know what month it is. I glance around the room and see a Jolomo calendar hanging on the wall. A vividly coloured painting of cottages standing above an outcrop of rocks, and boats at

anchor in a stormy bay. Below it, the month of September is laid out in thirty squares.

Sally won’t meet my eye. ‘I suppose that means you’ll be leaving soon.’

I nod, half-feigning regret. ‘I suppose it does.’

It feels like an eternity before they go. We sit and talk. Or, at least, Jon talks and I listen, trying hard not to get involved in

a conversation that I can’t find my way out of. Concentration is difficult. In spite of sleeping earlier I am exhausted. My body feels battered. And I am aware of Sally watching me. Silent, appraising, as if she can read my mind, or the lack of it.

While he seems oblivious, Sally must sense my impatience to be rid of them, for it is she who stands, finally, and says they should go. ‘Neal’s tired,’ she tells him. ‘We can do this another time.’

Jon drains his glass and rises to his feet. ‘Maybe that bump in your car was a bit more than you’re letting on, eh?’

I just smile and follow them through the house to the door. ‘Sorry to be such bad company,’ I say, and from the doorstep I look around for their car. But there is no vehicle in sight.

Sally kisses me lightly on the cheek and Jon shakes my hand. ‘Get yourself a decent night’s sleep,’ he says. ‘You’ll feel better tomorrow.’ Evidently it has not gone unnoticed that I am not myself. I almost smile inwardly. How could I be, when I have no idea who I am?

I stand on the step, the wind tugging my hair, and watch as they walk up to the road and turn left. Above them on the far side of the single-track, a house stands overlooking mine, and the beach beyond. For the first time, I cast eyes over the exterior of my own place. A traditional design, but it can be no more than a year or two old. Well insulated, double glazed, warm and comfortable inside, offering the protection of modern engineering from the elements of this harsh environment. How did I end up here? Have I always lived on my own?

For a moment I am distracted by Bran racing among the dunes, barking and chasing rabbits, and when I look back I see Jon and Sally going up the drive of a house near the top of the hill. I realise they are neighbours. Sally turns and waves before they go inside. The house has a two-storey glass porch in the design of a gable end, built out from the front of it. I can only imagine how spectacular the views must be from the inside, though given that Jon and Sally are neighbours, and friends, I must have seen them often enough.

There is only a handful of houses strung out along the road as it curves up over the hill beneath a brooding sky and failing light. A rising horizon unbroken by a single tree, and delineated by drystone walls. Away to the west, beyond the beach and a sea that seems to glow with some inner light, the mountains of Taransay rise against the setting sun, the sky clearing beyond them in a freshening wind from the south-west.

I shout on Bran and he comes racing back.

Once inside, I hear him lapping water from his bowl in the boot room as I go into the kitchen and turn on the lights.

The Big Coffin Road Blog Read continues on Northern Crime on Monday 18^th January with Part Five: Portrait of an Author 

Coffin Road by Peter May is out now in hardback (Quercus). You can buy your copy here

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