Page 150 of The Island of Lost Girls

Mercedes scuttles back to the safety of the lobby. Leans against the wall and breathes until her pulse steadies. Her heart bang, bang, bangs beneath her breastbone. She is as afraid as she is angry now. If this goes wrong, it will be the end of her.

She checks her watch. Four a.m. Come on, Mercedes. Even a man as drunk and angry as he is will go to bed soon.

Her preparations aren’t over. He’s too big. She needs ballast. Fat people float.

She looks back out. The deck is empty. Peeking through the saloon door porthole, she sees him by the bar, hand on whisky bottle, in a fugue state. His mouth moves, but the phone lies by his hand, unused. She goes back out.

She kneels beside his boastful, gilded anchor and checks the fixings. Same as it ever was. Everything the same. Two bolts, held on by butterfly nuts. No rope, of course. It’s not actually meant to be used. But on the other side of the gate hangs a rubber-covered lifebuoy, and to that is attached a good twenty metres of nylon cord. Fourteen hundred metres shy of the deep seabed, but plenty long enough for her purposes.

She’s glad, now, that she actually paid attention to some of Felix’s demonstrations of nautical knots, even though she mostly did it to indulge him. It only takes a minute to detach the rope from the lifebuoy and tie a solid three-turn hitch to the anchor.

She ties a quick-release knot on the railing, a body-length from the anchor, and a loop for her hand for when the time comes. Then she heaves the anchor – feels her muscles wrench, knows she will hurt come daylight – over the side. It hangs nicely, backwards from the hook, just above the water. All she’ll need to do to let it go is pull on the right point, and it will drop, drop, drop until it can drop no more.

She goes back into her hiding place and waits.