by Holly Watt
‘There,’ Casey whispered in triumph.
As their first effort towards breaking down the ship, the shipyard workers had carved a hole in the Tephi’s side. It wasn’t large, just big enough for a man to fit through, but it was there. For a second, Casey imagined this hole if the Tephi were still afloat. The weight of the water smashing in, crushing any human body in its way.
‘Come on,’ she whispered.
Casey scrambled up through the gap, and tried to look around. The workers had sliced straight into the Tephi’s hold, the space impossibly dark. Inside the ship, the velvet blackness filled her eyes. Casey held her hand in front of her eyes, and saw no movement. For a second, she felt as if she had dissolved, disappeared.
She shook her head, dragging herself back to the present. It smelt of oil down here. It was colder, too. Dank.
She reached for her torch.
‘Do you think we should use the light?’ asked Ed, as Hessa climbed up beside them.
‘It’ll be impossible if we don’t.’
And I can’t. I can’t. I won’t.
For a moment, the three of them blinked, staring around the hold. The shadows flickered like ghosts as Casey glanced around. In the dusty torch beam, vast bulkheads rose up to the next deck. The walls and floors were painted a utilitarian khaki, a fretwork of salt covering everything, a memory of the ship’s last life.
In the corner, a steep ladder climbed to the next level. Casey moved towards it, clipping the torch to her belt before she climbed, sending a madness of light bouncing round the hold. It felt like the old ship was lying in wait, watching for the next move. The light reached out into impossibly dark corners, and anything could be there. Anything. The silence closed in.
‘Come on,’ said Casey. ‘Come on.’
She was out of breath by the time she reached the highest deck, bursting into the fresh air with relief. Once, this whole deck would have been piled high with shipping containers. Uniform in shape and slotted into place by derricks and brisk cargo winches, at port after port after port. Now, there was nothing except a couple of roosting birds that screeched away loudly as Casey and Hessa hurried down the deck, Ed following them.
Chittagong glowed orange to the south. The workers had already stripped away many of the Tephi’s fittings. The lifeboats were gone from this deck, along most of the railings. Casey peered up at the barns, but everything was still.
There was an abrupt clatter below decks, echoing up in the dark. Casey jumped.
Who is there? Who is there?
They stood frozen to the spot as the minutes edged past. Then Casey forced herself to move, legs like lead. One step, and the next, and the next.
‘I don’t think there’s anything here,’ she whispered. ‘We have to keep going.’
She turned towards the bridge, at the rear of the ship along with the living quarters. Once, the bridge would have given the captain a clear view over the mountain of containers.
‘I suppose they might be there,’ whispered Casey.
But the quarters were empty. They peered into cabin after cabin, dragging open the heavy watertight doors, one at a time. Strange fragments of past lives tangled in the beam of torchlight. Here, a string bag of potatoes, growing delicate white tentacles. There, a toothbrush, above a cracked basin. In a room of bunks, a Page 3 girl peered over her shoulder, toothily, torn. Half-lives, frozen, and forgotten.
But everywhere, there was the strange silence, the steady stillness, only the dust demons at their heels.
‘There’s no one here,’ Ed said, in the end. ‘Just dirt and cobwebs.’
Casey turned to him, face smudged with dirt. ‘You’re right. It’s empty. You can feel it.’
‘This ship is a tomb,’ whispered Hessa.
They climbed back down the layers of ladders, thick with khaki paint and salt, and clambered back out of the ship into the mud. The seashore was still, apart from the water lapping lazily as the tide slipped away.
‘It must . . .’ Casey spun in the mud, flicking her fingers with frustration.
‘There’s nothing in the Tephi,’ said Hessa firmly. ‘It was empty.’
‘The Beauvallet.’ Casey turned towards the other massive shape. ‘She looks like a wreck, but they might be in there, maybe?’
‘The Beauvallet?’ Ed looked at the huge ghost ship. ‘Casey, we are running out of time. It’ll be dawn soon, the workers arriving.’
Ignoring him, Casey walked up behind the remains of the Beauvallet. The ship towered above her. On one of the decks, a string of orange lifeboats still clung to the Beauvallet’s side.
