Something in the Water(29)

Best Wishes,

Eddie Bishop



Dom Pérignon 2006. How the hell did he do that? He knows exactly where I am, what island I’m on, what room we’re in, everything. But then, I already knew he was keeping tabs on me, didn’t I? But this? This is creepy.

If I think it through logically, what does it mean? It means Eddie found out where we were staying and phoned the hotel to order us a bottle. He could have found out anywhere. It wasn’t as if I was keeping our honeymoon destination secret. Anyone interested could have figured it out without too much trouble. In a way, it’s kind of sweet. Isn’t it? Or is it meant to be a threat? Whatever Eddie’s intention, benign or malevolent, I decide not to tell Mark. He’d only worry.

I hear footsteps along the walkway outside and pop the card into my pocket. I’ll get rid of it later. I grab my laptop off the sofa where I left it just as Mark enters.

I’m caught out. He smiles. “You’re working, aren’t you?”

I shrug, noncommittal, and slip the laptop into a drawer.

“Nope.”



* * *



—

Mark’s arranged a boat and diving gear for this afternoon. It’ll be ready for us on the dock after lunch. Apparently the storm has made underwater visibility around the island quite bad, so the hotel dive instructor, Mark’s new best friend, has given him the GPS coordinates of a great wreck a bit farther away. The visibility should be good out there. It’s near an island about an hour out by motorboat. Mark’s got a skipper’s license from a gap year crewing yachts in the Mediterranean, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for him to get us there. The hotel has even suggested we take a picnic and moor around the island after our dive. It’s uninhabited, so we won’t need to worry about disturbing anyone.

I’m pretty excited. A desert island to ourselves.



* * *



—

The trip out is slightly unnerving in the sense that once Bora Bora disappears from sight there is nothing else. Nothing in any direction but blue. I now understand how sailors used to go mad at sea. It’s like snow blindness. If it weren’t for the dot on the GPS moving steadily toward the destination pin, I’d swear we were going around endlessly in giant looping circles.

An hour out we see the island we’re heading toward breaching the waves on the far horizon ahead. Which means it’s about three miles away. The horizon is always approximately three miles away from you when viewed at sea level. Good to know, isn’t it?

The wreck we’re after today is just northwest of the island. It’s at a depth of only twenty meters, which Mark promises I’ll be fine with. “Technically, you’re not supposed to go below eighteen meters. So we’ll be sticking to around twenty meters on this holiday, okay? Trust me, honey, you won’t automatically explode if you go two meters over your max today; the limit is only meant to be a guideline really. Twenty meters will be absolutely fine. And I’ll be right there with you. Okay?” he reassures me. I know he’s certified to go down to twice that depth.

A pink sun-bleached buoy bobbing in the waves marks the wreck site. We drop anchor a safe distance away.

As we’re suiting up, Mark glances over at me, a shadow crossing his face.

“Erin, honey? Just to give you a heads-up. There are supposed to be a lot of sharks out here, sweetheart.”

I literally stop breathing.

He laughs at my expression.

“It’s fine! I’m going to be completely honest, okay? I’m going to tell you exactly what’s in there, honey, so you know. All right?”

I nod. I couldn’t speak if I wanted to.

He continues. “You know those blacktip sharks they’ve got in the lagoon, right? The ones we saw the other day?”

I nod.

He goes on, his voice smooth and reassuring. “The blacktip reef sharks, you’re fine with them; they’re perfectly friendly, aren’t they? They don’t bite people. And they’re not that big, relatively speaking—they’re only the same size as a person, so…not the biggest shark, but then again they’re definitely not fish-sized anymore. They’re fine, though. You with me so far, Erin?”

I nod again. When I first saw a blacktip shark in the lagoon on Monday, while we were snorkeling, I almost had an aneurysm. They look absolutely terrifying. But he’s right, after the initial shock I was fine with them. They didn’t bother us at all.

“Well, there’ll be lots of them,” he continues.

Great…

“And there might be quite a lot of lemon sharks too. Lemon sharks are around three and a half meters long—that’s about the length of a hatchback car. They don’t tend to hurt people but…they are three and a half meters long. Just so you’re aware.”

Wow. Okay. They’re big.

“They’re fine, Erin, trust me. But, just to be on the safe side…They don’t like anything shiny, like watches, jewelry, that kind of thing, so—”

I hastily remove both my rings and thrust them at him.

“What else is in there, Mark?” I brace myself.

He takes the rings. “There’s a chance that there might be gray reef sharks…two meters.”

Fine.

“Whitetip sharks, silvertips…three meters.”