Catherine Steadman - Something in the Water - A Novel

“Can we still hand it in?” I look up at Mark.

“Yeah, of course. We’ll just say we found it that way. It was in the sea, right?” He doesn’t seem concerned.

“If this hole is passable, would a slightly bigger hole be passable?” I hold his gaze.

He shrugs and chucks me the scissors from his bedside table.

“Knock yourself out,” he says, his attention drifting back to Attenborough.

But I don’t. I’m scared. I don’t know why. It seems wrong to open the bag.

But why? It’s just like finding a wallet, isn’t it? It’s all right to open the wallet and look at the stuff, find out who it belongs to. It’s only not all right if you take the stuff inside it. I don’t want to take the stuff inside. I just want to know. And that’s absolutely fine. It might help us return it. If we know whose it is.

So I take the scissors to the bag again and start to cut. After a while I wander out to the deck with it. There was a sharp knife out there on the food trolley earlier. I find it and force it into the small opening I’ve already made and start to saw. Inside I hear Mark turn on the shower.

I keep sawing until I can get one hand into the hole, and then I pull with all my strength, opening the tear in the fabric. The canvas rips apart with a long satisfyingly bass-y tear. I’m in. I turn to shout to Mark but he’s in the shower. Should I wait before I look?

No.

I tip the bag out onto the wooden decking and look down at the contents.

I blink. A long time passes.

I think about calling to Mark. But I don’t. I just look.

Four objects. The largest by far is the one I reach out for first. It’s bulky but much lighter than its size would suggest. This was what was keeping the bag afloat. Paper. Tightly packed paper. More specifically, paper money. A clear plastic vacuum-sealed package of money. American dollars. In bundles, each bundle labeled “$10,000” with a paper currency strap. Real money. Actual real money. Lots of it.

It hits me. Viscerally. My stomach flips and I run toward the bathroom, but, impeded by the sharp stabs in my foot, I find myself vomiting halfway through my dash across the room. I lurch to my knees, bracing against the floor as my stomach muscles heave beyond my control. Bile, thick pungent bile. Fear made visible. I moan as I struggle to catch my breath between retches.

We shouldn’t have opened the bag.

I wipe my mouth on the bedsheet and stumble to my feet. I limp back outside and squat down in front of it. I stare at the money; the tight vacuum packing has somehow managed to keep the water out, and although, obviously, that wasn’t its original purpose, I doubt if we’d have ever found the duffel bag otherwise.

The next item is a cloudy ziplock bag about the size of an iPad mini. It’s full of small pieces of something. Something broken, maybe broken glass. The salt water has gotten into this bag and misted the plastic so I can’t quite make out what’s inside it. I run back into the room and grab a towel. I squat back down and rub at the plastic but the fogginess is inside as well. I grab the scissors again and snip the corner of the baggie carefully. I tip the contents out onto the towel.

Diamonds tumble out before me. Beautifully cut and sparkling back at me in the sunlight. So many. I can’t judge the number. A hundred? Two hundred? They twinkle innocently in the sunlight. Mainly princess and marquise cut by the look of it, but I see some heart and pear cut in there too. I know my cuts, colors, and sizes of diamond. We looked at every possible permutation before Mark and I settled on the one in my ring. I look at my hand, my own ring glittering in the sunlight. They’re all about the same size. The same size as my stone. That means they’re all about two carats. Oh my God. I look down at the beautiful sparkling pile, my breath catching in my throat. The sun glinting colors off of them. There could be over a million pounds in diamonds here. Oh wow. Wow wow. Holy crap.

“Mark!” I call, slightly off key, slightly too loud.

“Mark! Mark, Mark, Mark.” My voice sounds weird; I hear it coming from me but don’t recognize it. I’m standing now.

He runs out of the bathroom bare-chested. My arm goes up and I point at the pile before me. His eyes follow my finger. But he can’t see past the crumpled empty bag on the decking.

“Oh, watch out for the vomit,” I shout. He dodges it and stares at me like I’ve gone insane, finally coming out to me in the sunshine, completely confused.

“What the—” Then he sees it. “Oh Jesus Christ! Bloody hell. Right. Bloody—Okay. Christ.”

He stares at me. I can read his face as clear as day.

“Jesus.”

—

He’s squatting down in front of it all, turning the packet of money over and over in his arms. He looks up at me.

“It could be a million. They’re ten-thousand-dollar packs,” he says, his eyes bright. He’s really excited.

Because, let’s be clear, this is really bloody exciting.

“I know. That’s what I thought. What about the other stuff?” I say quickly. I squat down beside him.

He pushes the diamonds around on the towel with his finger. He moistens his lips and squints through the sun at me.

“Two carats, right? That what you’re thinking?” he asks.

“Yes. How many stones?”

“Hard to tell without counting. I’m guessing a hundred and fifty to two hundred.”

I nod. “That’s what I thought. So, maybe a million’s worth?”

“Yeah, could be more. But that seems right. Fuck.” He rubs the stubble along his jaw.

“What else is there?” he asks.

I don’t know; I haven’t looked at the rest yet.

He picks up another sealed clear plastic bag; just visible through the salt smears is a USB stick. Sealed tight, somehow still protected from the water. He places it back down carefully next to the stones and the money. He looks at me before picking up the final object.

It is a hard plastic case with a handle. He sets it down in front of us. I know what it is before he flips open the plastic latches.

It sits there, dark dense metal nestled in molded foam padding. A handgun. I don’t know what type. I don’t know about guns. The sort you’d see in a film, I guess. A modern film. That type. But a real one, on the decking, in front of us. Spare bullets nestled in a fresh cardboard box next to it in the foam. Sealed. There’s an iPhone in the box too. The plastic gun case must be airtight, because everything inside it is dry, and, I’d imagine, still in working order.

“Okay.” Mark closes the case. “Let’s go inside for a bit, shall we?”

He gathers the money, USB, and gun case into the destroyed canvas bag and ushers me inside. I carefully carry in the towel of diamonds.

He slides the glass door shut and sets the bag on the bed.

“Okay, Erin. First things first. We’re going to clean up the vomit, right? Clean ourselves, and the room, up. Then we’re going to have a chat, okay?” He’s watching me encouragingly. He’s speaking to me in the same, even, measured tone he had yesterday when he told me about the sharks. He’s extremely reassuring when he needs to be. Yes, I’ll clean up.

It doesn’t take me long. I use some of the disinfectant lotion from the first-aid kit to douse the floor. I wash my face, brush my teeth, and pull myself together. Meanwhile Mark’s cleaned the rest of the room. The food cart is gone. The bed is stripped now too, the bag the only thing on it. The diamonds sit in a whiskey tumbler. Mark wanders in from the lounge area holding my laptop.

“First of all, I don’t think we should contact the police until we know what the fuck is going on. I don’t fancy spending life in a Polynesian prison for diamond smuggling or whatever. I suppose we need to know if anyone is missing this stuff. Right? If anyone might know we have it?” he says.