‘Which one?’
‘At the front there. The small one.’
Houghton had appeared behind them. She pointed Lizzie out to Jules, who stepped forward and cupped her hands.
‘Go Lizzie!’
Someone else in the crowd took up the chant. Then another. Then a third. Even Grace was having a squeal. Lizzie had caught the chant. Suttle saw the tiny nod of her head, an acknowledgement. Suttle cupped his own hands.
‘Go! Go Lizzie! GO!’ he roared.
She recognised his voice. A grin this time, spreading and spreading. Suttle turned to Houghton.
‘She’s not bad, eh? For a probationer?’
Lenahan had elected to make the turn about 500 metres upstream from the dock. His cue to start would be an orange distress maroon fired from the quad dropping the wreath. Molly Doyle had cleared this through the Coastguard at Brixham late last night and they’d assured her they’d resist the temptation to launch the lifeboat or a chopper.
‘Red, please.’
Lenahan had got to the turn point. The crew hauled on their right-hand blades, pivoting the quad around a buoy.
‘Next stroke, easy up.’
The crew stopped rowing. Lizzie could feel the tide beneath her, lifting the hull and carrying it downstream. Lenahan was waiting for the maroon.
‘Come on,’ he muttered. ‘Jesus, what’s the matter with those eejits?’
Lizzie wanted to glance over her shoulder and watch the maroon go off, but she knew she’d get bollocked. Eyes in the boat. Always eyes in the boat.
‘Whole crew come forward to row.’ Lenahan had his gaze locked on the dock.
The whole crew came forward, blades in the water, ready for the racing start. The first time she’d tried it, half an hour ago, Lizzie had nearly totalled Tash’s oars. Her second attempt had been better and after that she’d started to get the feel of what was required. She was still playing catch-up, though, and just hoped that no one watching had binos.
‘Ready to row?’ Lizzie caught the muffled bang of the maroon. ‘ROW!’
Andy Poole was leader of this tiny orchestra. Rigid in his seat, he took a swift choppy stroke. Then another. Then a third. The quad surged forward. After five strokes, in a blur of scarlet, the crew went to half slide, a foot of movement under their bums, the strokes longer, more power in the water. Another five strokes and they settled into racing speed, thirty-two strokes a minute, every oarsman intent on pouring maximum effort into the churning blades.
To her immense relief, Lizzie was still in one piece. She hadn’t caught a crab, she hadn’t got in Tash’s way, and while she knew she was a minim off the beat she quickly settled down. By now the quad was, in Lenahan’s phrase, at battle speed. With the looming orange presence of Regatta House fast approaching, Lizzie concentrated on giving it everything. Lean forward, she told herself. Take the catch. Push back hard with legs. Arms straight. Accelerate the blade through the water. Feel it in the thighs. Go for the burn. Big tug at the end. Then hands away quickly and do it all over again.
Off to her right she could hear cheering and applause from the dock. She pictured Jimmy and Grace. She hoped they were watching her. She hoped they weren’t laughing. Then, much closer, came the other club boats, the rowers keeping station with tiny movements of their blades, and a brief snatched glimpse of Kinsey’s wreath bobbing gently in the middle of the formation.
‘Forty-one big ones. GO!’
They’d passed the wreath. Lenahan was driving them on. This could have been a race, easily. Tash had already warned her about what to expect. Flat out, she’d said, it’s the lungs that seize up first. Keep sucking in the air. Keep pushing hard on the footstretcher. Above all, watch the timing. Catch, extract. Catch, extract. Get it right. Exactly right. Keep on the beat.
‘Twenty to go. Own the water, people. Make it yours.’
Lizzie was starting to struggle. Then she remembered her first outing on the rowing machine, how she’d kept the pressure up until the very end, chasing the numbers on the readout, ignoring all the distress calls her body was putting out.
‘Five of your best. Your very best.’
Lizzie’s eyes were shut. She was rowing on empty. She squeezed every last ounce of effort into those final strokes. Then, quite suddenly, it was all over.
‘Easy up, guys. Angels, all of you.’
She barely heard Lenahan. She let go of her oars and reached forward to pat Tash on the back. The boat was still moving at speed. The water caught her blades, smashing both against her midriff and sweeping her overboard. It happened so quickly Lizzie hadn’t a clue what had happened. All she knew was that she was underwater, being dragged along by the boat.
She struggled, starting to panic. One of her feet was still trapped in the footstretcher. She must have over-tightened the strap. She shut her eyes a moment, fighting the temptation to take a breath, trying to get her head out of the water. It was hopeless. Her body was twisted and she no longer had the energy or the strength to break free. By now her lungs were bursting. They must have seen me, she kept telling herself. A couple of hundred people can’t all be blind.
Desperate for air, she opened her mouth. The water was ice cold. She could feel it in her chest. She began to cough, to choke. More water. Then she sensed hands beneath her arms and her head at last broke the surface, and seconds before she passed out she caught the looming face of Pendrick, treading water beside her, the white hull of the safety boat inches from his back.
‘You’ll be fine,’ she heard him say. ‘I’ve got you.’
A chopper flew her to A amp; E in Exeter. Wrapped in a space blanket with another blanket on top, she’d managed to stop the shakes. The accompanying paramedic told her it was the shock as well as the water temperature. She supposed that was a comfort but she wasn’t sure.
In A amp; E they put her in a giant suit that looked like a duvet with arms. She lay in a cubicle trying not to relive those final few strokes before she’d gone overboard. It had to be her own fault, had to be, but she simply couldn’t work out why. One moment she’d been telling Tash what a star she was. The next she’d been fighting for her life.
Jimmy and Grace turned up minutes later. They squeezed into the tiny cubicle. Jimmy gave her a hug and then found a chair and sat by the bed while Lizzie clung to Grace. Jimmy’s boss seemed to have come too. She’d found some change for the machine in the waiting room and returned with teas and coffees, keeping a discreet distance while Jimmy described the scene on the dock.
Most people, including him, had been unaware of the incident. All they’d seen was the safety boat racing to the still-moving quad, and then a big guy going overboard to fish someone out of the water. Only a nearby birdwatcher in the crowd on the quay had the full story. He’d watched the whole episode through his binos. It’s the girl in the front, he told Suttle. She seems to have come a cropper.
‘That was me,’ Lizzie said. ‘What a wuss.’
Suttle told her to forget it. Stuff happens. Thank Christ someone had been on hand to fish her out.
‘Who was it?’ he asked.
‘Pendrick.’ She found his hand and gave it a squeeze. ‘Who else?’
Lizzie was released a couple of hours later. The consultant took Suttle aside and told him not to hesitate to seek help if there were any after-effects.
‘Your wife’s been through serious trauma,’ he warned. ‘This can mess with people’s idea of themselves in all kinds of ways.’
Suttle was intrigued by the phrase. He’d have liked to find out more but one glance at the consultant’s face told him this wasn’t the place or the time. Lizzie’s GP, he said, should be the first port of call. After, of course, a little home-grown TLC.