Plaschke stopped the recorder and put away his notebook. “We’re done for the moment, but I expect I’ll need to talk to you again and fairly soon. You can go.”
Burke didn’t need to be told twice. He stood and went to the door, aware that Plaschke remained seated. He left the wardroom and went down the passageway into the dining area where six police were talking to people at different tables. He hadn’t taken more than two or three steps when he noticed dozens of heads turning his way.
And then he saw Claude off in a corner, talking one on one with Inspector Martin. He locked eyes with his friend.
Claude looked worried.
Chapter 21
Burke desperately wanted a drink.
But he didn’t go looking for one and decided not to take advantage of Claude’s bottle of pastis back in their cabin. He knew he had to keep his wits about him. A lot was happening, none of it good, and there promised to be more trouble ahead.
He stayed in the dining room for several minutes, watching Martin’s interview with Claude. The longer it went, the more Claude looked relaxed, even leaning backward in his chair as he talked to the police officer.
After 15 minutes, Claude stood, nodded once at the flic who stayed seated, and left.
Burke, who had fended off curious passengers for several minutes, grabbed his friend and took him to a quiet corner. “How did it go?”
“I’m not a suspect. I have all kinds of alibis since I was working in the kitchen from lunch until the police took control of everything. I was never out of the area, not even to go to the bathroom.”
“That’s good. You must be relieved, Claude.”
His friend shrugged. “Once you’re an ex-convict, you’re always an ex-convict to the police. You’re immediately a suspect for anything bad that’s happens. As soon as I saw those police vehicles pulling up to the dock, I knew they’d be looking at me to be somehow involved. Right now, I’m off the hook, but maybe the flics will change their minds down the line. You never know although that Inspector Martin seems a reasonable sort.”
“Let’s hope so. He seems to be in charge of the investigation into Blake’s murder, at least for the immediate future.”
“He knew about my prison time and that’s why he had me brought to him right at the start for an interview. He asked my whereabouts during the time Blake was probably being killed. I told him I was in the kitchen with several others and he seemed to accept that. Once we got past that stage, he started asking about my observations and he actually paid attention. Good questions, too.”
“Why do you think he was so interested in what you thought, Claude?”
“I’ve been wondering that as well, but I believe he knows that people who’ve done time have a tendency to be good observers – if they can be persuaded to talk. You have to be if you want to survive. You need to know who are the bosses, who are the head cases and who are the snitches. In prison, you don’t need to be smart, but you need to be aware of what’s going on around you.”
“So, did you pass on any observations?”
“I didn’t give him much because I don’t know much.”
Burke glanced at Martin who had moved onto Renata Hable.
He wondered what the flic was asking her.
Chapter 22
Burke watched Claude return to the kitchen to help clean and prepare for the next day’s culinary offerings. Then he turned his attention onto Renata Hable and watched her interview with the inspector. There didn’t seem much tension. Martin made an occasional note but otherwise just listened. When it ended 20 minutes later, the flic moved onto another passenger and Hable got up and walked over to Burke.
She had faced the same general questions as Burke had. “I know Blake could be a difficult man, but for someone to murder him? It’s hard to believe,” she said. She looked around and then shook her head. “This tour started so well and now look at the disaster it’s become. Two deaths, one of them a terrible murder, and who knows what’s going to happen next.”
Burke nodded.
Hable glanced back at Martin who now had Thierry Delisle at his table. The tour organizer’s face still registered shock. “Thierry is really struggling with all this,” Hable said, sympathy in her voice. “He was under pressure before, but this makes it so much worse. I hope he can make it through all of this. Right now, he’s like a heart attack waiting to happen.”
Burke couldn’t disagree.
A few minutes later, Delisle joined them. He looked unsettled. “We’re going to be here in Krems for a couple of more days. The police want access to the ship and to all the passengers as part of their investigation.”
That wasn’t a surprise to Burke. The investigation aboard the Sunna could last days.
“Head office isn’t going to be pleased,” Delisle added.
“There’s nothing we can do, Thierry,” Hable said, patting Delisle’s shoulder.
“That’s true,” he replied. He looked around. “Let’s mingle and see if we can help relax people.”
Burke doubted there was much hope of accomplishing that, but he went along with the request. The three also agreed to meet at 8 a.m. the next day to discuss how they could manage matters and then they split up.
Burke didn’t initiate any conversations. He just joined various groups and listened. However, since word had got out that he had discovered Bennett Blake, he was soon asked to describe what he had encountered in the storage compartment. He responded without providing much detail.
“Maybe it really was someone on board, but you have to wonder why anyone would wait for now to kill Blake,” said Kendall Young’s partner, Andrea Beltran.
“I’ve heard some people say they think it might have been the Roma,” suggested a staffer for David Fraser. “They knew there were lots of expensive bikes on board and might have wanted to nick one or two. Blake could have surprised them.”
Several in the group nodded and offered opinions:
“I’ve heard that, too.”
