Distress Signals

by Catherine Ryan Howard

  About five minutes after Corinne had hung up the phone, there came a single, sharp knock.

  ‘Security,’ a voice said through the door.

  Corinne, unsure her legs would hold her weight at this moment, called out ‘Come in!’ in French.

  There was a long pause before the door opened but then, there he was, standing in the threshold. A match for the picture. A perfect one.

  It was him.

  Corinne felt a surge of something in her chest. She’d finally found him, with almost no time to spare.

  He was staring at her, unmoving. He didn’t look surprised. He didn’t look anything, in fact. His expression was perfectly blank.

  ‘Finally,’ she said in French. ‘I’m so glad to finally—’

  ‘English.’ His voice was an alien’s, deeper than she had ever heard. In her mind, he still had the voice of a boy. ‘I only speak English now. I know you can.’

  ‘Okay. That’s fine. We can talk in English if you want. Of course.’

  He wore the uniform of a security guard: beige chinos and a white shirt. Thick, strong arms folded across his chest, raised veins riddling the pale flesh. Black hair, short on the sides, a bit longer at the crown of his head. Thin lips. Eyes the colour of glaciers.

  A perfectly normal-looking young man. Attractive, even.

  That was the problem with these ordinary monsters: they wore no clues as to their true nature on the outside.

  He stepped into the cabin and closed the door behind him. Corinne was nervous, but not about that. Every request made to Guest Services was logged in a system that, in a few minutes’ time, would ping a reminder to an operator to give the responder a call. ‘Luke’ would have to report back on his visit to the room and, by beckoning him in, Corinne had forced him to use his key to unlock the door. There was now a record of his arrival. It would be stupid of him to do anything here, and the one thing he wasn’t was stupid.

  The anonymous email she’d received, it’d been right. He’d first been spotted aboard as a paying passenger, but in only a few weeks had somehow managed to return as crew. The picture the emailer had included was his official crew headshot.

  He walked into the cabin until he was just a foot from the end of the bed, towering over her, looking down.

  She forced herself to lift her head and look him right in the eye.

  ‘Romain,’ she said. ‘Romi.’

  ‘It’s Luke now. What are you doing here?’

  He didn’t sound angry, or aggressive. His tone was entirely flat, matter-of-fact, emotionless.

  He must have no love for her at all. And who could blame him, after what she’d done?

  ‘I came here to find you,’ Corinne said. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘How did you know I was here?’

  ‘I got an email.’

  ‘From who?’

  ‘I don’t know. The sender was anonymous. But I think maybe they worked here. Or they could have been a passenger. You know, there are documentaries on all the time these days. They have these channels now, they must fill twenty-four hours with crime shows—’

  ‘Have you told the police?’

  ‘Told them what?’

  ‘That I’m here.’

  ‘Why would I do that? I told you, I just want to talk.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘I’m sick, Romi. Cancer. I don’t have much time. And before I . . . Before I go, there are things that need to be said. Things I need to say to you. That I should’ve said to you a long time ago. I just . . . I didn’t know how to say them then.’

  Romain was peering at her like she was a puzzle he was trying to figure out.

  ‘And after that, you’ll leave?’

  Corinne nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Say them then.’

  ‘Romi, this will probably be the last time I see you. I would like to have all the time I need. I shouldn’t be here right now, and you are on duty . . . What time does your shift end? Could we meet then?’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Is this about Lydia?’

  ‘What? No. Why would—’

  ‘Because I’m not going to hurt her, if that’s what you think. I was just trying to find out why you were here.’

  ‘I . . . I know.’

  ‘Did you find the photo?’

  ‘Yes. Why did you leave that for me, Romi?’

  ‘To let you know I was here. That you were right.’

  ‘You could’ve just come and found me.’

  ‘I didn’t know why you were here. I thought maybe you would just run.’

  ‘I want to talk. Properly.’

  ‘I finish at two,’ he said. ‘Where will we meet?’

  ‘How about my cabin?’

  ‘Okay,’ Romain said. ‘I’ll see you there, Mama.’

  He turned to go.

  Mama.

  It took everything Corinne had not to flinch at that.

  Adam

  A booming voice, loud.

  ‘—THIS MORNING—’

  I was dreaming. Sarah was there. Alive. In love with me. She’d never left.

  The loud male voice was an unwelcome elbow to the ribs. I ignored it. I wanted to stay asleep, in the dream. I wanted to stay with Sarah.

  But then it came again.

  Crackling. Louder.

  ‘—IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT—’

  In the dream, I pulled Sarah closer, held on tight. We both closed our eyes.

  ‘—HAVE YOUR ATTENTION—’

  It was no good. The two worlds had split. I knew I had been dreaming and that I was awake now, that Sarah was gone. I opened my eyes to see the speckled plastic ceiling tiles of my cabin.

  ‘—MAKE YOURSELF KNOWN—’

  Was there someone in the room with me?

  No, I realised. It was the tannoy.

