The Woman in Cabin 10 (6 page)

- CHAPTER 7 -

W
hite.
White.

Everything was white. The pale wood floor. The white velvet sofas. The long raw-silk curtains. The flawless walls. It was spectacularly impractical for a public vessel—deliberately so, I had to assume.

Another Swarovski chandelier hung from the ceiling and I couldn’t help but pause in the doorway, more than a little dazed. It wasn’t just the light, the way it glinted and refracted from the crystals on the ceiling, it was something about the scale. The room was like a perfect replica of a drawing room in a five-star hotel, or a reception room on the
QE2
, but it was
small
. There could not have been more than twelve or fifteen people in the room, and yet they filled the space, and even the chandelier was scaled down to fit. It gave the strangest impression—a little like looking in through the doorway of a doll’s house, where everything is miniaturized and yet slightly off-kilter, the replica cushions a little too large and stiff for the tiny chairs, the wineglasses the same size as the fake champagne bottle.

I was scanning the room, looking for the girl in the Pink Floyd T-shirt, when a low, amused voice came from the corridor behind me.

“Blinding, isn’t it?”

I turned to see the mysterious Mr. Lederer standing there.

“Just a touch,” I said. He held out his hand.

“Cole Lederer.”

The name was faintly familiar but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Laura Blacklock.” We shook, and I took him in. Even in jeans and a T-shirt struggling up the gangway, he was what Lissie would have called “eye candy.” Now he was wearing a dinner jacket in a way that made me remember Lissie’s rule of thumb: a dinner jacket added 33 percent to a man’s attractiveness.

“So,” he said, taking a glass off a tray proffered by yet another smiling Scandinavian stewardess. “What brings you to the
Aurora
, Miss Blacklock?”

“Oh, call me Lo. I’m a journalist, I work for
Velocity.
”

“Well, very happy to meet you, Lo. Can I offer you a drink?”

He picked up a second flute and held it out with a smile. The empty miniatures in the cabin floated up before my eyes, and I wavered for a moment, knowing I was on the cusp of drinking too much so early in the evening but not wanting to seem rude. My stomach was very, very empty and the gin hadn’t quite worn off, but surely one more glass couldn’t hurt?

“Thanks,” I said at last. He handed it over, his fingers brushing mine in a way I wasn’t sure was accidental, and I took a gulp, trying to drown my nerves. “How about you? What’s your role here?”

“I’m a photographer,” he said, and I suddenly realized where I’d heard the name before.

“Cole Lederer!” I exclaimed. I was ready to kick myself. Rowan would have been all over him, right from the gangway. “Of course—you did that amazing shoot for the
Guardian
of the melting ice caps.”

“That’s right.” He grinned, unashamedly pleased at being recognized, though you would have thought the thrill would have worn off for him by now. The guy was only a couple of steps down from David Bailey. “I’ve been invited to cover this lot, you know, moody shots of the fjords and stuff.”

“It’s not usually your thing, is it?” I said doubtfully.

“No,” he agreed. “I tend to do mainly endangered species or at-risk environments these days, and I don’t think you could say this lot were at any particular risk of extinction. They all look particularly well-fed.”

We gazed around the room together.

I had to agree with him when it came to the men. There was a little knot in the far corner who looked like they could survive for several weeks off their fat reserves, if we were ever shipwrecked. The women were a different story, though. They all had that lean, polished look that spoke of hot Bikram yoga and a macrobiotic diet, and they didn’t look like they’d survive long if the ship went down. Maybe they could eat one of the men.

I recognized a few faces from other press shindigs—there was Tina West, whippet-thin and wearing jewelry weighing more than she did, who edited the
Vernean Times
(motto:
Eighty days is just the start
); the travel journalist Alexander Belhomme, who wrote features and foodie articles for a number of cross-channel and in-flight magazines and was sleek and rotund as a walrus; and Archer Fenlan, who was a well-known expert on “extreme travel.”

Archer, who was maybe forty but looked older with his perma-tanned weathered face, was shifting from foot to foot, looking distinctly uncomfortable in his tie and dinner jacket. I couldn’t quite imagine what he was doing here—his normal beat was eating witchetty grubs up the Amazon, but maybe he was having a bit of time off.

