by C. A. Larmer
“Because I told you, I’ve known her since we were kids. We were at high school together. My friends and I did what all teenage girls do. We shoplifted every opportunity we got.” She held a long finger up. “Except Coz. She’d just laugh and say, ‘Why bother when you can pay for it, or better yet charm it out of someone?’ Nope, no way she was nicking diamonds, not even for her so-called ‘soul mate’!”
Alicia decided she needed a drink after all and helped herself to the other miniature bottle of wine in the bar fridge. This one was a chilled Australian Chablis.
After pouring it into a glass, she said, “Tell me a little bit more about Corrie and Cheyne. So they were genuinely in love then?”
“Yah! Can’t understand the attraction myself. I mean, he might’ve been married to an English Dame and had the whole swanky look going on, but he was as common as boiled cabbage. Just as slimy too. Still, Coz was hooked. I figured she must have been bored by Tonio. Maybe he was too devoted, maybe it was all too easy for her. But why him? Ewwwe!”
“You really didn’t like the guy?” She was rewarded with a “duh!” look again. “So what was that nod all about then?”
Anita frowned. “What nod?”
“Our first night on the ship, the night Mrs Jollson died, Cheyne came into the music bar after dinner, looked around the room and gave you a nod. It was subtle, but I saw it.”
“Oh, that was just our signal. He was supposed to get rid of his wife, I was supposed to fetch Coz and unlock my room for them. Look, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! I’d tell the policeman, but he’s no longer interested. He’s too busy building a case against Coz.”
“Tell me what?”
“She was with me! That first night we got on board, the night Mrs Jollson was being drugged, burgled, whatever, Coz was in my cabin.” When Alicia raised a sceptical eyebrow, she added, “Well, she wasn’t at first. I found her up on deck, she was just on her way back down, and we went back down together.”
“Which deck?”
“Um, the private one.”
“The promenade deck? Was she with anyone?” Anita shook her head. “What time was this?”
“Just before eleven. I know that because that was the time we’d agreed to meet Cheyne in my cabin, but he didn’t show up for another thirty minutes or so, then they kicked me out and did their business. I couldn’t get back into my cabin until almost one. But here’s the thing. Cheyne could easily have done it. Tonio tells me that they think Mrs Jollson was drugged some time after 11:00 p.m. when some witnesses saw her go into her cabin.”
Alicia put her hand up. “That would be me and my sister.”
“Right, so it can’t have been Coz. She was with me at eleven—but Cheyne was not.” She finished the wine with one more swallow. “And here’s the thing. He was really flustered when he finally knocked on the door, looked kind’ve guilty, and I just thought his wife must have been asking questions or something. But the more I think about it, the more I realise he must have just killed Mrs Jollson!”
Alicia felt a prickle run down her spine. “Did Cheyne say anything when he got to your cabin? How did he explain his lateness to Corrie?”
“I don’t know because that’s when she kicked me out, but I could tell something bad had happened.”
“Okay, tell me this, what was Corrie wearing?”
“Huh?”
“Just humour me.”
“Okay, um, her tiger-print shirt I think, oh and those white pants. Hate those white pants. So tacky.”
“She wasn’t in green that night? She didn’t change into a green kaftan?”
“What? No, it was the tiger-print one.” She shook her head. “She hadn’t bothered to change for dinner, I remember that. I thought it was rude, frankly. The rest of us could frock up. I don’t know why she couldn’t manage it. Tonio deserved a bit better than that. She was the captain’s wife for goodness’ sake!”
Alicia sat on her bed and thought about all this for a few moments before her eyes narrowed. “How do I know you’re not making this up?”
“Oh God you sound just like that cute barman. Why would I lie about this? Take it from me, Coz didn’t steal anything.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
Alicia sat forward. “How do I know it wasn’t you in the green kaftan walking Mrs Jollson to her death?”
Anita looked at her sideways. “Look, I don’t know anything about any green kaftan, but do you really think if I killed Mrs Jollson, I’d be here trying to get a dead woman off the hook? Come on, I pegged you as smarter than that.”
