By dawn, the storm has passed.
We wake in our suite to the usual gentle tapping of room service. The only evidence of the storm is the occasional loose palm frond, floating past in the lagoon, and our own hoarse voices.
I haven’t slept so well in years. After breakfast Mark goes to have a chat with the hotel dive coordinator. Mark wants us to go diving this afternoon. He’s going to see if we can go under our own steam. He and the dive coordinator seemed to hit it off pretty well yesterday, so I leave Mark to it and stay behind.
I promise Mark I won’t do any work, but the moment he’s out the door I’ve got my laptop open. There are emails from everyone. Wedding stuff mostly. But I’m looking for work emails, news about the project. I find one.
Holloway Prison has emailed about Holli.
There are new details about her release date. It’s been moved forward. It’s now set for September 12. Two days from today. Damn. It wasn’t supposed to be until after we were back.
I fire off a couple of emails to Phil, my cameraman, and Duncan, the sound guy; we’ll need to go to Holli’s house to interview her as soon as I’m back. It’s not ideal but we need the footage as fast as we can get it after she’s out. I also remind them of our Alexa-release filming dates. She’ll be getting out a couple of days after I get back, so there’s a little more prep time on that.
Another email catches my eye. It’s from Pentonville Prison this time. Eddie’s release date is set. My interview with him is penciled in for one week after we return.
And then there is a knock on the door. Odd. Mark has a key, why is he knocking? He’s up to something. I smile to myself as I head for the door and pull it open dramatically.
A tiny Polynesian woman stands in the doorway, smiling.
“Special gift. You take!” She beams up at me and proffers a misted ice bucket containing a bottle of very expensive-looking chilled champagne.
“Oh, no, sorry, we didn’t order—” I begin, but she shakes her tiny crinkly head slyly.
“No. Special gift. Gift from friend. Marriage gift. Yes!” She grins.
Well, that does make sense, I suppose. A gift from Fred and Nancy? Or Caro, maybe?
She nods at me to take it and for some reason I bow slightly as I take the bucket from her. Some unconscious nod to cultural respect, I suppose. I really shouldn’t be allowed out of the house sometimes. She giggles merrily, waves her little hand, and wanders back toward the hotel.
Inside the room, I place the bucket carefully on the glass coffee table. Beads of condensation drip down its sides. There is a note. I open up the thick card and read.
To Mrs. Erin Roberts,
Congratulations on the nuptials, sweetheart. Took the liberty of sending you a little gift. A nice Dom Pérignon 2006. Used to be the wife’s favorite. God knows we’ve had our differences over the years but she’s got taste, I’ll give her that. After all, she married me.
Anyway, I wish the best for you both now and in the future. Make sure he treats you right. Enjoy yourself, sweetheart.
Oh and apologies for the call the other week, I wasn’t able to speak freely at the time. But we’ll talk again very soon.
I heard they’ve sent you my release date. So we’re all set. Looking forward to meeting you in two weeks. I won’t waste any more of your time now. Get back out in that lovely sunshine.
Best Wishes,
Eddie Bishop
Dom Pérignon 2006. How the hell did he do that? He knows exactly where I am, what island I’m on, what room we’re in, everything. But then, I already knew he was keeping tabs on me, didn’t I? But this? This is creepy.
If I think it through logically, what does it mean? It means Eddie found out where we were staying and phoned the hotel to order us a bottle. He could have found out anywhere. It wasn’t as if I was keeping our honeymoon destination secret. Anyone interested could have figured it out without too much trouble. In a way, it’s kind of sweet. Isn’t it? Or is it meant to be a threat? Whatever Eddie’s intention, benign or malevolent, I decide not to tell Mark. He’d only worry.
I hear footsteps along the walkway outside and pop the card into my pocket. I’ll get rid of it later. I grab my laptop off the sofa where I left it just as Mark enters.
I’m caught out. He smiles. “You’re working, aren’t you?”
I shrug, noncommittal, and slip the laptop into a drawer.
“Nope.”
Mark’s arranged a boat and diving gear for this afternoon. It’ll be ready for us on the dock after lunch. Apparently the storm has made underwater visibility around the island quite bad, so the hotel dive instructor, Mark’s new best friend, has given him the GPS coordinates of a great wreck a bit farther away. The visibility should be good out there. It’s near an island about an hour out by motorboat. Mark’s got a skipper’s license from a gap year crewing yachts in the Mediterranean, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for him to get us there. The hotel has even suggested we take a picnic and moor around the island after our dive. It’s uninhabited, so we won’t need to worry about disturbing anyone.