“You have to wonder about those gypsies. They show up in the area and then this happens.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if the police consider them as suspects. It makes sense to check on them. I mean, do we really think someone on board the Sunna did it? After all, we’ve been together for days. If it was one of us, why now?”
Someone asked Burke what he thought.
“I haven’t a clue.”
“But what about the Roma? Do you think they could be involved?”
Burke shrugged. He didn’t believe the Roma had anything to do with Blake’s death. “I doubt it.”
“But they could have been. Those people are known to be sneaky and even dangerous.”
“Maybe it was one of those refugees,” another person said. “You see them everywhere and they look desperate enough to try something.”
More heads nodded.
Burke looked at the people in the group. They were smart, well-educated and even worldly, but they were letting their prejudices and fears take control, and they weren’t about to be dissuaded from thinking that way, at least for a while. He thought this was how old-time lynch mobs began.
“Maybe we should leave it up to the police to identify suspects,” he suggested. He noticed a few glares aimed his way. “They seem competent.”
That was greeted with a few snorts of derision. Burke could see they had made up their minds. Until a better theory or some real evidence showed up, the person who had murdered Bennett Blake was either a Roma or a refugee.
He drifted to another group. The conversation echoed the previous one. No one really believed that any passenger on ship was behind Blake’s death. Then someone asked if anyone had seen Felicity Blake. Good question, Blake thought. He hadn’t spotted her anywhere.
Then he saw her, moving into the dining room in the company of two police officers, a male and a female. They looked like they were consoling her. For her part, she looked shocked, her h
and to her mouth, her eyes staring straight ahead, her feet shuffling in small steps, almost like she was ready to tumble over.
When Felicity Blake and her escorts got within three metres of Burke, she looked up. There was no recognition in her eyes for a moment and then Burke saw she recalled him. She looked like she was in shock. If she was pretending to be the grieving wife, she was doing a superb job.
“I’m sorry about your husband,” Burke said.
She nodded.
One of the officers guided her over to where Inspector Christian Martin was. He stood and shook her hand. They talked for a few seconds and then disappeared down the far passageway.
It was her time to be interviewed.
Burke glanced around. Almost everyone in the room was looking at the passageway where Felicity Blake and Inspector Martin had gone.
Chapter 23
Stretched out on his bed in the darkened cabin, Burke couldn’t sleep. He still saw Bennett Blake’s lifeless eyes and bloodied body with the gaping wounds in his stomach and chest. Despite being involved in previous murder investigations, Burke had never encountered victims in person; he had just looked at photos and read reports. The only dead people he had ever seen in person had been his parents at a funeral home and they hadn’t seemed real.
Burke shivered although the cabin was warm. He knew he’d never forget the scene.
And then he wondered about what Bennett Blake had been doing in the storage compartment. Had he gone there alone and surprised someone? Or had someone forced him to the compartment? Whatever the reason, no one had seen Blake go there.
The cabin door eased open.
It was Claude trying not to wake up his cabin mate.
“You can turn on the light, Claude,” Burke said. “I’m awake.”
He glanced at the clock on his night table: 2:45 a.m.
The light went on.
Claude looked exhausted, like he could barely take another step. His shoulders were slumped and he had bags under his eyes. But his friend still managed a small smile. “I’m glad to see I’m not the only one not getting any sleep. You know how it is – misery loves company.”
Claude changed into his pajamas and then washed his face and brushed his teeth. When he was done, he turned off the light and dropped onto his bed. “What a day!” he grunted.
“Definitely.”
“So, given your talents for detection, who do you think could be behind Blake’s murder?”
“I have no idea. As for my so-called talents for detection, whatever they are, they aren’t working.”
“Well, maybe you’ll have some ideas in the morning. A good night’s sleep can make a person smarter.”
And with that, Claude turned onto his side and was soon snoring.
Burke, though, wasn’t going to drift off anytime soon. His mind was spinning too wildly for him to relax. He was aware Blake had been disliked by a number of people – given his arrogance and penchant for criticizing others, it was natural he wouldn’t be popular – but Burke hadn’t seen any reaction from anyone that indicated enough anger to commit murder, especially in such a brutal way. So if it wasn’t a Sunna passenger, a Roma or a refugee, who could it be? Some passerby with a spontaneous desire to commit murder? Someone who had trailed the ship from the start for a mysterious reason? Both were unlikely.
Burke could feel something niggling in his brain that suggested he was missing some kind of connection. But what was the connection? And who was involved?
After two more hours of sleeplessness, Burke finally drifted off.
He awoke at his usual time, but he wasn’t thinking about the rental bicycles as he usually did when he first became alert. He was thinking about the group of participants.
His brain told him there was a dynamic within the group that was unusual, bizarre, even threatening. It didn’t involve everyone, but it definitely included Bennett Blake. And maybe Blake’s killer. More than before, Burke was convinced the person who had murdered the Englishman was one of the 15 team-building participants, and not a Roma, a refugee or even another passenger.
