Page 13

Beside her, Noemie rises. ‘Hon, I’ll tag along. You can leave Fin with me while this plays out.’
2
Before they leave the Drift Net, Lucy returns to the bar. Grabbing the landline handset, she dials Billie. The girl won’t answer – she’ll be halfway through her biology class – and yet when the pre-recorded message ends, Lucy hangs up without speaking. This isn’t news to be learned over voicemail.
Instead, she tries Daniel again:Hi, you’ve reached Daniel Locke of Locke-Povey Marine …
Lucy remembers the day he recorded that message, and the near-fifty failed attempts that preceded it. He’d started while sitting on their bed, only managing to succeed by locking himself in the bathroom. Much of the failure had been down to her – pulling faces, tickling his feet, walking her fingers under his shorts. Finally victorious, he’d emerged from the bathroom and bowed, and she’d led him back to the bedroom for his reward.
The memory shrinks Lucy’s stomach.ThatDaniel’s been gone a while; she’s been doing everything she can to bring him back. ‘Hey, Goof,’ she says. ‘I don’t know what’s happening. But come home to me, OK? Nothing else matters.’
3
Outside, over the salt and seaweed, the wind carries a sharp tang of ozone. In the last half hour, conditions have worsenedconsiderably. The ocean looks like a gargantuan black lung, expanding and contracting, steadily marshalling its power. Seven miles offshore, a swell that size will hide Daniel from all but the closest boats. While the coastguard helicopter should fare better, its flight time is restricted by the distance to its South Wales base.
To Daniel, out there all alone, that swell will feel enormous. With such a low vantage point, he won’t even see land. She imagines him battling those waves in a simple immersion suit. Or, even worse, with no buoyancy or insulation at all.
There’s a third option, of course: empty ocean; a liquid graveyard.
Lucy stops dead. When she blinks, the world seems different, as if she’s come alive in a different reality.
‘Luce?’
‘What if—’
‘Don’t,’ Noemie says.
‘I lied earlier. Things haven’t been fine. Recently, they’ve been even worse. All this stuff with his business, and with Nick. Daniel’s always needed to be in control – and now he isn’t, and everything he built has fallen apart, and I haven’t even known how tohelphim. I just have this horrible—’
‘Luce,no. Just don’t, OK? Save your energies for Fin.’
4
Noemie offers to drive, but Lucy can’t be a passenger. On Fin’s booster seat she sees Snig, the comfort blanket he’s had from birth. It’s a tattered thing of white cotton, stretchedout of shape from so many repairs. To her son, it’s an artefact of near-mythical power. Climbing behind the wheel, Lucy wonders what she’s going to tell him.
Halfway up Smuggler’s Tumble, rain starts crackling off the windscreen. At the top, rounding the last switchback, they emerge on to the exposed coastal road. With no trees to deflect it, the wind is formidable. Westwards, white breakers rib the sea all the way to the horizon. Waves are bursting against the shattered stacks beyond Mortis Point.
She’d always thought that nothing bad could happen to Daniel while she loved him this deeply; that her love could protect him like it protects Billie and Fin. But recently her lovehasn’tbeen enough, even though it’s been just as strong. It hasn’t protected any of them.
Why has nobody seen a light? TheLazy Susan’s parachute rockets discharge their flares nine hundred feet above the sea. Lucy knows how bright they are because Nick detonated one from their garden last year. The whole peninsula glowed red. Why didn’t Daniel launch the Seago life raft? She can think of no explanation that’s bearable. And the one that’s most likely is the one that terrifies her most of all: that Daniel, in his desperation, decided he was more valuable to his family dead.
FOUR
1
Three o’clock. Nearly two and a half hours since the distress call. In the playground, waiting with other parents, Lucy paces back and forth. Beside her, Noemie looks like she’s craving a cigarette.
Headlands Junior School sits along the coastal road between Skentel and Redlecker. It’s a low-rise modern building, the classrooms opening directly on to the playground.
A volley of rain pings off the tarmac. Overhead, the sky is a steel sheet. Lucy’s phone buzzes, then chimes. As she hauls it from her pocket, it chimes again. Three bars of reception, suddenly. Sixteen missed calls. The voicemail prompt appears and the phone begins to ring. Lucy raises it to her ear.
Come on, Daniel. Give me a clue. Something, anything. Help me figure this out.
Deep inside the school, a handbell starts ringing. Classroom doors fly open. Teachers emerge smiling, ready topair parents with kids. Lucy spots Miss Clay, Fin’s teacher, in one of her trademark outfits: today, a tartan shorts suit matched with Day-Glo orange tights.
‘You have five new messages. Message one, received today, 9.56 a.m.’
The voice changes. ‘Hey, Lucy, Graham Covenant from Covenant Logistics, just following up on that chat we—’