Catherine Steadman - Something in the Water - A Novel

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.