'It's okay!' I shouted, but I wasn't sure if she could hear.
'Help me!' she was sobbing. 'The nets are all caught up in my rudder. I can't move.'
'It's okay, sweetheart.' I wiped rain out of my eyes. 'We're coming.' I turned as I felt the engine slow beneath me. 'Closer!' I yelled to the men. 'We've got to get closer!'
One swore loudly. 'I can't go any nearer,' he yelled. 'We'll get stuck in the nets ourselves. I'll radio the lifeboat.'
'Can we throw her a rope?'
'If her rudder's caught in the nets it won't help her.'
Hannah's scream as a huge swell hit galvanised me. 'I'll get her,' I shouted, kicking off my shoes.
'You sure you'll be okay?'
'What the hell else are we going to do?'
One man handed me a pair of cutters as I pulled off my jacket. The other was hauling the front of my lifejacket together, securing the ties. 'Just watch you don't get caught in the nets yourself,' he shouted. 'I'll try to keep the light on you. Swim where I'm pointing it, okay? Follow the beam.'
Even with the lifejacket the force and cold of the sea struck me like a blow. I gasped as another wave crashed over me, salt water stinging my eyes. I fought my way to the surface and squinted towards the light, trying to work out which direction I should be headed. I looped the cutters round my wrist, and then, as another wave hit me, began to swim.
She can have only been thirty or forty feet away, but that swim was the most arduous I have ever undertaken. The waves and current pulled me away from her, and the sound of her cries kept disappearing as my head was swamped by the swell. I took a breath when I could, stuck my head down and ploughed towards where I thought she was, hearing the cries of the men behind me, Hannah's own cries growing gradually louder. There was no time to be afraid. I became a thing, hauling each arm in turn out of the dragging water, riding each oncoming wave, telling myself that with each stroke I was, against visible evidence, getting closer to the little boat.
I was about ten feet away when I saw that she was wearing a lifejacket, for which I thanked God. 'Hannah!' I yelled, as she hung over the side towards me. 'You'll have to swim.'
And then I saw it. As the beam of the men's boat swung round, stronger, perhaps closer than it had been before, the swell lifted the net wrapped round Hannah's rudder, and suddenly, illuminated in the dark water, I saw something I shall never forget. Caught up in the fine filaments of the tangled net, visible only for the briefest moment, the bodies of fish, seabirds, pieces of creatures that might have died weeks previously, all suspended in the near-invisible web, the floating wall of death. I saw, in that instant, a baby turtle, a huge gull - an albatross, perhaps - its feathers half torn away, and worse, near the surface, a dolphin, its eye open, its body bound tight in netting. I am no expert when it comes to sea creatures, but I knew it was alive. And Hannah, hanging over the edge, had seen it too. I heard her piercing scream, and then, as I reached for the side of the boat, I saw in her huge eyes the reflected horror of what I, too, had seen. I reached up a hand, praying with a shudder that my limbs were not going to come into contact with the rotting bodies below.
'Hannah!' I yelled. 'You've got to swim. Come on.'
The light swung away from us, then back again. For a millisecond I saw her face, still fixed on the water, drained of colour. She was sobbing hard, lost to me, paralysed by what she now knew to be beneath her.
'Hannah!' I pleaded. I couldn't climb up to her: my limbs were too cold and there was nothing for me to hang on to.
'Hannah!' I drew up my leg involuntarily as I felt it bump against something.
Then, over the rain, my yelling and Milly barking behind us, I caught her wail of despair: 'Brolly!'
It was, I hope, the closest I will ever come to a vision of hell.
Hannah's hand reached towards me, and as I turned, perhaps fifty feet of that ghost net was illuminated again with its grisly, helpless haul. I thought, with a chill, of its sheer length, of the number of creatures dying silently below, of the whalechasers and crew trying to cut the living away.
'You've got to get her out!' Hannah was screaming. 'You've got to!'
'Hannah, we've got to get to the boat!' I shouted.
But she was near-hysterical. 'Cut her free! Please, Mike. Cut her free!'
There wasn't any time to debate. I took a deep breath and, when the light swung round again, I grasped the cutters and ducked under the water.
