Distress Signals

by Catherine Ryan Howard

  ‘I couldn’t . . .’ Tears ran down Peter’s face. ‘I couldn’t go on, Adam. I just couldn’t! Not with that monster out there who had taken Estelle. I nearly . . . I nearly ended it all. That was true, what I told you. But then I read this newspaper article that talked about the US Congress passing a law, about American citizens getting the FBI and I thought, the FBI? They’re the experts when it comes to serial killers! If anyone can find him, they can. I just . . . I needed them to come to the ship. I needed them to come to the Celebrate. Once they started investigating, once they started looking back, they’d find Estelle. I knew they would. Even though she was British, they’d have to investigate that too, because they’d connect all the disappearances from the ship. They’re the only ones who would.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I said. ‘Tell me what you did.’

  Peter hesitated.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said again.

  ‘I was on the Celebrate with Sarah. Behind her and Ethan in the boarding queue. I heard him talking about how she’d be on her own that night because he had to meet someone . . . His accent, he was obviously American. You’d be surprised, Adam, how few of them you find on European cruises, especially the very short ones like this. When they go to the trouble of coming all the way over here, they want to sail for a week or two . . . I thought she was American too. Really, Adam. Otherwise I never would have—’

  ‘I don’t give a flying fuck,’ I said, biting my own lip with the anger in my ‘F’ sound. ‘Tell me what you did to her!’

  ‘I followed them,’ Peter said, speaking quicker now. ‘Well, I followed her. I stayed at a distance so she wouldn’t notice. That’s why I didn’t hear her speak. She met up with him afterwards, out on deck. They looked like they were arguing. She went back to the cabin alone. I— I waited outside. When she opened the door to come out again, I pushed her back in.’ Peter was crying hard now. ‘And I had a . . . I’m sorry, I am. I’d put some chloroform on a napkin, like I’d seen in the movies . . .’

  I thought of Sarah, eyes wide with fear above a piece of white cloth.

  ‘I pressed it against her mouth,’ Peter said. ‘She was unconscious in seconds. She didn’t feel anything, I know that. I did it as quick as I could and I told her . . .’ An anguished sob. ‘I told her I was sorry. I told her I was doing it only because someone else had done it to the woman I loved, some monster had taken the woman who was carrying my baby, my child. I pulled her out onto the balcony and then . . .’ He looked away from me. ‘Then I heard a noise.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No.’

  ‘It was Ethan, coming to look for her. There was a space maybe this wide’ – Peter held his hands a couple of feet apart – ‘between the end of their sliding door and the partition. I hid there, holding Sarah’s . . . Holding Sarah, waiting for him to leave again. He did. Then I . . . I pushed her—’ Another sob. ‘I pushed her, Adam. I’m so sorry. Then I took some of her stuff, but not all. Just like Estelle. Everything had to look the same. I saw the note on the mirror on the way back in. I took it because . . . Well, Estelle didn’t leave a note. It was only afterwards I realised that Sarah’s phone was in her handbag – I’d taken the handbag. I was going to throw it away, throw it in the sea when I disembarked, but then all these calls and texts started coming through, and your message, and all the numbers had Irish country codes . . . I checked online, and I found something on Facebook. An appeal for information. That’s when I realised that she wasn’t American at all, she was Irish.’ He straightened up, looked me in the eyes. ‘Adam, I know I should never have—’

  ‘So then,’ I said, ‘you went to Plan B.’

  ‘No one believed me about Estelle,’ Peter said. ‘No one. Blue Wave didn’t care – about Estelle or Sarah. You told me they said Sarah got off the ship, right? Well, she didn’t, did she? We know that for sure. They just told you that to fob you off. This is what they do. So then I knew that, despite what they’d said, Estelle hadn’t walked off the ship either. More than ever I was convinced: someone had murdered Estelle. Maybe the same person who’d been responsible for Sanne Vrijs, who Blue Wave didn’t give a shit about either. I knew I still had to try to get the FBI on the ship. They were the only ones who could solve this, who could find him and stop him. Who could tell me what had happened to Estelle. I’d made a mess of things, yes, but there was still time to set things right, to do this right. But I had no money left. I couldn’t get on the Celebrate to . . . I—I looked you up, online, and it said you’d just signed this big movie deal or something. Six figures, it said. You were rich, and your girlfriend was missing from the Celebrate . . . I figured that if I could convince you that Sarah and Estelle were connected, beyond all doubt . . . So I found Sarah’s passport in her bag and I put the note I’d taken from the mirror inside and posted it to you—’

  ‘How did you know where I lived?’

