Distress Signals

by Catherine Ryan Howard

  About what?

  I shut the fridge and went to my desk.

  After a quick circuit of email, Twitter, Facebook – checking that Sarah hadn’t been in touch since I’d done it five minutes ago on my phone – I typed the words blue and wave and fiesta into Google’s search box and hit Enter.

  The screen filled with results.

  They were nearly all links to official Blue Wave sites. Special offers, explore the other members of the Blue Wave family, book your Summer 2015 cruise now! I clicked on a piece from the Irish Independent’s website, written by their resident travel writer who’d been invited to tour the Fiesta before it launched, and then watched a three-minute video tour of it on YouTube, filmed by what appeared to be a maniacally enthusiastic, over-caffeinated twenty-something American blonde woman named Megan who ‘you may know as the cruiser behind the Megan’s Muster Station channel on YouTube!’

  What I saw in the video was as confusing as it was impressive. I knew cruise ships were big but I had had no idea how much they managed to fit on board. According to the video clip, the Fiesta had an indoor park with actual trees and a working carousel, a boardwalk promenade lined with old-fashioned arcades and strung with twinkling fairy-lights, an enormous theatre, three cinemas, an ice rink and a shopping mall, as well as hundreds of rooms, tens of restaurants and five or six open decks jam-packed with rows of blue sun-loungers and swimming pools – and, as Megan either promised or threatened, depending on your point of view, ‘much, much more!’

  How the hell did these things float?

  I scrolled down and clicked through three pages of results, but saw nothing that could be related to ‘the Fiesta boy’ Louise had mentioned.

  Next I tried blue and wave and celebrate and got page after page of more of the same. The only real difference was in the advertisements for the Celebrate it was always referred to as the ‘newest and biggest ship’ in Blue Wave’s fleet.

  I went back to the first results page and clicked on a sponsored link that invited me to explore the Celebrate, remembering that Louise had called the route Sarah had taken ‘Mediterranean Dreams’.

  That itinerary was listed at the top.

  I clicked on SHOW ME MORE!

  A new page opened that was dedicated to that particular cruise: Barcelona to La Spezia with a stop at ‘Nice’ (translation: a mile off the coast of Villefranche) in between. There were stats and dates and a map and—

  Passenger reviews.

  It was a long shot but I started scanning them, scrolling down as I went, looking for any mention of a new friend the reviewer had made on board that could be Sarah, for her face in the background of a user-uploaded photo.

  I found none – unsurprisingly – but around review fifteen or sixteen, I came across this:

  Got a great deal on this cruise last minute so decided to go despite what Chris D said on Cruise Confessions. SO glad I did!

  I typed ‘Cruise Confessions’ into the Google search box.

  It was a website that invited potential cruise ship passengers to get the ‘lowdown’ on what it was really like to go on a cruise. Its homepage listed links to sections such as Which cruise company is best? and How To Prepare For Your First Cruise and Get Tips from the Insiders: Staff and Crew Reveal All!

  And then, right at the end:

  Deaths, Disappearances and Other Cruise Crimes.

  I clicked on the link and got a 404 error message. The page no longer existed.

  I went back to Google and typed cruise ship deaths disappearances crimes into the search box.

  Then I spent at least a full minute blinking at the results.

  Cruise Ship Deaths: Index by year... Cruise Crimes: Search by cruise line or vessel . . . Foul Play Suspected in Death of Woman, 43, Aboard Atlantic Dreams Liner . . . Disappearance of teenager throws spotlight on epidemic of fatalities at sea . . . Search for Frenchwoman missing from Oceanic Escape called off . . . Murky maritime justice system failed us, says Scott family . . . Cruise Company Helped Father’s Killer Get Away With Murder Says Grieving Daughter . . . Cruise Ship ‘Curse’: Third Woman Plunges To Her Death . . . FBI To Review Honeymoon Cruise Death . . . Cruise FAQs: Staying Safe On Board . . . Latest Fatality Prompts Concerns: Are Cruise Ships Deadly?

