by John Boyne
‘Isn’t it interesting,’ she said, looking over the machinery and controls with a greedy eye. ‘I don’t know how you keep track of it all. So many buttons and colours and levers. I’m sure I’d forget what to do.’
‘It becomes second nature,’ he said, reaching over for a guide to the ship he had left on the table, and then making a grab for his shoulder, crying out in pain.
‘Captain, are you all right?’ Mrs Drake asked.
‘It’s my shoulder,’ he said. ‘It’s an old injury. I strain it every so often.’
‘You should have a doctor look at it.’
‘We have a doctor on board, but he can never seem to fix it. I just put up with the pain for a day or two, and then it calms down.’ This was all a lie, of course, but he had hoped that Mr Robinson would enquire after his symptoms; he watched the man hopefully but was disappointed. The other seemed more interested in staring out through the window than discussing an invented medical condition.
‘You like the sea, Mr Robinson?’ he asked after a moment.
‘Not very much,’ he admitted.
‘Oh no? Have you spent much time sailing? You’re from London, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Were you born there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Lived there all your life?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right,’ he said. No joy there either. ‘And your son?’ he asked, spitting out the word, almost offended that he had to pretend at all. ‘Your son is from London too?’
Mr Robinson turned around and stared at his interrogator, raising an eyebrow. Why were there so many questions, he wondered. Was the captain trying to get him to admit that Edmund was not his son after all? Was this his ploy?
‘I’ve always enjoyed the sea,’ a voice piped up from between them. ‘Mr Drake owns a yacht, which he parks off Monaco.’
‘Moors,’ said Captain Kendall.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘He moors it off Monaco,’ he said. ‘One parks motor cars. Or bicycles. Not boats.’
‘Oh, of course,’ she said, giggling. ‘Silly me. But I do so enjoy our days out on it. And Victoria does too. I find the sea air so refreshing. Now these long trips can tire one out a little, of course, although I must admit it’s strange because, as exhausted as I get on board, I seem unable to sleep very well. Isn’t that an unusual thing?’
‘Do you take any sleeping tablets?’ the captain asked.
‘From time to time. But they don’t always work very well. Sometimes I wake up with the most terrible headaches because of them.’
‘I prefer more natural remedies myself,’ said Kendall, deliberately not catching Mr Robinson’s eye. ‘Herbal cures. Eastern medicines. Homeopathic remedies,’ he added.
‘Really?’ Mrs Drake asked, the sides of her mouth curling up in distaste, as if she had just drunk sour milk. ‘How unusual.’
‘They can be very productive, actually,’ said Mr Robinson, joining in the discussion, wholly unaware of the fact that the line had been aimed at him. ‘And they’re becoming more and more popular with people these days. Not everything needs to be cured by drugs and tonics, you know.’
‘You’re interested in homoeopathy then, Mr Robinson?’ Kendall asked.
‘A little.’
‘Do you know much about it?’
‘A little.’
‘Have you ever taken any?’
‘A little.’
Kendall felt his fists clench in anger. This man either had the cunning of a fox or was as innocent as a lamb. He couldn’t decide which.
‘Captain, are we on time, do you suppose?’ Mrs Drake asked. ‘Will we reach Canada by the end of the month?’
‘Oh yes, I expect so,’ he said. ‘I’ve never brought a boat in ahead or behind time in my life, and I don’t intend to start with this voyage. No matter what happens.’
‘No matter what? Why, what do you expect to happen?’
‘Nothing at all. I just meant that one is always prepared for any eventuality and ready to face it.’
‘Of course.’
Just then one of the sailors handed the captain a note which stated that Billy Carter needed to see him in the wireless room. His heart skipped a beat; perhaps this was the dreaded or longed-for news. He was disappointed that he had not got more out of Mr Robinson; if only that confounded Mrs Drake hadn’t insisted on tagging along. ‘I’m sorry,’ he told his guests. ‘I have to leave you now.’
‘Well, thank you for showing us round this area of the ship,’ said Mr Robinson, still a little baffled as to why he had been summoned. ‘It was most interesting.’
