Dead Man's Time

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 binnacle. ‘Mr Daly, we are on the bearings you gave us. Forty, spot forty-two, spot four zero four, north. Seventy-three, spot fifty-nine west.
We are three digits short – do you have them? We need them if you want us to pinpoint.’
    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 binnacle. Then he said, ‘Thirty-nine feet of water on this exact location.’
    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, running down