Lucky for Love

by Oliver, Marina

  'Too mean, spent all her money on gowns that she thought made her look eighteen again, instead of eighty.'

  Julie blinked. Lady Jenkins' evening dress, an off the shoulder frilly concoction more suited to a teenager of fifty years ago, made her look older than the seventy-odd years Julie guessed she was.

  Lady Jenkins, with the freedom of age and social confidence, began asking Julie about her family, her husband, whether she had children, and where she lived. Appearing satisfied with the brief answers that were all Julie could manage, she gave Julie an approving smile, just as Cathy, with an apologetic murmur, slid past them into the bedroom. Julie, glancing after her, saw her bending towards the dressing table mirror, applying lip gloss.

  'I can't think why people have to invite members of the crew to these affairs,' Lady Jenkins said, staring at Cathy, 'nor why the wretched girls can't attend to their make up before they come. Surely no one needs to repair their ghastly eye shadow every five minutes?'

  To Julie's relief, before the inquisition continued and she had to confess her sister was part of the crew, they were joined by another couple, and Lady Jenkins turned her attention to them. Julie was able to slip away, and as the window to the veranda was blocked with a group of people, she went through the bedroom and that window, waiting for Susan who followed her, complaining of the crush and saying she needed the bathroom.

  Not long afterwards people began to leave. Cathy and Susan, gathering up Julie, said they must be going, they were due to be in the shop again after dinner.

  *

  Robert, on receiving the phone call from Bea to say everyone had left, went to the penthouse. Bea and Mary were sitting at the table with Mary's purse open on it.

  'Have we struck lucky straight away?' he asked.

  Mary nodded.

  'I think so. Just a few notes missing from my purse, which I'd left open on my dressing table. But the ring I'd also left there hadn't been taken.'

  'Perhaps a trial run, to see if you'd miss them?' Robert suggested. 'A ring would have been missed more easily, but perhaps not notes unless you counted them immediately. So who went into the bedroom?'

  'Several people,' Bea replied. 'I kept a check on who went into mother's room, while she helpfully blocked the patio doorway in here. There was nothing left out in mine, so I didn't need to watch that.'

  'Who?'

  'Mostly passengers we're not interested in, but of the crew, the man from the band, Bill, isn't it? He was on the veranda earlier, but he stepped inside for a minute. To talk to someone, I think, one of the passengers. Cathy, from the shop, went through the bedroom. The other shop girl, Susan, and her sister, Julie, went through to get onto the veranda. Susan went into the bathroom. Julie stopped to talk to someone and blocked my view for a minute or so. The man who plays in the Piano Bar followed them. The dressing table is partly hidden from where I was standing, and from the veranda. It would have been easy to slide out a few notes.'

  'Well, unless we have two thieves, we can narrow the suspect list,' Mary said.

  'Unless there are two of them working together,' Robert warned, and the others groaned.

  'True,' Bea said. 'And notes would be difficult to trace. If we'd marked them they'd most likely have turned up in the shop, untraceable. We'll have to wait, tempt them again with the ring. Now I suppose we should go to dinner.'

  *

  Robert was late to dinner, and seemed preoccupied. Afterwards, when Susan had gone to help in the shop, Julie went to watch a film. She didn't want to go to the ballroom on her own, knowing it would be difficult to repulse Steven if he wanted to dance with her. She suspected he was impervious to her claims she wanted nothing to do with him. Why hadn't she realised what sort of man he was two years ago?

  She was having breakfast the following day in the deck café with Susan when Robert, carrying a loaded tray, went past them.

  'Hi there,' Susan said, but Robert, with an abstracted smile, simply nodded and walked past to sit at a table at the far end. As they sailed towards the Canaries he was rather distant, less friendly than he had seemed at first. He was amiable enough at dinner, or if their paths crossed during the day, but that was all.

  'Have I offended Robert?' Julie asked Susan as she was getting ready for dinner the evening before they arrived at Tenerife.

  'Why? What gives you that idea?' Susan demanded.

  'He's cold, somehow, not as friendly as he seemed at first.'

