Page 104 of The Rising Tide

YOU HURT PEOPLE.

YOU DON’T REALIZE IT, BUT YOU DO.

Lucy crumples a little as she reads that. Because it’s proof, irrefutable, that this nightmare represents a very personal form of vengeance. She thinks of Billie, lying cold on Penleith Beach; Daniel, sitting broken in the prison visiting hall; Fin, reduced to a recorded voice on a throwaway mobile phone.

How did she invite this into their lives? What did she do?

The phone buzzes. More text, this time – a list of instructions. Lucy scrolls through them, her stomach hollowing out. She has no choice but to comply. Clear, now, that the intention from the start has been to destroy every pillar of her existence. Her only hope is to play along and pray she gets a chance to fight back. Crazy, even so, to obey these demands without question. She hunches over the phone, clicking the little plastic keys.

I want to speak to Fin. Not a recording this time. Before I do this, I want to know for sure he’s still alive.

Lucy sends the message before she can reconsider. Then she exhales explosively. There’s still far too much adrenalin flowing through her system. She zips the knife back into the rucksack, checks the phone: no reply.

She goes to the corner, retrieves the painting. Looks, again, at the image of their upturned boat. Examines the lighter patch on the wall left by the previous artwork to hang there.

Her fingers tingle. She studies the charity-shop painting again, then the wall. She’s close.Soclose. The revelation hovers just out of reach.

Still no response to her demand. Did she go too far? To distract herself, she moves to the window and scans the water through her binoculars.

Katharsis, she thinks. An ancient Greek word for purification.

It transports her to the philosophy classes she took, back in her old life. Aristotle was the first to link katharsis to tragedy. He proposed that the experience of tragic events was purgative, purifying body and soul. But Aristotle’s focus was the dramatic works of early theatre, not real life.

Lucy checks the phone. No message.

Where has she heard that voice before? Because shehasheard it, even though it sounded different. Of that she’s absolutely sure.

She looks at her watch. Just under two hours until sunset. Lucy trains her binoculars on Skentel.

Steadily, the town is recovering from Friday’s storm. The telephone pole that came down has been re-erected. Men in fluorescent jackets are working on the buildings that lost their roofs. In the harbour, the yacht that was floating keel-up now sits along the quay.

Katharsis, she thinks.

And then the phone starts ringing.

FORTY

Lucy’s praying again. Praying and fumbling with the phone. Her fingers don’t work. The handset nearly slips from her hands. Praying turns to cursing turns to panic.

And then, somehow, the Nokia is at her ear and she’s listening to static, an electronic squeal. Reception in Skentel has always been poor. She fears the connection’s going to die.

‘Mummy?’

The voice is a hammer blow.

‘Fin?’

‘Mummy, Billie went in the water. And Daddy went in too.’

Her little boy sounds broken, fundamentally changed. Gone is his melodramatic inflection, his theatrical way of speaking. In its place is a weariness that piles her heart with rocks. ‘Fin,’ she says. ‘Oh, my sweet. Mummy’s here, OK? I’m doing everything I can to come and get you. Are you hurt? Has he—’

‘They died, Mummy. And then the man sank our Water Home.’

She closes her eyes. Fin hasn’t just been mourning his sister. He’s been mourning Daniel, too.

‘Daddy’s alive,’ Lucy says. ‘A helicopter saved him. He’s alive and he’s safe and he’s going to beso happyto see you.’

A pause. ‘Real?’

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