  Peter looked surprised that I didn’t know the answer.

  ‘You’re in the phone book,’ he said. ‘I looked it up online.’

  ‘Then you, what? Waited for me to contact you? I might never have.’

  ‘I thought of that,’ Peter said. ‘I actually sent you some messages through the Facebook page – not under my own name, of course – bringing up how similar the two cases were. You mustn’t have seen them. I waited a while, thought maybe you’d stumble upon it yourself. If not, I was going to get in contact with you, pretend that I’d stumbled on your case. Anyway, I needn’t have worried. That woman Sarah met at dinner led you to Blue Wave, and then you did your own research and you found Estelle’s case. You got in contact with me and—’

  ‘—you pretended that Estelle had sent you a note too.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you’d written it.’

  ‘Becky had Estelle’s passport. It was never missing, she gave it to me. I had some paper from the Celebrate from the time . . . From the time with Sarah. I thought you were going to figure it out, Adam. I did. There was the logo change. I thought you might ask why Estelle’s paper was the same as Sarah’s. They should’ve been different, right? If Estelle was on the ship a year ago and Sarah was here last week? But you said nothing about it. Then when I swapped over the keys – that was the other thing, I didn’t realise that return guests got a bottle of champagne in their room. At check-in even, back in the terminal, I thought something might come up and the girl would say, “Welcome back, Mr Brazier,” and I’d have to think of some way to explain that. And then Ethan . . . I found Ethan that first night – I kept looking until I did – and he told me it was his first week working on the ship, and I knew then that, if you found him, he’d tell you the same thing and it would all be over. It was nearly over anyway. You wanted to leave. So I delayed you, I made you stay, and then last night . . . I had to see this thing through to the end. I had to . . . To take Megan.’

  ‘The scarf,’ I said flatly. ‘Was it even Sarah’s?’

  Peter bit his lip, shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I threw her clothes . . . I threw them overboard. Got rid of them before I disembarked the ship last week. But I remembered the scarf. It was easy enough to find another one like it, it was from a high-street chain. And . . . I remembered the perfume. That was my . . . My back-up plan, in case, once we got aboard, you changed your mind about all this.’

  ‘Seems like you thought of everything.’

  ‘I’m not proud of it, Adam, but yes. I tried to. I’ve had a year to think of nothing else.’

  ‘Except Megan died in your cabin. You swapped the keys over. Your name is on my cabin. If you killed her there—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Peter said. ‘You’re the one who’s been seen with her. Were undoubtedly caught on CCTV. Seen chatting to her in the bar – maybe even seen going into your cabin with her.’

  ‘I’ll tell them,’ I said, ‘I’ll tell them what you did.’

  ‘Honestly, I don’t care if
you do. I just needed to get Megan to a place where I could do what I had to. Say what you like. So long as it’s the FBI asking the questions, and they’re on their way here as we speak. When they arrive, they’ll arrest you. You can tell them all about Megan and Sarah – in fact, please do. Then they might make the connections. Do what no one else has ever done – actually see what’s happening on this ship. I don’t care what happens to me. I just want justice for Estelle. And in order for that to happen, Megan must be connected to Sarah, and Sarah must be connected to Estelle. She’s the only one I care about. You’re a nice guy, but I don’t care about you. I can’t. And I couldn’t care about Sarah—’

  It all happened so fast.