  'I think Steven may have offended him in some way,' Susan said thoughtfully. 'Haven't you noticed, they deliberately ignored each other when they almost collided, just when they were coming into the dining room for dinner last night.'

  It was true, though she hadn't considered it before. Robert seemed to have withdrawn himself. He always excused himself before coffee was served, but that could be explained by the need to be on the dance floor early. It didn't mean he wanted to be away from them.

  A small group of people sat together in the ballroom that evening, until the Tomkins, saying they needed an early night, ready for a whole day excursion in the morning, excused themselves. Susan said she must go and help Cathy for the last hour in the shop, and went with them, and Robert went to ask another of the elderly ladies to dance.

  Lady Jenkins looked after Susan, a frown on her face, then turned to Julie.

  'I wasn't aware your sister was one of the crew?' she said. 'Are you one of the shop girls as well? I haven't patronised it, I find their goods overpriced and poor quality.'

  'I simply came on this cruise because I would have company,' Julie said coldly. How dare the old harridan be so snobbish!

  'Oh, I see. How odd. Well, please excuse me. I have to go and talk to the Colonel.'

  'He's more acceptable than we are, is he?' Steven asked. 'No. don't leave me all alone, sweetheart,' he added, stretching across and catching Julie's hand as she began to get up. 'Come and dance. They're playing a romantic waltz, just the kind of dance we can smooch to.'

  Didn't he realise how false he sounded, like some Lothario in a bad film?

  'Let go of me, Steven. I'm tired, it's late, I don't want to dance, or have anything to do with you. I am going to bed.'

  'But not with me. If it were dear Robert, I don't expect you'd refuse.'

  She only just stopped herself from hitting him as she rose to leave. She was furiously angry, both with the snobbish woman who thought she could be rude just because she had a title, and Steven for persisting in attentions he knew were unwelcome, and his insinuations about bed and Robert.

  To cool down before she tried to sleep she went out onto the deck and leaned over the rail. The sky was wonderfully clear, full of stars, a sight rarely seen in the south of England where everywhere seemed to be lit up with horrid, harsh street lights. The soft lights of the ship were behind her, muted by drawn curtains over the ballroom and bar windows, and in the far distance she could see another cruise ship with its long line of lit windows. It was truly magical, out here on the sea.

  A soft breeze fanned her hot face, and the noises around her, the dance band, the hum of the ship's engines, were so quiet she could hear the slap of the waves against the ship's side. Then she heard the slam of a door, and footsteps coming along the deck, and sighed. She'd been enjoying the solitude, but it seemed it was at an end. She turned to go back inside, but an arm snaked round her waist and she was pulled back against the rail.

  'Julie, don't be like this. Give me another chance, and I'll prove to you I love you.'

  'Steven! Let me go!' she gasped, struggling to free herself. 'How dare you treat me like this? It's harassment, and how often to I need to tell you I want nothing to do with you?'

  'You won't listen to me,' he complained. 'Just because I'm trying to be sensible, minimise our tax liabilities, doesn't mean I wouldn't treat you as my wife. Surely you're not offended by that?'

  He pulled her towards him and tried to kiss her, but she managed to twist her face away, though she could not break free of his hold.
>
  'I am offended by you!' Julie retorted. 'I have no desire whatsoever to live with you, whether we were married or not! In fact, you're the last man I'd ever want to live with! I despise and loathe you! You're a creep, a slimy, horrible man! Now let me go, before I scream for help!'

  'Bitch!' he snarled, and thrust her away so sharply she almost fell.

  To her relief he stormed off along the deck, and Julie, wondering if he had finally got the message, abandoned the deck and went to bed.

  She couldn't sleep. To distract herself from her anger with Steven she tried to recall the conversation after dinner when Robert had been so withdrawn. Had there been anything in particular which had given her such an impression, not noticed at the time, but subconsciously nagging at her since? Then she had a glimmer of an idea.