The most surprising thing was the silence. After the noise and wind and rain and Hannah's screaming, I felt a strange relief at being away from all the chaos. Then the looming shape of the trapped dolphin swayed into view and I lunged for it, realising as I did so how easily my own limbs might be trapped in that net, how easily I might be dragged down. I swung at the net with the cutters, trying to keep a purchase as the surprising weight of the ghost net pulled it away. I cut, and as I wrestled with the net, I felt the nylon filaments give. The dolphin twisted, perhaps frightened out of its deathly torpor by this new threat. As the light dipped and swooped upon us I saw that the animal was bleeding, that its dorsal fin had been almost sliced away, that its skin was cut where it had fought against the fibres. I had to keep closing my eyes as the corpses of the dead kept rising up to meet me, the net swirling, threatening to make me part of that terrifying haul.
'Mike!'
I heard, at a distance, Hannah's muffled wail. And then, suddenly, I had cut through the last of the net and the dolphin fled, wavering, into the murky dark, heading towards what I hoped was open water.
I broke the surface, my mouth a huge retching O of relief. 'Hannah!' I shouted, holding up the cutters. Finally, her face white with fear, she slipped over the edge of the boat and into my arms, pressing her face against mine so that she didn't have to see any more of what surrounded us.
After she had established that I had cut the dolphin free she said nothing during the trip back to shore. She asked, her mouth pressed to my ear, if I had seen a baby, and when I said no, she buried her face in Milly's wet neck.
I held her close to me as we bucked and dipped back across the waves, and tried not to shiver too violently, but the looks I exchanged with the two men told me everything I needed to know about how lucky we had been.
Liza was already running towards us when we arrived at the jetty. She was wearing a wet-suit, and her eyes were dark with fear. She didn't even see me, so desperate was she to grab her daughter to her.
'I'm sorry, Mum,' Hannah was crying, her frozen, bloodless arms wound tightly round her mother's neck. 'I just wanted to help them.'
'I know you did, darling. I know . . .'
'But Brolly . . .' Hannah began to sob violently. 'I saw . . .'
Liza grabbed the blanket that was held towards her, wrapped her daughter in it and rocked her gently on her haunches as if she were much younger than eleven. A small crowd had gathered, standing on the dark sand, illuminated by car headlights. 'Oh, Hannah,' she kept saying, and what I heard in her broken voice nearly felled me.
'I'm so sorry, Liza,' I said, when she finally looked up. I was shaking hard, despite the blanket someone had placed round my own shoulders. 'I was only upstairs five minutes and--'
She shook her head mutely, and in the dark I found it impossible to say whether she was excusing me, or warning me not to come closer, perhaps shaking her head in disbelief at the unbelievable folly of a man who couldn't keep an eye on an eleven-year-old girl for fifteen minutes.
'I reckon the little boat's a goner,' said someone. 'Nets are all wrapped round her rudder. I wouldn't be surprised if she goes down.'
'I don't care about the boat.' Liza's face was pressed to her daughter's. And then, as Hannah cried harder: 'It's okay, baby, you're safe now.' It was hard to tell whether she was comforting Hannah or herself.
I stared at them, wishing I could envelop them in my arms. I felt again the dragging sensation I had noticed when I was pulling against the net, as I grasped that I had sabotaged my last chance with Liza, a
nd what my lack of watchfulness had almost cost her.
I felt something catch in my chest, and dropped my head. Then someone shouted that one of the larger boats was caught in the net, and several people headed back down the beach towards the jetty.
A woman I didn't know handed me a mug of sweet tea. It scalded my mouth, but I didn't care. Then Kathleen appeared behind me. 'We'd better get you back,' she said, laying a gnarled hand on my shoulder.
Suddenly Greg was running towards us, through the dark. 'Liza?' he was shouting. 'Liza?' His voice was full of fear. 'I just heard. Is Hannah okay?' There was something proprietorial in that fear, and for once I felt sympathetic, rather than indignant.
'I'm sorry,' I said again, into the blackness, hoping Liza would hear me. Then, flanked by people I didn't know, I turned and walked slowly up the path towards the hotel.
