The Drowned Hydrophone

The cold open

The gale off Point Desolation had stripped the salt-cedars bare before midnight, rattling the reinforced glass of the oceanographic trench lab. Down in the pressure tank, Dr. Vance floated face-down among the bioluminescent siphons, the brine stained rust-red beneath the humming fluorescents. In a place designed to map the silent depths of the Pacific, someone had silenced the station's director for good.

The victim

Dr. Alistair Vance

The lineup

• Elena Cruz
• Marcus Tate
• Nadia Bell
• Graham Fife