I drove down to Kent and when my friend brought the bottle from the kitchen, I realized why she had spoken of it with such enthusiasm. It was a very striking and beautiful teardrop shape, a very bright colour, a special bottle.

We took our dogs and walked together on the beach and I wondered that she should choose such an unattractive location. I thought Warden Bay was one of the ugliest beaches I had ever visited. The texture of the mud was glutinous; the distance of the sea at low tide made the water a remote and uninspiring presence; the location of the beach between council and industrial estates was uninviting. My friend admitted she only came here when she was feeling really low and then it struck a chord of sympathy with her.

Back at her house, I asked if I could borrow the bottle with its letter. She agreed readily, but as she handed it over to me, her eyes gleamed momentarily, like Bilbo’s when he is forced to pass over the ring to the next bearer. The mystery and beauty of the bottle, allied to its tragic message, created a possessiveness that I would grow to understand in the weeks and months that passed. Once she relinquished it she seemed almost relieved. Amid reassurances that I would return the bottle once I had had a good look at it, and would guard it against all harm, I left with my own filthy, beach-beslimed dog shortly afterwards.

That night I lifted the bottle out of the protective cardboard box I had placed it in, unwrapped the tissue paper, and set it on the kitchen table. My partner took his newspaper and retired to another room. I stared at the bottle, enjoying its shape and colour, and wondering once more about the woman who had sent it. I was beginning to realize that the search for her would not be easy. In the past I had tracked documents through the labyrinthine archives of Europe’s oldest libraries, I had hunted down secretive old Nazis who had eluded the authorities for years, I had delved into the cupboards of the Vatican’s restricted archives, but maybe this quest would defeat me. As the warm kitchen light was reflected back from the dense blue glass, the bottle seemed to be issuing a challenge. Go on, it appeared to be saying. Use those linguistic and detective skills of which you are so proud, find out about me . . .

I wrapped the bottle carefully, extinguishing its teasing glow with a vindictive flick of tissue paper, and buried it in its cardboard box. I would take up the challenge.

4

‘Lancer, jeter une bouteille à la mer: lancer un message en espérant qu’il trouvera un destinataire.’

‘To throw a bottle into the sea: “to throw out a message in the hope that it will find its destination.”’

Le Petit Larousse, 1998

I cannot remember the first time I became aware that bottles could contain messages. It is a fact of life that I always knew, a part of my consciousness from childhood adventure stories. As far back as I can remember I always knew that letters could be sent in bottles, though I had never sent one myself, or found one. Friends and acquaintances recalled sending them as children, and one or two had even found letters in bottles, simple little requests for penfriends from other children on holiday by the seaside.