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Ahead of them, the pale-green Statue of Liberty rose high into the sky. Beneath, wound all the way around the grey slab of the concrete base, was a long line of tourists waiting their turn to take its elevator to the top.
The further towards the open sea the boat headed, the choppier the water became. The salty wind whipped his face, misting his glasses and making his eyes sting, but Gavin Daly stared resolutely ahead. He was in another world. So many memories now coming back to him. The Wall Street skyline rose to his left, and straight ahead, beyond the white prow of the boat and the green chop of the water, was the suspension bridge across the Narrows.
The bridge hadn’t been built in 1922 when, as a small boy, he’d sailed from New York. He could still remember clearly how he had watched that statue receding into the mist and dusk from the stern of the Mauretania.
His dad receding.
His life receding.
One day, Pop, I’m going to come back and find you. I’m going to rescue you from wherever you are.
Now he was back.
Finally.
Finally he was going to fulfil that promise he had made, and nothing would stop him.
The boat turned to port, heading around the southern tip of Manhattan. He saw Battery Park; stared at the structures rising on Ground Zero, and the high-rises all around. The Staten Island ferry was passing a short distance away. A few moments later they hit its wash, and the boat thumped hard, twice, pitching and yawing. The winch handle slithered out of its rope nest and clattered past him. He reached down, grabbed it and replaced it. Then, as they entered the East River, he stared across at Brooklyn, where he had lived the first five years of his life. A pleasure boat with teeth painted on its prow thundered past, across their bows, and moments later he had to hold on hard as the wash rocked them. Again the winch handle clattered past him and he grabbed it once more.
A short while later the superstructure of Brooklyn Bridge loomed ahead, its vast, dark-grey pillars rising like monoliths above them. They slipped beneath its inky shadow, heard the roar and rumble above them, and then they were out the other side in sunlight again. Speeding toward the vast, gridded span of Manhattan Bridge.
A sightseeing cruiser was coming through it, heading downriver, passing them wide to their port side. They passed several drab brown high-rises to starboard. The red brick slab of a power station, with one chimney stack, was next. Then the bridge.
His heart flipped. He felt butterflies in his stomach. The water was calmer here, crunching beneath them, above the whine of the outboards.
Stuart Campbell eased off the throttle as they slid into the wide shadow beneath the bridge, and Gavin felt the boat decelerate.
He looked up at the concrete pillars rising from the water. The steel columns rising from them, holding up the bridge. The vast, dark span of its underbelly.
It felt cold suddenly.
He began to shiver. The boat was rocking in the wash from the passing pleasure boat. This was never how he imagined it might be. And yet, he was here. He could feel his pop’s presence. Calling him. His booming voice echoing beneath the bridge. Louder than the incessant traffic roar above them.
Hey, little guy, you still awake?
His gullet tightened. The water was dark, inky dark, ominous. Maybe it was better to leave things be. Better not to disturb its secrets. Was he making a mistake? But he had come too far; he had to go through with this. He had to know. And he had to keep his promise.
Lucas looked at him, a curious, quizzical expression, but he ignored his son. This was about one person. One promise.
Nothing else mattered. It never had and it never would.
The boat was drifting now.
Stuart Campbell was staring at the compass bi
Gavin Daly pulled the Patek Philippe out of his pocket. Although he knew the numbers by heart, he still felt the need to check.
The hands pointed to 4.05 p.m.
‘Four zero five,’ he said.
Stuart Campbell tapped the numbers into the bi
Gavin Daly looked down at the watch, and a shiver rippled through him. Something he had never taken any notice of before. The position of the seconds hand.
It was stopped at 39 seconds.
118
The diver had been down for fifteen minutes. A pink buoy, tethered to the boat and drifting a short distance from them, marked the spot. Stuart Campbell kept an eye on the anchor rope, ru
The sonar was on, but the image on the green screen, of the river bed below them, was fuzzy and indistinct. Occasionally when he looked at it, Gavin Daly could see a fish flit past, and from time to time something bigger, moving, which he assumed was the diver coming in and out of view.
There were no anomalies, Campbell had told him. That meant the sonar had shown nothing significant down there on this spot.
Had the messenger boy who had brought him the watch and the numbers, and the other items, merely delivered someone’s idea of a joke? A cruel, nasty, sick joke? Or had it been someone with a heart?
It was feeling like a sick joke now.
He sat, waiting, clutching the watch in his hands, watching the buoy, occasionally staring across at the mess of slab-shaped buildings on the shore. His eyes drifted over some scrubland, and the remains of the last pier still standing that dated back to his childhood. A black and white tug droned past, a row of tyres as makeshift fenders, hanging down its side. He looked back at the watch.
As he did so, he caught the glint in Lucas’s eye. His son was still standing, looking down at him. Or rather, at the watch.
Gavin Daly held it up. ‘It’s caused a lot of trouble, hasn’t it, this damned little machine?’
‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Beautiful?’ Gavin shook his head. ‘You’re not looking at its physical beauty; you’re only looking at its value. That’s what’s beautiful to you.’
‘That’s not true, Dad!’
‘You killed my sister for it.’
He saw Campbell frown, as if perhaps he had misheard or misunderstood something.
‘Dad, you have to understand—’
‘NO!’ he snapped back at his son. ‘I don’t have to understand anything, boy. Do you understand that?’
As the noise of the tug receded, Gavin Daly heard another sound, very faint at first.
Lucas heard it too and glanced up, alarmed.
A moment later, Gavin Daly heard the distant, but unmistakable, thwock-thwock-thwock of a helicopter. He turned and saw a speck heading low over the water towards them; it was getting bigger by the moment.
‘Oh shit,’ Lucas said, looking panic-stricken. ‘Oh shit!’
Gavin Daly held the watch out over the water. ‘This will be for the best,’ he said.
‘What are you doing? Dad, no! Are you crazy?’
‘We’re done with it, Lucas. I was done with the gun, and now I’m done with the watch.’
‘You can’t be serious!’
‘What has it done for any of us? What has it brought this family? My dad owned it and he died; my sister had it in her home, and she died. Maybe the damned thing’s cursed. I should just throw it into the water, where it should have gone all those years ago with your grandfather. That’s where it belongs.’
The thwock-thwock-thwock was getting louder.
‘Dad, don’t, it’s sentimental – you can’t throw it in the water. You can’t!’