At the base of where the ship had been carved from top to bottom, the workers had leaned a strip of steel into the mud, to create a makeshift ramp from the beach to the lowest level.
‘Come on,’ muttered Casey.
Ed and Hessa peered up dubiously.
‘Just to check,’ Casey whispered again.
Hessa stepped forward, followed slowly by Ed. In a careful silence, the three of them edged up the ramp, slime slippery in the black. Casey flicked on her torch again.
‘This way.’
At the top of the ramp, Casey moved gingerly down a corridor, into the dark of the ship. At the edges of the passageway, the old pattern of the carpet showed through, red with blue diamonds and green scrolls. Casey followed the muddy footsteps of the workers carefully.
The pace of the demolition was erratic. Lifts had been stripped out, leaving dank burrows, pitfalls running down through the ship. But there were still bright signposts on the walls, here and there. Spa. Fitness Centre. Captain’s Restaurant. Half-ripped away: Childzone.
‘There are dozens of cabins on this ship,’ murmured Ed. ‘It’s going to be impossible to search.’
‘But we have to,’ said Casey.
‘Hurry, then,’ he whispered. ‘There may be a guard.’
Without looking at him, she started on the first deck of cabins, methodically working her way down the row of doors. Spiders wove curtains of cobwebs in every corner. As the ship had smashed into the mud, the Beauvallet had tilted to starboard, giving everything a drunken, funhouse air.
Down the other side of the corridor, Hessa was also checking cabins.
‘Nothing,’ she said, as they met at the end. ‘Just a lot of dirt.’
‘Next level,’ Casey demanded, then froze. A clang? A knock? Far in the distance? Or nothing stirring at all.
‘What is it?’ Ed whispered.
‘Nothing,’ Casey said in the end. ‘Nothing.’
They kept going, climbing to the next floor, and the next. Dragging open double doors to a huge casino, the fruit machines ripped away. Then a bar like an airport lounge, a vast gym, and even a table tennis room. Nothing.
As she searched, Casey imagined the thousands of people on this ship, once. The staff scurrying, neat in their uniforms, the tinkle of music in every corner, the sea, all around, quite forgotten. She saw the bright smiles, the formalised fun, the scarlet umbrellas in cochineal cocktails.
Now, the air was stale. A coffin, opened. In one bedroom, Casey couldn’t bear it any longer, sprinting to open a porthole, tearing at the catch. She leaned out into the night breeze, fingers digging into her palms.
Outside, the smell of oil was sharp, carried along by the wind. She guessed it must be from one of the old oil storage units, just down the beach. In 2016, one of those units exploded on the beach at Gadani, in Pakistan. Dozens of workers killed by just one mistake. Casey imagined the searing flames, the men trapped by steel designed to withstand an ocean. It took days to find all the bodies in the wreck.
‘Come on,’ she muttered to herself, and turned back to the next cabin.
Up another flight of stairs to The State Rooms, twirls and curlicues on a plaque. These rooms were larger, easier to search, the rats scuttling away as Casey yanked open the doors. She paused for a moment in a slight breath of wind, pushing her hair back from a forehead wet with sweat. Beyond double doors, the end of thi
s corridor was sliced off, the black void gaping empty. From the corridor, it was a hundred-foot drop straight down to the beach.
In the next corridor, Ed was checking rooms methodically.
Casey pushed open another door. This dusty king-size bed still had its sheets and its blankets, the striped sofas gathered round a coffee table. Through torn curtains, the balcony peered out on the darkest of nights.
Still, nothing.
Up another flight of stairs, mould blossoming on sweeping treads. A chandelier glittered briefly in the torchlight.
The Emperor Suite, shouted a nameplate, and Casey turned towards it, feet heavy.
But there . . .
‘Ed! Hessa! Look!’
A huge bolt had been welded onto the door, the steel scarred brightly new.
Casey and Hessa leaped towards it.
‘Careful, Casey,’ Ed caught Casey’s arm. ‘You don’t know what’s in there. It could be anything—’
But Casey pushed him away. ‘I have to know, Ed. I have to.’
