The Road to Haddington

Isla drove the estate van the way she ran a floor: fast, early, with the radio off and both hands where she could see them.

It was a clear morning after the rain, the kind East Lothian does as an apology. The fields were very green and the sky was enormous and the coast road had been cleared of Wednesday’s tree, which lay cut into rounds on the verge with the sawdust still pale. She did not speak until we were past it. She did not look at me at all. I sat in the passenger seat with my hands in my lap and the seat belt across my chest, and understood that she had chosen the van because it had no back seat, and the road to Haddington because it had no lay-bys worth the name.

“Mrs Imrie found the note,” she said.

I said nothing.

“Ten to eleven.…