  The cabin was filled with daylight. It was morning. Past morning. The light in the room was soft, the sun must be overhead. Could it be that late in the day? Had I slept in for that long? Why didn’t Peter wake me?

  Where was Peter?

  ‘—YOU FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE.’

  More to the point, where was Megan?

  I sat up, rubbed my eyes. I was still dressed. I’d slept on top of the covers, an empty plastic water bottle by my side.

  My head felt like it was encased in a cement block, a mix of hangover and the worst type of flu. I didn’t have a headache any more but my thoughts seemed to be slow and sluggish, as if fighting to move through a fog. My muscles ached and I had a crick in my neck. I must have slept funny.

  Looking around the cabin, it seemed that everything was as it should be. I was alone. Nothing was out of place. The door was closed.

  But hadn’t Megan been in here? I put my hand to my cheek, touching the spot she’d touched. Had she kissed me? What had happened then?

  Where had she gone?

  I made my way to the bathroom, to check for her in there. It was empty too. I washed my face and brushed my teeth, hoping the taste of toothpaste would override the feeling of bristles having sprouted from my tongue while I’d slept.

  I pulled open the cabin door, stuck my head out into the hall. The Do Not Disturb sign was still on my door. A housekeeping cart was a few cabins down, a vacuum hanging crookedly from its end, a strip of what looked like Tipp-Ex dragged messily across its front. There was no sign of any cabin attendants or, in fact, other passengers.

  All was quiet. Too quiet. Even the thrum of the engines I’d grown used to was missing. We’d stopped. We weren’t sailing. But wasn’t today supposed to be spent at sea? Was I in the beginning of some post-zombie-apocalypse movie where a guy awakes from a coma to discover that everyone else has disappeared or turned into the walking dead?

  I went to Peter’s cabin, knocked on his door so hard that
it shook.

  ‘Peter? Peter, are you in there?’

  No response. There was a Do Not Disturb sign on his handle too.

  I went to get my extra Swipeout card from my jeans pocket, but there was nothing in there except my own card, the one that opened my cabin. Had I taken them out last night? Had I managed to lose my ‘wrong’ one?

  Back in my cabin I looked around, but there was only one Swipeout card that I could see: the one that opened my own door. As I laid it down on the desk, something about it snagged on an edge in my mind.

  What was it that Megan had said?

  The lock activity, that was it. She said I’d opened the door, as in my key had, very early yesterday morning.

  And the champagne bottle. Hadn’t she said something about that too?

  I thought you’d never been on a cruise before.

  There was a sharp rap of knuckles on the door. I rushed to open it, thinking it would be Peter on the other side.

  It was a security guard, dressed in navy-blue trousers and a bright white shirt, a walkie-talkie beeping on his belt. He looked Italian and, when he spoke, his English came out thick with an accent. Behind him another guard dressed in an identical uniform was letting himself into the cabin opposite.

  ‘Sir, I’m very sorry to disturb you, but we are conducting a ­cabin-to-cabin search of the ship for security reasons. Can I ask if you are alone at this moment?’

  ‘Er, yes.’ I stepped back inside, motioned to the rest of the room with my hand. ‘I am.’

  The guard – Stefano, whose favourite Blue Wave destination was Naples – took a step into the room and looked around.

  He pointed towards the bathroom. ‘Is okay?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, nodding. ‘Sure.’

  I waited while he went to the bathroom door and ducked his head inside.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ I asked.

  ‘There is a passenger we are unable to locate,’ he said brightly. ‘But surely it is not a problem. Maybe they are still in France, or sleeping in another cabin. Everything is okay, sir. Please, do not worry.’

  Something gnawed at my insides. ‘What’s the passenger’s name?’

  Stefano smiled apologetically. ‘I’m afraid, sir—’

  ‘You can’t tell me.’

  ‘It is no problem. I am sure they will be found. Don’t worry.’

  He moved back towards the main cabin door and I stepped aside so he could get to it.

  ‘Uh, actually,’ I said, ‘while you’re here. I lost my key. Are you the guys who give me a replacement, by any chance?’

  ‘You lost your key?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you are in the room.’

  ‘In this room, yes, but I need to get into my friend’s room. It’s a bit of a long story. He’s the one next door.’

  ‘I am sorry, sir, you must go to the purser. Only the guest whose name is on the cabin can have access to it, so if it’s your friend’s . . .’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘But it’s fine. You see, the names were actually mixed up. My name is on his cabin door, so that shouldn’t be—’

  I stopped.

  My name was on his cabin door. Peter’s was on mine. Meaning that, if he went to the purser and said he lost his key, the cabin he’d have been given a new one for was mine. Enabling him to open my cabin door whenever he liked.

  Like at five-thirty yesterday morning.

  ‘Sir?’ Stefano said.

  ‘Were you just in there?’ I pointed at the wall, the one I shared with Peter’s cabin. ‘Have you been next door? Was anyone there?’

  Stefano looked like he wasn’t sure whether or not he should tell me.

  ‘Is empty,’ he said after a beat.

  I thanked him, waved him off and closed the cabin door, leaned back against it.