‘Yes thank you so much, Captain,’ said Mrs Drake.
‘You’re very welcome. I’m sure I’ll see you later today.’ He made to turn away but then stopped and looked back at Mr Robinson. ‘Such an unusual beard you sport,’ he said. ‘With no moustache. Is that the latest trend in London?’
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘Just my own peculiarity.’
‘It’s almost like the Amish folk in America. You’re not Amish, are you?’
Mr Robinson gave a rare laugh. ‘No, Captain,’ he said. ‘No, I’m not.’
‘Have you always worn it like that?’
‘No.’
‘Do you plan to grow a moustache again?’
‘No.’
Are you lying about being Mr John Robinson and in fact are actually Doctor Hawley Harvey Crippen, the man whom half the civilized world is after for murdering his wife, chopping her up and burying her without her head in the cellar of your house?
‘Captain, you look as if you have one final question,’ said Mr Robinson with a smile. ‘Do you?’
He thought about it. A silence lay between them, one that Mr Robinson swore he would not be the first to break. He held Kendall’s eye with a strength of purpose he had rarely felt.
‘No,’ the captain muttered finally, walking away.
Later that night, Mr Robinson, Miss Hayes and Mr Zéla were seated together at a small table in the billiards room, nursing some brandies and enjoying each other’s company. They had managed to shake off Mrs Drake and the young people, and had spent an hour playing rummy for pennies, Martha Hayes winning the most.
‘I believe Mrs Drake sees scandal everywhere she looks,’ said Martha. ‘It’s almost as if we can’t so much as have a conversation without being accused of getting engaged. I’ve been linked to you too, Matthieu, you know. So you’d better watch your back. Apparently I’m out for all I can get and am determined to find a husband before this trip is over.’
‘Really?’ he asked, amused. ‘And whose charges are these?’
‘The daughter’s. Honestly, they’re such a frustrating pair. Have they nothing better to do with their time than gossip and create scandal?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Matthieu. ‘Believe me, I’ve met women like Antoinette Drake many times in my life. Their lives are fairly empty because they have nothing to aspire to. They have all the money they need, so they have no ambition. Their marriages have long since become devoid of passion. Their children despise them, as they do their children. I was married to a woman once quite like that. A long time ago. She made me so frustrated that I often felt like strangling her.’
‘And did you?’ Martha asked, smiling.
‘Oh no. I divorced her instead. It involved less prison time.’
‘It’s not an answer, you know,’ said Mr Robinson, unaware how drinking on an empty stomach was affecting him. ‘Killing your wife. It doesn’t solve anything.’
‘Of course not, John,’ said Martha. ‘We’re only teasing.’
‘People do it all the time, though,’ he said. ‘And they get away with it.’
‘I don’t like violence,’ Matthieu Zéla said, lighting a cigar and leaning back in his armchair. ‘In my life I’ve seen too many people die at the hands of others, and it never gets any easier.’
‘What do you do exactly?’ Martha asked him, intr
igued. ‘You allude to so much but tell us so little.’
‘I work in the arts,’ he said with a smile. ‘It has varied over the years. Theatres, opera houses, arts administration. You might call me an international artistic mercenary. People in positions of power seem to know my name and they contact me when they have a task that needs doing. Let’s just say, I keep myself busy.’
‘And what of you, Martha?’ Mr Robinson asked. ‘When you get to Canada, what are you going to do?’
She smiled. ‘I don’t know yet,’ she said. ‘I think I might like to go into the law.’
‘The law?’ he asked, surprised.
‘Yes. I’ve always been interested in being a barrister. I’m not sure why. I never had the opportunity before. But Mr Brillt, for all his faults, did open my mind to the fact that I am capable of anything. I’m still a young woman, after all. I believe I will get a job and then put myself through university.’
‘Well, I hope you succeed,’ said Matthieu. ‘But remember, you still have to make your choice before the voyage is over.’
‘My choice?’