He lay in bed, reviewing all the scenes he had witnessed that had involved Bennett Blake and the others in the team-building exercises.
Blake hadn’t talked the same way with everyone. With some, he had been polite, even deferential. With others, he had been jocular, ready to toss in the next quip whenever the occasion arose. With a few, he had turned less pleasant, eager to put in the needle, to embarrass and, maybe, even to humiliate.
It was the last group that Burke thought might have some issue with Blake: Young, Gast, Fraser and, to a lesser extent, Eric Chapman the Canadian and Dietrich Beck the German. Maybe even Hoshiko Kimura, the Japanese powerhouse, and the Aussie Roger Langford.
Then Burke struck Kimura off his mental list. Blake had fired verbal darts at her the first day or two, but she hadn’t responded to his taunts; it was almost like she was immune. Without a reaction from her, Blake had moved onto other targets.
Even without Kimura, that was still a large group, Burke thought.
But what was it about their exchanges that prompted enough passion for such a bloody murder?
“Still thinking?” came Claude’s fuzzy voice.
Burke looked across and saw his friend staring back from his bed. “Claude, I have this strange feeling that what led up to Bennett Blake’s murder is staring us in the face.”
“So why can’t we see it?”
“Good question. Maybe we’re not opening our minds enough or we’re making the wrong connections. But it’s there.”
Claude slowly sat up and stretched. “You sound like you plan to get involved in another police investigation, Paul.”
“Well, we are involved, whether we like it or not. I discovered the body and there’s no doubt it was murder. And although some people think a Roma or refugee is behind Blake’s death, I think it’s far more likely the killer is one of us on board the Sunna. So, until the police find the person, we need to be alert.”
“I get that. I just think you need to leave the detecting work to the flics. They seem capable enough. Besides, the person who killed Bennett Blake doesn’t seem like the type you want coming after you.”
“I know.”
“And if you get hurt or worse because you were poking your nose into matters you shouldn’t have, Hélène will never forgive me.”
Burke knew that was also true. He realized he needed to contact her and tell her what had happened. He didn’t want her to come across the information in some news report without being warned.
“Paul, let’s make a deal,” Claude said.
“What kind of deal?”
“If you stay out of this investigation, I promise I’ll cook you a five-course meal that will make you think food is better than sex.”
“That good? I doubt any meal could be that tasty, but I agree.”
Claude nodded and went into the bathroom to shower.
Burke knew his friend had made some good points. The police, at least Plaschke and Martin, seemed capable. And if the killer was indeed on board the cruise ship, staying off that person’s radar would be wise.
While his friend showered, Burke texted Hélène, knowing she wouldn’t be up so early. He told her about the murder and added he was staying out of trouble. He finished by saying he might be in Austria an extra couple of days because of the police investigation. In fact, he didn’t know when they’d be leaving Krems.
Then he texted François Lemaire, relating the same information. He told the editor he’d provide another blog or two from the trip. Maybe even a video blog, too.
Lemaire was in the office early because he replied within seconds. “A murder? Are you sure?”
Burke replied that the death was definitely a homicide since he had discovered the corpse.
“Give me a blog about it,” Lemaire fired back. “How an international businessman ends up dead on a training trip. Murder
on the Danube etc.”
Burke thought Lemaire’s idea smacked of tabloid sensationalism.
Lemaire sent another text. “Any arrests?”
Burke told him the police were conducting interviews and doing crime-scene work. No arrests yet.
Lemaire responded: “Your readers/audience will be interested to hear you’ve stumbled onto another murder – and in a big way. Give me something by mid-afternoon.”
“OK,” Burke replied.
That ended their texting conversation.
Burke wondered if it was too early for a pastis.
Chapter 24
Claude started to get dressed in his red chef’s jacket which, to Burke, made him look like the commander of an old-time firefighting brigade. But Burke knew it could have been worse. Claude had an eye-popping yellow jacket which, thankfully, he hadn’t worn yet; when he did, he looked like a giant canary.
“Paul, I forgot to tell you that the flics said late last night we should plan on cooking two meals here in Krems and maybe more. To be honest, I think we’ll be docked here for a couple of additional days. They also said passengers would be restricted from leaving the Sunna for the immediate future.”
Burke wasn’t surprised to hear everyone had to stay on board.
“But who knows? Maybe that’ll change,” Claude added. “If you’re hungry, I’d recommend you get to the dining room soon. I don’t think many people will be sleeping in this morning. Too much adrenaline and curiosity floating around.”
Burke was hungry and he said he’d be there within 20 minutes.
Claude opened the cabin door and looked back at his friend. “And, remember, don’t get into any trouble.”
Then he left.
Burke didn’t know what the day would bring, but expected it would be a long, challenging one. The crime-scene people would likely still be around and so, too, would the other police investigators, probably doing more interviews. He wondered if the media would be showing up soon. If they did, the day could become chaotic.
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