“Fair enough.” After another minute’s reflection, she said, “Looks like I need to have another chat with that ‘cute barman’.”
Chapter 8
The barman wasn’t looking quite so cute anymore. Alicia found Detective Jackson back in the library, tapping away at a laptop, which seemed incongruous in this old-worldly interior. He understood what Alicia was saying, but he didn’t like it one bit, and a surly look came onto his face.
“I’ve got the whole thing sewn up, Alicia. The captain’s happy. I’m happy. It’s neat!”
“Not that neat.”
“Only if you believe Anita Monage, and who’s to say she’s not lying?”
“Why would she lie?”
“Maybe she was the one stealing jewellery, not Corrie.”
“Except she only joined in Sydney and the thefts have being going on longer than that. Besides, why would she lie and throw it all wide open again? If she really was guilty, she’d shut the hell up, right?”
“Then she’s obviously just defending her best friend.”
“I don’t think so. Anita is the first person to point out Corrie’s character flaws, of which there are many, apparently. She’s barely said a good word about her best mate since this ordeal started, but she’s telling me the woman would not steal anything, and I’m inclined to believe her.”
She pointed one finger in the air. “First, Corrie wasn’t the one walking Mrs Jollson to her room that night. I saw her on deck with you in a tiger-print top and white trousers at around 10:30, maybe 10:45 p.m. at the latest, right?” He nodded. “Then, soon after, Anita finds her and walks with her to her room just before 11:00 p.m., and she’s in exactly that same outfit. She stayed there for the next half hour with Anita—that takes us to around 11:30 p.m. Anita says she then remained there for at least another hour with Cheyne. The timing’s all wrong. She couldn’t have been the woman in green I saw with Cecilia Jollson out in the corridor at 11:00 p.m.”
She waved her second finger in the air. “Two, Corrie doesn’t drink. Yet the woman in green was seen doing shots at the bar with Mrs Jollson before she died—which is around the same time that you were talking to her up on the promenade deck. I reckon that was when the drug was slipped into Mrs Jollson’s drink because, when I saw her near her cabin, she was well on the way to woozy. And don’t tell me Corrie ‘fell off the wagon’ because if she had, the barmen would’ve noticed. They’ve been watching her drinking habits all cruise, and they certainly would’ve noticed her doing bright orange shots at the bar.”
“And three?” he said.
“Sorry?”
He smiled now. “I assumed you had a whole countdown of clever clues you were about to dazzle me with.”
Alicia shot him a smirk as she held up a third finger. “And thirdly… well I haven’t got a third. But you have to consider the fact that you might have at least part of the solution wrong.”
He reached into a box below the table and pulled out a plastic bag with some bright fabric inside. “Corrie’s missing kaftans,” he said, slapping it down in front of her. “It took us a while to find them. They’d been stashed behind the headboard of the bed.”
“Whose bed?”
He waited a beat. “Corrie’s bed. They were never missing after all.”
She picked up the bag and studied it, then frowned. There was no green kaftan inside.
> He held his own forefinger up, reading her mind. “Exactly! Where oh where is the elusive green kaftan? I’m beginning to think this mysterious ‘woman in green’ is actually a ‘red herring’. Isn’t that what Agatha Christie would call it? I think she—whoever she is—had nothing to do with any of it, and we’ve all been letting that cloud this entire case. And by ‘we’ I mean ‘you’.” He chuckled. “The woman in green was probably just a friend from the bar who walked Mrs Jollson back to her cabin and promptly left. And then after that, after your friend Anita gave the two lovebirds her cabin, they snuck out, knocked on Mrs Jollson’s door, gained entry—probably by insisting she join them for a bottle of champagne—then drugged her drink, nicked her jewels, and well, you know the rest.”
He smiled as Alicia’s own smile crumpled.
“I think,” he continued, “that if we had more time and resources, we’d eventually locate some old lush with a silly green dress in her luggage who has no idea she has caused such a fuss.”
Alicia rubbed a hand through her hair. It did kind of make sense, she had to admit that, but she was curious why the kaftans had only just been discovered. Before she could ask, Anders walked in, looking drained.