  I felt sick but also, for some reason I couldn’t quite articulate yet, like I was onto something.

  I scrolled back up to the top of the results and clicked on the first one, a list of suspicious deaths that had occurred or were suspected to have occurred on cruise ships.

  Christ, someone was collecting these things.

  The page had a short paragraph about each incident next to a photo of either the victim or the ship involved. Just two or three sentences about each one, with a link to a relevant news story if there was one available.

  Not all of them, I soon realised, had links to news stories. In fact, most of them didn’t. Had that something to do with why I couldn’t remember hearing anything about any of them? When the Costa Concordia sank, it had been the top story for a week and in the news for months afterwards. Sarah and I had watched a bloody hour-long documentary about it, for God’s sake.

  Why hadn’t any of this been in the news?

  May 12 2011: Female passenger discovered dead in her cabin after suspected fall/head trauma. Victim’s sister receives anonymous tip-off that suggests death occurred elsewhere, possibly in staff quarters. ­Coroner returns verdict of misadventure.

  October 27 2012: Female passenger becomes ill after drinking in casino bar. Crew member assists her with return to her cabin; subsequently subjects her to prolonged and violent sexual assault. FBI board at Port Canaveral but crew member is not located. He continues to be sought by authorities.

  February 5 2009: Male passenger is reported missing, suspected overboard. A large streak of blood is photographed by another passenger on victim’s balcony railing; cleaning crews remove it before ship returns to port. Victim’s friend charged with murder but found not guilty due to lack of physical evidence; judge criticised cruise ship operator for lack of cooperation.

  June 11 2013: Male passenger is reported missing by family and search finds his body in lifeboat on Lido Deck with stab wounds. Cruise company claim security camera pointed at lifeboat was out of order at the time. Case remains open.

  May 14 2014: Adolescent male passenger, 16, falls overboard from pool deck after becoming inebriated. Cruise company admit ‘unreasonable’ amount of alcohol was served to deceased’s older brother, age 18, but deny liability. Civil action ongoing.

  Could a sixteen-year-old be Louise’s ‘boy’?

  I followed the news report link and found mention of the Fiesta in the very first line.

  It seemed that the older brother had been buying two drinks at a time for the evening, despite the barman never seeing who the extras were for. Now the parents were suing Blue Wave for negligence. Both brothers had gone to one of the swimming pools afterwards, and while they were there the younger one went to the railing, perhaps to throw up or look over. He’d fallen to his death, his body never recovered.

  An awful, tragic story, yes, but nothing to do with Sarah. The only connection seemed to be Louise, who presumably had had to talk to the boy’s parents as well as me.

  I went back a page and continued reading.

  August 4 2013: Female passenger is reported missing, initially presumed overboard. Cruise card activity subsequently shows that guest disembarked the ship at Nice but her whereabouts remain unknown. Owners refuse to release security footage to corroborate disembarkation. Last update January 2014: a civil action is ongoing.

  Accompanying it was a picture of the only cruise ship I knew well enough to recognise: the Celebrate.

  Underneath that was a link to a recent news story.

  I clicked on it and started to read.

  The Internet couldn’t tell me where Sarah
was, but it only took five minutes to find me the man whose wife had disappeared by disembarking the Celebrate almost exactly a year to the day before Sarah had apparently done the exact same thing in exactly the same place.

  It took only another minute after that to find me an email address for him.

  My hands shook as I typed a message to Peter Brazier. According to LinkedIn, he lived in London. According to his profile on a financial services firm’s website, he was a portfolio manager. According to news reports, his missing wife was called Estelle.

  What to say? I introduced myself, briefly described the circumstances of Sarah’s disappearance and outlined what I was beginning to realise were horrifying similarities: August, the Celebrate, Blue Wave saying she got off the ship in one piece. I mentioned my un­productive meeting with Louise and the Gardaí not being any help at all. Finally I signed off with my phone number and asked him to call me as soon as he could.

