Thoughts of his beloved computer stirred images of his stubby fingers flitting across the keyboard. “My fingers!” he screamed and stopped swimming, just for a second, bringing both hands together, fingertip-to-fingertip. Feeling nothing, he whipped them out of the water, sank like a stone, and had to fight his way back to the surface. Catching his breath, he gingerly lifted his right hand to his face and peered closely. The total darkness that initially surrounded him had faded as his eyes had grown accustomed. His pallid fingers were silhouetted against the blackness of the sea, but their outline and colour blended into a grey miasma and, feeling himself sinking again, he dropped his hand back into the water to resume paddling. He hoped his fingers would be alright—prayed they would be.
A light flickered above the horizon then quickly disappeared. A few seconds later it was back, then out again. I’m hallucinating, he thought, and stared, intently, determined not to let it fade, but just as he concluded it was real, it went out again.
“It could be a lighthouse,” he mused and headed in that direction.
Two minutes later, his mind, working in slow motion, caught on to the fact it was a distant ship. The light, flickering on and off like a dysfunctional advertising sign, was in rhythm to the lazy swell. Now identified, it held his attention. Is it coming or going? he wondered. His hopes leapt. They’re coming back for me. Yes, that’s it. Someone saw me go overboard and now they’re searching.
Instinct overcame logic. “Help! Help!” he screeched. The ship was miles away. “Help! Help!” He had more chance of being heard by a passing jumbo jet. His contracted vocal chords barely squeaked, his lungs pained with the effort, and the sounds that did escape were instantly grabbed by the breeze and scattered so quickly he wasn’t sure he had made any noise at all.
Exhausted by the effort, he shut out the distant light, sank inside his mind, and found a procession of embarrassing memories parading past him: A ten-year-old with his head firmly jammed in the wrought iron banister—sore ears for a week; one from the fireman as he fought to free him, and the other from his mother’s heavy hand. Plummeting out of the old oak tree on the common. “So not everyone can climb trees.”
“Anyone can climb that one. My kid sister can climb that one.” And that from a girl!
Then there was the goal post falling down during the school soccer finals—the saw marks clearly visible. Never picked, not even as a substitute, not for any team, both captains saying, “You can have the fatso.” He’d shown them.
Mrs. Merryweather’s Alsatian jumping out of the next-door upstairs window onto the greenhouse roof was a recurring vision. As a twelve-year-old, he’d been the first on the scene searching frantically amid the debris of glass, geraniums, and pulped tomatoes, trying to find the marrow-bone he’d tossed from his bedroom window moments earlier. The big dog bled to death in minutes and the bone, still clenched between his teeth, was buried with him. Various theories were put forward to explain Rex’s fatal behaviour. “Rabies,” suggested Roger, trying to deflect inquisitive stares.
“Nonsense,” responded his father, but a worried look spread over his mother’s face.
“You didn’t get bit, did you?” she enquired quickly, checking his hands for signs.
“I ’spect he were chasing one of the cats,” said Mrs. Merryweather through tears, then added redundantly, “Rex never done nothin’ like this before.”
Everyone had their own ideas, jaundiced eyes fixated on Roger, though no one was willing to risk his mother’s wrath by pointing a finger.
As if waking from a dream to an unusual noise, Roger’s conscious mind tried desperately to take control, and fighting through a mental fog to make sense of what was happening. It’s true, he thought, your whole life does flash before you in death. Then reality struck—as far as he could tell he was dead.
Nosmo King, still smarting from his conversation with Billy Motsom, prayed otherwise, and was on the aft deck of the SS Rotterdam, desperately searching for some way of stopping the ship without becoming ensnared in the inevitable furore.
chapter two
Detective Inspector David Bliss, still fuming at his colleagues, scooted around the deserted restaurants and coffee shops, frantically seeking Roger LeClarc. “There’ll be hell to pay if we lose the fat git,” Sergeant Jones had said, before he had discovered the duty-free bar and lost his senses. Yet, despite his size, LeClarc had slithered from sight.
Nosmo King had also searched for LeClarc; his motives were less virtuous, and he found himself being hauled to the bridge by a crewman who stumbled across him on the aft deck just as he’d launched a life raft in a final act of desperation. Looking like an antisubmarine depth charges, the cylindrical capsule descended spectacularly into the water, leaving King musing, “Did I do that?” The ripcord yanked tight, splitting it apart, the emerging life raft inflated like the wings of a newly hatched butterfly as carbon dioxide flooded its body.
Jacobs’ voice startled him, “Oy! What’ya doing?”
Heart thumping, he looked over his shoulder to find the catering assistant heading his way.
“Man overboard!” he shouted excitedly, then turned to peer at the raft: a child’s giant paddling pool bucking and leaping in a white-water thrill ride as it bounced repeatedly off the ships wake. His spirits sank. “Bugger. It’s tied on,” he muttered to himself, realizing the ripcord was tethered to a shackle at his feet. Jacobs’ calloused hand grabbed his wrist as he reached down to undo it.
“I didn’t see nobody fall overboard,” said the young catering assistant cagily, his mind whirling at the thought that he might be dealing with a deranged lunatic or a dangerous drunk.
“Well I did,” King lied. “Look, there he is.”
The crewman, used to keeping watch, gazed into the blackness. “Where?”
“Over there. Look he’s waving,” said King with a positiveness that defied contradiction.
“Can’t see no one,” said Jacobs finally, although the flatness of his tone suggested his conviction was draining.
Nosmo seized the moment. “I’m not going to let the poor bastard drown even if you are. Help or get out o’ the bloody way.”
Jacobs let go of King’s wrist, deftly unscrewed the shackle, and they watched for a couple of seconds as the raft was swept astern on the tide created by the propellers’ thrust.
Jacobs shut the bridge door behind them and King found himself blinded by absolute blackness. A voice floated out of the dark. “Yup. What do you want?”
King froze, fearful of walking into something painful.
“Jacobs, Sir,” called the voice from behind him. “This passenger says someone’s fallen overboard.”
“Well don’t just stand there, come in.”
Which way? wondered King. “Uh, I can’t see anything.”
“Don’t worry, your eyes will get used to it in a minute,” said the disembodied voice. “Bring him to the radar cubicle Jacobs, there’s more light there.”
Guiding hands on his shoulders propelled King across the bridge to an area cordoned off with blackout curtains. The invisible man explained, “We have to keep it dark so we can see what’s ahead—no streetlights at sea. Lots of yachts have poor navigation lights. Some don’t have any.”
Squeezed together inside the tiny cubicle, the men took on an alien appearance in the luminous green glow from the radar screen, and King wilted under the presence of the officer. Six-foot-four and two hundred and fifty pounds, he estimated, and the man’s smart uniform, contrasting sharply with the catering assistant’s grease-streaked jeans and dirty shirt, added weight.
Pulling himself upright,