“Oh hey, Alicia. I thought you’d be at dinner with the rest of them.”
She glanced at the clock above the faux fireplace in the library. He was right. The evening meal would be well under way, but she had lost her appetite.
“What about you? Captain’s table not so appetising tonight?” She hadn’t meant for it to sound so acerbic, and his eyes flashed at her.
“I’ve been busy with another body, remember?”
“Yeah, sorry. More paperwork?”
He slumped into an armchair. “Most of it’s done. After the first one you kind of get the hang of it. Tragically. That ice room’s getting pretty packed though. Could barely fit Dame Dinnegan in the refrigerated box. Out of her wheelchair she’s not as diminutive as you’d think.”
Alicia shot him a placatory smile. Perhaps she’d been too harsh. Poor Anders had only signed up to investigate some suspicious doping on board the ship. Now he had two corpses to contend with. “I guess the only consolation with Dame Dinnegan is she was very old. I guess that makes it slightly more bearable than Corrie.”
“Oh I reckon the old lady had a few more years in her yet. Other than her obvious frailty, she was in pretty good shape for a woman her age. That’s probably why Cheyne bumped her off. And please don’t waste your sympathy on Corrie. She was playing with fire, hooking up with Cheyne, helping him steal other people’s property.”
Jackson said, “Ah, but your girlfriend here seems to think Corrie wasn’t the one out thieving with Cheyne.”
Alicia winced at the term “girlfriend” and wondered why that suddenly didn’t sound right. Anders was looking doubtful for a different reason.
“So what are you saying, Alicia? That Cheyne was the thief but not Corrie?”
“Maybe.” Her confidence was wavering. “That’s what Anita says, and she’s the one who knows Corrie the best.”
“So let me get this straight,” Anders continued. “She thinks Cheyne was the one running around in dresses and wigs, pilfering stuff? All by himself? And despite the goatee?”
Okay, so it sounded a bit stupid, and so did her next question, but she asked it anyway: “Do we even know if Cheyne’s goatee is real?”
Jackson laughed. “That ain’t no fake goatee, Alicia.”
“Then maybe he was stealing with someone else, some other woman we haven’t even suspected yet. She could have put the kaftans back in Corrie’s room later. I mean, everyone says Cheyne was a sleazebag, so it’s probable.”
“But highly unlikely,” said Anders, his tone weary. “What are you saying now? He was married to one woman, having an affair with another, and pinching jewels with a third? Come on, that’s impressive even for a gigolo. Here’s a better idea. Maybe Anita has it wrong, or maybe she’s just trying to clear her friend’s name.”
“Or better yet,” said Jackson, pushing his laptop away, “maybe it’s the captain’s reputation Anita’s trying to protect, have you thought of that? It’s pretty obvious Anita’s got a major crush on the bloke. Perhaps she thinks that if passengers realise his wife was a thief and murderer, he’d be ruined.” He stood up and reached for the internal phone. “Don’t know about you two, but I’m starving. Might see if I can get them to bring something here. That is if Chef is still speaking to me.”
He explained, “We naturally suspected that the knife that killed Dame Dinnegan came from the galley, so I put his whole predinner prep into chaos, having the place thoroughly fingerprinted and searched. You know there’s one other knife missing that we can’t account for.”
“You think it was used to stab Corrie?”
“Don’t know. In any case, it didn’t kill her. She screamed as she went over, remember? We haven’t located it in Cheyne’s cabin, so if he did use it, it probably went over the side with Corrie. Anyway, enough of all that!” He began to dial. “Why don’t we all get some grub brought in and keep working on it?”
Alicia blinked at him. “You want me to stay as well?”
He smiled. “Sure. Your theories are even more entertaining than mine.” He held a finger up and spoke into the phone, “Yeah get me room service, please,” then turned to look at Alicia again. “So what are you hungry for?”
She felt a sudden jolt in the pit of her stomach, but it was not hunger. It was the feeling of being welcomed, of being appreciated. It was a feeling Anders hadn’t given her for quite some time. Alicia loved the idea of settling in here and counting the clues with Liam Jackson, but Lynette’s face suddenly flashed before her eyes and she thought better of it.