  I saw hands on Peter’s chest and realised, on a delay, that they were mine. I was gripping him, pulling him by the shirt, turning him around, pushing him up against the balcony, bending him back over it—

  ‘You’re not going to do this, Adam,’ he said. ‘This isn’t you.’

  I looked at him and I thought about what he’d done. I saw Sarah’s eyes, wide with fear, wondering what this man, what this man who was whispering apologies to her, could possibly have to do with her life, and I don’t know, something just boiled over inside of me.

  I couldn’t keep it in.

  I couldn’t let it go.

  I couldn’t forgive him.

  Then Peter was gone, over the balcony, and in that instant I realised what I’d done and I shot out my arms to catch him and screamed his name but there was only air—

  And then I was on the railing, standing on the first rung, then the second, looking over, and then—

  And then—

  Corinne

  Just after two o’clock the following morning, Corinne’s son stood in the doorway of her crew cabin.

  ‘Hello, Mama.’

  She invited him in, motioned for him to sit down beside her on her bed, the bottom bunk. There was nowhere else in the tiny space for him to sit.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘you’re the only one left who can call me that. Mama, I mean.’

  ‘Mikki got pneumonia?’

  ‘Over Christmas 2003.’

  ‘I read about it online.’

  ‘How did you hear about Papa?’

  ‘On the news,’ Romain said. ‘I was still in France then.’

  ‘Where have you been since?’

  ‘I went to Crete.’

  ‘Why did you leave there?’

  Romain turned to look at her, and then she him.

  ‘How do I know,’ he said, ‘that you’re not recording this?’

  Corinne laughed softly. ‘Why would I bother with the police now, Romi? There’s no one left to protect. Mikki, Jean, Charlie – you took them all out, one way or another. There’s only me left, and God has already handed down my sentence.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Cancer. In my liver and my lungs. Six months they told me, eight months ago. I can’t have long left.’

  ‘How long have you known I was here?’

  ‘A few weeks. I got the email back in July. I was going to come aboard as a passenger but then I realised that, if you were crew, you may not necessarily be in passenger areas. Even if you were, it might take years of me walking loops around these decks, waiting for the one time that I, one of two thousand passengers, might happen to run into you, one of one thousand crew. I don’t have that kind of time. I applied for a job instead.’

  ‘But how can you do it, if you’re sick?’

  ‘I just had to do it for long enough. And I’ve managed that, ­haven’t I? How did you know I was here?’

  ‘We make the new crew ID cards. I saw your picture come up last week. Then your name. You use your real one still?’

  ‘What other one do I have? I’m not like you, Romi. I’m no master criminal. I wouldn’t even know where to get a fake passport, or have the neck to use one.’

  ‘Mama—’

  He stopped.

  ‘What?’ Corinne said. ‘Is this the part where you deny everything?’

  ‘I didn’t kill Jean. Really, Mama. I didn’t. I mean . . . Yes, it was probably my fault. He was climbing over the gate trying to get away from me, but I wasn’t trying to hurt him or anything. I wouldn’t have. I just wanted to talk. If Papa . . . If he did what he did because he felt guilty, then I can’t be responsible for that.’

  ‘Why would he feel guilty?’

  ‘Because he lied to me. In the prison. He said he was going to bring me to live with him when I got out but then he . . . He changed his mind.’

  ‘What about Mikki?’ she asked gently. ‘Was that an accident too?’

  ‘I didn’t want to hurt him. I was only trying to get him to stop crying.’

  ‘Are you sorry for it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Romain said, after a beat.

  ‘And Bastian. Are you going to claim that was an accident too?’

  ‘I wasn’t much older then but . . . No. That wasn’t an accident.’

  ‘I didn’t think it was.’

  ‘There’s a darkness, Mama. It comes in. I can’t stop it.’

  ‘Was it always there?’

  A pause.

  ‘Yes,’ Romain said.

  ‘What about Sanne Vrijs?’

  His jaw set in a tight line. ‘How do you know that name?’

  ‘Did you kill her too?’

  ‘I said how do you know that name?’

