The Woman in Cabin 10 (9 page)

But although I tried to concentrate on the words, something niggled at the corner of my mind. It wasn’t just paranoia.
Something
had woken me up. Something that left me jumpy and strung out as a meth addict. Why did I keep thinking of a scream?

I was turning the page when I heard something else, something that barely registered above the sound of the engine and the slap of the waves, a sound so soft that the scrape of paper against paper almost drowned it out.

It was the noise of the veranda door in the next cabin sliding gently open.

I held my breath, straining to hear.

And then there was a splash.

Not a small splash.

No, this was a big splash.

The kind of splash made by a body hitting water.

JUDAH LEWIS

24 September at 8.50am

Hey, guys, bit concerned about Lo. She hasn’t checked in for a few days since she left on a press trip. Anyone heard from her? Getting kinda worried. Cheers.

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LISSIE WIGHT
Hi Jude! She messaged me on Sunday—20th I guess it must have been? Said the boat was amazing!

Like · Reply 24 September at 9.02am

JUDAH LEWIS
Yeah, I heard from her then, too, but she didn’t reply to my e-mail or my text on Monday. And she hasn’t updated facebook or twitter, either.

Like · Reply 24 September at 9.03am

JUDAH LEWIS
Anyone? Pamela Crew? Jennifer West? Carl Fox? Emma Stanton? Sorry if I’m tagging random people, I’m just—this is kind of out of character to be honest.

Like · Reply 24 September at 10.44am

PAMELA CREW
She emailed me on Sunday, Jude love. Said the boat was lovely. Do you want me to ask her dad?

Like · Reply 24 September at 11.13am

JUDAH LEWIS
Yes, please, Pam. I don’t want to worry you both, but I feel like she’d have made contact by now, normally. But I’m stuck here in Moscow, so I don’t know if she’s been trying to phone and not getting through.

Like · Reply 24 September at 11.21am

JUDAH LEWIS
Pam, did she tell you the name of the boat? I can’t find it.

Like · Reply 24 September at 11.33am

PAMELA CREW
Hi, Judah, sorry, I was on the phone to her dad. He’s not heard anything, either. The boat was the Aurora, apparently. Let me know if you hear anything. Bye love.

Like · Reply 24 September at 11.48am

JUDAH LEWIS
Thanks, Pam. I’ll try the boat. But if anyone hears anything, please message me.

Like · Reply 24 September at 11.49am

JUDAH LEWIS
Anything?

Like · Reply 24 September at 3.47pm

JUDAH LEWIS
Please, guys, anything?

Like · Reply 24 September at 6.09pm

- CHAPTER 10 -

I
didn’t even think about what to do next.

I ran to the veranda, threw open the French windows, and hung out over the rail, desperately searching for a glimpse of something—or someone—in the shifting waves. The dark surface was spattered with bright refracted light from the ship’s windows, making it almost impossible to make out the shape of anything in the swell, but I thought I saw something beneath the crest of a black wave—a swirling white shape that trailed beneath the surface as it sank, like a woman’s hand.

Then I turned to look at the balcony next to mine.

There was a privacy screen between the two cabins, so I couldn’t see very much, but as I peered over, I saw two things.

The first was that there was a smear on the glass safety barrier of the next-door veranda. A smear of something dark and oily. A smear that looked a lot like blood.

The second was a realization, and one that made my stomach clench and shift. Whoever had been standing there—whoever had thrown that body overboard—could not have missed my stupid, headlong dash to the balcony. In all likelihood they’d been standing on the next-door veranda as I dashed onto mine. They would have heard my door crash back. They would probably even have seen my face.

I darted back into the room, slamming the French windows behind me, and checked the cabin door was double-locked. Then I put the chain across. My heart was thumping in my chest, but I felt calm, calmer than I had in ages.

This was it. This was real danger, and I was coping.

With the cabin door secure, I ran back and checked the veranda windows. There was no deadlock on this—just the normal latch—but it was as secure as I could make it.

Then I picked up the bedside phone with fingers that shook only slightly and dialed 0 for the operator.

“Hello?” said a singsong voice. “How can I help you, Miss Blacklock?”

For a minute I was so disconcerted that she knew it was me that I completely lost my train of thought. Then I realized—my room number would probably come up on the desk phone. Of course it would be me. Who else would be phoning from my room in the middle of the night?

“H-hello!” I managed. In spite of the tremor, my voice sounded surprisingly calm. “Hello. Who is this, please?”

“It’s your cabin stewardess, Karla, Miss Blacklock. Can I help you?” Beneath her perky phone manner a touch of concern had crept in. “Are you all right?”