I’m pretty excited. A desert island to ourselves.
The trip out is slightly unnerving in the sense that once Bora Bora disappears from sight there is nothing else. Nothing in any direction but blue. I now understand how sailors used to go mad at sea. It’s like snow blindness. If it weren’t for the dot on the GPS moving steadily toward the destination pin, I’d swear we were going around endlessly in giant looping circles.
An hour out we see the island we’re heading toward breaching the waves on the far horizon ahead. Which means it’s about three miles away. The horizon is always approximately three miles away from you when viewed at sea level. Good to know, isn’t it?
The wreck we’re after today is just northwest of the island. It’s at a depth of only twenty meters, which Mark promises I’ll be fine with. “Technically, you’re not supposed to go below eighteen meters. So we’ll be sticking to around twenty meters on this holiday, okay? Trust me, honey, you won’t automatically explode if you go two meters over your max today; the limit is only meant to be a guideline really. Twenty meters will be absolutely fine. And I’ll be right there with you. Okay?” he reassures me. I know he’s certified to go down to twice that depth.
A pink sun-bleached buoy bobbing in the waves marks the wreck site. We drop anchor a safe distance away.
As we’re suiting up, Mark glances over at me, a shadow crossing his face.
“Erin, honey? Just to give you a heads-up. There are supposed to be a lot of sharks out here, sweetheart.”
I literally stop breathing.
He laughs at my expression.
“It’s fine! I’m going to be completely honest, okay? I’m going to tell you exactly what’s in there, honey, so you know. All right?”
I nod. I couldn’t speak if I wanted to.
He continues. “You know those blacktip sharks they’ve got in the lagoon, right? The ones we saw the other day?”
I nod.
He goes on, his voice smooth and reassuring. “The blacktip reef sharks, you’re fine with them; they’re perfectly friendly, aren’t they? They don’t bite people. And they’re not that big, relatively speaking—they’re only the same size as a person, so…not the biggest shark, but then again they’re definitely not fish-sized anymore. They’re fine, though. You with me so far, Erin?”
I nod again. When I first saw a blacktip shark in the lagoon on Monday, while we were snorkeling, I almost had an aneurysm. They look absolutely terrifying. But he’s right, after the initial shock I was fine with them. They didn’t bother us at all.
“Well, there’ll be lots of them,” he continues.
Great…
“And there might be quite a lot of lemon sharks too. Lemon sharks are around three and a half meters long—that’s about the length of a hatchback car. They don’t tend to hurt people but…they are three and a half meters long. Just so you’re aware.”
Wow. Okay. They’re big.
“They’re fine, Erin, trust me. But, just to be on the safe side…They don’t like anything shiny, like watches, jewelry, that kind of thing, so—”
I hastily remove both my rings and thrust them at him.
“What else is in there, Mark?” I brace myself.
He takes the rings. “There’s a chance that there might be gray reef sharks…two meters.”
Fine.
“Whitetip sharks, silvertips…three meters.”
Fine.
“And…stingray? Maybe…”
Fine too, they’re like the manta rays in the lagoon but smaller.
“And turtles,” he continues.
Lovely, love them.
“And, maybe, but probably not—and, you know, even if we do see them then don’t worry, they’ll keep their distance, it’ll be fine—but there might be tiger sharks.”
Oh. My. God.
Even I know about these. These are real sharks. Big sharks. Four to five meters long.
I’m really not sure about this dive now. I look at Mark. He looks at me, just the sound of lapping waves against the boat’s hull. He laughs.
“Erin? Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” I say, reluctantly.
“They might come toward you but they will not hurt you, okay?” He holds my gaze.
“Okay.” I nod. Okay.
Just breathe. That’s all you need to do, I tell myself. Breathe. It’s just like the pool. It’ll be just like the pool.
We finish suiting up and slip into the water. It’s nice buddy-checking with Mark again. Safe. Plus he’s pretty easy on the eyes. He holds my look. Are you okay?
I nod. I am okay.
Then we slip beneath the water. We descend slowly. My eyes are glued to Mark; I follow every hand signal, every move. And then he points, and I see it.
I could glimpse the wreck through the water from up in the boat, but now that we’re under the waves I can see it crystal clear ahead of us. We descend. As my eyes adjust to the light I start to notice fish, darting about our bubbles as they rise back to the surface. I follow a parting fish with my eyes and see it join a shoal, under the shadow of the speedboat, a column of twisting and turning silver.
I look back to Mark. He’s controlling our descent, nice and slow. No sudden moves. He’s looking after me, his face angled down at his wrist computer, his expression one of intense concentration. We hit five meters and pause for a check. Mark signals Okay?
