and the judges went to stand in front of one contestant couple. ‘How do you feel about your chances?’ Thor asked.
‘We’re pretty nervous, Thor. The barnacle challenge took a lot out of us this week. But we did the best we could.’
Thor nodded, like a priest at confession. ‘Now let’s hear from the judges.’
They all visibly relaxed, and Katie got the crowd’s attention. ‘The monitors are currently showing a pre-recorded clip of the judges on the boat, but when we come back from the clip I need you guys to cheer.’
Over the next hour, the same pattern repeated seven more times. By the end, Rose was shifting restlessly from foot to foot. Everything was happening on the screens, but she was standing too close to the edge of the pier to see the monitors clearly. As she’d suspected, Beverley seemed to be trailing behind. Snuggles was definitely a crowd-pleaser, but the judges were having none of it. During Beverley’s judging segment the crowd had let out a few ominous ‘ooooh’s.
Now it was time to film what would be the climax of the episode: the announcement of the rankings. As Thor read out each pair’s names, cameras clustered around the contestants to capture their reactions of triumph and relief. Katie was making huge, exaggerated clapping signals and shaking her fist as if grievously wronged by an uncaring world, and the audience obligingly cheered again and again.
‘And in seventh place …’ Thor said, drawing out the moment to an excruciating length, ‘… are Jo and Luke!’ The couple hugged each other in ecstasy. ‘Which means that Beverley and Snuggles are in last place.’ He turned to the viewing platform, mugging outrageously. ‘And what does that mean?’
The audience needed no more prompting. ‘THAT BOAT – WON’T FLOAT!’ they screamed in one voice.
Beverley’s boat immediately began to sink. How was it happening so quickly? Rose figured there must be a remotely operated valve in the hull. Beverley turned to her boat, rivulets of tears forming pale channels in the bronze of her make-up. She was dressed as a mermaid, wearing a long blonde wig, a beige body stocking with two clamshells sewn to its chest, and a green sequined fishtail encasing her legs. Now, she began to hop pathetically towards the edge of the dock, clutching her hair and wailing. She reminded Rose of a child in a sack race.
Even for this show, Beverley’s antics seemed over the top. Maybe the contestants had been coached to act like this? But then Rose heard what Beverley was wailing.
‘Snuggles! Where’s Snuggles? Oh my god, he’s still on the boat!’
Rose looked around. Was this meant to be part of the show? Katie was talking frantically into her headset; Thor and the judges were frozen like the fjords of Norway. They weren’t acting like it was planned. The crowd was becoming agitated; a muttering spread over the viewing platform and a few people took out their phones and started filming, but nobody wanted to disrupt the recording.
Beverley was bouncing up and down at the edge of the pier in her absurd fishtail. ‘Help! Help! Somebody! Snuggles can’t swim! You can’t let him drown!’
Rose looked at Dan, who shrugged. ‘Ah, fuck this,’ she said. Ignoring Katie’s panicked hand-waving, Rose ran to Beverley’s side and looked down at the sinking boat. The deck was now fully submerged and water was pouring into the cabin. She couldn’t see Snuggles swimming anywhere; he must be trapped inside the cabin. Another couple of minutes and it would be completely underwater.
She kicked off her work boots. Her tool belt fell to the pier with a thunk. With a splash, Rose dived into the water beside the boat.
She came up for air and trod water for a second to get her bearings. She saw the cabin door was open, and swam through it. Inside, she struggled to see through a soup of water, oil, broken fittings and other flotsam. But there was a layer of trapped air between the water and the ceiling, and Rose surfaced, gasping for breath. She could see Snuggles, the little dog, scrabbling against the opposite corner of the cabin as if he were trying to dig his way out.
At the speed this boat was sinking, they had less than a minute. Rose swam over to the dog, who growled and flailed his front paws when she tried to grab him. His hind end was stuffed into a mermaid tail – a miniature version of Beverley’s. No wonder the poor thing couldn’t get out.
Rose knew she wouldn’t be able to swim out with this frightened fluffball writhing in her arms. She looked around, and from the floating debris she snatched up a decorative polystyrene starfish and a length of rope. Quickly she lashed the dog to the starfish, grabbed one of the starfish’s arms, and dived underwater once more, pulling the makeshift raft with her. She swam towards the door, pushed the starfish out ahead of her, and saw it rapidly rise towards the surface. With her last ounce of strength, she kicked her way up to follow it.
She broke the surface and gasped for breath. Floating next to her was the starfish, with a bedraggled Snuggles still tied to it, yipping angrily. That was the first thing Rose heard; the second was the cheers of the crowd, like the rush of a mighty ocean.
‘That was amazing, the way you just dived right in,’ said Leary Barker.
‘Thank you,’ Rose said. Wrapped in a towel and clutching a cup of coffee to which Bernie had clearly added a substantial nip of booze, she’d just walked into the site office inside the warehouse.
The crowd had gone wild as Rose climbed the ladder back up to the dock, with Snuggles tucked under her arm. Beverley was in absolute hysterics – Rose thought the contestant had thanked her, but her voice was so incoherent it was hard to be sure. Thor had given her a grateful hug, and by the way he wrapped his arms around her as tears rolled down his cheeks, Rose suspected it was more than just a reality-TV ritual gesture.
Fortunately, the boat sinking had been at the end of the episode, so all they still had to film was Thor wrapping things up. ‘Amazing scenes here tonight on The Dock – Poseidon himself would salute this girl’s valour.’
‘Poseidon’s not a Norse god!’ someone had yelled out.
‘We’ll edit that part out,’ Thor had replied.
While the contestants and audience were being separately shepherded off the dock, Rose had been led to a folding chair behind some camera equipment. Someone found a white fluffy towel in the warehouse and draped it over her shoulders. It was almost the size of a bedsheet. The police had been called, but the officers had left after speaking briefly to Rose.
An hour had passed since then, and apart from a few crew members packing up the gear, the dock was deserted. Rose wondered what was going to happen now. Was she in trouble? Should she just go home? Then a production assistant asked Rose to follow her to the site office inside the warehouse. Wrapping the towel around her, Rose got up and went inside.
Sitting at one of the desks in the admin space was a figure who stood up as she approached. As he complimented her, she realised she was speaking to Leary Barker, her boss’s boss.
‘Hi,’ he said as they both sat down. ‘My name’s Leary Barker, I’m the Executive Producer at Endeavour Productions.’
Rose smiled. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘We’ve met. Twice.’
‘I never forget a face,’ Leary said, not looking at Rose’s face.
‘The second time
