Free Coffin Road by Peter May

is I need to do now. Where do I go from here? I can’t continue to live in this vacuum of ignorance. I have no purpose, no reason to get up in the morning without a past, or any future. Somehow I have to make sense of all this, figure out who I am and what I am doing here.
    I incline my head to look at the map on the wall. If what I told Jon and Sally about an academic career in Edinburgh is true, why have I spent the last year and a half on the Isle of Harris pretending to write a book? My eyes come to rest on the cluster of dots on the map that are the Flannan Isles. I make regular visits to the islands, Sally says. But if I am not writing that book, then why? I must have had a reason. I cannot for the life of me think of anything that would connect the Seven Hunters with eighteen beehives hidden off the coffin road. But those islands seem like as good a place to start looking for answers as any.
    I hear Bran returning, claws scraping on laminate floor, and his thirsty lapping of water before the rattle of food as he sticks his face in his bowl. I move around the table to sit in front of the laptop and open up my browser, searching for images of the Flannan Isles. There are plenty, it seems, on the internet, mostly amateur photographs taken by tourists, and not particularly useful. I spend nearly ten minutes searching through them before I stumble on the site of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, and a detailed map of the lighthouse island, Eilean Mòr.
    Shaped a little like a turtle on its back, it reveals a ragged coastline, with cliffs rising all around it. Both landing stages are marked, east and west, on the south side of the island, along with the siting of the cranes which must have been used to lift heavy tackle and supplies ashore. Paths lead up from each to converge almost in the centre of the island, before heading on up to the lighthouse itself. A helicopter landing pad is marked to the right of the path, which leads me to assume that service engineers must be brought to and from the island by helicopter. I am surprised to see a ‘Chapel’ marked on the map, just below the lighthouse, and I wonder who must have lived here once, long enough to have built a place of worship.
    Bran pads through to sit beside my chair and look up at me, then pushes my elbow with his snout, in search of my hand. I ruffle his head absently, and stroke behind his ears. My boat has gone, God knows where. And I wonder how I will get out there.

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    The harbour at Rodel is deserted as I drive down from the church and park in front of the hotel. There are a couple of other vehicles there, but not a soul in sight. I have no idea where Coinneach lives, and wander along the quay to the boat I saw him climb out of yesterday. It is a Sea Ray 250 Sundancer powerboat with a 454 Magnum Alpha One engine. I seem to know every little detail about it, although I am not sure how. It is a sleek beast, white with purple trim, and a plastic cowling that can be mounted to shelter the driver in bad weather. Though it would not, I know, last long in the winds it would encounter around these coasts. This is a fair-weather boat.
    I am turning away when I hear my name called, and I swing back to see Coinneach emerging from below, climbing the couple of steps to the left of the driver’s seat, and straightening himself with palms pressed into his lower back. ‘On your own today?’ he says.
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘So what brings you back to Rodel when your boat’s up at Uig?’ And something about the way he says this makes me think that he didn’t believe a word of Sally’s story yesterday.
    ‘I was wondering if I could borrow yours.’
    He laughs, and his amusement seems genuine enough. ‘I’m not in business for the good of your health, Neal. But I’ll rent you one. Where are you going?’
    ‘The Flannan Isles.’
    He frowns and looks up at the sky. ‘Well . . . it’s fair enough now, alright, but