Chapter 20
TWENTY
I’m afraid that I know exactly where Sasha is.
It occurs to me once more that, for all his humble apologies and need to make amends, Ade may have organised this whole thing to enjoy a fling with a married woman.
Of course, I’m not about to tell her husband that.
I put on some sensible clothes, then we wake Ryan and Clara, but there’s no sign of Jake in his room.
“They’ll be together somewhere having a chat,” I tell Tom in the corridor as we wait for the others to get changed. I don’t necessarily believe what I’m saying. Sasha and Jake were never really friends despite spending two years of their lives at the same address.
Tom doesn’t believe me either way. “If that’s the case, then where are they?”
“Is there any reason to think the worst?” Ryan asks as he steps from his room, still doing up the belt on his trousers. An efficient crew member has left life jackets on hooks beside our doors. I’ve already made sure that Tom put his on, and now I do the same for Ryan.
Tom isn’t thinking straight. He can’t deal with what’s happening, so he focuses on Sasha and starts with the basics that he’s already told me. “There was a knock on the door to our suite. I think it was twenty minutes ago, but I’m all mixed up in time.”
“It’s okay, Tom,” I promise him, feeling all the sympathy that the man deserves. “Let’s just take things slowly. Ryan can go to the bridge and ask the captain what we should do. The rest of us can keep searching for Sasha. If we find any other members of staff, we’ll get them to help.”
This is a plan. It’s not necessarily a great one, but it’s clear enough for Tom to follow.
“Look out for Jake too,” I tell Ryan, who is already putting it into practice. “You were together when you left the lounge. Do you know where he went?”
He is about to turn off the corridor to head upstairs. “He was in a bad mood and went off on his own.”
Clara looked frightened when we woke her and has now gone full mouse. “So we have to worry about him too. I can’t take it.” I hand her a life jacket, as it’s the only thing I can think of to calm her down.
Her panicking has made Tom even more agitated, so I try to get us going again. “Like I said, they’re probably just having a drink somewhere and reminiscing. We’ll find them.”
I take Tom’s arm to help him along. His movements are still too slow, and though I’m not a doctor and know little about addiction, it’s clear that alcohol withdrawal has left its mark on him.
“The cinema: they could have gone there,” I say to give us some hope and, rather than heading to the upper deck, we drop down a floor.
“Sasha loves films,” her husband replies in a broken voice. The words are a crutch to help him along, and he walks a little quicker than before.
When we get to the cinema, it doesn’t surprise me that there’s no film playing and no one inside. It’s just as Jake and I found it that afternoon. There’s nothing to say anyone has been in there. Even the empty popcorn bags and stray kernels have been cleaned up by a member of the crew.
Back outside, the wind is so fierce and the rain so sharp that Tom has to hold on to the railing and narrow his eyes. “This can’t be happening. It can’t. I can’t do this without her.”
Clara puts her arm around him, though I doubt he notices.
“Okay.” I’ve adopted a calm, efficient manner, but it’s just an act.
“Why don’t you two find the staff room downstairs – there’s bound to be one, and it isn’t so late that they will have gone to sleep.
I’ll keep looking while you ready the troops!
” I have never used this phrase in my life and doubt I ever will again, but the confidence with which it is delivered does the job.
“Thank you, Bridge. You’re a good friend.” Tom is on the point of crying, though his face is still wet from the storm, and any tears would blend right in.
I shoot Clara a frown to show that I’m sorry for dumping him on her, and we head in opposite directions. I couldn’t leave Tom on his own, and I’m not sure that Clara will be the one to scour the ship for our missing friends, so this is the best option.
I circle the deck, trying the gym, the library and a few small lounges, but there’s no sign of either of them. I’m fairly certain that Sasha went up to Ade’s room when her husband was asleep to relive whatever they got up to last night. How Jake fits into that scenario, I can’t tell you.
I walk up to the master suite, wondering whether Sasha and Ade were carrying on behind Tom’s back the whole time we knew one another.
It suddenly makes sense to me that Dawn wouldn’t be here this week if that was the case.
She was always Sasha’s confidante. Maybe she couldn’t stand the thought of seeing them together again.
To add to the drama of secret affairs and two missing passengers, the storm makes my task even more difficult.
The rain stings my face as I fight my way up the stairs.
I don’t dare look at the ocean – the thought of my friends falling overboard sends a jolt of panic through me.
The idea that the last time Jake saw me I was cuddling Ade makes it even worse.
I can hear the roaring waves, and a high whistle as the wind attacks one of the spinning turbines at the very highest point of the top deck.
I don’t have waterproof clothes, but I’m happy I packed so badly because my chunky leather boots don’t slide around as I walk.
Another conclusion is that Sasha had no such sensible footwear and has slipped silently into the ocean.
For this reason, I’d much prefer her to be off bonking one of our friends.
“Ade, we need you now!” I call as I bang on his door.
I will him to appear with that guilty look on his face.
I know it so well, and I know it will be impossible to hold anything against him when I see it.
I think even Tom might forgive Ade for sleeping with his wife when those dimples show up and he looks all coy.
“What’s the matter?” he asks as he slides the door across. I can see that the bed is still made and there’s no one else there.