She stood up. “Thanks, Jackson, but I’d better report to the restaurant. You know how protective my ‘spinster sister’ can get?”
He mouthed the word, “Ouch!” just as the room service attendant picked up.
Chapter 9
By the time Alicia made her way to the Grand Dining Room, most of the passengers were onto dessert, and she apologised profusely as she took her seat at the book club’s table.
Lynette was not easily appeased.
“I was starting to seriously panic!” she told her sister, her eyebrows arched high. “I morphed into you, all freaked out! It was not a pleasant place to be.”
Missy giggled, dipping her spoon into her crème caramel. “That’s true, ducky! She thought Anita must have bopped you over the head and thrown you overboard. She was rushing about like a mad sailor when we finally found Anita who insisted you were alive and kicking. She said you were giving that useless copper a good boot up the butt.”
“Oh he’s not so bad,” said Alicia, causing Lynette’s eyebrows to rise again but for a very different reason.
She went to say something when a waiter appeared with a plate of thinly sliced prosciutto over a bed of rockmelon.
“Your entrée, Madame.” He placed it down in front of Alicia as Claire explained.
“Your sweet sister got them to save it for you.”
“Thank you, Lynny,” she said, even though her appetite had not exactly returned.
“So, spill, woman!” said Perry. “Tell us what you’ve learned!”
And so, as Alicia made her way through several courses, she gave them an abridged version of her various conversations that evening, starting with Anita’s revelations and ending with Jackson and Anders.
“I’m inclined to agree with Jackson on this,” said Claire after some musing. “It does make the most sense. Sure, some bits are a bit loose, but it’s most likely that Cheyne and Corrie were in on it together, and then he turned on her for whatever reason.”
“Yeah, I get why he thinks that,” said Alicia. “But why did he turn on his wife? She was his meal card. Why kill her and in the gym of all places? He shared a stateroom with the woman. It’s identical to Corrie’s, apparently, with a lovely private balcony—just perfect for foisti
ng old ladies over in the dead of night. Why wheel her somewhere so public, stab her, then leave her there and calmly walk into the next room, sit down and wait to be caught? Cheyne must have known Groot would be in there; Dermott says it was pretty common knowledge the guy went there at that time each morning to get away from his wife.”
“What’s wrong with the wife?” asked Lynette.
“Champagne taste on a beer budget, apparently,” Alicia replied, referring to Eva’s stateroom aspirations. “I hear she gives the hubby a hard time about it.”
“So what’s the alternative?” said Perry. “Someone snuck past the library while he was in there and killed Dame Dinnegan, then snuck back again without being spotted?”
“There is a set of stairs at the other side of the gym. Maybe they snuck down that way and back. It is possible.”
Lynette held her wine glass out for the waitress to refill it and said to Alicia, “I need to talk to you about Anita.” Alicia glanced up from her fork. “I know you’ve really connected with her, but I’ve been giving it some thought, and I hate to say this, but well…”
Lynette took a quick sip of her wine as if fortifying herself. “I wonder whether Anita has been playing you.”
“How do you mean?” Alicia felt a ripple of irritation.
“The first time you spoke to her, remember? Up at the bar when you were looking for the barman? She’s the one who first caught your eye, acting all teary and reeling you in. Right?”
Alicia just glared at her, so she continued. “She’s the one who keeps popping up with different stories. One minute Corrie’s a selfish cow who uses and abuses people, the next she’s some saint who wouldn’t steal a complimentary soap. What is all that about? And there’s another thing.”
Alicia frowned.
“Didn’t you just say that Anita insists that Corrie and Cheyne never did the dirty deed in either of their own cabins? Isn’t that what Anita said?”
“Yes, that’s why she was brought on board, to give them a place to hook up.”
“So tell me this then, why would Cheyne’s cigarettes show up in Corrie’s cabin the night she vanished? And why would there be a condom packet in the bathroom bin? Obviously they did hook up in Corrie’s stateroom and Anita is lying through her nicotine-stained teeth. Sorry, sister, but she’s playing you like an accordion.”