I couldn’t see the girl from the next-door cabin anywhere.

“Boo!” said a voice from behind me.

I whipped round.

Ben Howard. What the hell was he doing here? He was grinning at me through a thick hipster beard that was new since I’d last seen him.

“Ben,” I said thinly, trying to suppress my shock. “How are you? Have you met Cole Lederer? Ben and I used to be at
Velocity
together. Now he writes for the . . . what is it at the moment?
Indie
?
Times
?”

“Me and Cole know each other,” Ben said easily. “We covered that Greenpeace thing together. How’s it going, man?”

“All right,” Cole said. They did that sort of manly half-hug thing, where you’re too metrosexual for a handshake and not hip enough for a fist bump.

“Lookin’ good, Blacklock,” Ben said, turning to me and giving me the once-over in a way that made me want to knee him in the balls, except that the sodding dress was too tight. “Although . . . have you, er, been cage fighting again?”

For a minute I couldn’t work out what he was on about. Then I realized: the bruise on my cheek. Obviously my expertise with the concealer wasn’t as good as I’d thought.

The flashing memory of the door slamming into my cheek and the man in my flat—about Ben’s height, with the same liquid dark eyes—was so vivid that my heart had begun thumping and my chest felt tight, and for a long moment I couldn’t find the words to reply. I just stared at him, not trying to keep the ice out of my expression.

“Sorry, sorry.” He held up a hand. “My own beeswax, I know. Christ, this collar’s tight.” He yanked at his bow tie. “How did you land this gig, then? Going up in the world?”

“Rowan’s ill,” I said shortly.

“Cole!” A voice broke into the awkward pause and we all turned to look. It was Tina, sashaying smoothly across the pristine white-oak floor, her silver dress rustling like snakeskin. She gave Lederer a lingering kiss on both cheeks, ignoring me and Ben. “Sweetie, it’s been
far
too long.” Her voice was throaty with emotion. “And
when
are you going to do that shoot you promised for the
Vernean
?”

“Hi, Tina,” Cole said, with just a touch of weariness in his tone.

“Let me introduce you to Richard and Lars,” she purred, and, slipping her arm through his, she bore him off to the knot of men I’d noticed at the beginning. He allowed himself to be carried away, with just a little rueful smile over his shoulder as he went. Ben watched him go and then turned back to me, cocking an eyebrow with such perfect comic timing that I let out a snort.

“I think we know who the belle of the ball is, right?” he said dryly, and I had to nod. “So how are you, anyway?” he continued. “Still with the Yank?”

What could I say? I don’t know? There’s a strong possibility I might have screwed things up enough to have lost him?

“Still very much unavailable,” I said at last, sourly.

“Shame. But you know, what happens in the fjords stays in the fjords. . . .”

“Oh, piss off, Howard,” I snapped. He put up his hands.

“Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

Yes, I can, I thought, but I didn’t say it. Instead, I grabbed another glass from a passing waitress and looked round for something to change the subject.

“Who are the others, then?” I asked. “I’ve got you, me, Cole, Tina, and Archer ticked off. Oh, and Alexander Belhomme. What about that crowd over there?” I nodded at the little group Tina was chatting to. There were three men and two women, one of them about my age but about fifty thousand pounds better dressed, and the other . . . well, the other was sort of a surprise.

“That’s Lord Bullmer and his cronies. You know, he’s the owner of the boat and the . . . I guess you’d call it the company figurehead?”

I stared at the little knot in the corner, trying to make out Lord Bullmer from the snap on
Wikipedia
. At first I couldn’t work out which one he was, and then one of the men gave a full-throated laugh, throwing back his head, and I knew at once it was him. He was tall, wirily slim, and dressed in a suit so well cut that I was certain it must be tailored. He was fiercely tanned, as if he spent a lot of time outdoors, his bright blue eyes narrowed into slits as he laughed, and there was a streak of premature gray at each temple, but it was the grayness that comes sometimes with extremely black hair, not old age.

“He’s so young,” I said wonderingly. “Seems kind of weird for someone our age to be a peer, don’t you think?”

“He’s Viscount Something as well, I think. The money’s mainly down to his wife, of course. She’s the Lyngstad heiress, her family owned that huge car manufacturer. You know the ones I mean?”