  Then I pushed back my chair from the desk so I could put my head between my knees.

  I’d grown up in a loving, safe household in a nice, safe community. For most of my childhood Mum left the doors open and Dad left the car unlocked. We lived in a country where, until the middle of the last century, murder was an annual occurrence, not a daily or weekly one, and when the murder rate began to catch up with the rest of the world in the 1970s, a terrorist group was the reason why. Crime, to me, was entertainment I saw on television. Evil was a Hollywood creation. Violence was what happened in foreign places fifteen minutes into the Six-One news – so-called so because, here in Ireland, the evening news started a minute late so the bells of the Angelus could be played on national TV.

  Bad stuff only happened to other people, in other places, all of them far, far away from here.

  I didn’t know where Sarah was, but I’d assumed that, whatever she was doing, she was physically okay. She’d told everyone lies. She’d cut her hair. She’d checked her WhatsApp messages long after she’d stopped answering her phone. She had done this, whatever this was.

  But what if, while she was doing this, something else had happened to her?

  What if she hadn’t walked off the Celebrate? What if she’d slipped or fell or been pushed off it? What if the Celebrate wasn’t a clue to where she was now, but the reason for her disappearance?

  What if the same thing that had happened to this Estelle Brazier woman a year ago had happened to Sarah too?

  The room felt airless suddenly. I stumbled out onto the balcony, gripped the railing, gulped down the deepest breaths I could.

  Where is she?

  Then, an onslaught of leaks from behind the wall denial built:

  What happened to her?

  Is she alive?

  Did it hurt?

  I’d been dumbfounded at Cusack’s calm interpretation of events. Misinterpretation, as far as I was concerned.

  But what if I’d been doing the same thing?

  Despite all the lies, despite all the confusion, there was one fact that we could all agree upon: none of us had seen or heard from Sarah in over a week.

  I thought of the angry voicemail I’d left her and my cheeks flushed with shame.

  I should’ve raised the alarm sooner. I should’ve known something was seriously wrong. I should’ve fought harder to get the Gardaí to do something.

  But the passport.

  The passport and the note inside it. Those block capitals, they were definitely hers. Unlike Cusack, I had no doubt. I wasn’t a handwriting expert but I’d been looking at them – on notes on the fridge, in greeting cards, on shopping lists – for the best part of a decade. Sarah had written that note.

  And then what? Decided she wanted the adventure of being abroad without travel documents?

  And The American. How did he fit in? What if . . .

  What if he’d done something to her?

  We didn’t know who he was, didn’t know what he looked like. Was that just because Sarah had been keeping him a secret, or was that him covering his tracks?

  My phone rang. The screen read DAN GOLDBERG.

  ‘Oh fuck off, Dan,’ I said, hitting Reject.

  A few seconds later, it rang again. I didn’t recognise the number but the country code was 0044. A UK number.

  I hit Accept.

  ‘Hello?’ I said uncertainly.

  ‘Is . . . Is this Adam?’ A British accent.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Is this Peter?’

  It was. He sounded older than me and, for want of a better word, posh. I pictured him working in the City and driving a small but flashy sports car. He sounded anxious, his words coming fast at times and then slow, breaths taken irregularly and in mid-sentence.

  I imagined it was what I’d sound like if in a year I was still wondering where Sarah was.

  Then I tried not to imagine that.

  Prior to my emailing him, Peter had heard nothing about Sarah. His first question was whether or not the authorities were involved.

  ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘They seem confident that she left of her own accord and . . . Well, she did. Most likely. But since I read about your wife, I’m not so sure about the . . . The coming back bit.’

  ‘Have they spoken to Blue Wave?’

  ‘No. I went by myself.’

  ‘And they confirmed she was on the ship?’

  ‘They have a Sarah O’Connell whose passport number matches. And they showed me a photo. And before all that, there was the Blue Wave logo on the note.’