  They had been in the ballroom, and Robert, having just danced with Lady Jenkins, brought her to join them when the band were having a break. Steven appeared, and seeming unaware of Julie's frowns, sat down with the group. James and Laura Tomkins were talking of the economy, investments, and whether shares or property would be most profitable in the next ten years. Robert started to speak, but Steven interrupted him, as if his views didn't count. Was that it? There had been a slight stress on his words, 'as a businessman'. Had he been, intentionally or not, putting Robert down?

  She hoped not. In fact none of them knew what Robert did. He said he'd taken a few weeks off, but what was his job? He had glanced rather oddly at Steven, pursed his lips and then said no more, listening with an unreadable expression to the rest of the discussion.

  *

  Chapter 6

  Robert went to the Captain's cabin late that night.

  'Some notes were stolen, but only a few. As though it was a trial run, to see whether they were missed. I have a list of people who were in that bedroom and could have taken them.'

  'It's the same woman who made such a fuss about her bag earlier, and showed how much she carried in it. I hope she is more careful in future. Do you know if she had so much in her bag when the notes were stolen?'

  'Yes, she knew, but jewellery would be more positive proof.'

  'I suppose so. Well, we asked you here to try and find the thief, so I suppose I'd better accept your advice.'

  *

  Robert had breakfast in the penthouse with Mary and Bea two days later. They had nothing useful to report. The ladies had held another drinks party, and by now most of the potential suspects had been invited to the penthouse suite, but nothing else had been stolen, despite the many opportunities.

  'I've left my purse around and had it returned to me so often I am getting a reputation as a scatty old dear ready for a safe residential home where I can be of no danger to myself or others,' Mary complained. 'I think every passenger on the boat has seen it by now. I've taken off my ring and left it in the loos three times, when one of the girls we suspect is in there, but it's always been returned to me or the Purser. What else can we do?'

  'Has anything else been reported stolen? From other people?' Bea asked. 'There are plenty of women here flaunting jewellery.'

  'We've heard of nothing,' Robert said.

  'What's been the pattern before?' Mary asked suddenly. 'Have these thefts been noticed at any particular time during a cruise? Towards the end, perhaps, when there would be less time for complaint and investigation?'

  'Or before a particular port, where they could have accomplices they could pass the jewellery to?' Bea added.

  Robert shook his head.

  'We've looked at all the possible combinations, but there isn't any sort of pattern. Our only chance now is to tempt them to steal the ring and be able to track it.'

  'If only we had a clearer idea of who it could be! It might be a man. It's easy enough to take the ring off and forget it when I'm washing my hands in the loo, but that could only trap the girls, and it's beginning to seem as though none of them are guilty. Where else can I take it off, when the men we suspect are around?'

  'Most of them are around at some time during the day in the deck café, or in the bar before dinner.' Mary said slowly. 'I have an idea! Robert, can you gather as many of them as you can together. In the bar, I think. You'll have to think of an excuse. Somebody's birthday. Yours if necessary. I will be at the next table. I'll complain my fingers are swollen. Why? I know, I'll have caught my hand in a door. Bea can rush off to find a cold compress, or some ice, the ring can be left on the table, I will feel faint and Bea will escort me off to the cabin. If that doesn't work, we'll have to think of something else.'

  Robert laughed.

  'Aunt Mary, why don't you write detective novels?'

  'Oh, no, dear. Far too much like hard work.'

  *

  Over the next few days, as they called at several of the Canary islands, Steven appeared to have recovered his good humour. He kept his distance, even when he was on the same coach excursions as Julie, and seemed to have accepted the situation. He was cool but polite when they met, and didn't attempt to stay close to the sisters otherwise.

  It was on Lanzarote's Fire Mountain, while they were watching the steam rising from the embers below the hot sand, in the midst of this moon-like landscape created by the volcanic lava, like nothing Julie had ever seen before, that Robert drew her aside.

  'Julie, I had a friend check up on Steven Wilkes,' he said quietly. 'He's not a businessman, or he isn't now. He was made bankrupt last year.'

  She stared at him, shocked. 'You checked up on him? Why? That was a sneaky thing to do!'

  Just as Steven had tried to do for him, she thought, from what Susan had overheard.

  He shrugged. 'Maybe, but it's clear he admires you by the way he looks at you when you're not aware of it. I didn't want you to be taken in by him, and perhaps get hurt.'

