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Authors: Elizabeth Haynes
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back to the laundry and transferred the washing into the drier. Cameron was in the car park, up a ladder.
‘How’s it going?’ he called.
‘Okay, I guess,’ I said. ‘Are you fixing the lights?’
‘Yeah. Something’s snagged the cable.’
‘Really?’
He climbed down the ladder and showed me the section of cable he’d just replaced. It looked as if it had been caught around something, twisted.
‘I guess that means there wasn’t any CCTV either,’ I said.
Cam shook his head. ‘The camera one was alright; that feeds directly into the office. It’s only the lights that have gone. Of course, without the lights the camera’s not going to have picked up much, but they might be able to see something. I dunno.’
The police cars were still in the car park, two of them, but there was no sign of their occupants. The lights were on in the Souvenir , and in a couple of the other boats. The sun had gone in and the wind had picked up a little, and the clouds were making the afternoon feel darker and later than it was.
Back on the boat, the woodwork in the new room had dried off and I decided that now would be as good a time as any to paint it. I went to the end of the corridor and opened the hatch into the storage area. It was dark in there, and cold. The torch I usually kept just inside the doorway was missing. For a moment I hunted around for it, and then I realised it was probably still on the roof of the cabin where I’d left it last night.
I turned on the light in the hallway, one I rarely used, and it shone brightly enough into the cavernous space to show me where the tub of undercoat was, and the brushes in a carrier bag.
The light shone directly into the bow and illuminated the box at the end. KITCHEN STUFF . I tried not to look at it. If I ignored it long enough, I would forget it was even there. But, once I’d got the paint loaded into the tray and started work on the plain pine cladding, the thought would not leave me alone.
I had to get rid of it. I had to get rid of the parcel.
Dylan should have come to collect it. A few weeks, he’d said, maybe a couple of months. Five months was really pushing his luck. And it couldn’t stay where it was. If the police took it upon themselves to search the boat properly, they would find it and then I would be in big trouble.
I worked fast, splashing paint on to the wood. Missing bits. Going over other bits twice.
On my first night on the boat, I’d lain awake on the sofa in the saloon – the only really habitable space on the boat back then – and thought about all the hiding places, all the options. It had to be somewhere safe. It had to be close by, where I could be certain that it was still there, that it hadn’t been tampered with. It had to be dry, and well-hidden enough that someone wouldn’t accidentally come across it.
The very front of the bow was the place I chose. If I’d realised I was going to have to hide it for all this time, I would have incorporated a better hiding place into one of my build projects – a false wall maybe, a hidden compartment behind the cladding. Too late for that now.
The porthole was a dark circle, nothing beyond it but black. The boat rocked gently, almost imperceptibly, beneath my feet on the river. The wind was blowing waves up from the estuary, and after a while I heard rain on the skylight in the hallway outside.
I finished painting. It wasn’t a very good job. I would put another coat on in the morning, and try harder to concentrate.
I turned the radio off and the quiet was like a blanket that descended on the boat. Just the tickling of the rain on the roof of the cabin, on the skylights. It was a lonely night to be on board a boat this big. I washed the brush out in the sink and thought about making something to eat, a proper meal. I still had no appetite.
I couldn’t bring myself to think of it, and yet it was there, all the time. Waking up, still half-drunk. The sound. Caddy’s body, against the
‘How’s it going?’ he called.
‘Okay, I guess,’ I said. ‘Are you fixing the lights?’
‘Yeah. Something’s snagged the cable.’
‘Really?’
He climbed down the ladder and showed me the section of cable he’d just replaced. It looked as if it had been caught around something, twisted.
‘I guess that means there wasn’t any CCTV either,’ I said.
Cam shook his head. ‘The camera one was alright; that feeds directly into the office. It’s only the lights that have gone. Of course, without the lights the camera’s not going to have picked up much, but they might be able to see something. I dunno.’
The police cars were still in the car park, two of them, but there was no sign of their occupants. The lights were on in the Souvenir , and in a couple of the other boats. The sun had gone in and the wind had picked up a little, and the clouds were making the afternoon feel darker and later than it was.
Back on the boat, the woodwork in the new room had dried off and I decided that now would be as good a time as any to paint it. I went to the end of the corridor and opened the hatch into the storage area. It was dark in there, and cold. The torch I usually kept just inside the doorway was missing. For a moment I hunted around for it, and then I realised it was probably still on the roof of the cabin where I’d left it last night.
I turned on the light in the hallway, one I rarely used, and it shone brightly enough into the cavernous space to show me where the tub of undercoat was, and the brushes in a carrier bag.
The light shone directly into the bow and illuminated the box at the end. KITCHEN STUFF . I tried not to look at it. If I ignored it long enough, I would forget it was even there. But, once I’d got the paint loaded into the tray and started work on the plain pine cladding, the thought would not leave me alone.
I had to get rid of it. I had to get rid of the parcel.
Dylan should have come to collect it. A few weeks, he’d said, maybe a couple of months. Five months was really pushing his luck. And it couldn’t stay where it was. If the police took it upon themselves to search the boat properly, they would find it and then I would be in big trouble.
I worked fast, splashing paint on to the wood. Missing bits. Going over other bits twice.
On my first night on the boat, I’d lain awake on the sofa in the saloon – the only really habitable space on the boat back then – and thought about all the hiding places, all the options. It had to be somewhere safe. It had to be close by, where I could be certain that it was still there, that it hadn’t been tampered with. It had to be dry, and well-hidden enough that someone wouldn’t accidentally come across it.
The very front of the bow was the place I chose. If I’d realised I was going to have to hide it for all this time, I would have incorporated a better hiding place into one of my build projects – a false wall maybe, a hidden compartment behind the cladding. Too late for that now.
The porthole was a dark circle, nothing beyond it but black. The boat rocked gently, almost imperceptibly, beneath my feet on the river. The wind was blowing waves up from the estuary, and after a while I heard rain on the skylight in the hallway outside.
I finished painting. It wasn’t a very good job. I would put another coat on in the morning, and try harder to concentrate.
I turned the radio off and the quiet was like a blanket that descended on the boat. Just the tickling of the rain on the roof of the cabin, on the skylights. It was a lonely night to be on board a boat this big. I washed the brush out in the sink and thought about making something to eat, a proper meal. I still had no appetite.
I couldn’t bring myself to think of it, and yet it was there, all the time. Waking up, still half-drunk. The sound. Caddy’s body, against the
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