  The silence on the line was so long and so complete that I pulled the phone from my ear to check that the call was still connected.

  ‘Peter? Are you there?’

  When his voice finally came down the line, it sounded small and faraway. He said just one word:

  ‘Note?’

  ‘There’s a note. It was sent here, to our home. Stuck inside Sarah’s—’

  ‘Passport,’ Peter finished.

  ‘Eh, yeah. How did you—’

  ‘Did it have a postmark?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Nice?’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  More silence.

  ‘Peter? Peter, how did you know that?’

  ‘The note,’ he said, the words sounding like they’d had to force their way around a choking compression of his neck. ‘Are you sure it’s in Sarah’s writing?’

  ‘Positive. Although it wasn’t her handwriting on the envelope.’

  When Peter spoke again, the words came quickly, tumbling out.

  ‘Estelle disappeared at the start of August last year. By Christmas, everyone was telling me I needed to move on with my life. We’d done everything: gone to Scotland Yard, done the media rounds, made posters, gone to France. I’d even instructed my solicitor to start proceedings against Blue Wave, to force them to release the CCTV footage taken of the tender platform that morning. My money was running out and I knew I’d need it to get the thing to trial – which is where it was going, because Blue Wave were refusing to even talk to us – so I went back to work, tried to get back into the swing of things. It was impossible. I’d come to, realise I’d been sitting at my desk for an hour or more, staring into space. How could I concentrate on something as trivial as a share price when Estelle was out there somewhere, alone? Turns out I couldn’t. I only stayed a week before they put me on leave.’ Peter made a scoffing noise. ‘But before I left, my secretary comes along with this archive box. Personal mail, she says. Turns out that, ever since Estelle’s story hit the papers, people had been sending cards and letters and prayers and things to the firm, because of course they didn’t have my home address. One day soon after, I was at home and . . . Well, I was feeling pretty low. Real low. I started . . . Thinking about things. Things you shouldn’t think about.’ A pause. A cough. ‘But then I saw the archive box and I don’t know why, I don’t know wha
t made me pick it up, but I started to go through it. And right at the top – it must have been only the third or fourth thing I picked up – was a brown envelope, addressed to me at the office, postmarked Nice.’

  My view of the cityscape started to slide upwards. I gripped the railing with my free hand to steady myself.

  ‘It was Estelle’s passport,’ Peter said. ‘My wife’s passport, in perfect condition. I flicked through it and saw the note stuck inside. It was written on Blue Wave branded paper. A sticky note. The same kind of pads they leave in hotel rooms.’

  ‘What did it say?’ I pressed. ‘What did it say?’

  But I already knew. I was expecting the words when Peter said them a moment later.

  I’M SORRY—E.

  The soles of my trainers smacked unapologetically across the stone floor of the atrium at Angelsea Street. The same cherub-faced Garda was standing behind the reception desk, only this time his tabloid newspaper was being ignored. He was looking instead at the sweaty, panting, red-faced figure running towards him. His mouth began to open in question.

  ‘Cusack,’ I said when I reached the desk. My lungs were burning; coherent speech was a herculean effort. ‘Garda Cusack.’

  ‘Do you need’ – Garda Cherub looked me up and down – ‘assistance?’

  ‘Cusack,’ I said again. I leaned against the counter while I tried to get my breath back. Garda Cherub leaned back from the other side. ‘I need to speak to her.’

  ‘You can speak to me.’

  ‘I want to talk to her.’

  ‘What’s it in relation to?’

  ‘She’ll know.’

  ‘I’m afraid I have to know before I can—’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ I roared, slamming a fist down on the countertop. ‘Will you just fucking call her?’

  The cherub’s face hardened. His hand went to his belt. There was a little canister of something hanging there, and what looked like a baton.

  ‘Sir, you need to lower your voice. Immediately.’

  ‘Sorry, I just . . . I just really need to speak to Garda Cusack, okay? She’s the one we’ve been talking to. Is she here?’