  Had Peter come into my room yesterday morning while I’d slept? Or had Ethan just made it look that way?

  A burst of static from the speaker set into the ceiling signalled the beginning of another tannoy message.

  ‘Good afternoon from the bridge. Please may I have your attention for a moment. Could our passenger Adam Dunne please make himself known to a crew member so that they can escort you to the bridge.’

  I looked up at the speaker.

  ‘This is a message for Adam Dunne. Please make yourself known to a crew member so they can escort you to the bridge. Thank you.’

  Why would I need to go to the bridge? Had they figured out who I was?

  Where the hell was Peter?

  I left the cabin, locking the door behind me, and started down the hall in the direction of the elevator bank.

  What if this was about Peter? What if something had happened to him? What if Ethan had drugged me so he could do something to him? I was supposed to be helping him. I was here to help keep us both safe. Had I failed Peter now as well as Sarah?

  Had I failed them both?

  A lump formed in my throat. Why had I ever come here? I couldn’t handle this. I couldn’t handle life unless it was easy and already going my way. That’s probably why Sarah had cheated on me, because she knew I was weak. I was such a worthless piece of shit. Sarah probably—

  I stopped halfway down the hall.

  Sarah’s scarf.

  I’d pulled it out from beneath the pillow last night to show Megan. What had I said to her? For the life of me, I couldn’t remember now.

  I also couldn’t remember seeing the scarf in the cabin this morning.

  I hurried back along the hallway to my door, fumbled with the key in the lock, tried to push open the door before it unlocked, tried again. Ran into the room. Checked the bed, tossed the pillows, pulled back the sheets. Turned a full three-sixty degrees to check everywhere else. Dropped to the floor to look under the bed.

  No scarf.

  Where could it be? Would Megan have taken it?

  I looked around the room again.

  The balcony.

  There was something out there.

  Forcing one foot in front of the other, I made it to the sliding doors. I moved as if underwater, held my breath like I was too. I put a hand on the lock, flipped it open and slid back the door. A cold breeze whipped at my face.

  I stepped outside.

  Underneath my feet: the thrumming of the engines, far below. We were moving again.

  The fabric flapped in the wind, blowing out, away from the ship. One end of it had been tied to the balcony in a double knot.

  Navy with white butterflies. Sarah’s scarf.

  Who would’ve put it out here, tied it to the railing like this?

  I reached out a hand to touch the end of it, to see if it was real, if it was really tied to the railing of my cabin’s balcony on the Celebrate and billowing out, flapping in the wind.

  And noticed that it looked different to the last time I’d seen it. It was covered in something, stained with it. Something that had dried brown.

  Blood.

  What had gone on in my cabin while I’d slept? Had I really just been sleeping?

  Megan, I thought. It must be Megan that’s missing.

  And then:

  We’ve been set up.

  We’d been set up.

  The thought crystallised en route to the Oceanic Deck. Peter thought the worst thing that could happen to us was that his theor­etical serial killer would track us down and make sure to take us out next, but we’d underestimated him. Massively so.

  He could do much worse to us than that.

  I was sure now I knew what was happening. Ethan was indeed the killer we’d suspected him of being and he’d known from the start that Peter and I were here. It didn’t make any sense that Peter would let himself into my cabin while I slept and then lie about it afterwards, but it made perfect sense that Ethan had been the
one to enter my room and then just made it look that way, made me think that it was Peter. Or maybe he didn’t know that we’d accidentally switched over our cards, and had just faked the Swipeout activity in my name to avoid detection. He’d placed Sarah’s scarf on my bed.

  Then, last night, he’d followed Peter and me to the bar and, somehow, slipped something into both our drinks. Megan following me into my cabin may have been a lucky break for him, or perhaps he’d engineered that too. It made sense that she’d help me bring Peter back to his cabin, after all.

  Either way, I now had no recollection of most of last night. I’d found Sarah’s scarf covered in dried blood tied to my balcony railing and I was being summoned to the Celebrate’s bridge where, I was convinced, I was about to be questioned about Megan’s disappearance. I’d no doubt now that she was the missing passenger security were searching the ship for.

  Megan, an American citizen. Ethan was finally bringing the FBI here. Only they weren’t coming for him.

  They were coming for Peter and me.

  He’d outwitted us. What fools we’d been for thinking we could just climb aboard and find him! What fools we were for thinking that that had been our idea! He’d taken the women we loved, reeled us like fish onto this ship – his ship – and now he was going for checkmate, a move that would get rid of us all and enable him to keep on killing.

  Except he was doing something much worse than taking our lives. He was going to make it look like I’d taken someone else’s.

  A pair of security guards were standing, as always, opposite the elevator bank on the Oceanic Deck. I told them who I was and they nodded.

  ‘I’ll take him,’ one of them said to the other.

  He took me by the crook of my arm and steered me towards the bow, towards the bridge, past sunburned passengers wrapped in beach towels and smelling of sunscreen, giddy children covered in face-paint and staff walking purposefully in every direction with pleasant expressions fixed on their faces.