The thought brought panic rushing through my veins. I don’t know why—maybe it was the idea that they were so close—sleeping, most likely, just a few feet above my head and yet there was nothing, nothing I could do to make them hear. And soon they would pack their cases and leave, and I would be alone in a boat-shaped coffin.
The thought was too much to bear. Without thinking, I grabbed the bowl that had held yesterday’s breakfast and banged it against the ceiling as hard as I could.
I stopped, panting, listening, hoping desperately that with the sound of the engine no longer masking my cries, someone might hear.
There was no answering thump, no muffled shout filtering back through the floors. But I heard a sound. It was a metallic grinding, as if something was scraping the outside of the hull.
Had someone heard? I held my breath, trying to still my thumping heart, beating so loud it threatened to drown out the faint sounds from outside the ship. Was someone coming?
The grinding came again. . . . I felt the ship’s side shudder, and I realized suddenly what it was. The gangway was being lowered. The passengers were disembarking.
“Help me!” I screamed, and I banged again, only now I was noticing the way the plastic ceiling deadened and absorbed the sound.
“Help me! It’s me, Lo. I’m here! I’m on the boat!”
No answer, just the breath tearing in my throat, my blood in my ears.
“Anyone? Please! Please help!”
I put my hands to the wall, feeling the thumps against the gangway being transmitted down through the hull and into my hands. The impact of goods trolleys . . . and luggage . . . and departing feet.
I could feel all this. But I could not hear it. I was deep below the water—and they were up above, where any faint vibrations that I could make with my plastic bowl would be drowned out by the sound of the wind and the screech of the gulls and the voices of their fellow passengers.
I let the bowl fall from my hands to the floor, where it bounced and rolled across the thin carpet, and then I dropped to the bed, and I crouched there, my arms wrapped around my head, my head pressed into my knees, and I began to weep, great choking tears of fear and desperation.
I had been afraid before. I’d been scared half out of my wits.
But I had never despaired, and it was despair that I was feeling now.
As I knelt on the thin, sagging mattress, sobbing into my knees, pictures passed through my head: Judah reading the paper, my mother doing the crossword, her tongue between her teeth—my father, mowing the lawn on a Sunday, humming tunelessly. I would have given anything to see one of them in this room, just for a moment, just to tell them I was alive and loving them.
But all I could think of was them waiting for my return. And their despair as I didn’t arrive. And finally the endless sentence of waiting, waiting without hope, for someone who would never come.
From: Judah Lewis
To: Judah Lewis, Pamela Crew and Alan Blacklock
BCC: [38 recipients]
Sent: Tuesday, 29 September
Subject: Lo—an update
Dear All,
I’m very sorry to be sending this news in an e-mail, but I’m sure you’ll understand that these last few days have been very difficult and we’ve had trouble responding to everyone’s concern and enquiries.
Up until now we didn’t really have anything concrete to share, and this has resulted in a lot of hurtful speculation on social media. However, we have now received some news. Unfortunately, it’s not what we were hoping for, and Lo’s parents, Pam and Alan, have asked me to send this update to her close friends and immediate family on behalf of them as well as myself, as some details seem to have been leaked to the press already, and we didn’t want anyone to find this out from the Internet.
There is no easy way to say this—early this morning Scotland Yard asked me to identify some photographs they received from the Norwegian police team handling the case. They were photographs of clothes, and the garments are Lo’s. I recognized them immediately. The boots in particular are vintage and very distinctive, and unmistakably hers.
We are obviously in pieces at this discovery, but we are holding on and waiting to find out what the police can tell us—this is all