Excerpts

They had been on the island less than five hours and already the whole thing was falling apart. There was a bite to the breeze as Jen stood outside the house, a reminder that though the calendar said late June, it was still night-time on a remote Scottish island on the edge of the Atlantic. She saw no sign of Samira. She had said she was going to grab some air, but from the state of her there was a greater chance she was actually off to be sick. It turned out Jen's future sister-in-law was a mouthy rage-monster who couldn't handle her drink, and she was the least of Jen's problems. She glanced back at the house, where she could see the others through the drawing room's huge windows. None of them was speaking. This whole shebang had been a stupid idea, and she was an eejit to have let herself get talked into it. It hadn't helped that Zaki, her fiancé, had been thoroughly encouraging of the notion. She'd wondered if that was because he had big plans for a stag weekend. If so, they hadn't materialised. She pictured him back at home, popping open a can and getting comfy in front of the TV. She wished she was there instead. Suddenly she just wanted to be with Zaki, and Zaki alone. That was a good sign, right? Then she remembered how they had left things. She had as good as told him she didn't trust him. It hadn't come out of nowhere; it had been a background hum to their relationship from the off. But that she had put it out there in the open on the morning she departed for her hen weekend was a hell of a red flag. He had been acting secretive of late, shifty and evasive. A couple of weeks ago, she had suspected that he had gone through her bedside drawer. Nothing was missing, but she got this instinctive feeling that the things in it weren't quite how they had been before. Then last week, in the documents folder of his laptop, she found a scan of her passport. Zaki didn't have a private log-in for the laptop, something he had presented as a sign of openness, but it struck her that it also ensured she believed she was seeing everything. Then last night he had shut the lid just as she walked into the kitchen, trying to be nonchalant about it but merely having the opposite effect. She had caught a glimpse of what was on-screen. He was replying to an email from an account identified only as grimpox02@vapourmail.com. Jen had looked up the domain and found that it specialised in disposable email addresses. But more troublingly, she had accessed the laptop while he was in the shower this morning, and couldn't find the incoming email or the reply he was composing. She checked the inbox, archive and sent folders. There was nothing. He had deleted all trace. That was why, when he emerged from the bathroom, she had asked him directly. 'Who were you emailing last night?' she asked. 'Who is grimpox02?' 'It's nothing you need to concern yourself with.' He tried to sound casual, though he surely knew it was pointless. 'If it's nothing, why did you delete it? Yes, I looked. You emptied the trash too. That's a lot of steps for nothing.' He had seemed angry at this, though he tried to disguise it by appearing hurt. 'For God's sake, Jen, you need to chill. Not everybody's playing an angle all the time.' 'So why don't you just tell me?' 'Because maybe I'd rather you took me at my word. I could prove it's nothing you need to worry about, but then we'd be no further forward, would we?' 'I'd know the truth. That's a step forward.' He looked exasperated. 'You'd know the truth, but you still wouldn't trust me. That's the issue, not whether I'm deleting emails or who grimpox02 is.' It was the moment she should have said she did trust him, even if they both knew it was just lip service. But it hit her that they were past the point of pretending, and Zaki had nailed why. He stared at the ceiling, like he was asking for strength, and when he looked at her again there was frustration in his eyes. 'I'd like to say I can't marry someone who doesn't trust me, but the sad fact is I'd marry you anyway. But you shouldn't marry someone you don't trust. And you've never trusted me.' It hurt to hear this because it was the truth, and it hurt more to contemplate the consequences. She finally said something conciliatory. 'We should take the weekend to talk this through. I'll cancel the trip.' 'No,' Zaki replied. 'You should take the weekend to have some distance, have a good time. Maybe it will let you get some perspective.' 'I don't need perspective on us. I think we're great. It's just--' 'Not perspective about us, Jen. Perspective about you.' He had been right. It was her problem. She had never fully trusted him, and at the root of it was this inescapable fear that he was too good to be true. Not everybody's playing an angle, Zaki had told her. But that was what a man who was playing an angle would say, and she had been fooled by such a man once before. Zaki was different, though. She had to accept that. He was insisting on paying for the honeymoon, which she knew was his way of demonstrating that he wasn't expecting to leech off her. Unfortunately that meant they were only having a few days in Skye rather than the luxury trip she would have happily sprung for, but it was important to let him have this. She wanted to trust him. Right now, standing outside the house on Clachan Geal, she wanted to be able to tell him how she was feeling, to confide her thoughts and opinions on everyone and everything. Wasn't that what marriage, what companionship was about: having someone you could tell anything and know they'd keep it safe? But that was all moot for now, because it was Friday night and the helicopter wasn't due back until Monday. Before that, the only other way off the island was their host Lauren's boat. Jen would have to make the best of it. The booze and the outpouring of aggro might have vented some of the underlying tensions, so maybe there was hope for this weekend yet. As for the wedding to which it was supposedly an overture, that was another matter. Jen took another lungful of the cool air, gulping it in like it could magically sober her, then ascended the front steps. She was reaching for the door handle when she heard the scream. Excerpted from The Cliff House by Christopher Brookmyre All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.