  ‘The person who emailed me,’ Corinne said. ‘He was a friend of hers. Worked with her here, on the ship. Was working with her the night she disappeared. Saw you harassing her at the bar, he said. After you were asked to leave, she told him who you were. Said you were the infamous Devil of Deavieux, the child murderer known as Boy P. He’d never heard of you. She didn’t tell him your new name, but he took what he had to the authorities. They didn’t follow up. I believe the company said she was drunk at a party and fell overboard? He didn’t believe that, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Then, a few weeks later, he’s sitting eating his lunch in the crew mess when he looks up and sees you there. In uniform. He knows there’s no point in going to Blue Wave. He doubts the French police will believe him and, anyway, I don’t think anyone is too concerned with hunting you down there any more. He looks up your new name in the crew directory. Sends it and an updated picture to me. He watched my videos, you see. After Sanne disappeared. He learned everything about you. The old you, I mean.’ She paused for breath. ‘So?’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Sanne?’

  ‘I did kill her,’ Romain said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she killed our baby.’

  ‘She was pregnant?’ Tears sprang to Corinne’s eyes. ‘Oh, Romi. Was she your girlfriend?’

  ‘Back in Crete, yes.’

  ‘Did she know . . .’

  ‘That’s why she did it. She was afraid that it would be like me, and that she would be like you.’

  Corinne couldn’t speak.

  ‘It’s not the same, I know,’ Romain went on. ‘Your situation, that was different. But even though I knew that the child could be like me, I still wanted it. I wanted to take the risk. Because it could’ve also been like Sanne. More like Sanne, if we tried hard enough.’

  ‘I tried, Romi.’

  ‘How hard?’

  ‘You don’t know how difficult it was, to look at you.’

  ‘But I was just a baby, Mama. How could you blame me for what he did?’

  ‘Because I thought . . .’ Corinne bit her lip. ‘Because I thought you were like him. I was afraid you were. Your father was a monster, Romi. He raped me. Repeatedly, for hours. He . . . He cut me. Inside.’ Romain flinched, looked away. She could see his jaw working. ‘I remember looking into his eyes at one point and there was nothing there. Nothing. No life. His eye
s were just like little dark marbles. I didn’t tell anyone because I wanted to forget that it had ever happened. That was the only way I could go on. And your papa . . . How could I tell your papa? How could I put those images in his brain?’ Corinne shook her head. ‘No. I couldn’t. So I said nothing. And then, I found out I was pregnant with you. Pregnant with the seed that he had forced inside of me, pregnant with what was going to be a living, breathing reminder of what had happened to me that night for the rest of my life. I could never forget it, because it would always be there. Running around my house, sitting at my dinner table. But what choice did I have? It was too late to . . . to take care of it. The only other option was to ruin Charlie’s life, to break his heart. I loved him too much to do that to him, so I said nothing at all. The man who . . . Your father. His colouring was a lot like Charlie’s. I thought I might get away with it. And I did. At least until . . . Until you started taking after him in other ways.’

  ‘But which came first, Mama?’

  ‘Oh, Romi, the things you did, when you were just a boy. Do you remember? Hurting animals? Walking around like a robot, copying Jean? And then Mikki . . .’

  ‘You told him, didn’t you?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Papa. That day he came to see me, just before I was released. When he told me that he and I weren’t going to live together any more. You’d just told him, hadn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ There was no point in lying now. ‘He was talking about getting the family back together. All of the family. He went on and on and on. Finally I just cracked. I screamed at him. I told him that his family was already together. He could gather us all in one room, right then and there.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Not much. He was upset. He left. I didn’t see him for a couple of days. But when he came back, when he was a bit calmer, he told me that, on some level, he’d always known.’ Corinne sighed. ‘He said we were all going to live together again. All of us, his . . .’ She glanced nervously at Romain. ‘His real family. We’d move somewhere new, without you. Move on with our lives. Have the life our family was supposed to have before I walked down that street that night. But then Jean died. Charlie went six months later. Mikki is gone now too. Did you know? That he wasn’t your father?’