He’d anchored her on a rocky reef he knew well, which would be a great place for Forest to learn diving. He peered down through the blue water, excited to get down there. He loved the ocean, always had, always would.

Zeus clearly didn’t. He was curled up in the crate where Keegan usually slept – the dog looked miserable.

It would be Forest’s first time scuba-diving in the ocean, but he’d given him a two-hour lesson in Overeem’s Dive Centre and Ahab was satisfied. It wasn’t strictly necessary – people ran scuba tours for tourists all the time with barely any preparation, but Ahab wasn’t going to cut corners where the boy was concerned. No matter how impatient he was to hear what he had to say.

It’d be a fine thing if, when we’re this close, I drowned the kid . . .

Forest had been surprisingly quick to learn. Ahab felt he should have expected as much – the boy was clearly smart, he never had to be told anything twice, and both Alexandra and Jesse had been at home in the ocean.

Ahab pulled the straps tighter on Forest’s BC, then checked the seal on his cheap wetsuit. He’d hired the kit from Overeem’s, and they didn’t always take care of their rental gear.

‘You do exactly as I say, or you’ll die,’ he said firmly. ‘Okay?’

Forest nodded, sticking the regulator in his mouth as though to say, Let’s go, already!

The glimmer of excitement behind his scuba mask was contagious, and Ahab himself was now eager to get in.

‘Alright, sit on the edge of the boat, hand on your reg and your mask, other arm across your chest, and roll back. Careful – it’s shallower than you think.’

Forest let himself fall backwards off the boat, exactly as instructed. Ahab waited until he’d surfaced and gave the okay symbol, then he followed him in.

The water was cold, as it always was, but touched only his hands and neck, his wetsuit keeping the rest of him warm. He inflated his BC and then said, ‘Ready to go down? I’m going to see if you can clear your mask again, just like we did at the pool. Before we descend, what are the five steps . . .?’

But Forest had already released air from his BC, disappearing beneath the waves.

‘Little mongrel,’ muttered Ahab. He put his regulator in his mouth and went down after him.

Under the surface was like a fairyland. The music of water sloshing against sand and rock, the bubbles from the breather, the ebb and flow of the current, the cool water trickling ice-like down the back of his neck and up his sleeves.