I nodded. My business knowledge might be shaky, and the family might be famously private, but even I’d heard of the Lyngstad Foundation. Every time I saw footage of an international disaster zone, their logo was on the trucks and aid parcels. I had a sudden memory of a shot I’d seen all over the papers last year—it might even have been one of Cole’s—of a Syrian mother standing in front of a Lyngstad-branded truck with a baby in her arms, holding the child up towards the driver like a talisman to make the vehicle stop.

“And is that her?” I nodded at the willowy white-blonde with her back to me, who was laughing at something one of the other men had said. She was dressed in a devastatingly simple gown of rose-colored wild silk that made me feel like I’d cobbled mine together from my childhood dressing-up box. Ben shook his head.

“No, she’s Chloe Jenssen. Ex-model and married to that chap with the blond hair, Lars Jenssen. He’s a big noise in finance, head of a Swedish investment group. I imagine Bullmer’s got him here as a potential investor. No, that’s Bullmer’s wife, next to him, in the headscarf.”

Oh
 . . . She was the surprise. In contrast to the other women in the group, the woman in the headscarf looked . . . well, she looked ill. She was wearing a kind of shapeless gray silk kimono wrap that matched her eyes, and looked halfway between an evening dress and a dressing gown, but even from here I could see she was wearing a silk scarf wound around her scalp, and her skin was waxily pale. Her gray pallor stood out in sharp contrast to the rest of the group, who looked almost obscenely healthy in contrast. I realized I was staring and dropped my eyes.

“She’s been ill,” Ben said unnecessarily. “Breast cancer. I think it was pretty serious.”

“How old is she?”

“Barely thirty, I think. Younger than him, anyway.”

As Ben drained his glass and turned to look for a waiter to fill up, I found my gaze drawn back. I would never in a million years have recognized her from the photograph I’d seen on
Wikipedia
. Perhaps it was the gray skin, or the loose-fitting silks, but she seemed years older, and with that glorious mane of golden hair gone, she looked like a completely different woman.

Why was she here and not at home lying on a sofa? But then again, why
shouldn’t
she be here? Maybe she didn’t have long to live. Maybe she was trying to make the most of her time. Or maybe—here was a thought—just maybe, she wished that the woman in the gray dress would stop staring at her with pitying eyes and leave her alone.

I looked away again and cast around for someone less vulnerable to speculate about. There was only one person left in the group unaccounted for, a tall older man with a neatly clipped graying beard and a gut that could only be the product of a lot of long lunches.

“Who’s the Donald Sutherland look-alike?” I said to Ben. He turned back round.

“Who? Oh, that’s Owen White. UK investor. Richard Branson type—just on a slightly smaller scale.”

“Jesus, Ben. How do you
know
all this? Have you got an encyclopedic knowledge of high society or something?”

“Er, no.” Ben looked at me, a touch of disbelief in his expression. “I rang up the press office for a list of guests and then googled them. It’s not exactly Sherlock Holmes stuff.”

Fuck.
Fuck
. Why hadn’t I done that? It was what any good reporter would have done—and I’d not even thought of it. But then, Ben probably hadn’t spent the last few days in a haze of sleep deprivation and PTSD.

“How about—”

But whatever Ben had been about to say, it was drowned out by the
ting ting ting!
of metal against champagne flute, and Lord Bullmer moved into the center of the room. Camilla Lidman put down the flute and teaspoon she was holding and made as if to step forward and introduce him, but he waved a hand and she melted into the background with a self-effacing smile.

The room fell into a respectful, faintly anticipatory silence, and Lord Bullmer began to speak.

“Thank you, everyone, for coming to join us here on the
Aurora
on this, its maiden voyage,” he began. His voice was warm, and had that curiously classless tone that people from public school seemed to strive for, and his blue eyes had a kind of magnetic quality that was hard to look away from. “My name is Richard Bullmer, and my wife, Anne, and I would like to welcome you aboard the
Aurora
. What we have sought to do with this ship is make it nothing less than a home away from home.”

“Home away from home?” Ben whispered. “Maybe his home has a sea-view balcony and a free minibar. Mine sure as hell doesn’t.”