Page 23 of Below the Deck

M Tehau: Ah – mostly it was, yes. Though I suppose I did see one thing – I didn’t think too much of it at the time. Only now, looking back …

M Robert: What did you see? It’s very important that you share any relevant details with me as part of our investigation into—

M Tehau: Of course, I know that, but it didn’t seem like a big deal. It still might not be. But yeah, around two-fifteen, two-thirty a.m., I went to check the salon and the galley area. And I saw one of the guests hanging around outside the door to the galley.

M Robert: Which guest did you see?

M Tehau: Sam. It was Sam out there.

M Robert: I see. And why was that unusual?

M Tehau: Well, everyone had gone to bed a couple of hours earlier, so it was strange to see him up from his cabin. But it wasn’t just that – sometimes, guests need something in the middle of the night, or go outside and look at the ocean if they can’t sleep. That would have been pretty normal. But he wasn’t doing that. He was … waiting – kind of hovering? Outside the galley. Michaela and Johanna were in there, talking. I don’t know what about, but I think Michaela was upset. And he was outside, just … listening.

M Robert: I see. And what did you do, when you saw him there?

M Tehau: I stayed there for a minute, keeping an eye on him. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t going to try anything inappropriate – I knew Michaela had been getting some hassle from the guys, and I didn’t know which ones. But then he kind of stepped back, and walked forward really quickly straight into the galley so the stewardesses saw him. I think he was trying to pretend he’d just got there.

M Robert: And what did you make of it? What did you think about it at the time?

M Tehau: I guess I just thought it was kind of weird then. But now? After everything that’s happened … It’s hard not to think that it was all part of something bigger – something we just didn’t know about yet.

[TRANSCRIPT ENDS]

LUCY

Lucy woke with the gnawing feeling that something wasn’t right.

She leaned over to her bedside table where her phone was charging and checked the time:1.37 a.m. She’d only been asleep for a couple of hours. What had woken her?

She rolled over and realized Mark wasn’t there. He must be in the loo – perhaps him getting up was what had disturbed her. She shifted back into her favourite sleeping position – on her side, arms wrapped around one of her pillows – and closed her eyes, hoping against hope that she’d be able to nod off again. Sleep had never come easily to her, and often when she woke in the middle of the night, she’d stay awake until her alarm forced her out of bed.

After five minutes or so of trying to relax enough to nod off again, she realized she’d not heard anything from the bathroom.Is Mark okay in there?He’d clearly drunk far too much last night, judging by that bizarre outburst at Rory; maybe he was feeling sick. As confused and irritated as she was by theevening’s turn of events, she didn’t like the thought of him being unwell. She should check on him.

With a groan, she lifted the duvet and swung her legs to the floor. She padded over to the bathroom and opened the door, noticing that the light was off. She turned it on and peered inside.

He wasn’t there.

Lucy glanced back around the cabin, checking he hadn’t gone to sleep on the sofa – or rolled off the bed and crashed out on the floor. She wouldn’t have put it past him, the state he was in. But with the bathroom light illuminating the room, she could see perfectly well that he wasn’t there.

Strange. Where’s he gone at this time?

Maybe he’s just popped to the galley to refill his water.

With a heavy sigh, she switched off the bathroom light, got back into bed and waited. She closed her eyes, tried to will herself back to sleep, but as the minutes ticked by, she became more and more uncomfortable. It shouldn’t take this long to get a glass of water, surely?

She was just considering heading out of their cabin to search for him when she heard the click of the key card and saw Mark’s tall, lean frame silhouetted in the door frame by the lights of the passageway. On impulse, she rolled back over and feigned sleep; wherever he’d been, she didn’t have the energy to ask about it now.

A few hours later, as the dawn light began to creep into the cabin underneath the thick curtains, Lucy decided trying to get back to sleep was pointless. She reached to the bedside table, pulled the charging cable out of her phone, then unlocked the screen.

A calendar alert popped up:Alfie and Mum: two years.

The surge of emotion took Lucy’s breath away. She hadn’t forgotten, exactly – the date it happened was etched on her brain – but she’d been so distracted by work and this trip, and now Mark’s weird behaviour, it must have slipped her mind somehow.

Seeing it there, the words on top of her screensaver – a holiday photo from when she was little, Mum giving Lucy’s brother Alfie a big kiss on the cheek while Lucy grinned in rainbow-patterned sunglasses – a kaleidoscope of memories danced in front of her vision. Mum playing air guitar in the kitchen to some embarrassing eighties power ballads, making Lucy wheeze with laughter, Alfie flapping and spinning with joy. Taking Alfie to swimming for the first time, watching him come to life as he splashed in the water, creating huge waves. The table piled extravagantly high with cheap presents her mum couldn’t afford for both of them on their birthdays.

Then the early, happy images morphed into the more recent ones: Alfie sitting motionless on the sofa, staring into space, eyes vacant and blank. And then, two years ago …

Tears settled behind her eyelids now, in the cabin of this luxury bloody superyacht. Some days, she coped well enough with the memories – when her brain was quiet, free of the terrible images. But sometimes – when something big happened, like going on holiday, or on birthdays, or on anniversaries like this – it was too overwhelming to bear.