Rosie Thomas - Rosie Thomas 3-Book Collection - Moon Island, Sunrise, Follies

The shock of seeing her had made his throat tighten and his heart bang in his chest, but now he began to breathe again. It was not the first drowning he had seen, nor did he imagine it would be the last.

With cold fingers he replaced the pipe in his pocket and groped beneath the thwarts for his boathook. Gently he fed the pole down into the water and tried to twist the hook in the loose cloth of her shirt. But his hands were not yet steady and the hook snagged, then jerked free. The body sank a foot deeper and Doug grunted with despair. If she went down any more he would lose her.

He waited a moment, gripping the hook in his right hand and bracing himself to hold steady against the boat’s rocking. Prickly sweat had broken out on his forehead and under his flannel shirt. Once again he lowered the boathook and drew wheezy breaths clogged with concentration as he tried to take a secure purchase on the clothing. He twisted the hook sharply and hoisted the pole. This time the body rose sluggishly but obediently. Doug eased it slowly closer, bending as far as he dared to meet it. When it hung a foot below the surface he knelt down again and reached with his left hand to grasp her arm. He let go of the boathook and the woman rolled over as he pulled her wrist towards him. Her head, then her face, broke the surface. The gulls circled closer over the boat.

Water streamed off her, plastering dark tendrils of hair across her features. She was not much more than a child. Perhaps fourteen or fifteen years old. Her eyes were closed and her lashes made delicate black crescents against her white skin. He could see no fish or crab damage yet, so she couldn’t have been in the water very long. But there was no question that she was dead.

Doug looked away. His granddaughter was pretty much the same age as this one. The difference was that he saw to it Stacy never went near the water without her lifejacket, and still he sometimes had bad dreams.

He raked among the gear stowed under the seat and found a good length of strong line. The waterlogged body was heavy and he didn’t think he could haul her in over the gunwale single-handed. To make her secure and tow her into the harbour was the best he could hope to do. He tied her wrist first to a cleat. Then the body bumped awkwardly against the hull as he struggled to pass more line under her arms and at one point the boat rocked so fiercely that he was afraid they would capsize. He waited until it steadied again. Sweat ran down his face as he rolled her over and tightened his methodical knots around her chest.

A huge gull settled on the transom, its hooked beak pointing at him. He cursed briefly and waved his arm at it and the bird took off again. It drifted in an arc around the stern.

Doug saw the sailboat then. It was one of those lightweight fibreglass affairs the visitors liked to sail about the bay in, a Mirror dinghy or Heron, or some such thing. It had drifted into a narrow cleft in the rocks and now it was wedged there, banging its hull as the waves slapped against it. The mainsail flapped as the boom swung dismally from side to side.

It was more than possible that the girl hadn’t been out alone.

She was tied fast now. He checked the knots and let out a length of the line so that she would ride free of the rudder and outboard. Then he made the rope fast to the cleats inside the boat.

He pushed her away from the side, fired up the motor again and cast off from the mooring buoy. At low throttle he nosed towards the inlet. The weight behind him sagged in the water, as if greedy to pull him in beside it.

Doug Hanscom searched thoroughly among the rocks and weed. But there was no sign of anyone else, in the dinghy or in the water.

When he was convinced that the girl had been sailing alone he turned his boat again and made slow progress with the unaccustomed weight sloughing at his stern, back around the headland and into the mouth of the harbour.

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