Chris watched Port Lawrence slowly recede, shuddering at the thought of the freezing dive ahead of him. He looked at his watch.

Say, forty-five minutes out to the buoy marking the wreck, half an hour underwater and forty-five minutes back.

He’d be soaking in a warm soapy bath in a little more than two hours’ time. Of course, it was never that easy. It would probably take a little longer to get out there, the dive might only take half an hour, but Mark would insist on a thorough equipment audit before and after. And then there was the task of checking the quality was there on film: process a contact sheet and print one or two of the shots large, and if he hadn’t got the shots he was after, they’d have to go out and do it all again.

One thing was for sure; when they got back later he was definitely going to have a bath. He was glad they’d ended up checking into the motel up at the pricey end of Devenster Street. It was a little more, and he was paying out on Mark’s room too, of course, but it was better than the couple of guesthouses they’d sneaked a look at. One of them only had one shared bathroom between ten guest rooms, while the other could offer only one room with its own shower, and that had looked pretty shabby.

Chris watched Mark on the aft deck. He was already at it, unpacking and checking the diving gear. He worked with a quick, silent efficiency, laying out the apparatus carefully in a deliberate order and fitting together the regulators and tanks with a precision that reminded him of a marine assembling his trusty M15.

‘Just like those ol’ navy SEAL days, uh?’ joked Chris.

Mark carried on oblivious, focused on the pre-dive drill.

Chris watched him for a while longer before making his way forward to the pilothouse. It was dimly lit by a single bare bulb in a wire cage that rattled with the vibration of the engine. Will had the helm in one hand and held a mug of something hot in the other. Ahead through the window he could see the foredeck brilliantly lit by a searchlight on the roof of the pilothouse. It cast a thick beam into the night ahead of them picking out the white suds on the water.