The connecting door wouldn’t open. Lisa had bolted it from her side and she wasn’t responding. Neither to the hammering of Julia’s fists on the door, nor to her shrill, angst-ridden calls.
‘Lisa, darling. Open up!’
Key, where is the sodding key?
Her own was in a small, mouse-grey wall cabinet by the door. But where was the spare key card for Lisa’s cabin? Until yesterday it had been on the sideboard right next to the telephone. Now the small paper wallet with the cruise line’s logo, which had held the card, was gone.
How is that possible?
Julia tossed some prospectuses and magazines from the table, lifted her handbag and a blotting pad. Nothing.
Oh, God, dear God…
Suppressing the urge to run screaming into the corridor and throw herself against Lisa’s door, she picked up the phone. The hectic beeping in her ear made it even more difficult to concentrate.
Room Service
Housekeeping
Laundry
Spa…
Ten direct-dial buttons. None of them was labelled PANIC.
1310… 1310…
She’d just been about to call reception when she remembered Daniel’s direct number.
After four rings he answered with a sleepy ‘Hello?’
‘She… she’s…’ Julia’s voice cracked. Only now did he realise that she was crying.
‘Lisa? What’s happened?’ The captain’s voice already sounded much more awake.
‘I think she… she’s… going to…’
She didn’t have to say any more. Daniel promised he’d be with her in a couple of minutes and hung up.
A couple of minutes?
A long time if you were having your fingernails extracted. And even longer if you were worried your own flesh and blood was about to kill herself.
Now. This very moment.
Julia couldn’t wait. She yanked open the balcony door.
She was hit by damp, cold wind. She knocked her bare foot on a lounger, heard the rushing of the ocean which to her ears sounded like the roar of a wild animal throwing open its mouth to devour anything coming within range of its fangs.
‘Lisa?’ she screamed against the raging sea.
The balconies were separated by hard, white plastic screens. Julia leaned far over the railings to peer past the screen onto Lisa’s side on the right.
Light!
The ceiling lights were on and, because the curtains behind the balcony door weren’t drawn they lit up part of Lisa’s balcony too.
That means she must still be in the cabin, Julia thought with relief. Until the pendulum of fear that had swung away from her for a split second came crashing back with a vengeance. To save energy, the electric circuit was broken when you took the key card from the wall cabinet as you left the room. Normally a lit-up cabin was evidence that the passenger was in. Unless they hadn’t taken their key card.
Or they’d chosen another way out.
When Julia bent further forwards, she felt as if she were being struck by a wave.
Too far to have a safe grip.
The wind spat into her face. Drizzle fell in beads from her eyebrows. Rain and tears. All she could see was a blur. She blinked, she howled. Screamed.
And then she caught sight of them! The boots! Lisa’s boots. They were lying on the floor between the bed and the TV chest, half covered by a bedspread, beneath which the rest of Lisa’s body appeared to be lying.
Julia’s brain switched to a primaeval instinctive mode. She was a mother. Her harassed daughter had written a farewell letter. Stolen her key card for the cabin. Locked herself in. Failed to respond to her knocking. And was lying motionless on the ground.
She didn’t need to ignore the thought that Daniel would be there any second now, as it didn’t even cross her mind. One hand on the screen, the other on the railing. One foot on the bottom rung. The other on the second…
She climbed automatically.
She didn’t realise she was risking her life until she was standing on the balcony rail and, with both hands firmly gripping the edge of the partition screen, tried to lift a foot so as to put it down on Lisa’s side. And… slipped.
Her bare foot was still numb from having knocked into the lounger. She didn’t feel any pain, but nor did she feel that her wet sole had lost its grip.
Suddenly the entire weight of her body pulled on her arms. She didn’t have a chance. The screen needed a joint, a grip or something else to hang onto. But now hands followed feet and slipped too.
And her body fell.
Julia screamed, but the water below her roared back more loudly. The predator sensed blood when it saw Julia hanging onto the railing, right between the cabins.
In falling she’d managed to hold onto the highest rail. But it was wooden, too wide for her slim hands, and too wet to hold on for long. And Julia was too exhausted, too weak and too heavy.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down! she commanded herself, as if that could change anything. As if she could make the sea disappear simply by closing her eyes.
The wind wrested her like a flag. Julia closed her eyes and felt her fingers slowly slide from the round rail.
I’m sorry.
Were those the final words? Her daughter’s final words in this life?
One last time she screamed the name of her daughter and heard her own as an echo.
‘Julia?’
Someone was calling from a distance, but it wasn’t her daughter. Lisa’s voice wasn’t so deep. And her grip not so firm.
‘I’ve got you!’ cried the man, whose face suddenly hovered above hers. And pulled her back up at the last moment, back onto the ship.
Back into the nightmare.