She grabbed the bolt. It stuck for a second, screeching, metal on metal, and gave way with a shriek. Casey pushed the door open, and stopped.
47
A girl’s face jolted towards her.
It was the girl in Savannah’s photograph, Casey knew at once. The wary eyes under the thick eyebrows, the fuzz of black curls at the hairline. The shy smile was gone now, the girl’s eyes sharp with fear. No pretty red dress any more. Romida wore a ripped T-shirt, shrinking away as Casey took a step forward.
She was so very young.
There were just two other girls in the cabin. One of them lay in the grand stateroom bed.
‘Romida?’ Casey whispered.
Silence.
‘Romida?’ Casey forced herself to smile as she repeated the name. The girl stared, her eyes meeting Casey’s and then flicking away, as she twisted herself into a tighter coil.
‘I want to help you,’ Casey tried. ‘We all want to help you.’
Hessa was just behind her, moving forward. ‘Are you all right, Romida?’
Romida gazed at Hessa, her expression solemn.
Casey and Hessa waited.
‘How do you know my name?’ Speaking to Hessa, Romida’s voice was hoarse, as if she hadn’t spoken aloud for days.
Hessa hesitated. ‘Your mother, Romida. I spoke to Shamshun, back in the camp.’ Romida’s eyes filled with tears. Her head bowed. ‘I’m sorry, Romida,’ said Hessa. ‘I’m very sorry to upset you.’
‘My mother?’ Romida cleared her throat, lifted her head. ‘You spoke to my mother.’
‘Yes.’ They stood there, for a long quiet moment.
‘How is she? When did you see her last?’ The words rushed out of Romida, and Hessa tried to answer, in her patchy dialect.
‘She misses you, Romida. She misses you terribly.’
The girl on the bed reached across to Romida, and Romida folded into her, just as she had curled into Jamalida’s side all those weeks ago.
‘Jamalida misses you so much too,’ Hessa said gently.
‘I miss her.’ The words were a gasp. ‘I miss her every minute.’
Casey stared around the cabin. This must have been one of the grandest rooms in the ship once. There was a writing desk in one corner, the dark polished wood from another world. Mirrored cupboards ran down one wall. The bedside lights had been torn out, and there was dust and grime everywhere.
The girl nearest the door was staring vacantly at an ugly painting, cheaply framed above the huge bed. Narcissus, enraptured.
Casey imagined all the girls held here: the healthy girls chosen and snatched from the camps. All I had, I gave to Romida . . .
Dragged away to this strange distortion of luxury, fed decent food for the first time in years. And then . . .
Casey leaned against the wall, knees shaky.
‘You OK?’ It was Ed, hovering in the corridor, and she stared at him.
‘We found Romida,’ she said simply. ‘I never thought we would.’
‘Yes’ – Ed’s mouth turned up at the corners – ‘you did.’
‘We have to get out of here,’ Casey said to Hessa. ‘Tell them we have to go as quickly as possible.’
Hessa began to explain, pointing to the door, gesturing with her hands. Casey moved across to the porthole, looking up the beach towards the woods.
A jolt, adrenalin flooding. There were lights: torches moving, up by the barns.
‘We have to hurry.’ Casey spun around, the fear flashing round the room. ‘Hessa, tell the girls that if they want to escape, we have to go right now.’
Even as Hessa’s voice rattled, Casey could see the lights shift, hurrying down towards the makeshift path.
‘They’re coming.’ The girls looked up, as Casey whipped round again. ‘They’ll be here any second.’
‘Oh God,’ said Hessa. ‘Oh God.’
‘Tell these girls, Hessa,’ said Casey. ‘Tell them now is the time to run if they ever want to go . . . Right now. Because they may never get another chance.’
48
They crowded through the doorway into the corridor, carefully quiet. Ed pulled the door to the Emperor Suite closed.
The silence prickled around them. In the distance, the wash of the sea was lost beyond the hull.
‘Is there . . .’ Hessa breathed, silenced by a gesture from Casey.
They hesitated, statue-still. Just as Casey thought she might be able to move, there came a clatter below.