It was almost one in the morning before I began to feel warm again. Kathleen had forbidden me the steaming bath I craved, but had plied me with hot tea until I had to plead with her to stop. She had built up the fire in my room - in the fireplace I had assumed was merely decorative - and as I shivered under several duvets, she brought up a concoction of her own, which included hot lemon, honey, something spicy and an equal measure of brandy. 'You can't take any chances,' she said, tucking me in as if I were a child. 'You'd be surprised at what being in seas like that can do to you.'
'How's Hannah?' I asked as, having placed another log on the fire, she made to leave the room.
'Sleeping,' she said, brushing non-existent dust from her trousers. 'Little mite's exhausted. But she's okay. She got the same treatment you did - bar the brandy.'
'She was . . . pretty shocked by what she saw.'
Kathleen's face was briefly grim. 'Not a sight I'd wish on anyone,' she said, 'but we did what we could. They freed a whale, you know, by the Hillman place. And they're still going. What that net would have taken if the boys hadn't spotted it . . .'
I saw again that murky water, those floating bodies, and tried, as I had for the past hours, to push it all away. I wondered whether Liza was still out there, launching herself into those wild seas to destroy the nets.
'Kathleen,' I said quietly. 'I'm so sorry--'
But she cut me off. 'You need rest,' she said firmly. 'Really. Burrow down and get some sleep.' And, finally, weary to my bones, I obeyed.
When I heard the noise I could not be sure whether I had been asleep for hours or minutes. Years of London living had made me alert to any unexpected nocturnal sound, and I propped myself on an elbow in my bed, blinking into the dark, still spinning in the strange space between dreams and reality.
For a moment I couldn't remember where I was, and then the dying red embers of the fire reminded me. I sat upright, the layers of bedclothes dropping from me, my eyes adjusting to the dark.
Someone was standing by my bed.
'Wha--'
Liza McCullen leaned forward and placed a finger on my lips. 'Don't say anything,' she murmured.
I wondered, briefly, whether I was still dreaming. I could hardly make out her silhouette in the blackened room. But my dreams had been fitful and horrifying; full of choking water and the bodies of the lost. Here, in the warm darkness, I could smell the sea on her, feel the faint grittiness of the salt on her skin as her hand met mine. And then, as she moved closer, I could feel her breath, the shocking, numbing softness of her lips on mine.
'Liza,' I said, but could not be sure whether her name was flooding my thoughts or I had spoken it aloud. Liza.
She slid wordlessly into the bed beside me, her limbs still chilled and damp from the night air. Her fingers traced my face, rested briefly on the bruises wrought by Greg, then wound themselves into my hair. She kissed me with a ferocity that incapacitated me. I felt her delicate weight on me, the sudden cool of her skin against mine as she pulled her shirt over her head, heard the distant crackle of flames. Then, my thoughts jumbling, I stopped her. I took her face in my hands, trying to see her, trying to gauge what storm I was entering now. 'Liza,' I said. 'I don't understand.'
She paused above me. I could sense, rather than see, that she was looking at me. 'Thank you,' she whispered. 'Thank you for bringing my daughter back to me.'
She was electric. It was as if every fibre of her pulsed with energy, as if she was some force of nature undammed, a genie let out of a bottle. For weeks I had imagined this, had thought of myself making tender love to this sad girl, kissing away her melancholy. But here, wrapped round me, was someone I had not anticipated: she was greedy, encompassing, alive. Her body was as lithe as that of an eel, and she moved against me as relentlessly as waves. The ease with which she gave herself up to me was humbling. Is this a thank-you? I wanted to ask, in my few remaining moments of lucidity. A reaction to the shock of the evening? Somewhere deep in the recesses of my memory I recalled Kathleen's words: that Liza took the death of sea creatures hard. 'And then, twice a year, that poor fool thinks he's got a chance.' I made to speak, and then, as Liza's lips melted into me, as her skin warmed and then burnt fiercely against mine, and I finally felt heat grow within me, I was incapable of speech, or of thinking anything at all.
When I woke, the bed was empty. Even before I was awake enough to think with any clarity, I realised I had known that would be the case. I blinked hard in the dawn light, allowing the events of the previous night to seep slowly into me.
