Chapter 29
TWENTY-NINE
He pulls on a thick, rubberised jacket and looks in a wardrobe for one for me before we head outside. The rain isn’t as fierce as before, but the boat is still unsteady, and the waves are immense.
“That was Clara on the phone,” Ade says, but he’s ahead of me and I can barely hear him. “They tried to look in on Bridget. There’s a mattress up against the door, so she must be asleep inside.”
This calms the little voice in my head that reminds me that I left her to fend for herself, but there are other questions still bothering me. “Where did they go after that?”
“Ryan’s still with Tom, but Clara left to get help.”
We drop down a floor, clinging to the railing as we go, and for a moment, I think that Ade will twist and fall overboard as the back of the boat suddenly dips.
He steadies himself and makes out that it was no big deal. “She said he was acting crazy, which is really no news, but she sounded scared.”
We cut into the centre of the boat to find a metal switchback staircase, which is far more utilitarian than anything I’ve seen on the higher decks.
I guess this should already tell me that we’re heading to the underbelly of the Tanis, where only workers reside.
With this thought in mind, it’s not actually as bad down here as I imagined.
Though less plush than upstairs, there’s plenty to entertain the crew, who make this place their home for months on end.
I notice another gym, a reading room and even a less luxurious cinema.
More important right now is the sound of voices carrying down the metal corridor to us.
“How long are we going to have this conversation?” I hear Tom demand. He is the drunkest sober man I have ever met, and I reflect again on what must be happening to his body as it seeks out the alcohol it has been denied.
“Long enough for you to change your mind!” Ryan shouts back, his voice tinny as it bounces off the walls.
We pass storerooms, the laundry, and a large kitchen before turning a corner to get a glimpse of what’s happening. Tom is standing in front of the door at the end of the passageway. He has a metal bar in his hand and is shaking it at Ryan as he steps closer.
“That’s the crew mess,” Ade mutters as he increases his pace to intervene. “What the hell are you doing?”
“This idiot called all the staff together in that room and locked them inside.”
“It’s the only safe option!” To say Tom is wild-eyed would be an understatement. They are red and somehow puffy, and he looks as though he’s been mainlining bleach. “Until we can say which of them hurt my Sasha, this is where they belong.”
“They have jobs to do,” Ade replies, which isn’t the argument I would have chosen. “How do you think this boat stays looking the way it does? Half the crew works at night.”
“I don’t care. Let it look normal instead of pristine for a day. All I care about is not having my throat slit when I go to sleep.” Tom swings the bar through the air to remind us that he’s lost his mind.
“Come on, mate, we must be close to the point where Sasha went into the water,” I say to focus on something he might actually care about. “We’ll need the crew’s help to look for her.”
“I’m telling you; I don’t trust them. Skulking away down here like ants. It dehumanises people. That’s what caused all this.”
Ryan and I look at Ade in the hope he might know what to say. He doesn’t, but he gives it a go.
“You’re holding these people against their will.”
Tom straightens up a fraction and, smoothing his slick hair with his hand, says two words very proudly. “International… waters!”
We all stare back at him to show that this means nothing.
“No one has jurisdiction here. You can’t be prosecuted!”
Ryan’s laughter bursts along the corridor before coming to an abrupt stop. “You genuinely think you can commit any crime you like so long as you’re far enough from land?”
Tom looks away, as if we’re the ones spouting nonsense. “No one’s coming past me.”
As he says this, I feel the boat slowing down and the sound of the motor changing.
“We can’t leave them in there.” My voice is coloured by my disbelief. “Surely you know that?”
“They’ve got food and water. I’m only suggesting we lock them up until the rescue boats arrive.”
“Do you really think that anyone is coming for us in this storm?” Ryan normally seems pretty unshakable, but Tom’s twisted understanding of the world has changed that. “It could be days before anyone gets here.”
I can see that Ade is torn between doing what’s right and what’s easy, and I get a sense of what he’ll opt for even before he replies.
“Okay.” He shrugs, and the resistance drains from him. “Let’s go upstairs and concentrate on finding Sasha.”
Tom nods and breathes in deeply. I feel that he’s come back to his senses, just a little, but then he turns at the last second and uses the thick metal bar to smash the handle off the door.
I don’t know what this achieves. He presumably already has the key, but he seems happy with the gesture and walks towards us with a satisfied smile.
He shoulder-barges past me, which is a bit much as I was the one trying to sound reasonable.
Once he’s turned the corner, I assume that Ade will rescue his crew, but he goes straight after the madman.
I hear pounding from the mess, and a hand appears in the porthole, like in the after-credit sequence of a scary movie.
I should probably stop comparing everything to horror films, but if there is one moment in my life that deserves it, this is it.
“Ade!” I yell after him.
I don’t have anything to open the locked, broken door, and the look on Ryan’s face suggests he’s given up too.
“Tom has seriously gone insane,” he tells me.
“He called all the crew together very calmly, saying he wanted to talk to them about the rescue efforts, and then he flew into a rage and started waving that iron bar around. He made them stand at one end of the room and told us to get out. Clara ran off terrified, and to be honest, I felt the same.”
We walk a little faster to catch up with the others, and I try to put this into the perspective of a shockingly bad day.
“You know, it is possible that he’s locked them up down here because he doesn’t want anyone to find Sasha.
Maybe she was alive when she went into the water.
