While the others stand in shocked silence, listening to Tiggy’s whimpering, Amelia is already thinking of the practicalities. This is not her first on-trip casualty. It’s not that she is a cold person, but she’s become slightly immune to death over the years. Working in places where death is as commonplace as running out of milk to make porridge for a hundred starving children, it becomes just another thing to deal with. To process and move on from.
She tried to explain this to her family once, and they said they understood – that her job must be so tough, and that she must need to deal with it this way – but her mum had come to her afterwards, as she was picking up her bag to leave for another trip, and told her that maybe she needed to talk to someone about all this. That it wasn’t normal to be so indifferent to death. Amelia hadn’t gone home much after that, instead choosing to spend time at friends’ houses when she wasn’t in some third-world country. Friends who’d seen the same as she had. Who understood.
Perhaps this is why she is here. To lead the group onwards to safety, in the face of a tragedy. A tragic accident, that’s all. He’d been drinking. He’d fallen out with Tiggy and he’d disappeared on his own.
Poor Giles. No matter what he’d done, he didn’t deserve to be washed up on a beach like this with only a bunch of strangers, miles from home.
Another wave moves him again, his face tips to the side, and she feels a smattering of something that might be hope. She stares at his arms again. The hands are curled . . . as if he might be trying to claw himself to safety.
Lucy sees it too. ‘Guys . . . I think we need to get down there. Fast.’
‘Tiggy?’ Amelia crouches beside her and takes her hand. ‘Can I borrow your phone?’
Tiggy, clearly in shock, takes her phone out of her pocket and wordlessly hands it over, pressing on the thumb-pad first to wake up the screen. Amelia is in the process of dialling 999 when Scott speaks.
‘Help us!’ He shouts it into the air above the inlet, then turns round and repeats it. ‘Help us. Please.’
They stand there, not making a sound. Listening to the waves crash onto the rocks below, coming in closer. Amelia stands, scrambles up the hill. The sandy bay they’ve just come from is partially submerged. The water is three quarters of the way up the legs of the stools around the bar. She slips the phone into her pocket. ‘Help us!’ she calls. ‘We need help.’
‘Help!’ Brenda shouts. ‘There’s been an accident.’
Soon everyone is shouting, and there are beeps and screeches as each person’s tracker emits a distress signal. Amelia feels her watch vibrate and looks down at the screen. ‘Keep them calm,’ scrolls across the face.
‘Ow.’ Scott smacks at his ear. ‘It’s doing something. Is anyone else getting a little stabbing pain right about now?’
The rest of them murmur and nod. Amelia feels nothing, of course. She has no mental sensor penetrating her scalp. ‘Let’s just sit here for a moment,’ she says. ‘Let’s all take a few deep breaths.’
They sit down, one after another, but they are all simply staring vacantly ahead.
‘Guys?’ she says. ‘What . . . ?’ She feels a flutter of fear slide across her chest, squeezing her tight. She’s about to say something else. About to lean over and give James a shake. It’s like they’ve all fallen into a trance. Shock, probably. It’s good that she’s here. She’s about to speak when she hears a sound in the distance, getting closer. The mechanical hum of an engine. Lapping sounds of the waves. A buzzing whine. Then she sees it. A small motor boat, making its way into the inlet. The captain is dressed in dark clothes, wearing a cap. Behind him, a familiar figure dressed in white.
Harvey.
Behind him, someone else dressed in white – another man, dark-haired and slimmer than Harvey, but evidently another employee of Timeo, in the same clean uniform. Not the right clothes to pull a body out of the sea. They should have thought about that.
The engine noise dwindles to an idle, then stops. The men on the boat are saying something, but it’s too far away to make it out.
‘What’s going on?’ James says, his voice groggy. ‘I don’t know what happened there. One minute I was trying to help Tiggy, then . . . it’s like I dozed off. But one of those sleeps when you’re aware of everything going on.’
‘I think they’ve sedated us again,’ Lucy says blearily. ‘This is seriously fucked up.’ She points to the rocks in the inlet. ‘Look . . . the cavalry has arrived. I guess they didn’t want us down there . . . or, you know – maybe this is all part of the game?’
‘Pretty sick game.’ Scott rubs the skin behind his ear. ‘What would be the point?’
‘To freak us out?’ Lucy shrugs. ‘I don’t know.’
The men are already off the boat, walking around what’s left of the narrow beach, heading towards a rough overgrown path that snakes up towards where they are sitting. One of the men has something on his back.
Amelia thinks they’re coming up to meet them, to take them down to the boat – which doesn’t look big enough to hold all of them, but she knows that you can always squeeze more people into any sort of transport if you’re desperate enough. She’s been driven across unmarked roads in ancient vans, folded into the footwell of the passenger seat, feeling every bump, every pothole and rock as if she were being dragged along the ground.
But then they turn off the path and towards the edge of the rocks, leaning over to where Giles lies sprawled. She turns to Tiggy, but the girl is still crouching on the path, hands clamped around her knees. She’s no longer crying, or making any noise at all. She’s staring down at the inlet, frozen.
Harvey steps into the water, placing a hand on a large rock for balance. He doesn’t seem bothered that he’s getting wet. He leans forward and grabs Giles under the armpits. Then the other man steps in to join him, and the two of them pull Giles away from the stony beach. They drag him up onto the path and lay him there, and while Harvey checks his pulse and leans his ear down to his mouth, the other man unfolds what Amelia can now see is a compact stretcher. He sets it out on the path and they roll Giles onto it. Then they lift it and begin to carefully walk towards the boat, where the captain is waiting – one foot on the gunwale of the boat as it bobs with the current.
‘Giles.’ Tiggy speaks at last, her voice a strangled croak. Her head whips round to Amelia. ‘I want to go with him.’
‘Give them a minute,’ James says, putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘We’ll all be going down there and—’
The familiar screech of the tannoy cuts him off. Amelia circles around slowly, trying to see where it is, but it’s hidden somewhere – just like the cameras.
‘Please remain where you are,’ the disembodied voice booms out. ‘We will remove the casualty, and one of you to accompany him to the medical centre, but the rest of you must carry on and complete the journey as planned. As you are aware, we are now at T minus 8 and there is still much to be done and much to be arranged for the party. Please rest assured that the casualty will be taken care of. Can the one accompanying member please make their way down towards the boat immediately.’