Adam stared at the retreating lights of the Port Askaig Hotel, the fiercely bitter wind dragging tears from his eyes. Soon they rounded a bend in the Sound of Islay and the island lights were lost, just the huge, hulking mass of moors and cliffs and peat bogs alongside, shadowy and looming in the dark.

His hands were freezing, clutching Ethan’s quarter-cask bottle to his chest. He fumbled to uncork it then took two large hits, only just feeling the burn in his chest through the numbness of his mind and body. He looked at the bottle as he shoved the cork back in. It was almost finished.

He was on his own. Roddy had nipped inside to change out of his blood-soaked clothes, which were drawing attention and comment from other passengers. How had they ever become friends? How had they stayed friends over the years, with nothing whatsoever in common? He tried to think back to moments before the crash, Roddy driving like a maniac, drinking and snorting, angry at being dragged out to Stremnishmore and asked for money. Adam saw his own arm swinging through the air towards Roddy’s head, catching him on the ear, Roddy turning in anger. Then there was just darkness, so much evil in the darkness, so much to be scared of, so much to run away from.

And here he was running again. Running away from Islay and Molly, leaving her to cope on her own. Not that he thought for a minute she couldn’t cope on her own. But he wanted to be there, wanted to be part of her life, wanted to have the time to get to know her, to fall in love with her and live happy ever after.

What a joke. There was no happy ever after, not after everything that had happened. Molly would be fine, in fact she might even do a lot better on the island with Joe out of the picture. She would go on living her life, doing what she had to to survive, all the while keeping the dark secrets of the weekend tight within her chest like a tumour, a small malignant lump of anger and sorrow within her.

He would never see her again. He tried to get his head round that. He closed his eyes and tried to picture her at the Laphroaig distillery, wearing that green uniform, eyes sparkling, friendly smile. But he couldn’t. All he could picture was her bent over the barrel, blank terror in her eyes, or sitting staring out the window of her living room, dram in hand, an exhausted and empty look on her face.

An image of Joe tore into his brain, the stench of his burning flesh, the sight of his melting face, bubbling and blistering as he frantically waved his arms about. Adam hoped he wouldn’t lose any sleep over that, but he was afraid he might.

The same went for Ethan and Luke. So many ghosts, so much lost. So much carnage, pointless carnage, all because of a stupid car crash and an unlucky stumble into a crazy world.

He thought about Luke’s body, still out there in the freezing cold sea, blue and bloated now, tossed around by waves and tides like flotsam. He looked at Ethan’s Laphroaig bottle in his hands. There were about two swigs left in the bottom of the bottle. He uncorked it, carefully sipped, then slid the cork back in firmly and examined it. Just enough left in there for a decent dram. He made sure the cork was in tight then leaned back and hurled the bottle as hard as he could high into the blustery air. It flew into the night, spiralling neck over tail and falling into the surrounding blackness before finally hitting the water.

The wind roaring in his ears and the heavy thrum of the ferry engines drowned out any splash. He could just make out the bottle bobbing in the rough seas, appearing and disappearing from view, then finally gone into the dark.

‘That’s to see you on your way, Luke,’ he shouted into the wind, the words whipped into nothingness immediately.

He wondered where the bottle would end up. Maybe the currents would take it on an adventure around the world. Maybe the waves would do the same for Luke, take him on the trip of a lifetime, take him to witness things he could never have dreamed of. He hoped Ethan’s bottle would find him, give him a send-off into whatever adventure the ocean saw fit to give him.

He remembered something and knelt to open his holdall. He took out his jacket, went through the pockets and pulled out a wad of congealed paper mulch. It was his distillery plans, soaked in the loch and then dried along with his clothes, utterly useless now, just a shapeless lump of indecipherable pulp. He tried to prise a few sheets apart, but bits just flaked off in his hands, crumbling to pieces that were whipped away by the wind. He leant over the railing and opened his fingers, releasing the paper wad so that it tumbled down into the dark. He watched as it quickly dissolved and was scattered by the relentless waves.

He thought about his own body following, tipping over the small handrail and into the inky, oily mass of the sea. What would it feel like to throw yourself into the water? The sudden shock of the cold knocking the breath from your lungs, the icy fingers of water surrounding you, dragging you under into blissful oblivion, wiping all the evil thoughts from your mind, erasing your whole being, absorbing you into its unfathomable vastness, its cold, unthinking expanses.

His hands gripped the rail tightly, his fingers numb. He could easily imagine his body moving quickly up and over, then falling freely down into the deep. Then it seemed like he was really doing it, felt like he was climbing up onto the handrail, his blank mind watching it all from afar. He couldn’t work out how his body was moving, but it was, he was being drawn inexorably towards the churning wash beneath the ferry, hypnotised by the endless ebb and flow of the water below, calling him downwards, pleading for him to join with it.