While peering into gift shops and cafés, Shelly became aware of local eyes following her, one of the first tourists of the season. Between a fish restaurant and a ticket office she discovered a rack of sepia postcards showing Kea as it was. Her excitement rose as she bought one of each, and a vague plan to further record her great-grandmother’s life germinated.

A short stroll along the pale sand brought her to the simple little church on a promontory dividing the bay. Under a deep cobalt sky, the blinding white chapel, surrounded by a flourish of wild asphodels bursting from the rocks, made the perfect photograph. She would dedicate at least one day solely to photography, but for now, she needed to swim, to lay the ghost of David and that terrible day. Every holiday was the same. This first swim, a pilgrimage in memory to the day she lost David.

*

She hoped the rock that the chapel stood upon would continue just as steeply under the water. A sanctuary for myriad sea creatures. Small octopus, pipe worms with their colourful chrysanthemum-type heads; fat, coral-coloured starfish, sea urchins, young sea bream and striped, colourful wrasse. Picking her spot on the pristine sand, she dropped her sundress and beach bag, pulled on her snorkel gear, and walked into the sea.

Once the water reached her thighs, she slipped on the fins. It had been so long since her last holiday, she stood for a moment, savouring her surroundings. The sun, on its descent now, sparked off the water. She took a deep breath through her snorkel tube, testing it, then dived below the surface, scudding along the seabed. The thrust of water stroking her shoulders, back, and legs. A sensation of speed, weightlessness, and adventure surrounded her. A smile hovered in her chest, then spread through her body. This underwater world was so beautiful it made her want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Small boulders lay scattered over patches of pale sand, crosshatched by silver lines of glinting light. The shadows of fish played across the seabed. She wondered how Mother Nature disguised them so well that they disappeared leaving only their telltale shadow on the sand below.

The bottom sloped away until she was two metres beneath the surface. She wanted to stay down, explore, but her chest tightened with the need for air. More fish appeared once she had the eye for them, picture-book perfect, congregating in shapeshifting murmurs. Swift and silent. Her heart thudded, her blood thickened, needing oxygen, she must go up, up, breathe. Half a metre of moray eel slid from under a rock. A body of pure muscle, thick as her forearm, wearing nature’s warning livery of yellow and black. Lips turned in, cheeks hollow, like an old man without his dentures. Repugnant yet hypnotising. The fixed, smiling mouth showed a hint of razor teeth, while two satanic eyes drew her. The devil in the deep blue sea.