‘Five hours. Maybe longer.’

‘Five hours!’

‘There was a party on the beach that went till late,’ Harry said. ‘Kids everywhere. When they left, one of the security guys noticed an abandoned bundle of clothes. Plus a purse, complete with ID and a hotel access card. She could have been in the water since dusk, but we’re assuming later, when it was good and dark.’

‘Five hours is about three hours too long for a happy ending.’

Harry didn’t bother replying. The crew knew the facts. The worst part of this job was pulling suicides out of the water. The jumpers were the worst-there was no coming back when you went over cliffs around here-but almost as bad were those who swam out from the beach knowing they couldn’t get back. Desperate people. Desperate endings.

‘So how do we know she just didn’t have a good time at the party?’ Riley demanded. ‘She could have ended up back in someone else’s hotel room.’

But even as Riley suggested it he knew it was unlikely. The police had called them in, and the cops around here knew their stuff.

‘Logic,’ Harry said, bringing the chopper round for the next pass. ‘She’s thirty-one, about ten years older than the party kids. She’s staying at the Sun-Spa Resort, in the honeymoon suite no less. The cop who went to the hotel found her passport in the safe. She’s English, and when he phoned the contact number in London, her parents had hysterics. It seems her wedding went up in smoke and our Phillippa fled to Australia with a broken heart. Alone. She arrived late. She booked into her honeymoon hotel with no wedding ring, no groom, and we can assume a decent dose of jet lag. Lethal combination. She headed for the beach, dumped her clothes and out she swam.’

‘He’s not worth it,’ Riley muttered, feeling worse. Any minute now they’d find her. They usually did.