Casey slammed off her torch. Ed and Hessa followed her lead. The darkness swallowed them like a curse. Casey felt shapeless again, as blind as the night. Amorphous, as if she had never been.
As she stood there in the dark, listening to the girls’ breathing, Casey felt herself falter.
She forced herself to breathe calmly. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe . . .
A child, covering her eyes to hide.
They’re coming. They’re coming. They’re coming for us.
Casey took a deep breath. ‘Hessa,’ she muttered, ‘we’ll try and work out which staircase they are coming up. You take the three girls and go the other way. Ed and I will try and distract them.’
Ed nodded.
‘But . . .’ Hessa tried.
‘Do it.’ Casey’s whisper was fierce. ‘Go to the little fishing boat. Get these girls away.’
‘I’ll watch out for you,’ Hessa insisted.
‘Keep them safe.’
For a second, Casey pressed the heels of her hands deep into her eye sockets, shooting lights across her eyelids. One breath. In, out. Then she reached out, touching the sleek banister of the Beauvallet’s grand staircase, and eased her torch back on.
‘Let’s go.’
Together, they crept down the first flight of stairs.
At the bottom of the grand staircase there was a lobby with two passages running parallel towards the back of the ship. On one side of each corridor, the cabins looked out over the sea. On the opposite side, the cabins on the inside of the ship – cheaper by far – had no windows.
Halfway down each corridor, there was a set of double doors. Casey knew that beyond them the ship had been sliced from deck to hull, during its slow, deliberate shipwreck. Those corridors led to nothing but a plunging fall in the dark.
‘Make sure,’ she whispered to Hessa, ‘that no one goes that way.’
Next to the passages running along the ship, doors on either side of the lobby opened on to smaller flights of stairs that ran down both sides of the Beauvallet. Left or right, port or starboard – the toss of the coin that meant everything.
Casey hurried over to one of the gaping lift shafts. Silence. She crossed the lobby and listened at the other.
Casey felt the girls’ eyes on her, their fear almost tangible. Nothing. Please nothing. But, far below, so far below, she heard the scrape of a door echo up the shaft.
‘That way,’ she whispered to Hessa. ‘Down those stairs as quietly as you can. Go to the fishing bo
at.’
‘But . . .’
‘Go.’
‘I’ll look out for you.’
The girls moved fast. One chance, seized. Casey felt rather than heard the women scurry down the stairs. One second, she was surrounded by human bodies, and the next moment the air was empty, only Ed beside her.
Casey waited a second, then crossed back over to the other staircase.
‘Bonjour,’ she shouted down. ‘Qui est là?’
There was a shocked scuffle below, a Bengali voice, a man, shouting in anger.
‘That’s Raz.’ Casey recognised the voice. ‘He must have come from Dhaka.’
‘Now what?’ Ed whispered.
‘We wait.’ She tried to smile at him. ‘We’ll be fine.’
‘You’re lying.’ His voice was light.
‘Why would I lie to you?’ For a second, Casey felt a shimmer of hysteria.
‘Force of habit?’ Their eyes met, that smile.
They could hear several people racing up the stairs towards them, shouting. There was pure rage in Raz’s voice, the charm all gone. Here was anger, violent anger, and Casey felt her laughter drain away. Raz would kill, she knew, rather than let them escape.
She tried to calculate how long it would take the others to flee down the opposite stairs.
Please, she begged. Don’t let them have left a guard at the bottom of the stairs. Please.
‘Qui êtes-vous? ’ she shouted down the stairs again. Then she sprinted across the lobby to the staircase that Hessa had scurried down. On this side of the ship, the Beauvallet’s hull had been hacked away as the workers operated to some unknown schedule. Casey could peer out into the night air, fresh after the stench inside, and peer down the beach. Her heart skipped.
Far below, in the half-light of the moon, she could just make out a figure scrambling through the mud towards the little fishing boat. Another girl was behind her, scurrying along. Hessa was last, racing across the beach.
‘Ed,’ Casey gasped. ‘They’re getting away! Look. They’re escaping!’
For the briefest second, joy surged through Casey.
‘Now,’ she said to Ed. ‘Now we run.’
He looked at her, bewildered. ‘How?’
