Page 27 of The Rising Tide

No Daniel, no Billie, no Fin.

Her entire family, out there in that heaving sea.

‘Some of you know me,’ she says, fighting the tremor in her voice. ‘Most of you don’t. What you might know is that my husband, Daniel Locke, sailed out from Skentel this morning and hasn’t come back. Our son, Fin’ – here, her voice cracks and she briefly closes her eyes – ‘was with him. It seems now that our daughter, Billie, was with them too.’

A murmur passes through the crowd. Lucy tries not to guess the thoughts of those watching. ‘I know there’s astorm coming. But I also know my family’s still out there. Daniel won’t have let Billie or Fin drown. He’ll have found a way to keep them safe. If you’re thinking of joining the search, I want to thank you. But I also … I need to be out there too. Will someone please take me?’

Another outbreak of muttering – this one far more uncomfortable and prolonged. No one wants to meet her gaze. She understands why. Who’d relish having her onboard? Who’d risk the prospect of—

‘I’ll take you.’

Lucy’s eyes move to the front entrance. When she sees who’s standing there her chest swells. Jake Farrell is wearing yellow salopettes under a Helly Hansen RNLI jacket. The expression on his face is unfathomable.

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His boat,Huntsman’s Daughter, is a twenty-eight-foot cruiser. Thirty years of sun and saltwater have inflicted damage Jake can’t afford to repair. Her hull is an ugly mess of stains and gelcoat patches. Right now, Lucy only really cares that she floats.

The swell, even inside the harbour, is the most violent she’s ever seen. Jake goes first, walking along the segmented dock as it caterpillars up and down.

The stone breakwater obstructs Lucy’s view of the sea, but she hears the booming of the waves as they strike. She sees the white spray exploding upwards. Wind, sharp and spiteful, tears at her clothes. She thinks of Daniel and her children.Out there. Clenching her teeth, she follows Jake.

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It takes a few minutes to readyHuntsman’s Daughter. Jake pulls off sail covers and unlocks the hatch. Lucy waits on the dock, ready to cast off. The engine starts on its third attempt. She slips the moorings and tosses him the lines. Then she vaults into the cockpit.

Nine years since she last came aboard. All that’s changed is the disrepair. If there’s a boat in Skentel less suited to these conditions, she can’t think of one. Jake throttles up.Huntsman’s Daughtervibrates beneath their feet. Water churns white behind the stern.

‘Get down below,’ he shouts. ‘Grab some life jackets. Safety lines, too. No lie – this is going to be rough.’

Lucy squeezes past, finding handholds where she can. The yacht’s pitch and roll is ferocious and they haven’t even left harbour. Belowdecks, the cabin spins her back a decade. To her left is the gimballed stove, familiar mugs and utensils swinging from hooks above it. To her right she sees the chart table, the VHF radio and Garmin GPS. In front are the bench seats that transform into single beds. A collapsible table between them is stacked with gear. At the far end she sees a closed concertina door. Behind it is the cramped bow cabin where, on weekend trips, they used to sleep.

So many memories flood back that they knock her off-kilter: Billie, seven years old, swaddled in a blanket while Lucy cooks dinner on the tiny stove; Jake, crouched in four inches of bilgewater, trying to replace an O-ring; the three of them camped out on deck, sipping hot chocolate as a fullmoon rises over the water; nights of stealthy passion in the bow cabin, her hand over Jake’s mouth to keep him from crying out.

The chart table still bears a few faint marks from Billie’s colouring pencils. A woollen pompom the girl once made crowns a brass barometer on the bulkhead. Hard to look at it. Hard to look at any of this.

The boat heaves up through the water. Planting her feet, Lucy switches on the VHF radio and GPS. Moving to the galley table, she rifles through the piled gear. She finds salopettes – incredibly, the same pair she wore on cold-weather days ten years ago – and quickly pulls them on. Then she grabs life jackets and safety lines and climbs back up the ladder.

To port, theLazy Susanrises and falls against the inner breakwater wall. If Jake’s boat triggers memories, it’s nothing to this close-up view of the family yacht. This is the boat Fin calls his Water Home; the boat Billie first learned to skipper; the boat whose anchor once tore open Daniel’s arm. They’ve sailed her to Orkney, to Nazaré, through Norway’s Geirangerfjord and Nærøyfjord. On her deck, and inside her cabin, they’ve lived their best days.

Lucy strains her eyes, hunting for any clues to what happened. A row of paper men hangs along the main cabin window. Each wears a different crayoned expression: happy, sad, angry, surprised, scared. Lucy cut them out a few months ago. Fin drew the faces.

Her chest feels like it’s being crushed. She tears her gaze away – studies the furled sails, the hull. Nothing seems different. Nothing looks amiss. And yet the yachtexudesmalevolence. The clanking halyards and empty cockpit stir the bile in Lucy’s stomach.

As they approach the pier head towards open sea, Jake swings the wheel.Huntsman’s Daughterbegins her turn. ‘Hold tight!’ he yells.

Lucy struggles into her vest and clips on her safety line. A heavy wave surges through the entrance channel. The bow rears up. Then they crash down the wave’s trough. Lucy takes a faceful of saltwater cold enough to make her gasp. When she looks up, she sees something horrifying.

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Before her, wind and sea and sky have conspired to create a panorama of devastation. She feels like she’s gazing across a landscape of snow-ravaged mountains – exceptthesemountains are moving, sliding, smashing. The snow on their peaks foams. It bursts and rolls.

Off to starboard, waves sacrifice themselves upon the shattered altar of Mortis Point. Plumes of spray climb heavenward, whipped into spume by tearing wind. Overhead, chariot-wheel clouds scythe towards the land.

Never has Lucy seen such terrible conditions. Hardly possible that she’s sailing into them– inconceivablethat Daniel ventured out here with Billie and Fin. But although the spectacle is terrible to witness, it’s nothing to what Lucy sees spread out across the water: scores of yachts and fishing vessels, all with their bows pointed shoreward.

‘What’re theydoing?’ she cries. Her question is lost in the detonation of another wave against the hull. It pitches them up and tosses them back down. Lucy feels the impact through her knees. She turns to Jake for answers. Watcheshim throttle up, pushing the engine as hard as he dares. There’s so much pressure in her chest it feels like she’s beneath the sea rather than above it. ‘Why are they turningback?’

Huntsman’s Daughterpunches through another massive wave. All around them, marbled water fizzes white.

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