Page 1 of Someone in the Water
Prologue
1st August 2025
It’s dark.
More than dark. Pure, perfect blackness, the type that makes you wonder if you really exist. Whether you might be floating in space, or some other unknown dimension.
A noise pulls Lola back to the room. Rustling.
She imagines rats scurrying across the floor.
Spiders crawling.
She closes her eyes, feels the slow trickle of salty tears down her face.
Why didn’t she listen? Trust her mum’s judgement?
In her black hole, the images come for her. Dead strangers. Grieving mothers. Wild animals being chased through forests by hooded warriors.
A faceless killer.
And him.
There’s that noise again but coming from a different direction. Or is it a different noise? Rustling, yes, but louder now, like a person.
‘Hello?’ she calls out, her voice breaking in that one word. ‘Who’s there?’
2025
Frankie
25th July
I pull at the zip. Grumble out a swear word when the slider doesn’t budge, the teeth of the zipper straining but refusing to meet. But it’s not my holdall’s fault that it won’t close. It’s me, overfilling it, too worried about overlooking something that I’ll need while I’m away. I sigh, remove one of my jumpers – it’s July after all, I don’t need five – and finally the bag zips shut.
My phone buzzes in the back pocket of my shorts. I feel a jolt of panic as I pull it out, but it’s only my mum. ‘Hey, Mum.’
‘Hi, love. How’s the packing going?’
‘Yeah, fine.’ I eye the jumper, wonder whether I should lay it between the bag’s handles, just in case. ‘I’m leaving soon though. Nothing to hang around here for.’
‘So Lola got off okay then?’
This is why I’ve got nothing to stay for, but it’s also the reason I panicked when my phone rang. Imagining my daughter in trouble, even though she’s currently about thirty thousand feet in the air, somewhere over France probably. With her phone on airplane mode.
‘Yeah, I checked online, and the plane left about half an hour ago. Ayia Napa is two hours ahead, so it’ll be four o’clock in the afternoon by the time they land.’
‘Just in time for a fun night out then.’
‘Yeah, I’m not sure I need reminding of that.’
Mum chuckles. ‘They’re good girls. They’ll be fine. And you can’t hold on to them forever, however much you want to. I still remember dropping you at the airport when you were eighteen, how nervous I felt, and you were going away for months, not weeks. And without any besties to watch your back.’
‘And look how that turned out.’
The words spill out before I can stop them, and I have to blink to keep the tears away. Twenty-one years on, and I’m still a mess. Although that’s not fair. Yes, for the first two years after that terrible summer, I wasn’t sure I’d find a way to survive. But gradually things improved. And now it’s only at this time of year, the two anniversaries, when those memories threaten to smother me again.
‘Lola is going on holiday with her friends,’ Mum says softly. ‘They will have a fantastic time, and then come home in one piece. I promise.’
