Catherine Steadman - Something in the Water - A Novel

They will come. It’s just a matter of time really. They might have the IP address already. They might be on their way this very minute.

“So they’re coming?” he says; he can read it off my face.

“Yes,” I reply.

He nods thoughtfully. “In which case, we are going.” He rises and heads for the laptop.

“Mark—?”

“It’s fine,” he tells me. “We’ve got the perfect excuse now. You got sick, food poisoning, so we cut the vacation short to get you home to the doctor.”

I smile. It does solve a lot of problems.

“I’m going to change the flights. I booked flexible tickets, so it should be fine. I’ll try and get seats for tomorrow. Sound okay?” he asks.

“Sounds ideal.” I get up and head to the bedroom. Time to start packing, I guess. It’s sad to be leaving, but if and when these people do arrive at the hotel, I’d rather be anywhere else on earth, but preferably in my own home.

I pull out our cases and empty out the contents of the wardrobes onto the bed.

I look up to the top shelf.

“Mark?” I wander back into the lounge.

“Yeah?” He looks up from the screen.

“Are we keeping it?” It’s just a question. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t know if we’re running away from these people or if we’re robbing them.

“Well, we can’t just leave it in the room, can we?” he asks. “Unless we want to get arrested on the flight home. If we leave it, we’ll need to hide it…I suppose? Under the bungalow, maybe? Or we could take it, keep it? Erin, once we’re gone, there’s no way to trace us.” He studies my face. The question unanswered.

Two million pounds.

I don’t want much in life. Just my house, my husband, the occasional vacation—economy flights are fine. Just a quiet life. Our life.

Two million is our whole house paid off. A startup fund for Mark if he wants to set up a business, or a cushion until he finds a new job. It could be a university fund for the child that might already be growing inside me.

I remember the vomit on the floor yesterday morning. Maybe? I’ve been off the pill for eight weeks now. No, no, it’d be too soon for symptoms. I’m fairly confident that yesterday’s vomit will have been down to piña coladas and fear. I suppose time will tell.

And once we’re gone, there’s no way to trace us.

“Are you sure, Mark? Could they find us from the flights maybe?” Perhaps even though we’ve cleared our records here they could somehow check flight manifests for the whole island? Check all the incoming flights for names and find which two names don’t appear in any hotel guest registers?

Mark looks out the French doors into the fading light across the lagoon. The sound of the waves lapping under the bungalow muffled and steady.

He answers slowly. “There are around thirty-six hotels on this island; it’s coming up to peak season, so let’s say they’re running at half capacity. This hotel has one hundred suites, that’s two hundred people—half capacity, one hundred people. One hundred times thirty-six hotels: give or take thirty-six hundred people. Five flights in and five flights out daily back to Tahiti. That’s a lot of different people. A lot of names to check. Three thousand six hundred constantly changing names. They’ll need more to go on than that. Trust me.” He’s right, there are too many variables.

We could take it and no one will ever find out.

“Yes. We’ll keep it. I’ll pack.” I say it clearly, so that if at any time in the future the question rises as to whose idea this was, we’ll remember it was mine. I’ll take the weight for both of us.

Mark nods; he smiles softly.

We are keeping it.

Our flights are booked, first-class back to Heathrow. Our last burst of luxury. The last of the honeymoon.

I packed our bags last night. Broke open the seal on the vacuum-packed cash and cut open the lining of my suitcase carefully along the seam with my nail scissors. We fill my lining and Mark’s lining with half each and slot the iPhone and USB in mine too. I fold a towel over and under the layer of money so it feels like lining padding; I pack it in tight so it won’t budge no matter how much the handlers throw the cases around. Then I sew the lining back up using the hotel mini sewing kit. We have to call for another one for Mark’s case.

I pack the diamonds into five separate little baggies, the ones the shower caps come in. Then I slice open five sanitary towels, remove the filler and place the baggies, one each, into the absorbent lining, slip them back into their purple wrappers and back into their cardboard sanitary-pad box. The customs guys will have to be damn thorough to find this stuff, especially considering customs doesn’t tend to open up first-class suitcases anyway. Sad but true—they just don’t.

But even if they do, I think we’ll be okay.

The main problem is the gun. Although part of me wishes we could keep it just in case this all goes wrong, there’s no way we’d get it through customs, and we definitely don’t want to draw any attention to ourselves, given what else we’re carrying. So last night we bundled the gun up in a pillowcase with rocks from the beach and dropped it into the choppy water on the ocean side of the resort. Into the murky darkness.

Leila comes to collect our bags in the morning and see us off to the jetty. She’s all smiles and get-well-soons. Mark hands her two hotel stationery envelopes. One has her name on it; it contains five hundred U.S. dollars. Not an unusually high tip for a resort of this sort; I’m sure they’ve had better. But it’s big enough that she’ll be pleased yet small enough to ensure we’re not particularly memorable.

And we’re off. Off to Tahiti, then LAX, then London. Then in a car to our house. I miss our home.

—

There’s a moment when we’re checking in our bags in Tahiti that I feel the check-in clerk’s eyes catch mine. Just a fraction of a second, but I think she sees . She sees the way I’m looking at the bag, at her, and I know she knows. But then she shakes it off. A brief toss of the head. She probably thinks she’s imagining things. Or maybe I imagined it? After all, what on earth could a honeymooner be smuggling back from Bora Bora? Hotel towels? I readjust my face to the way it’s supposed to look and she hands our passports back over the counter with a smile.

At Heathrow we collect our bags again. Another lovely flight. And we’re almost free. Almost home now. Just customs to walk through. I nip to the toilet before we go through. I check the lining inside my case; it’s all still neatly stitched up. Safe. I zip it back up and head back to meet Mark by the luggage carousels. Then I feel my phone vibrate against my leg. I stop halfway out of the ladies’ toilet. Something has happened. I freeze, then try to subtly make my way back into the washroom. I lock the cubicle and grab my phone.

But it’s not Mark calling to tell me to flush the diamonds or run. It’s just life flooding back in. Real life. Our real life. Emails from friends about the wedding, work, two missed calls from Phil. No emergency, just life-as-usual.

Mark senses my mood when I find him. He keeps me chatting. I know what he’s doing and it works. And, thankfully, by the time I look up, we’re through the “Nothing to Declare” aisle and out into the terminal concourse.

We did it, and it really wasn’t that hard.

I look around at the brightly dressed, tanned people returning to the gray. Out through the giant glass panels of Terminal 5, damp England lies in wait for them. For us. God, I’m glad to be back. Outside, the scent of rain hangs in the air.