Post by Szymon Walczak, PMP

𝗗𝗘𝗔𝗗 𝗪𝗔𝗧𝗘𝗥 — Episode 3 🚣 A DI Fiona MacLeod mystery Previously: mid-race, James's oar snags on something in the water — and he looks down into the face of the woman he loves. — · — For a second the world stopped. Heart, breath, thought — everything froze. And then it all came rushing back. This was no illusion. The water and Priya's face were real. Her open eyes were as cloudy as the Thames, her hair — her beautiful black hair, that he had so loved to weave through his fingers, smelling of jasmine and something he could never quite name — coiled around his oar like weeds, and her skin was the colour of old wax. Dark marks ran across her throat. James began to scream. He hadn't known a man could make such a sound. Something primal, animal, a scream that came from a place deeper than his throat, deeper than his lungs. Tom Whitmore and the other rowers turned, the boat rocked dangerously, and the Oxford crew pulled a full length ahead. "Ashworth! Ashworth, get a grip!" The cox tried to take control, but James could no longer hear. He let go of the oar. He leaned over the gunwale. His hands reached for her body. He wanted to pull her out, to wake her, to tell her that everything would be all right, that it was only a dream. But Priya was cold and stiff. She was dead. He did not remember how the boat reached the bank, nor how someone wrapped him in a blanket. He remembered only her face and his own scream, which seemed never to end. The 1985 Oxford–Cambridge Boat Race was halted for the first time in forty-one years. The next day every newspaper wrote of the scandal, of the disruption of a great tradition. Only at the very end of the articles was the girl mentioned. An unidentified woman. Probably an immigrant. Circumstances of death undetermined. James sat in his hotel room, staring at the photograph of Priya on the bedside table. She was smiling that faint, shy smile of hers, the one that only appeared once she truly trusted someone. He had promised to protect her. To help her. He had not kept his word. ▶ To be continued. #CrimeFiction #SerialFiction #Thriller #MysteryWriter #AmWriting #1980sLondon #WritingCommunity #DeadWater #FionaMacLeod