The Woman in Cabin 10 (12 page)

“She had long dark hair,” I said. “She was about your age—late twenties, maybe—really pretty, and she spoke English like someone born in Britain. She was about my height. Can you think of anyone”—I was aware my voice had started to sound pleading—“
anyone
who would fit that description?”

“Well, I have dark hair, obviously,” Ulla said with a laugh. “But it was not me, so after that I am not so sure. There is Hanni, she has dark hair, and Birgitta—”

“I’ve met them,” I interrupted. “It’s not them. Anyone else? Cleaners? Sailing crew?”

“N-no . . . there’s no one on the sailing crew who could fit that description,” Ulla said slowly. “On the staff there is also Eva, but she is too old. Have you spoken to the kitchen staff?”

“Never mind.” I was beginning to despair. This was starting to feel like a recurring nightmare, interviewing person after person after person, while all the while the memory of the dark-haired girl began to dissolve and shimmer, slipping through my fingers like water. The more faces I saw, each corresponding slightly but not completely to my memory, the harder I was finding it to hold on to the image in my head.

And yet, there was something defining about that girl, something I was sure I’d recognize if I saw her again. It wasn’t the features—they were pretty, but ordinary enough. It wasn’t the hair, or the Pink Floyd T-shirt. It was something about
her
, the sheer liveliness and vivacity of her expression as she peered sharply out into the corridor, her surprise as she had seen my face.

Was it really possible she was dead?

But the alternative was not much better. Because if she wasn’t, the only other possibility—and suddenly I wasn’t sure if it was better or worse—was that I was going mad.

- CHAPTER 13 -

U
lla and Nilsson both excused themselves when my breakfast arrived, leaving me to stare out the window as I ate. Up here, with a view of the sea and the deck, I didn’t feel quite so sick, and I managed a respectable amount of breakfast, feeling the energy come back into my limbs and the nagging nausea abate. It struck me that at least half the reason I had been feeling so crappy was probably low blood sugar. I always get strange and shaky on an empty stomach.

But though the food and the sight of the ocean made me feel physically better, I could not stop running over last night’s events in my head, replaying the conversation with the girl, the surprise on her face, the touch of irritation as she shoved the mascara into my hand. Something had been going on—I was sure of it. It felt like coming into a film halfway through, struggling to work out who the characters were. I had interrupted the girl
doing
something. But what?

Whatever it was, it was probably linked to her disappearance. And whatever Nilsson thought, I could not believe she had been cleaning the room. No one cleaned a room in a thigh-skimming Pink Floyd T-shirt. And besides—she just hadn’t
looked
like a cleaner. You didn’t get hair and nails like that on a cleaner’s wage. The gloss on that thick dark mane had spoken of years of conditioning wraps and expensive low lights. Industrial espionage? A stowaway? An affair? I remembered the cold glint in Cole’s eyes as he spoke about his ex-wife, and Camilla Lidman’s bland reassurances downstairs. I thought of Nilsson’s lumbering strength, of Alexander unpleasantly dwelling on the topic of poison and unnatural death last night at dinner—but each possibility seemed more unlikely than the last.

It was her face that troubled me. The more I struggled to remember it, the more it blurred. The concrete bits—her height, the color of her hair, the state of her nails—all that I could picture clearly. But her features . . . a neat nose . . . narrow dark brows carefully plucked. That was about it. I could say what she was
not
: plump, old, acne-spotted. Saying what she
was
was far harder. Her nose had been . . . normal. Her mouth . . . normal. Not wide, not rosebud, not pouting, not bee-stung. Just . . . normal. There was nothing distinctive that I could put my finger on.

She could have been me.

I knew what Nilsson wanted. He wanted me to forget what I’d heard, the scream, the stealthy slide of the screen door, and that horrible, huge slithering splash.

He wanted me to start doubting my own account of things. He was taking me seriously, only to make me start undermining myself. He was letting me ask all the questions I wanted—enough to convince myself of my own fallibility.

And part of me couldn’t blame him—this was the
Aurora
’s maiden voyage, and the boat was stuffed with journalists and photographers and influential people. There was hardly a worse time for something to go wrong. I could imagine the headlines now: “Voyage to Death—Passenger on Luxury Press Trip Drowned.” As head of security, Nilsson’s neck would be on the line. He’d lose his job, at the very least, if something went wrong on the
Aurora
, on the very first
voyage he was involved in.

But more than that—the kind of publicity that an unexplained death would generate could sink the whole enterprise. Something like this could scupper the
Aurora
before she was even launched, and if that happened, everyone on board could lose their jobs, from the captain down to Iwona, the cleaner.