Maybe he’s the one who pushed her, and he realises that the more people there are on deck, the greater the chance we’ll find her. ”
Ryan doesn’t respond. The pumping muscle in his neck suggests that the experience has left his brain fried. All he can do is shake his head and mouth words, which I don’t catch but fully understand.
As we reach the helipad, the captain shouts down to Ade from the bridge. Clearly Tom’s master plan to cut us off from everyone has already failed, and I have to wonder whether there are other crew members about the place that he didn’t round up.
We take the big flashlights, and space out around the ship.
We each cover one side with Ade at the front and Ryan at the back.
I have zero hope of finding Sasha, but every few minutes the torch beam catches something in the bursting waves and, for the briefest moment, I imagine that I’ve spotted her.
The sea rolls and roils. It transforms itself with every shifting second as the spray turns into the shape of an arm or a leg only to disappear again, back into the depths.
The wind stings my face, and it feels as if the rain is actively trying to torment me, but I keep my eyes ahead. My torch beam glides from side to side so that it covers a perfect semi-circle over the water. I keep trying because there’s nothing else to do.
I’ve lost track of what time it is, and the night sky tells me nothing.
The stars are blotted out by cotton-wool clouds that have been dirtied by the sweat and tears and mascara of a big night out.
I don’t have a phone with me, and I don’t remember when I last saw a clock.
This ship is a casino – a timeless black hole.
I barely felt the cold when I was standing on the top deck, but now it infects me.
It runs through my body like an illness, and I shiver more with every passing minute.
At some point, Ade shouts a string of wind-stolen words to me and walks along the side of the boat.
I don’t see him for some time, and it’s tempting to head somewhere warm, but I stay at my post. It feels as if another hour has passed when he reappears and gives me permission to abandon the search.
“It’s impossible without the right kind of rescue equipment. We have dinghies and a tender, but leaving the Tanis would put us in too much danger. There was only ever a slim hope that we would find her. The captain will keep an eye out, but I think it’s time to stop.”
He drums his fingers on the ship’s wall.
It’s not the most mournful gesture, especially as we’re looking for a woman we had considered a friend.
I suppose we both have the feeling that she’s not coming back, and as we’ve already spent a decade mourning our lost friendships, it’s hard to feel Sasha’s absence as we should.
“Where’s Tom?” I ask when the sound of the wind and waves becomes unbearable.
“I couldn’t find him when I looked just now. Perhaps he walked around the boat as he searched.”
The unspoken understanding is that we’ll have to track him down again, so we move off to do just that.
Even though I’ve been staring at it for some time, I now realise that the sea has calmed a little.
It’s gone from stomach-churning to merely unpleasant, and I wonder if the storm is moving away from us, or we’ve sailed right through it.
It also makes me question whether the captain chose the best course earlier in the evening when the weather got bad.
I suddenly have a picture of Tom in court, suing Ade and the crew for his wife’s death.
That seems like the kind of thing he’d do.
Ade and I split up to cover the two parallel corridors.
I think of knocking on Bridget’s door, but I don’t want to disturb her if she’s sleeping, and the thought of Tom roaming the ship drives me on.
We haven’t seen Clara since she left Ade’s suite, and her room is dark, so I have to hope she’s hidden away safely somewhere.
I’m guessing from Ade’s silence that he hasn’t found Tom on his side, either, and we meet back up at the chained-off staircase that leads down to the beach club.
It feels so similar to the scene that played out earlier that I don’t question whether I will be the one to go down there.
I duck beneath the barrier and hurry to the open platform.
The ship tips, as it does whenever there is an opportune moment to scare its passengers, and I go sprawling forward.
I’m centimetres from falling into the ocean when the black anti-slip surface slows me down just enough to grab the railing at the edge.
“Are you all right?” Ade shouts to me, and I finally wonder why I’m the one down here and not him.
“Approximately.”
I pull myself up, first to my knees and then to standing. Even though my jeans are soaking wet, I brush my clothes off, as if this will make the slightest difference. I raise one hand to show Ade that I’m okay and then move towards the beach club.
The sliding door opens easily, and it’s dark inside.
I search for a light, but when I finally find the switch, it turns on everything in the room.
Jaunty tropical house music starts up, and two fluorescent flamingos on either side of the bar illuminate to give the place a seedy glow.
There’s no one sitting on the long cream cushions that cover the benches, but the last time I was here, they were spotless.
There are dirty red stains on them now, which are made all the more lurid by that unnatural light.
I move more tentatively, afraid of what might be in there with me.
I see a huddled form in the shadows at the foot of the bar, but it turns out to be a footstool with an abandoned towel on top of it.
My movements are limited by the fear that travels through me.
I step forward with my right leg then bring the left in line with it – drawing out what could have been a five-second journey so that it lasts and lasts.
My heart is faster than any drum roll Mick used to play.
It’s like a drill in my ear and, laid on top of it, my breath sounds unusually loud and ragged.
They are two instruments in a tightly knit band, and my heavy footsteps round out the trio.
When I get to the bar, I hesitate to go any further.
I can see more stains on the floor, but I don’t know whether I have the courage to take the final step.
I’m terrified that it’s Bridget or Clara lying there, and it suddenly feels as if I spent too long in the jacuzzi and the skin across my body has shrunk.
There’s a crash as a wave breaks over the dive platform, and it spurs me into life.
I only need to move a few more inches to get a glimpse of the body, but it’s the hardest step I will ever take.
When I finally manage it, the face I see is bleached with neon pink to complement the pool of red around it.
Poor Ryan, I think. He should never have been here in the first place.