  'What I do is none of your business, Robert! I can look after myself, and I have no intention of being taken in by anyone!'

  'I was trying to help.'

  'Would you like it if Steven poked his nose into your background, checking up on you!'

  'He's had a good try, according to what Mrs Laurey told me.'

  'Who?'

  'Mrs Laurey, the lady with the vast number of rings. She told me he was asking her all sorts of questions the other day, insinuating I was a fortune hunter, and warning her to beware my cunning wiles. We had a good laugh about it. I've known her for years.'

  Julie was silent. Susan had seen Steven talking to the old lady, so it was probably true. All the same, she felt humiliated that Robert had felt it necessary, and taken it upon himself, to check up on Steven. She could deal with the wretched man herself, and had. She didn't need the interference, however well meant, of a virtual stranger.

  Nonetheless she couldn't stop thinking about it. Was what he said about Steven's financial situation true? And worse than that, did he imagine she was on the lookout for a second husband? But why should he think it when she avoided Steven as much as possible, and made sure they were never alone? Why should he want to put suspicions about Steven into her head? Was he jealous? No, that couldn't be possible.

  In time, she admitted to herself, she might have grown fond of Robert. All right, she thought, she was attracted to him already, but she doubted it would have changed into anything warmer. Wouldn't it? A small inner voice insisted that he was the first, the only man to have cracked the hard shell she'd pulled round herself after Andrew's death. Steven had tried, and she'd been flattered for a while, thinking him a pleasant friend, but then Steven had moved too fast, too far, and ruined any remote possibility of her ever becoming fond of him, let alone develop stronger feelings.

  She had loathed Steven's attempts to kiss her then, and light though Robert's hugs had been, just friendly embraces, really, she had felt a quiver of long-suppressed desire when he touched her, even if it was only a helping hand. On the rare occasions they had danced together his touch had been impersonal, just as it was when he was dancing with Lady Jenkins or any of the other elderly ladies he was
there to entertain. Did that mean she was becoming attracted to him, or just that her protective shell was cracking?

  Robert began to talk about something else, and Julie tried to respond normally. That evening, back on the boat, she pleaded exhaustion and insisted she wanted to eat in the cabin.

  Susan raised her eyebrows, but to Julie's relief didn't ask questions. She wouldn't have known what to say, and Susan knew her too well for her to be able to give a false excuse. She'd never been any good at lying to her elder sister.

  Both Steven and Robert seemed to keep out of her way for a while. She saw Robert only at dinner, when he was polite but distant. Steven, when they happened to meet on deck, which was perhaps too often to be coincidence, would give her a wry smile, perhaps say hello, but he never stopped or tried to engage her in conversation. She was longing for this cruise to end. Enjoyable as the shore visits had been, on board she had not been able to relax. They had two more ports, Funchal in Madeira and Casablanca, in Morocco, and then she could go home and resume her normal life. This cruise holiday had not been a total success, and in future she would resist Susan's bright ideas.

  *

  Mary and Bea were breakfasting in the penthouse. Both were gloomy.

  'I don't see what else we can do,' Mary said. 'I've taken pains to leave this wretched ring on the washbasin in every public loo on board, and I swear it's been there for every single one of the women suspects, and none has touched it except to run after me and hand it back!'

  'Robert is beginning to think it must be one of the men. But we'll play out our little plot for this evening.'

  'I wondered what you were doing last night, in a huddle with him for so long. His regular partners were looking a bit sour when he didn't dance with them. And that sweet little widow, Julie, was looking wistful. I suspect she has fallen for him.'

  'He's been paying her more attention than is wise, unless he's serious,' Bea said. 'In some ways I wish he could fall in love. He's been mourning that girl who died for far too long. I heard a story from Laura about Julie and that creep Steven Wilkes. I'm not surprised she tries to avoid him. But he doesn't seem able to take no for an answer. The past few days he's spent quite a lot of time just looking at her. Though I don't see them talking, he always seems to be in the same part of the ship. I'm not sure if she's aware of it.'