There’s a small seaside town, Port Lawrence. No big deal, a few thousand people, a couple of diners and a few seasonal attractions. They’ve got a small commercial fishing fleet that still operates out of the town. It’s the real Amityville deal, old shutterboard huts, quiet inbred locals who view the rest of the world as outsiders, fishing nets strung across cobbled streets… you get the idea? Anyway, one of their trawlers snagged its nets on a wreck some five miles out from the coastline — ’

‘Wreck? Are we talking an underwater shoot?’

She nodded. ‘Why?… are you not keen on that?’

He’d done underwater before, several times, but always within the luxury of warmer latitudes. After his spell on South Georgia, throwing himself into the bitter cold of the Atlantic, albeit insulated within a dry suit, simply didn’t appeal to him right now.

Pass up this job, and they could easily find someone else.

Chris winced at the thought.

‘No, underwater is fine. Go on.’

‘Good. Anyway, so one of these trawlers snagged its nets on a wreck. Turns out it was a plane. A big one.’

Chris’s interest was piqued.

‘Yup. Oh, we’re not talking missing commercial air-liners or private Lear jets or anything.’

‘No?’ Chris tried to contain his disappointment.

‘No, it’s better than that; a World War Two bomber. One of our B-something-or-others, you know? The big ones we used to flatten the Rhineland with. Some local propeller-head expert on wartime planes identified it from an item of debris they pulled up in the net.’

‘Has anyone been down yet to look it over?’

‘You’re thinking “anyone” as in, any other news mag? No, I don’t think so. It’s not a big story. Some wartime plane goes down due to bad weather or some component malfunction. It’s not like we’ve found the remains of the Marie Celeste or anything. I think we’ve got this story to ourselves for now.’