Rod swam past her, thrashing dangerously, brandishing his knife and heading towards the shark. She reached out and grabbed his leg, pulling him back towards her. She held up the gauge, signaled with her fist across her throat to say out of air and pointed upwards. He looked down towards the head, still falling into the abyss, and then turned to follow her. She swam smoothly away from the scene, checking her compass for the direction of the shore, checking that Rod was still following, feeling the change in the regulator which told her that the air was almost gone, fighting the panic again. There were dark shadows above them. More predators were moving towards the bloodbath. She started a controlled, out-of-air ascent, blowing her air out very, very slowly, saying “Ahhh” out loud. She felt the air in her buoyancy jacket expand and tighten against her chest and found the air-release hose, taking a lungful of air from it, discharging it slowly into the water, looking up, seeing the magical light and bubbles and blue of the surface beckoning, closer than it seemed, and forced herself to take her time: Breathe, don’t panic, slow your ascent to the speed of the slowest bubble.
As they broke the surface, gasping for air and retching, they were still far from the shore—the dive shack was a good three hundred yards away.
“What did you do to him?” yelled Rod.
“What?” she said, pushing her mask up and dropping her weight belt. “What are you talking about?”
She gave the signal for emergency towards the shore and blew her whistle. The usual bunch of guys were sitting around at the shack. “Help!” she shouted. “Sharks!”
“What did you do to him?” said Rod, through a sob. “What did you do?”
“What are you talking about?” she said furiously. “Are you mad? It wasn’t Drew in that tunnel. It was someone in a rubber mask. He gave me his air and then just started zooming backwards.”
“For fuck’s sake. That’s impossible. Hey!” Rod started shouting and gesticulating towards the shack. “Hey, get over here!”
She looked backwards and saw a fin.
“Rod, shut up and keep still.”
Keeping her eyes on the fin, she blew the whistle and raised her hand again. Mercifully, a sense of urgency had finally communicated itself to the dive-shack guys. Someone had started up the boat’s engine, figures were jumping aboard and seconds later the boat was powering towards them. The fin disappeared under the water. She drew her legs up close, mushroom floating, thinking, Hurry, please hurry, waiting for a sudden muscular movement, the feel of her flesh being ripped apart. The boat seemed to take an interminable amount of time to reach them. What were they doing? Fucking stoneheads.
“Leave the tanks—get in,” yelled Rod, suddenly the capable dive instructor again, as the boat drew up. Olivia ditched her tank and her fins, reached out to the arms stretching over the side of the boat and, scrambling with her feet, got herself over and lay in the bottom, gasping for breath.
Back on the jetty, Olivia sat on the bench, a towel around her shoulders, her arms round her knees. The whole horrible ritual of death and its aftermath was unfolding around her. Out at sea, a shark cage containing Rod and a buddy was descending from a boat in a plainly hopeless quest to retrieve the remains of Drew, Popayan’s only medical professional, an elderly Irish midwife, was standing helplessly on the jetty, holding her bag. At the sound of sirens, Olivia looked up to see a boat with flashing lights approaching: the medical boat from Roatán, the big island.
“You should be lying down, to be sure,” said the nurse, lighting a cigarette. “We should be taking you off to Miss Ruthie’s.”
“She must be interviewed first by the police,” said Popayan’s one policeman grandly.
Olivia was dimly aware of the talk and theories gathering force around her: Drew had still been out of it on coke from the previous night; he’d gone down without a buddy; he’d been raving about teaching Feramo’s lot a lesson. He could have made a mistake, cut himself and attracted the shark, or he could have taken on one of Feramo’s people and got himself injured. Their voices lowered as they started talking about the figure in the tunnel. One of the boys touched her nervously on her shoulder, right on the fire-coral burn. She let out a slight moan.
“Rachel,” the boy whispered, “sorry to ask, but are you sure it wasn’t Drew in the tunnel? Maybe it was the shark pulling him back.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. The guy was wearing a full body suit and head mask. I don’t think it was Drew. I think if it had been, he would have let me know somehow. Sharks don’t swim down tunnels, do they? And there was no hood on the h—” her voice broke—“. . . the head.”