I knew that.

But I had heard
something
. Something that had made me start from my sleep with my heart pounding two hundred beats per minute, and my palms wet with sweat, and the conviction that somewhere very close by, another woman was in grave trouble. I
knew
what it was like to be that girl—to realize, in an instant, how incredibly fragile your hold on life could be, how paper-thin the walls of security really were.

And whatever Nilsson might say, if nothing had happened to that girl, then where was she? The scream, the blood—all those I could have imagined. But the girl—I definitely hadn’t imagined the girl. And she could not have vanished into thin air without help.

I rubbed my eyes, feeling the gritty residue of last night’s eye makeup, and I realized—I had just one single thing to prove she had not been a figment of my imagination: that Maybelline mascara.

Wild thoughts tripped through my head, one after the other. I would take it back to England in a plastic bag and get it fingerprinted. No, better yet, I’d get it DNA tested. There was DNA on makeup brushes, wasn’t there? On
CSI: Miami
they would have based an entire prosecution case on a trapped eyelash. There must be
something
they could do.

I pushed aside the mental image of myself marching up to Crouch End police station with a mascara in a bag and demanding advanced forensic analysis from a police officer only barely restraining his amused smile.
Someone
would believe me. They had to. And if they didn’t I’d—I’d pay to get it done myself.

I pulled out my phone, ready to google “private DNA testing cost,” but even before I had unlocked the home screen, I realized how crazy it was. I wasn’t going to get police-grade DNA testing from an Internet company specializing in cheating spouses. And what would the results tell me anyway, without anything to compare it to?

Instead, I found myself checking my e-mail. Nothing from Judah. In fact, nothing at all. There was no phone reception, but I seemed to be connected to the boat’s Wi-Fi network and I forced a refresh. But nothing happened. The little “updating” icon whirred and whirred, and then
NO NETWORK CONNECTION
popped up.

With a sigh, I put the phone away in my pocket and surveyed the blueberries on my plate. The pancakes had been delicious, but my appetite was gone. It seemed impossible, surreal: I’d witnessed a murder—or had heard one at least—and yet here I was, trying to force down pancakes and coffee, while all the time there was a murderer walking free and there was nothing I could do.

Did they know they’d been heard and reported? With the noise I’d been making, and the questions I’d been asking all round the boat, if they didn’t last night, they did now.

The boat took another wave, broadside on, and I pushed the plate away and stood up.

“Is there anything else, Miss Blacklock?” Bjorn asked, and I jumped violently and swung around. He had appeared as if by magic from a door set into the paneling at the back of the room. It was almost impossible to see unless you knew it was there. Had he been there all that time, watching me? Was there some kind of
spy hole
?

I shook my head and did my best to smile as I walked across the slowly tilting floor.

“No, thank you, Bjorn. Thanks for all your help.”

“Have a wonderful morning. Do you have plans? If you haven’t tried it, the view from the deck-top hot tub is stunning.”

I had a sudden vision of myself, alone in the hot tub, a hand in latex gloves pushing me beneath the water . . .

I shook my head again.

“I’m supposed to be going to the spa, I think. But I might go for a lie-down in my cabin first. I’m very tired. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“Of course.” He pronounced it like
off course.
“I completely understand. A little ara and ara is prescribed, perhaps!”

“Ara and ara?” I was puzzled.

“Is that not the expression? Ara and ara, rest and relaxion?”

“Oh!” I blushed. “Rest and relaxation. Yes, of course. Sorry—like I said, I’m so tired . . .” I was edging towards the door, my skin suddenly crawling at the thought of the unseen eyes that could be watching our conversation. At least in my cabin I could be sure of being alone
.

“Enjoy your rest!”

“I will,” I said. I turned to go—and walked slap into a bleary-eyed Ben Howard.

“Blacklock!”

“Howard.”

“Last night . . .” he said awkwardly. I shook my head. I wasn’t about to have this conversation in front of the softly spoken Bjorn, who was smiling at the opposite side of the room.

“Let’s not go there,” I said curtly. “We were both drunk. Have you only just woken up?”

“Yeah.” He stifled a huge yawn. “After I left your cabin I bumped into Archer and we ended up playing poker with Lars and Richard Bullmer until stupid o’clock.”

“Oh.” I chewed my lip. “What time did you get to bed?”

“Christ knows. Four-ish, I think.”

“Only because . . .” I started. And then stopped. Nilsson did not believe me. I was getting to the point where I barely believed myself. But Ben . . . He would believe me—right?

I thought back to our time together, to how it ended . . . Suddenly I wasn’t so sure.

