Page 59 of Below the Deck

Sam would stop his CEO from humiliating any more women – at the same time as giving his career and his relationship a boost, in one gratifying swoop. He’d booked Rory for a meeting, sat down opposite him and, without saying a word, set his phone on the desk and hit play on his voice memos. It hadn’t taken long for Sam to get exactly what he wanted.

Now his boss stayed silent, shrinking back on the massage bed. ‘Surely you remember it, Rory?’ Sam prodded. ‘You remember that you still tried to brush it off ashearsaynonsenseeven after I’d played the recordings? And that it was only when I said I’d be uploading them onto our Slack channel and sending them to my buddy at theMirrorthat you decided to take it more seriously? You thought it was best if we kept it under wraps – remember that?’

Sam dug his phone out of his pocket and waved it in Rory’s face. ‘This is the email I’ve drafted to Mike – my journalist friend. You can see all the files are attached, can’t you?’ The colour drained from Rory’s cheeks; he looked like he was about to throw up. Sam smiled. ‘I want a leadership role,’ he said. And then: ‘And a fifty per cent pay rise.’

Rory dropped his head, but said nothing.For fuck’s sake.Sam strained to keep the frustration from his voice. ‘All right. I’ll just go ahead and hit send then, shall I? And upload the folder to the intranet while I’m at it. Then everyone else can decide whether it was all just men being men, or – what was it you said? –hearsay nonsense.’

‘Well, you can’t do that now,’ spluttered Rory. ‘The power’s down, there’s no Wi-Fi and we’re in the middle of the bloody ocean with no signal! Where’s my phone – where’s mydamnphone…’ He started patting down his pockets, fingering the sides of the bed. ‘I’m sure I had it before I …’

‘I’ve thought about that. If I get everything ready to upload, it’ll send as soon as we get the power back up – I’m sure it’ll be any minute now. Oh, and don’t panic. Talia’s got your phone.’

Rory looked dazed for a moment. ‘Talia …’

‘We’ll be within range of Raiatea soon. I’ll have a couple of bars of signal – enough to send an email, anyway.’

Rory’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again. ‘Like I told you then, Sam, I’m not in a position to make promotions at random – and certainly not while we’re in the middle of the South Pacific! You must understand, this all has to go through the board …’ He groaned, lifted a hand to the wound on his face. If the gesture was supposed to invoke sympathy, it failed.

Come on, come on.Sam needed this to work now – like it had back in March. After Sam had played the recordings, Rory had agreed to the trip – but not the promotion. That had gone to someone else. But Rory was the CEO. He could up his pay cheque and create a new role for Sam with a wave of his hand.

He took a step towards Rory; his boss cowered back on the bed again. Sam smiled.

‘All right, Rory – you know me. I’m not an unreasonable guy,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you some time to think about it.’

He leaned over, hovered his face right above Rory’s, the tips of their noses almost brushing.

‘I’ll give you an hour.’

LUCY

Lucy leaned into the pressure of Mark’s hands on the small of her back as he led her into their cabin and towards the bed. It was dark below the deck – not pitch black, but gloomy without the sun’s usual brightness through the floor-to-ceiling windows – so Mark used the torch on his phone to help them through the room.

‘Ugh. I feel gross,’ she groaned, leaning back onto the plush pillows of their bed, wincing at the brightness as Mark’s phone flickered across her face. ‘This seasickness is so bloody annoying. Now would have been the perfect time to—’To try to get into Rory’s cabin again.

Mark seemed to read her thoughts; he shook his head. ‘Luce … you’ve tried everything. Don’t you think it’s time to let this go?’

This was exactly why I didn’t want to tell you.She wriggled around to face him. ‘No, Mark, it’s the worst possible moment to let it go. Now, when I’m so close – physically close – his room’s right there. And after what he did!’

‘I know,’ said Mark, closing his eyes briefly. He looked pained.

Seeing the sadness in his expression, Lucy’s own grief and hurt and theinjusticeof it all came alive again in her body. She didn’t know how to bear it. She didn’t know how shehadborne it, all these months, being in the same building as that man.

Mark ran his fingers down her cheek. ‘He’s a bastard. I understand why you hate him. Truly, I do.’

But you still want me to drop it.‘We can’t let him get away with it,’ she tried. ‘Not after everything I’ve done – all the effort I’ve put in.’

Lucy’s eyes filled with tears. It had nearly destroyed her, making a career at Ashworth that was built on her secret; her lies. She’d never really wanted to work there; never seen a future there. She’d engineered her way into the company, reading everything she could find about Rory online, plotting and researching how to ace the interview. It had almost killed her, working for that man for months, helping him grow his morally dubious empire.

She’d gritted her teeth, smiled and made conversation with him every day, laughed at his terrible jokes, asked after his family when he’d been responsible for tearing hers apart.

And she’d done everything she could over the past few months to showcase her work in the best possible light, to dazzle him with her cash-saving numbers, in the hope that she’d end up exactly where she was right now – on their bonus trip; in such close proximity to him for a week that there would be the chance to observe him and gather evidence in a way she couldn’t do in the office. All with a greater purpose: to shine a light on the shadowy dealings she suspected, and to potentially uncover even more.

‘Yeah,’ said Mark, ‘I don’t know how you’ve done it, to be honest. Got the job there, kept all this inside. I wish you’d told me. You didn’t have to go through all this on your own.’

Lucy felt ashamed, now, that she’d hidden it from him. She was riddled with guilt that she’d kept the details of her new job, her new employer, vague and imprecise all these months. She’d had to withdraw from him, emotionally and physically, to be able to make it work. She’d spent so many nights staying out late – wandering from cafe to cafe or bookshop to bookshop, then taking the Tube a few extra stops before coming home at midnight and going to sleep on the sofa, ‘so as not to wake’ him.

Then, most weekends, she slipped away to see Mum and Alfie, telling Mark it would only stress her brother out if he joined her. She’d avoided her devoted, supportive partner all this time, because she was convinced that if he found out, he’d try to stop her. Lucy was sure he’d have been too worried about her, about the impact on her mental health. She was on a high dose of fluoxetine already since Mum’s injury and Alfie’s sectioning, when her anxiety had spiralled to terrible, crippling heights; Mark would surely have forced her to give up on her plan.

‘I was here for you all along,’ Mark said. ‘I could have helped.’ He swallowed. ‘But – I’m sorry, Lulu. I don’t think there’s anything else you can do. We already tried the lawsuit.’ It was true – they had, not long after the residents were evicted from Willowbrook. They’d got all the victims’ families together, all the ones who wanted to sue, but even with the five families who wanted to take Ashworth to court, they could barely raise half the legal fees.