“We can’t find Sasha or Jake. No one’s seen them for half an hour.”
The shock of this statement takes some time to reach him – or perhaps that’s just what he wants me to think. “The last time I saw them was with you in the lounge.”
He is still fully dressed. There are papers on the rollout desk in the corner and, as everything else is so neat in there, I can only assume he has been writing.
“I don’t care if she’s in here with you.” A small burden is removed as I tell him what I saw. “I know you were together last night, but Tom is already half out of his mind. In the state that he’s in, he might end up doing something dangerous.”
He opens his eyes wider and gazes down at me. “Bridget, I’m telling the truth. She’s not in here. And whatever you saw last night wasn’t what you thought.” I hesitate for a moment, and he quickly adds, “You can come in and look for her if you want.”
I don’t know whether I believe him, and it would be stupid not to check.
“You don’t deny that you slept with her once,” I say, to maintain my stern attitude as I look in the wardrobe and under the bed.
“Do we really have to talk about that?” He stands back against the wall, like a criminal trying to show a police officer that he’s co-operating.
“I saw you together last night.” It feels good to say it, but when he doesn’t answer, I find my earlier theory even more credible. “I think it went on longer in London than the rest of us knew and Dawn found out. I’m guessing that was why she didn’t want to live with you in the third year.”
He looks sorry for himself, but won’t reply, and so I concentrate on finding Sasha. The door to the bathroom is closed. I stalk across to it, and once again find myself hoping that she is an adulterer: a living, breathing cheat.
But when I open the door, there’s nothing to find but a rolltop bath and a waterfall shower. There’s not so much as a pair of knickers or a misplaced shoe there, and whatever hope I’d had retreats.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Ade when I return to his room. “I had to be sure. I just…”
There’s a brief stillness before he offers some small revelation. “Sasha is very unhappy in her life. I didn’t take advantage of her.” This doesn’t really tell me what happened, but before I can ask anything more, he speaks again. “There are flashlights somewhere. Come with me.”
He grabs a waterproof sailor’s jacket from his cupboard and throws it on over his sleek black outfit.
On stepping outside, I can already hear people calling for Sasha.
Her name is so distorted by the wind that it’s easy to imagine that sirens are calling her to visit them in the suffocating depths of the ocean.
We loop around to take the stairs up to the bridge deck, which I haven’t explored before.
There’s a cupboard at the top and Ade hands me a coat of my own and one of those gigantic torches that are like portable floodlights.
As we stand there, Ryan comes out to speak to us, and it suddenly occurs to me that, though the ship is still rocking about, we’re not gliding through the water as we were.
“The chief officer has cut the engines until we decide whether we need to double back.”
Ade nods distractedly, then grabs the same supplies for Ryan before turning to descend the stairs. When we reach the wider deck below, we switch on our beams, and Ade directs his down the side of the ship in case… in case the simplest and saddest solution is the right one.
I point mine up at the top decks and instantly spot a figure there. I guess Jake’s a secret Titanic fan. He’s standing on the highest level of the ship with his arm wrapped around a metal cable and the other outstretched like Kate Winslet in the movie.
“You idiot,” I shout up to him, even as the relief that he’s alive runs through me, “you could fall to your death.”
He doesn’t hear me at first, so I point the torch right in his face to get his attention.
Two-million candle power has its uses after all, and he glares down at me.
I’ve never seen someone look drowned without going underwater before, but the wind and the rain and the still lurching vessel don’t seem to bother him.
“Get up here!” His voice sounds like it’s coming from miles away. “It’s fun!”
Ade has heard and comes to stand next to me. “Jake, stop being so dumb.” He highlights the path down with the torch and then waggles it about to show that he’s angry.
The yacht’s main floodlight clicks on, illuminating a swathe of the sea before us.
For a moment, Jake looks like a weary old sailor on a galleon.
Still holding onto the rigid cable, he leans further out and makes a face like he’s about to fall.
Ade mutters something rude, and I release a held breath when Jake finally does the sensible thing and drops down to the level below.
Ryan is further along the deck, helplessly shining his torch into any corner where Sasha might be hiding. There are crew members searching too, and something about the way they move – listlessly, almost resignedly – makes me want to speed up the search.
I jog as fast as I can across the helipad without falling over. I have one thought, one hope that might make things better, and I walk to the very back of the ship with Ade and Jake at my heels. The stairs here are chained off when the Tanis is in motion, but it’s simple enough to get down.
I have a vision in my head of Sasha going there to reflect on the events of the last couple of days, but when we point our beams at the dive platform where we’d swum, there’s no one to be seen.
The picture changes, and I imagine her falling into the water.
I see her waving her arms helplessly as we motor away into the night before her panic drags her beneath the waves.
I can’t summon the courage to go any further, so Jake ducks under the chain and down the two flights of stairs to look in the beach club just as Clara and Tom arrive alongside me.
“We’re still looking,” I whisper to her so that Tom doesn’t hear.
There’s none of his usual smarm or smugness left. He looks like a man who is slowly transforming into a beast. He is part golem, part troll. Though his shoulders are hunched, he seems entirely unaware of the rain that is falling, and his gaze is devoid of hope.
“There’s no one here,” Jake calls from below, and my heart feels like it wants to give up beating.