“Never mind,” I said shortly. “I’ll tell you later. Have your breakfast.”

“Are you all right?” he said as I turned to go. “You look terrible.”

“Great. Thanks.”

“No, I just mean—you look like you’ve barely slept.”

“I didn’t.” I was trying not to snap, but anxiety and exhaustion were making me more abrupt than I meant. Then, as the boat lurched over another wave, “I’m finding this sea a bit rough.”

“Yeah? I’m lucky, I never get seasick.” There was an irritating touch of smugness in his voice and I resisted the urge to snap back something short and sharp. “Never mind, we’ll be in Trondheim early tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” My voice must have betrayed my dismay, for he looked at me sharply.

“Yes. Why, what’s the matter?”

“I thought—I imagined, today . . .” I trailed off. He shrugged.

“It’s a long way, you know.”

“Never mind.” I needed to get back to my room, think this through—try to work out what I had and hadn’t seen. “I’m going to go back to my room—have a lie-down.”

“Sure. See you later, Blacklock,” Ben said. His tone was light. But his eyes, as he watched me walk away, were worried.

I
thought I was heading for the stairs to the lower deck, but I must have taken a wrong turn because I ended up in the library—a tiny paneled version of a country-house library, complete with green-shaded reading lamps and tiered shelving, re-created on a miniature scale.

I sighed, and tried to work out where I’d gone wrong, and if there was a quicker route back than retracing my steps and facing Ben again. It seemed impossible to get lost on such a small boat, but there was something very confusing about the way the rooms were fitted together, like a locking puzzle designed to squeeze out every inch of empty space, and navigating the maze was made more complicated by the way the boat’s movement messed with my sense of direction.

It didn’t help that, unlike a ferry, there were no floor plans or maps, and minimal signage—I supposed to help the impression that this was a private home that you just happened to share with a load of rich people.

There were two exits, and more or less at random, I opened the door to the deck. At least outside I could be certain which way I was facing, relative to the direction of travel. As I stepped outside, feeling the wind buffet my face, I heard a hoarse, nicotine-soaked voice from behind me.

“Darling, it’s a miracle you’re standing! How are you this morning?”

I turned. It was Tina, standing beneath a curved glass smoking shelter, a cigarette between her fingers. She took a long drag.

“Little bit the worse for wear?”

I suppressed the urge to turn and flee. I was supposed to be networking. I couldn’t let a self-inflicted hangover get in the way of that. I attempted a smile, hoping it was convincing.

“A bit. I shouldn’t have drunk so much.”

“Well, I was rather impressed by the amount you put away,” she said, with a slightly mocking smile. “As my old boss told me when I started at the
Express
back in the days of the
really
long lunch, if you can outdrink your interviewee, you’re on your way to your first scoop.”

I looked at her through the haze of smoke. Office gossip was that she had made her way up the corporate ladder by treading on the backs of more young women than you could count, and then, once she was through the glass ceiling, pulling the ladder up behind her. I remembered Rowan once saying,
Tina is one of those women who thinks every bit of estrogen in the boardroom is a threat to her own existence.

But somehow, I couldn’t quite square her remarks with the woman standing in front of me. I knew at least one ex-colleague who said she owed Tina her career, and as I looked at her now, her heavily made-up eyes laughing at me, I thought about what it must have been like to be a female journalist in that generation, clawing your way up through the ranks of the old-boys’ network. It was hard enough now. Maybe it wasn’t Tina’s fault she couldn’t take every other woman in the office with her.

“Come here, darling, I’ll let you into a little secret,” she said, and beckoned me over, her rings chinking on her skeletal fingers. “Hair of the dog, followed by a long, slow screw.”

There was only one possible response that didn’t start with
eeeeeeww,
and that was a noncommittal silence. Tina gave her throaty, nicotine-soaked laugh again.

“I’ve shocked you.”

“Not really. It’s just—you know—we’re a little short on candidates.”

“I thought you and that sexy little Ben Howard were looking rather friendly last night . . .” she drawled. I repressed a shudder.

“Ben and I were together, years back,” I said firmly. “And I’ve got no desire to go back there.”

“Very sensible, darling.” She patted my arm, her rings clinking against my skin. “As the Afghans say, a man may never bathe in the same lake twice.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to this.

“What’s your name again?” she said abruptly. “Louise, was it?”

“Lo. It’s short for Laura, actually.”

“Nice to meet you, Lo. And you’re with Rowan at
Velocity
, is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” I said. “I’m a features writer.” And then, surprising myself, “But I’m hoping to cover her maternity leave while she’s off. It’s partly why I got this trip, I think. They wanted to test the waters. See how I did.”