“No, no, I’m not all right. I—” I stopped, aware how ridiculous this might sound.

“Miss Blacklock?”

“I think—” I swallowed. “I think I’ve just seen a murder.”

“Oh my goodness.” Karla’s voice was shocked, and she said something in a language I didn’t understand—Swedish perhaps, or maybe Danish. Then she seemed to control herself and spoke in English again. “Are you safe, Miss Blacklock?”

Was
I safe? I looked across at the cabin door. It was double-locked and with the chain across, I was as certain as I could be that no one could get in.

“Yes, yes, I think I am. It was in the next-door cabin—number ten. Palmgren. I—I think someone threw a body overboard.”

My voice cracked as I said it, and I suddenly felt like laughing—or maybe crying. I took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to get ahold of myself.

“I will send someone right away, Miss Blacklock. Don’t move. I will call you when they are at the door so you know who it is. Hold on, please, and I will call you right back.”

There was a click, and she hung up.

I was still holding the receiver, and I put it gently back on the cradle, feeling oddly dissociated, almost like I was having an out-of-body experience. My head was throbbing, and I realized I needed to get dressed before they arrived.

I picked up the bathrobe from where it hung on the back of the bathroom door—and did a double take. When I went down to dinner I had left it on the floor, along with the clothes I’d worn on the train. I remembered looking back over my shoulder at the bomb site I’d made in the bathroom—clothes on the floor, makeup scattered across the counter, lipstick-smeared tissues in the sink—and thinking,
I’ll deal with that later.

It was all gone. The bathrobe had been hung up, my dirty clothes and underwear had disappeared, whisked off to God knows where.

On the vanity counter, my cosmetics had been neatly set out in rows, along with my toothbrush and toothpaste. Only my tampons and pills were left inside my toiletry bag, a weirdly coy touch that was somehow worse than everything being out in the open, and made me shudder. Someone had been inside my room. Of course they had. That was what maid service
meant
, for heaven’s sake. But someone had been inside my room, messing with my things, touching my wrinkled tights and my half-used eyeliner pencil.

Why did the thought make me want to cry?

I was sitting on the bed, head in my hands and thinking about the contents of the minibar, when the phone rang, and a couple of seconds later, as I crawled across the duvet to pick up the receiver, there was a knock on the door.

I picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Miss Blacklock?” It was Karla.

“Yes. There’s someone at the door. Should I answer it?”

“Yes, yes, please do. It is our head of security, Johann Nilsson. I will leave you now with him, Miss Blacklock, but please do call me at any time if you need any further assistance.”

There was a click and the line went dead, and the knock on the door came again. I belted my bathrobe more securely and went to open it.

Outside was a man I hadn’t seen before, dressed in some kind of uniform. I don’t know what I was expecting—something pseudo-policeman-like. This was more like a nautical uniform—closer to a purser or something. He was about forty or thereabouts, and tall enough to have to stoop as he took a step forward into the doorway, with rumpled hair that looked like he’d only just got out of bed, and eyes so startlingly blue that it looked almost as if he were wearing colored contacts. I was staring at them when I realized, suddenly, that he was holding out a hand.

“Hello, you must be Miss Blacklock, I presume?” His English was very, very good. Just a faint trace of a Scandinavian accent, so slight he might almost have been Scottish or Canadian. “My name is Johann Nilsson. I am head of security on the
Aurora
. I understand you’ve seen something that disturbed you.”

“Yes,” I said firmly, suddenly painfully aware of the fact that I was in a dressing gown with my mascara halfway down my cheeks while he was fully and professionally dressed. I tightened the belt again, nervously this time. “Yes. I saw—heard—something thrown overboard. I—I think it was, it must have been . . . a body.”

“You saw, or heard?” Nilsson said, cocking his head to one side.

“I heard a splash—a very loud splash. It was quite clearly something very big falling overboard—or being pushed. And then I ran to the balcony and I saw something—a body, it looked like—disappearing under the waves.” Nilsson’s expression was grave but guarded, and as I spoke his frown deepened. “And there was blood on the glass wall of the balcony,” I added.

His lips tightened at that, and he gave a short nod towards the veranda door.

“Your balcony?”

“The blood? No. Next door.”

“Can you show me?”

I nodded, pulled the belt again, and watched as he undid the latch of the veranda door. Outside, the wind had picked up, and it was very cold. I led the way to the narrow space, which felt painfully small now with Nilsson’s bulk beside me. He seemed to take up all the room there was and more, but part of me was very glad he was there. I didn’t think I could have brought myself to go out there on my own.