Miss Ruthie was baking when she returned. Trays of buns and cakes were laid out on the stove and the yellow-painted dresser, and the smell was of cinnamon and spices. Tears started to prick Olivia’s eyelids. Childhood images of comfort washed over her: Big-Ears’s cottage, the Woodentops’ house, her mother baking when she got back from school.
“Oh bejaysus, sit yourself down.”
Miss Ruthie hurried over to a drawer and fetched a neatly ironed handkerchief with a flower and the initial R embroidered in the corner.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” she said, taking a sticky-looking loaf out of a tin. “There we go. Now let’s make us both a nice cup of tea.” She cut Olivia a large slice of the loaf, as if the only response to a disembodied-head sighting was a sticky cake and a cup of tea. Which, Olivia thought, taking a bite of the most delicious, moist banana loaf, was quite possibly true.
“Is there a flight out today?” she said quietly to Miss Ruthie.
“To be sure. It goes in the afternoon most days.”
“How do I book it?”
“Just leave your bag out on the step, like, and Pedro will knock on the door when he passes with the red truck.”
“How will he know to stop? How will he know I want to get the plane? What if it’s full?”
Once again, Miss Ruthie just looked at her as though she was stupid.
The knock came just after three. The red truck was empty. Olivia watched as her beloved tan and olive carry-on was loaded into the back, then climbed up in front, gripping her hatpin in the palm of her hand, running her thumb over the back of the spy ring, her pepper-spray pen tucked into the pocket of her shorts. The day was perfect: blue sky, butterflies and hummingbirds hovering above the wildflowers. The sweetness was unearthly, unsettling. She saw the Robinson Crusoe sign and the little bridge leading to the airstrip and started gathering her things together, but the truck turned off to the right.
“This isn’t the airport,” she said nervously, staying firmly in her seat as they ground to a halt on a patch of scrub by the sea.
“Qué?” he said, opening the door. “No hablo inglés.”
“No es el aeropuerto. Quiero tomar el avión para La Ceiba.”
“Yes, yes,” he said in Spanish, lifting the bags to the ground. “The flight leaves from Roatán on Tuesdays. You have to wait for the boat.” He nodded towards the empty horizon. The engine was still running. He waited impatiently for her to step out.
“But there’s no boat.”
“It will be here in five minutes.”
Olivia got out suspiciously. “Wait just a few minutes,” he said and started to climb back into the cab.
“But where are you going?”
“To the village. It’s okay. The boat will be here in a few minutes.”
He put the truck into gear. She watched as it rattled off, suddenly overcome with exhaustion, too weary to do anything. The sound of the engine gradually faded into silence. It was very hot. There was no sign of any boat. She dragged her case over to a casuarina and sat in the shade, swatting away flies. After twenty minutes she heard a faint whining sound. She jumped to her feet, scanning the horizon with the spyglass. It was a boat, heading towards her fast. She felt wild with relief, desperate to get away. As the boat drew closer, she saw that it was a flashy-looking white speedboat. She hadn’t seen anything like it in Popayan, but then Roatán was much more of an international tourist hub. Maybe Roatán airport had its own private launch.
The boatman waved, cutting the engine and bringing the boat to the jetty in a perfect arc. It was beautiful, big, with white-leather seats and polished wooden doors leading to a cabin belowdeck. “Para el aeropuerto Roatán?” she said nervously.
“Sí, señorita, suba abordo,” the boatman said, tying the boat up, swinging her bag aboard and holding out his hand to help her up. He pulled the rope loose, put the engine on full throttle and pulled out towards the open sea.
Olivia sat uneasily on the edge of a white-leather seat, glancing back as the coastline of Popayan faded into insignificance, then looking anxiously at the empty horizon ahead. The door to the cabin opened and she saw a dark head, slightly balding, covered in short, tightly curled black hair, emerging from the hold. He looked up and an oily, ingratiating smile spread across his features.