Okay, I signal. We’re doing fine.
He signals to continue the descent. He’s doing this so completely by the book that I can’t help grinning behind my regulator mouthpiece. I’m in good hands.
I look down and see coral on some rocky outcrops a good five meters below us. I look back up. The surface is nearly ten meters away now, dancing brightly above us.
I look to Mark. Suspended in blue. Outside of time. He looks to me and smiles.
We sink. A movement in my periphery view. Not an object, but a change in color depth just beyond my field of vision.
I turn my head and focus hard into the blurred blue beyond us. Straining my eyes to see through the shaded water. Then I see them. They’re all around us. They come into focus one by one. With each, my heart skips a beat. The fizz of adrenaline shoots through my veins. The water is full of them. Arcing in great loops over the wreck, and out around the reef. Their hulking bodies hanging weightlessly in the blue-green air around us. Fins, gills, mouths, teeth. Gliding like ocean liners. Sharks. So many sharks. What type they are doesn’t seem relevant to my central nervous system, which has taken over.
I’m not breathing. My muscles are frozen, like that nightmare where you can’t scream. I look to Mark. His eyes are flicking over them fast; he’s assessing the threat.
I manage to lift my hand, terrified the movement will draw their attention. I signal Okay? my forearm trembling beyond my control.
Mark lifts a hand. Wait. His eyes scanning the waters around us.
I look up. Fifteen meters up. Breathe, Erin! Fucking breathe. I draw in deep. Cool, crisp tank air. Exhale slow and calm. I watch my bubbles escape up to the surface.
Good. Good work, Erin.
Mark turns to me in the water. Okay.
It’s okay.
He smiles.
My whole body relaxes. They’re all fine. We’re fine.
I look out to them. It’s vaguely reminiscent of wandering into a field full of cattle. The size. The vague worry that they might at any instant turn on you. Come at you.
Then I notice their fins. The fin tips aren’t black or silver or anything. They are gray. The perspective is hard to judge; I can’t tell how far away they are. But they’re big. They’re really big. Gray reef sharks.
They know we’re here. They can see us. But it’ll be okay. They won’t come for us. They won’t attack. It’s okay.
We continue our descent.
We pass a huge school of yellow and silver fish, six feet high and densely packed.
When we reach the bottom, Mark signals to follow him toward the wreck. It’s not too far ahead of us now along the ocean floor. It comes out of the haze and into sharper focus as we fin toward it.
I look up at the school of fish and sharks above us. A wall of fish, a cathedral wall of fish, suspended in the clear water above us. Wow.
I look over to Mark. He sees it too. Without a word, he reaches through the water and takes my gloved hand in his.
After the dive we lunch on the empty island, bringing the boat as close to shore as we can. We peel off our suits and swim naked in the shallows, sunbathe on the empty sand. It’s getting late by the time we climb back on the boat and set off toward Bora Bora.
Mark stands over the wheel, gaze focused on the middle distance. It might take us longer than an hour to get back to the hotel at this time of day. The wind whipping my hair over my eyes coupled with my exhausted limbs makes it almost impossible to stay awake as we bump along the waves. The flashing green circle on the GPS creeps toward the red one. My eyelids begin to droop.
I’m not sure if I dozed off, but when I open my eyes the speedboat motor is changing tone and we’re slowing. I look up at Mark. We’re not back in Bora Bora yet. There’s nothing there, just ocean stretching miles in every direction. And then I see what he sees.
In the water all around us. Paper. Sheets of white paper.
We’re approaching their source, a circle of papers about ten meters wide: I can’t tell what they were, magazines, forms, or documents, because the ink has run across the pages, dark and illegible now. The papers stick to the surface of the waves like a film of skin.
Mark glances at me. What is this? We can see to the horizon on all sides. Nothing but blue.
Garbage, maybe? We stop in its center. Our boat is in the eye of a giant circle of floating papers. Mark cuts the engine. In its way, it’s beautiful. Like a modern art installation floating in the middle of the South Pacific. I reach over the side of the boat and fish out a wet page from the water. The writing dissolves before my eyes as I lift it toward me, the ink running and swirling across the wet white. Who knows what it said. It can’t have been that important, though, to end up here. Can it?
Maybe it was the storm that brought it here? I study the swirls of illegible black running across the white pages. If it was important, it’s not now.
Mark and I share a glance, the silence thick around us. It’s eerie. Suddenly I have this crazy idea that we died. Maybe we died and this is purgatory. Or a dream.
