In Deep Water by Christobel Kent

Author:Christobel Kent
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2022-04-07T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Day Three, Friday: Heather

Last seen at 3.30 p.m.

Heather made a noise under her breath. She’d never felt so urgently in need of a word from Kit, nor so frustrated by another person’s failure to answer a message.

She could hear the boat, but not see it. The fog had thickened. Heather couldn’t see much further than the black curled fronds of seaweed that bobbed and drifted like hair in the water below the stone pier where she was waiting. Kostas had answered her call in a raspy, smoker’s voice. The good news was he spoke a kind of English, although he did use it to try and bargain her back up. He’d started at seventy euros. Because of the fog, he said.

‘No, no, no.’ She hadn’t been able to restrain her despair, and, taken aback, he had agreed.

The sound of the boat’s engine was high pitched, ghostly. There was no one on the pier, and Heather couldn’t see back to where she’d sat in the bar. She clutched her phone so tight, her hand had seized up. Cautiously she released it and rubbed the cramped fingers.

She looked again. Nothing. What time would it be in England? She no longer knew. Two hours behind? Did the messaging app use their time or Greece’s? Her brain was as foggy as the view.

It had been a mistake. She blinked her eyes shut to erase it. A mistake. She didn’t even know what she’d said in the message any more, she’d deleted it straight away so she could pretend she hadn’t opened her mouth. Maybe that was it. There had been no message.

What would be the point of telling, after all this time? Better just to walk away. And with that an idea came: she could block him, block Kit and then she’d have control again.

There was a buzz as it downloaded emails – she must have left the email page open. She looked down: blinked. New connection, it said. The girl – Sukie Alexander – had agreed to their connection. Heather stared.

‘Miss! OK, miss!’

She looked down and saw the bow of a boat materialise in the fog, nudging towards her. Not a big boat: an inflatable of about fifteen feet, and a bearded man in a worn jacket standing at an outboard, scowling up at her. He was beckoning impatiently, then, when she moved towards the edge, pointing at a rusted ladder below her against the harbour wall. She slung the backpack on her back and began to climb down.

The bow of the boat bobbed precariously under her and she caught a gust of the smell, that under-the-pier smell, she swayed, Kostas shouted. She jumped, sprawled in the bottom of the dinghy, and immediately he was standing over her.

She looked up at him with the smell of the sea making her briefly dizzy, making her grab for the rubber sides of the boat, but there was nothing to grab, smooth and bouncy, her hand scrabbled uselessly. ‘Hey, miss!’ he said and his hand

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