‘Well, if Mrs Drake is so convinced that you intend to marry either myself or John here, then you will have to choose which one.’
She laughed and shook her head. ‘An impossible choice, gentlemen,’ she said, ‘although I know which one she would choose for me.’
The two men stared at each other in surprise before looking back at her. ‘Who?’ they asked in unison.
‘Why, you, of course, Matthieu,’ she said. ‘After all, you’re in the Presidential Suite. And I am the world’s premier gold-digger. In Mrs Drake’s fantasies, you would have to be my number one choice. I’m sorry, John.’
‘That’s fine,’ he said, aware that she was joking but somewhat offended nonetheless.
‘You’ve both been chosen in a different way, of course,’ said Martha after a moment. ‘By Victoria Drake. The choice between your son and your nephew,’ she said, looking from one to the other.
‘How is your son today?’ Matthieu asked, looking across at Mr Robinson. ‘I haven’t seen him around. He’s not ill, is he?’ Ever since deciding that Edmund Robinson was in fact a girl he had been observing his movements around the deck and had missed him during that afternoon. He was also intrigued by the relationship between the two but was not prepared to bring his findings out into the public domain just yet.
‘He’s fine,’ said Mr Robinson. ‘Around somewhere, no doubt.’
‘If you ask me,’ said Martha. ‘You should encourage both boys to stay away from Victoria. She’s not a pleasant girl.’
‘For what it’s worth, I think she should be equally encouraged to stay away from my nephew,’ said Matthieu. ‘I’ve only taken him in hand recently, and the edges are still, shall we say, a little rough.’
‘Edmund has no interest in her,’ Mr Robinson said sharply. ‘It’s ridiculous, the very idea.’
‘I agree,’ said Matthieu with a smile. ‘Somehow they do not seem a likely pairing to me.’
‘Then we’re agreed,’ said Martha. ‘The Drakes are not our sort at all.’
‘Agreed,’ said both men, clinking glasses.
‘Only a few days to go anyway,’ she added. ‘Then we’ll be on dry land again. It’s not as if Victoria can cause too much friction between them in that period of time, can she?’
Matthieu Zéla raised an eyebrow. Although he did not know his nephew very well, he could judge his character—and had enough experience of his lineage—to believe that trouble was always on the horizon. He decided he would be very happy if the Montrose managed to dock in Quebec without any further incident but he doubted, somehow, whether this would be possible.
Inspector Dew felt their eyes burning into his body as he wandered around the deck of the Laurentic, the passengers staring at him and whispering, looking at each other and asking, ‘Is it him? Is that Dew?’ He began to feel like a celebrity, a famous actor from the theatre or even a member of the government, and he found that he quite enjoyed the sensation. The relative anonymity of a Scotland Yard inspector’s job had been replaced, if only for a short time, by excitement and glamour. He wondered whether he was a disappointment to them. Whether they had expected someone taller, younger, more handsome. Or whether he was exactly what they wanted: a reassuring presence, an older gentleman with a finely tuned mind and the desire to see justice served.
It was the children who watched him most. He could feel them scurrying around the deck like rats, hiding behind lifeboats, crouching behind deckchairs, excited and terrified at the same time. Sometimes he would stop suddenly and spin around, to see three or four of them gathered together, and he would bare his teeth and hiss; their eyes opened wide in terror and delight whenever he did this, and they ran screaming along the deck in fright. Their young minds could not differentiate between the man who had committed the killing and the man sent to find him; to them, they were both part of a sinister double act that would keep them awake at night.
One of the crewmen had leaked the news of Inspector Walter Dew’s presence on the Laurentic, and it had taken very little time for it to circulate among all the passengers. Most of them had been following the story of Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen and his murdered wife Cora in the newspapers over the previous few weeks. It had turned into a nationwide manhunt, and for them to be suddenly involved in the climax of the action was exciting to them. At first Inspector Dew had been irritated by their obsessive interest, worried that it might interfere with the arrest, but this had soon worn off. After all, Dr Crippen and his accomplice were on another ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and he knew exactly where; there was no chance of them escaping, even if they knew they were being pursued. The only reason he had told Captain Kendall not to do anything in the meantime was to prevent any trouble breaking out on the Montrose before they reached Canada, but there was no harm in the passengers of his own ship knowing. After all, the whole world was now following this chase and he was turning into a celebrated figure.
