“Go to bed, Ben,” I said, very weary, and very sober. He stood in the doorway a moment longer, just a millisecond too long, long enough for me to wonder, with a shift in my stomach that echoed the shifting sea, what I would do if he didn’t go. What I’d do if he shut the door and turned around and came back into the room. But then he turned and went, and I locked the door after him and then collapsed onto the sofa with my head in my hands.
At long last, I don’t know how much later, I got up, poured myself a whiskey from the minibar, and drank it down in three long gulps like medicine. I shuddered, wiped my mouth, and peeled off my dress, leaving it coiled on the floor like a sloughed-off skin.
I stripped off my bra, stepped out of the sad little pile of clothes, and then fell into bed and into a sleep so deep, it felt like drowning.
I don’t know what woke me up—only that I shot into consciousness as if someone had stabbed me in the heart with a syringe of adrenaline. I lay there rigid with fear, my heart thumping at about two hundred beats per minute, and I scrabbled for the soothing phrases I’d repeated to Ben just a few hours before.
You’re fine, I told myself. You’re completely safe. We’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean—no one can get in or away. It’s about the safest place you could possibly be.
I was clutching the sheets with a rigor mortis–like grip, and I forced my stiff fingers to relax and flexed them slowly, feeling the pain in my knuckles subside. I concentrated on breathing in . . . and out. In . . . and out. Slow and steady, until at last my heart followed suit, and I could no longer feel its frantic pounding in my chest.
The drumming in my ears subsided. Apart from the rhythmic shush of the waves, and the low engine hum that permeated every part of the vessel, I couldn’t hear anything.
Shit. Shit. I had to get a grip.
I couldn’t self-medicate with booze every night for the rest of this trip, not without sabotaging my career and flushing any chance of advancement at Velocity down the drain. So that left—what? Sleeping pills? Meditation? None of that seemed much better.
I rolled over and switched on the light and checked my phone: 3:04 a.m. Then I refreshed my e-mail. There was nothing from Judah, but I was too wide-awake now to go back to sleep. I sighed and picked up my book instead, lying splayed like a broken-backed bird on the bedside table, and opened it to the last page I’d read.
But although I tried to concentrate on the words, something niggled at the corner of my mind. It wasn’t just paranoia. Something had woken me up. Something that left me jumpy and strung out as a meth addict. Why did I keep thinking of a scream?
I was turning the page when I heard something else, something that barely registered above the sound of the engine and the slap of the waves, a sound so soft that the scrape of paper against paper almost drowned it out.
It was the noise of the veranda door in the next cabin sliding gently open.
I held my breath, straining to hear.
And then there was a splash.
Not a small splash.
No, this was a big splash.
The kind of splash made by a body hitting water.
JUDAH LEWIS
24 September at 8.50am
Hey, guys, bit concerned about Lo. She hasn’t checked in for a few days since she left on a press trip. Anyone heard from her? Getting kinda worried. Cheers.
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LISSIE WIGHT Hi Jude! She messaged me on Sunday—20th I guess it must have been? Said the boat was amazing!
Like · Reply?24 September at 9.02am
JUDAH LEWIS Yeah, I heard from her then, too, but she didn’t reply to my e-mail or my text on Monday. And she hasn’t updated facebook or twitter, either.
Like · Reply?24 September at 9.03am
JUDAH LEWIS Anyone? Pamela Crew? Jennifer West? Carl Fox? Emma Stanton? Sorry if I’m tagging random people, I’m just—this is kind of out of character to be honest.
Like · Reply?24 September at 10.44am
PAMELA CREW She emailed me on Sunday, Jude love. Said the boat was lovely. Do you want me to ask her dad?
Like · Reply?24 September at 11.13am
JUDAH LEWIS Yes, please, Pam. I don’t want to worry you both, but I feel like she’d have made contact by now, normally. But I’m stuck here in Moscow, so I don’t know if she’s been trying to phone and not getting through.
Like · Reply?24 September at 11.21am
JUDAH LEWIS Pam, did she tell you the name of the boat? I can’t find it.
Like · Reply?24 September at 11.33am
PAMELA CREW Hi, Judah, sorry, I was on the phone to her dad. He’s not heard anything, either. The boat was the Aurora, apparently. Let me know if you hear anything. Bye love.
Like · Reply?24 September at 11.48am
JUDAH LEWIS Thanks, Pam. I’ll try the boat. But if anyone hears anything, please message me.
Like · Reply?24 September at 11.49am
JUDAH LEWIS Anything?
Like · Reply?24 September at 3.47pm
JUDAH LEWIS Please, guys, anything?
Like · Reply?24 September at 6.09pm
- CHAPTER 10 -