‘Lizzy,’ Fern screamed. ‘Lizzy…’
‘Go away…’ The girl was within thirty yards of the boat, sobbing with despair. ‘Go away. Let me drown…’
And she duck-dived again into the depths.
‘We’ll never get her,’ Alf said morosely. ‘Not if she don’t want to be got The water in this slipstream comes straight from the Antarctic, Fern. She’ll get hypothermia and drown-that’s if the sharks don’t get her first.’
‘Sharks…’
‘Not many round here.’ Alf moved the torch over the water again. Nothing. ‘Water’s too cold. But enough…’
‘So…’
‘If she wants to die, I don’t see how we can stop her,’ Alf said. ‘Guess we just stay here in case she changes her mind. Maybe we ought to radio the local cop-not that he can do anything…’
Of course. The radio…
‘Sam might be more use…’
‘Beg pardon?’ Alf queried but Fern was already clambering below, her thoughts converting to instant action. Fern had spent heaps of time on fishing boats as a teenager and knew how the radio worked. She needed Sam…
Sam thought he was ill. He wouldn’t come.
He must.
Quinn Gallagher would get him here. The thought steadied her. If anyone could help, it was Quinn Gallagher…
There wasn’t any logic in such a thought but Fern was beyond logic.
She wanted Quinn.
She had him.
Every building on the island was connected to marine radio and two minutes later Quinn picked up the radio in the hospital. One of the nurses had answered the relayed call and fetched him fast.
The fear in Fern’s voice was enough to drive the slowest to speed.
‘Fern…! What the…?’
Quinn’s voice made Fern give a sob of relief. The fear took a tiny step back.
‘Quinn, Quinn, is Sam still there?’
Quinn caught the tremor. There was a sharp intake of breath.
‘What’s wrong, Dr Rycroft?’ Quinn Gallagher’s voice was incisive-professional and competent. It cut across Fern’s panic and steadied her further.
She was right. Quinn Gallagher was an emergency specialist. She needed him…
Swiftly she outlined what was happening, knowing that by transmitting on the distress frequency she’d have half the island listening.
It was best this way. There was no time for considering Lizzy’s finer feelings now and the more islanders who knew what was happening the better chance Lizzy had.
‘Sam’s the only one who might…might make her respond,’ Fern told Quinn as she faltered to a halt. ‘If he were here and calling-instead of me. She might come if it was Sam who wanted her.’
‘I’ll get him out there if I have to get four strong men to carry him,’ Quinn promised grimly. ‘Fast. Keep the line open, Fern. Is there any fisherman listening who can take Sam Hubert out to sea…?’
The line crackled with offers.
Most islanders left their radios permanently on by their kitchen tables, tuned low to the distress frequency-just in case. They were a long way from the mainland and the islanders looked after their own. Clearly now the whole island had been listening to the story, aghast.
‘OK, Dr Rycroft,’ Quinn said softly as the offers faded. ‘We have everything we need to move fast. Hang in there, Fern. We’re on our way.’
They didn’t come in one boat. The boat bringing Sam headed a small flotilla.
Ten minutes after the call Barega’s fishing fleet surged out of the harbour in a display of strength that would have made the Armada think twice before invading the island. Their lights twinkled on an already moonlit ocean and if it hadn’t been so deadly serious Fern could have been captivated by their beauty.
She hardly noticed.
Neither she nor Alf had seen Lizzy now for fifteen minutes.
Lizzy must still be somewhere near them, though. The life-jackets and buoy were still floating by the boat The current was too strong to swim against. All they had to do was drift on and hope that somewhere close Lizzy was drifting too.
Alf had his lights on full. The fishing fleet couldn’t miss them, although the currents had now carried them almost two miles out to sea.
They just had to wait…
And wait…
The fleet stopped three hundred yards from Alf’s boat. The fishermen would know that for twenty boats to churn round searching for a girl who didn’t want to be found would probably succeed in cutting her to ribbons on someone’s propeller.
The leading boat edged forward, spotlights spanning out over the water, and Fern recognised a team of Barega’s most able fishermen on the deck of the Wave Dancer.
Their boat was too high, though. The Wave Dancer was six times as big as Alf’s Jeanie. It was too far from the surface for anyone to reach down to Lizzy-if she swam to the side.
The fishermen knew it. The men were already launching a rubber dinghy from the side. It dropped fast to the water’s surface with two men on board.
Sam…
And Quinn…
What on earth was Quinn doing here? Surely he should be with Maud…
Maybe he’d needed to carry out his threat-and carry Sam bodily down to the boat…
If Maud had another cardiac arrest…
She couldn’t think of her aunt now. Fern’s eyes turned back to the water, searching uselessly. Where on earth was Lizzy? Had she slipped away from them?
She’d been in the water for over half an hour.
Only Alf’s boat and the little dinghy were left floating together in the slipstream now. Wave Dancer had backed off about three hundred yards as soon as the dinghy was launched but its vast spotlights still lit the surface of the water like day.
In the background the fishing fleet waited.
It seemed as if the whole world waited.
Lizzy Hurst might be slightly crazy but she was one of the island’s own and every man and woman in this fleet wanted only one thing. They wanted their Lizzy back.
Fern had never felt so much part of the island. She looked across at the massed lights and felt her throat thicken. To be part of this…
There were worse things than to be part of this…
She wasn’t an islander. She wasn’t!
‘Lizzy…’
Sam’s booming voice across the water made her wince.
Every boat had cut its engine and the silence was intense. Sam had a carrying lawyer’s voice at the best of times and in his hand he now held a megaphone.
With the megaphone, Sam’s voice was enough to make anyone respond. That, or face the consequences…
‘Lizzy!’
To Fern’s amazement she heard Sam’s normally carefully modulated, professional voice crack with emotion.
Sam? Emotional? Not the Sam Fern knew.
There was no doubting the fear in Sam’s voice now.
‘Lizzy, you have to come back,’ he shouted. ‘This is crazy, girl. I can’t let you drown…because of me…’
Then a soft cry sounded out over the water and Fern’s breath went out in a rush.
‘Let me go.’
Lizzy’s sad, defeated voice drifted over the ocean like an echo and Fern’s fingers clenched into her palms. ‘I want to die…’ the voice whispered. ‘You love her…’
So Lizzy was still alive.
Sam’s body stiffened perceptibly. He twisted where he sat in the dinghy so that he was facing where the voice had come from.
‘Hell, Liz…’ Sam’s voice broke into the megaphone but started again at doubled strength, sure now that he was being heard. ‘Hell, Lizzy, you’d make an awful lawyer’s wife!’
This was a crazy, crazy conversation.
‘Go away…’
Then, to her horror, Fern saw Sam stand up in the rubber dinghy. He swayed precariously.
Unlike most of the islanders, Sam had not a sea leg to stand on. Quinn, sitting facing him, saw the danger and hauled him down hard.
It seemed that Quinn at least was keeping his head.
‘Lizzy, please…’ Sam pleaded.