‘Have you seen this?’ Captain Taylor asked, tracking Dew down in the small cabin they had assigned him as an office. The walls were covered with pages from the Crippen file which he had pinned up as reference points. In the centre was a police cameraman’s photograph of the table in the mortuary where the various parts of Cora Crippen they had unearthed had been reassembled; the captain had made the mistake of looking at it the previous day, trying to make out what the picture was. As it had slowly dawned on him what he was looking at, he felt his legs give way beneath him. Today, he studiously avoided looking in that direction. ‘It’s a telegraph from London. Seems you’re quite the hero. The newspapers are all leading with the story.’
‘Really?’ Dew asked, surprised and pleased. ‘What do they say?’
‘The Times say this is the most adventurous manhunt in history. They’re recommending you for a knighthood if you get your man. The Star calls you the finest member of England’s police force for your daring.’
‘Daring, eh?’ he said, stroking his beard, pleased. ‘I suppose it is rather daring.’
‘Le Monde have said that you are going to be invited to address their own police force on your return, to instruct them on how to capture escaped murderers.’
‘A free trip to Paris. Lovely. I shall enjoy that.’
‘The Michigan Daily Record is running long features on us because Crippen was born there, apparently. They seem to be taking some pleasure in the hope that we’re not going to catch up with him in time.’
‘Of course we’ll catch up with him. You promised me as much, didn’t you?’
‘We will, don’t worry. And the Quebec Gazette is devoting pages and pages to the story. They have diagrams explaining where and when you’ll catch him. They seem to think it’s a great honour for Canada. A whole police force is being mobilized to stop the crowds at the port from creating a riot when either the Laurentic or the Montrose arrives.’
‘Thank you, Captain,’ Dew said, delight
ed. ‘It’s good to know this is not all in vain then.’
‘Let’s just hope you have the right man,’ the captain said, an off-the-cuff remark that filled Dew with apprehension.
‘Of course I have,’ he said. ‘It has to be him.’
Increasingly, as they got closer and closer to their prey, Dew was haunted with the worry that the man claiming to be Mr John Robinson was not the man he had developed a friendship with at 39 Hilldrop Crescent in Camden. And, thrilled as he was by the worldwide interest in the story, the humiliation which would ensue if it turned out to be someone else would be almost too much for him to bear. He would almost certainly be instantly demoted by the police commissioner for making fools of the Yard in the eyes of the public. Of the world. His knighthood would not appear. The invitation to Paris would be rescinded. And he would have to endure a trip back to England, being mocked by his fellow passengers rather than applauded. I’m simply chasing a suspected murderer, he thought, and yet my whole career seems to depend on it.
In order to feel closer to the heart of the action, several passengers had already approached him with ridiculous enquiries. Some wanted details of how the case had been handled so far, which of course he was not at liberty to tell them, although he threw out a few crumbs to keep the hungry blighters eager for more. Some were eager to hear the more lurid accounts of how Dr Crippen had chopped up his wife. Other still had various suggestions as to where the missing head might be found.
‘Have you checked the dustbins?’ one asked. ‘That’s where I’d put my wife’s head if I knocked it off.’
‘Or the oven?’ another asked. ‘Perhaps he’s cooked it in there.’
‘How about the chimney?’
‘Or buried under a tree?’
‘I heard that he ate it,’ announced one particularly macabre woman. When her fellow passengers stared at her in amazement, she held her ground. ‘Think about it,’ she said. ‘It’s the only way to ensure it would never be found. If he can chop up a woman’s body into little pieces without a care in the world, then he can certainly do the same to her head and boil it up into a stew and eat it. There’ll be good iron in a head, too, you mark my words.’