“There.” I pointed over the privacy barrier that separated my veranda from that of cabin 10. “Look over there. You’ll see what I mean.”

Nilsson peered over the barrier and then looked back at me, frowning slightly.

“I don’t see where you mean. Could you show me?”

“What do you mean? It was a big smear all down the glass.”

He edged backwards, extending a hand towards the barrier by way of invitation, and I pushed past him to peer over. My heart was pounding in spite of myself. I didn’t expect to see the murderer still there, or to get a fist in my face, or feel a bullet fly past my ear. But it felt horribly vulnerable to peer over the wall not knowing what I might find on the other side.

But what I found was . . . nothing.

No murderer, crouched to spring. No smear of blood. The glass barrier shone in the moonlight, clean, innocent of so much as a fingerprint.

I turned back to Nilsson, knowing that my face must be stiff with shock. I shook my head, tried to find the words. He watched me, something sympathetic in his blue eyes.

It was the sympathy that stung more than anything else.

“It was there,” I said angrily. “He’s obviously wiped it off.”

“He?”

“The murderer! The fucking murderer, of course!”

“There’s no need to swear, Miss Blacklock,” he said mildly, and went back inside the cabin. I followed him, and he carefully shut and latched the door behind me and then stood, his hands by his sides, as if waiting for me to say something. I could smell his cologne—not an unpleasant smell, faintly woody. But suddenly the spacious room felt oppressively small.

“What?” I said at last, trying and failing not to make the word sound aggressive. “I told you what I saw. Are you saying I’m lying?”

“Let’s go next door,” he said diplomatically.

I yanked the bathrobe belt tighter still, so tight now I could feel it digging into my stomach, and followed him, barefoot, into the corridor. He gave one short knock at the door of cabin 10, and then, when there was no answer, produced a passkey from his pocket and opened the door.

We stood in the doorway. Nilsson said nothing, but I could feel his presence at my back as I gazed, openmouthed, at the room.

It was utterly empty. Not just of people—but of everything. There were no suitcases. No clothes. No cosmetics in the bathroom. Even the bed was stripped back to the mattress.

“There was a girl,” I said at last, my voice unsteady. I shoved my hands in the pockets of the bathrobe so that he wouldn’t see how my fingers were clenched into fists. “There was a girl. In this room. I
talked
to her. I spoke to her. She was here!”

Nilsson said nothing. He walked through the silent moonlit suite and opened the door of the veranda, then looked outside, inspecting the glass barrier with almost insulting conscientiousness. But I could see from here there was nothing. The glass gleamed in the moonlight, misted faintly with ocean spray but otherwise quite untouched.

“She was here!” I repeated, hearing and hating the edge of hysteria in my voice. “Why won’t you believe me?”

“I didn’t say that I didn’t believe you.” Nilsson came back into the room and latched the veranda window. Then he walked me to the cabin door, and closed and locked it behind us.

“You don’t have to,” I said bitterly. My own door was still open and he escorted me inside. “But I tell you, she was there. She lent me— Oh!” Something suddenly struck me, and I ran to the bathroom. “She lent me a mascara. God damn it, where is it?”

I was rummaging through the carefully set-out cosmetics, but it wasn’t there. Where had it gone?

“It’s here,” I said desperately. “I know it is.” I looked around wildly, and something caught my eye, a flash of shocking pink behind the retractable shaving mirror at the side of the basin. I pulled it out—and there it was—an innocent little pink tube with a green cap.

“There!” I brandished it triumphantly at him, like a weapon. Nilsson took a step back, and then took the mascara gently from my hand.

“I see,” he said, “but with respect, Miss Blacklock, I’m not sure what this proves, apart from the fact that you borrowed a mascara from someone today—”

“What does it prove? It proves she was really there! It proves she existed!”

“It proves you saw a girl, yes, but—”

“What do you
want
?” I interrupted, desperately. “What more do you want from me? I’ve told you what I heard—what I saw. I’ve told you there was a girl in that cabin, and now she’s gone. Look on the manifest—there’s a guest missing. Why aren’t you more concerned?”

“That cabin is empty,” he said gently.

“I know!” I shouted, and then, seeing Nilsson’s face, I made a huge, concentrated effort to get myself under control. “I know—that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, for God’s sake.”

“No,” he said, still with that same quiet gentleness, the gentleness of a big man with nothing to prove. “This is what I’m trying to explain, Miss Blacklock. It has
always
been empty. There was no guest in that cabin. There never has been.”