She had let me in. I had looked into those iridescent eyes and I had seen into her soul. And when she had let me in, she had allowed me to be the man I had always wanted to be with her, the man I had waited all my life to become. Strong, certain, filled with passion - not some pale imitation of love. Someone who could protect her, cherish her, bring her joy through sheer force of will. I felt as if I had aged twenty years. I felt like a boy. I felt I could demolish buildings with my bare hands.
As my eyes adjusted to the light, and I pushed myself upright, I was unsure whether to feel elation at what I had been given or melancholy that it had already been taken from me.
I had been so sure that I would wake alone that it was several minutes before I saw that I was not the only person in the room. Liza was sitting in the leather chair, which she had pulled towards the window. She was in her jeans, and her knees were pulled up to her chin, her arms wrapped round them. I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter past five.
I gazed at her, wanting to watch her for ever, knowing that when she guessed I was awake I would have to hide that fact. I felt an unexpected pang of empathy with Greg: I, too, knew now what it was like to love someone unreachable.
'Good morning,' I said quietly. Please don't pull back too far, I told her silently. Please don't make it obvious that you regret this.
She turned slowly. Her eyes met mine, and I observed that wherever her thoughts were they were far from me. How could that be, I wondered, when I felt as if her body was etched on my own? That her blood now ran through my veins?
'Mike,' she said, 'you say you know about publicity.'
I stumbled mentally, trying to keep up. 'Uh-huh,' I said.
'What if someone who had done something really bad owned up to it? Something nobody had known about. That would generate publicity, wouldn't it?'
I ran a hand through my hair. 'Sorry,' I began. 'I don't follow . . .'
'I'll tell you how Letty died,' she said, her voice soft, but as clear as a bell, 'and you can tell me who that will save.'
Nineteen
Liza
Nitrazepam - Mogadon, by its commercial name. Forty-two pills in a bottle. Pills to help me sleep. Perfectly legitimate, perfectly understandable, given my history of post-natal depression and the stresses of bringing up a young family. The doctor had been happy to give them to me. In fact, he had paid little attention, so gratified was he to be confronted by someone to whose problems there was a simple solution. He had known me for some time. Had seen me through a pregnancy. He knew my mother-in-law, the baby's father, where I came from. 'I need to get some proper sl
eep,' I said. 'Just for a little while. I know I'll be able to cope better.'
He had handed me the prescription without a moment's hesitation, then turned back to his screen to prepare himself for his next patient. Moments later I stood in the car park of the pharmacy gazing at the label on the bottle in my hand. Gazing at the warnings it contained. Sleeping pills. Takers of life, in the wrong circumstances. When I held them, I felt a strange, hollow excitement. They would give me back my life.
When I began my life in Australia - my real life, rather than the period in which I had merely existed - Kathleen persuaded me to see her doctor and ask for something to help me sleep. I was still plagued with nightmares to the extent that sometimes I was afraid to lay my head on the pillow. In sleep I would see Letty's terrified face, hear her screaming my name, and I prayed for oblivion. The first remedy the Australian doctor offered was those pills, albeit under a different name. When I registered what they were, on the prescription he offered me, I took a faltering step towards him and passed out cold.
I was told by people who knew no better that I came from a broken home, but it never felt broken to me. I never felt the lack of a father: my mother was enough parent for anyone, blessed with an indomitable spirit, fierce with maternal love and pride, determined that I should escape her own mistakes with a decent education. She shepherded and chivvied me, scolded and adored me, and even though we were patently neither a rich nor a conventional family I never felt the lack of anything. Even by childhood standards I sensed that my lot was a good one. My mother worked incessantly, low-paid part-time work that kept me close by her. Often she worked as I slept, and now I wonder how she managed to raise a smile - and a cooked meal - for me at breakfast.
We lived in a cottage in an area that was half suburban sprawl, half village a little way out of London, rented to Mum by a woman she had once worked for. I had twenty-odd friends within half a mile of my house and the freedom within that half-mile to do pretty well what I wanted. Twice, during my childhood, we flew to Australia, which made me an expert among my peers on global matters. One day, Mum promised me, we'd go and live there with Aunt Kathleen. But I don't think she wanted to be close to my grandparents. She never had much good to say about them. And when my grandfather died she found other reasons - her latest job, my schooling, a man she had grown fond of - not to uproot and move to the other side of the world.