The silence is broken by a thunk against the side of the boat. And another. Thunk. Thunk. The waves are knocking something repeatedly into the side of the hull. We look toward the noise; whatever it is, we can’t see it over the rim. Thunk, thunk. Mark frowns at me.
I shrug. I don’t know. I don’t know what it is either.
But there’s something in his demeanor, something in the set of his shoulders, that makes my blood freeze. Something bad is happening. Mark thinks something very bad is happening.
Thunk, thunk. Insistent now. Thunk, thunk. Mark steps toward the noise. Thunk thunk. He braces himself against the boat, arms spread, then he inhales sharply and leans over the side.
He doesn’t move now. Thunk thunk. He’s looking down at whatever it is, frozen. Thunk thunk. And then he shifts, and he ever so carefully lowers a hand overboard. It disappears from view. Thunk thu—
With a grunt Mark heaves a waterlogged object onto the deck between us. It lands with a wet suck on the floor. A few bits of soggy paper stick to it. We stand and stare at it. It’s a black canvas duffel bag just under a meter in length. It’s too big for a gym bag but too small for a holiday suitcase.
It’s clearly good quality but there don’t seem to be any labels, no writing. Mark bends to inspect it. No tag. No handy address label. He looks for the zip, hidden black on black, and finds it. The zip is padlocked to the fastening of the bag by a matte black combination lock. Huh.
Okay. Obviously valuable. It’s obviously not garbage, right? Mark glances up at me.
Should he try to open it?
I nod.
He tries to force the zipper, padlock and all. It won’t budge. He tries again.
He looks up. I shrug. I want to open it too but…
He tries the fabric around the zip. Pulls at it. It doesn’t give. He partially lifts the bag as he wrestles with it, the wet fabric smacking against the fiberglass deck as he struggles.
The bag has things in it. I can make out hard, angular shapes moving around inside as Mark tries to force a way in. He stops abruptly.
“Maybe we should wait,” Mark says. His voice is taut, concerned. “Whoever owns it definitely doesn’t want anyone getting into it. Right?”
I guess not. But the allure of finding out what’s inside is pretty fucking strong right now. He’s right, though. He’s definitely right. It’s not ours to open, is it?
“Can I?” I gesture toward it.
I just want to hold it, feel it. Maybe I’ll know what’s in it by weight, by shape. Like a Christmas present.
“Sure, go ahead.” He stands back, giving me room.
“It’s heavier than it looks,” he adds, just as I lift the handles. And it is. Deceptively heavy. I pick it up slowly and it hangs around my calves. Wet and weighted. It feels like…It feels like…
I drop it immediately and it hits the fiberglass with a familiar thunk. Mark stares at me. Shakes his head.
“It’s not.” He knows what I’m thinking.
“It’s not, Erin. They’d have eaten it. They’d have smelled it and eaten it. Especially the grays. It’s not,” he insists, but it’s the way he says it. I know he was thinking it too.
Of course he’s right, if it was a body the sharks would have had it by now. It’s not organic; it’s just some things in a bag.
Probably just someone’s business accounts or something, judging by all the paper around. Maybe some dodgy bookkeeping. Just accounting, at the end of the day. I’m sure it’s really not that interesting. Right? Just some stuff in a bag.
In a padlocked bag, Erin. Floating in the middle of the South Pacific. Surrounded by ten meters of illegible papers.
“What should we do?” I ask. “Should we even do anything? Should we put it back in the water and just leave it?”
Mark looks at his watch. It’s getting late now; the sun will be setting in the next half hour or so and we’ve still got a forty-five-minute journey back. I do not want to be out in the middle of nowhere when it gets dark. Mark doesn’t either.
“We need to get going. I’ll note the coordinates and we’ll take the bag back with us. Hand it in or something. Okay, Erin? We let someone know about this mess. Whatever happened here.” He finds a pad and pencil in a locker under the seat. Jots down the location on the GPS.
I look out across the water at the papers, searching for some other clue to what this strange situation could be. But there’s just that familiar blue, all around. Nothing else bobbing in the water. Nothing drifting on the waves. Just paper and blue. I turn back to Mark.
“Yes, okay. We’ll hand it in at the hotel and they can sort it out.” I sit back down.
It’s none of our business really. Someone probably just dumped it.
Mark turns back to the wheel and we’re off again. Speeding back toward the hotel and dinner. I watch the bag slide across the decking and lodge under a seat.
I curl up on the bench cushions behind Mark and put on his sweater, pulling the sleeves down over my cold hands. Hair whipping across my face, I close my eyes.