Twenty-year-old Nellie was in shock. The adventure of a lifetime with a promise of a new life was over. On the lifeboat amongst the weeping and dark, impenetrable cold, it was hard to imagine the joy she had shared with the young man. The heir to a great fortune in the United States, their dalliance had seemed unimaginable in her small Cornish community. She had caught the last glimpse of him singing along with the band on deck. How smart they had all looked in their best jackets. And how beautiful she had been, too, in her Sunday best with Mother's powder and lipstick. The dress she was still wearing, but the rest were probably now deep beneath the North Atlantic Ocean. The unsinkable Titanic sunk.

Juggling family commitments and her job was still relatively new to Doctor of Archaeology Diana Garry. It used to be work before all else. But that was no longer possible. At least a short dig season to rescue a possible Celtic temple of Bridget from the developers who were turning the industrial waterside of Belfast into luxury flats should be straightforward enough. No mythical cities or dashing knights here next to Harland and Wolff's remaining shipyard. She chuckled to herself as she thought, "unless I was on the Titanic in a past life!" But on the other hand, she had never had a great fear of water, so that could certainly be discounted.