by Mark McCrum
‘I thought things had changed in the US,’ said Carmen. ‘Wasn’t there a law passed saying you had to report all deaths on board ship to the FBI?’
‘And sexual assaults, yes,’ said the captain. ‘Since 2010, there are new rules. But only on vessels that embark or disembark at ports in US. These ships also must have onboard video surveillance. Deck rails have to be certain height. One of crew has to be trained as detective …’
‘You’re joking,’ said Francis.
‘No, that is now serious requirement. But this new law was designed for those big ships that go round Caribbean with 4000 on board. If you’re under 250 passengers, as we are, it doesn’t apply. Even if you are leaving US port. And US is still only country that bothers.’
‘So you wouldn’t be expecting any enquiries from outside law-enforcement agencies?’
The captain looked across at the first officer again. ‘No, we would not be expecting that. Would we, Alexei?’
‘No, sir.’
‘No Bahamian policeman turning up at Freetown?’ Francis asked.
The first officer chuckled grimly. ‘They have enough to worry about on their own island.’
‘Amazing,’ said Francis. He still didn’t quite believe them; he would have to do some Internet research when he got back to his cabin. ‘So what about this poor woman’s husband? How is he?’
‘In his cabin,’ said Carmen. ‘Under sedation. He was up on deck last night after she fell off. He was part of the search.’
‘And nobody thinks he might have had anything to do with it?’
‘What are you suggesting?’ asked Viktor.
‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ Francis replied. ‘I’m just asking. Because he and his partner were arguing earlier. And then she vanishes off the side of the ship.’
‘He’s one with money,’ said the captain. ‘It would only be suspicious other way round.’
‘This is true,’ said Francis. ‘But then again, if she were dependent on him in that way, there’s always the possibility that he wanted to be rid of her. Or maybe she knew some dark secret that he didn’t want disclosed.’
‘Doesn’t seem very likely to me,’ said Viktor, ‘if you saw the way he looked at her. He loved her, I think.’
‘Even when she was dancing with the handsome hotel director?’ said Francis. ‘As she was last night.’
‘Maybe there were jealousy issues,’ said Carmen.
‘It would be interesting to know what he thought about all that,’ said Francis.
‘D’you want to go and talk to him?’ asked the captain. ‘Maybe you could go along too, Carmen. And then both report your findings back to us.’
All eyes were on Carmen. For a moment, Francis thought she was going to turn this offer down. But it was clear that even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I’ll accompany.’
‘As long as you don’t stop my ship, I am happy,’ said the captain. ‘My bosses require me to stick to schedule and deliver my passengers safely to Dakar on the twenty-ninth of April.’
‘OK,’ said Francis. ‘Now I don’t want to be alarmist, but to go back to our discussion on Sunday morning, if someone on board was responsible for Eve’s death, this could be his second victim.’
‘Or hers,’ said the first officer.
‘Indeed,’ Francis agreed. ‘Though manhandling someone as young and fit as Lauren over the railings would require a strength not in evidence in most of the ladies on the ship that I’ve seen.’
‘Or most of the men, for that matter,’ said Carmen.
Despite the tense atmosphere, there was laughter.
‘But what do drunken Puerto Rican and genteel English lady have in common?’ asked the captain. ‘It doesn’t make sense to me.’
‘It doesn’t seem to. Does it?’ Francis agreed. ‘But then again, they were both on the ship. Eve has been on cruises before. So, by all accounts, have this American couple. You can’t rule out the possibility of a link. Both Don and Eve’s husband Alfred were successful businessmen. Alfred did a lot of work in the US. Maybe one or both of them did someone down, years ago. Someone who’s been waiting all this time for revenge.’
‘I think this is your writer’s brain making up stories here,’ the captain said.
Francis shrugged. ‘Maybe it was just as simple as that Lauren knew what had happened to Eve.’
‘In which case she would have said something.’
‘To whom?’
‘To us, of course.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘If you’re suggesting she found out about a murder, she would hardly have kept that to herself.’
‘You think?’ said Francis. ‘I’m not sure it’s a given. She might only have told her partner. Or be biding her time.’
‘That is unlikely,’ the captain replied dismissively. ‘It seems to me that what we have here is old woman who got sick of norovirus, completely normal, I’m afraid, on cruise like this, and then, very sadly, passed away, probably from unrelated cause. Our ship’s doctor had some suspicions about this, because old woman was supposedly healthy and there were no obvious indications of stroke or heart attack. But she was of good age, over eighty. These things happen. I went along with doctor’s protest, because to be frank I can’t be searching for new doctor in mid cruise and she is competent. But we’ve not heard anything back from Takoradi lab. No urgent call to tell us that, yes, after all, she had strychnine in her blood. Or even rat poison, which we keep on the ship. And then last night, terrible accident. Woman who has been seen by everybody to be drunk and unhappy falls from top deck. Why? Maybe she’d had enough. Maybe she made mistake. Maybe she thought someone would rescue her. I don’t know. But I think we are looking at two separate situations here.’
‘I’m not so sure,’ said Francis.
‘So what do you want me to do?’ asked the captain, looking over at his first officer for support. ‘Put passengers on alert for possible killer in their midst? I don’t think that would create best atmosphere, especially as we now have two days at sea before we stop at Freetown.’
‘Can we talk to this engineer?’ Francis asked. ‘Who saw Lauren fall.’
The captain seemed taken aback, though it was hardly an unreasonable request. ‘He is sleeping now,’ he replied. ‘I would rather not wake him until next shift.’
‘Which is when?’
‘Noon. Or four o’clock. I will check. He’s not going anywhere,’ he added. He turned towards Viktor. ‘But now we must concentrate on briefing to passengers, which starts in thirty minutes in Panorama Lounge. At very least we can try and make sure that no one else falls off ship. And who knows, we may get more witness accounts of what happened to this unfortunate woman last night.’
SIX
After the passenger briefing, Francis made his way with Carmen down to Don’s cabin on deck four. The Bostonian couple had not been in the cheapest rooms, down on deck three, but then again, they had not been in the grander suites with balconies up on deck five, and certainly not in the staterooms of deck six.
The old man was in bed, in pyjamas and dressing gown, looking groggy. The sedation Dr Lagip had given him was light, she had told them privately at the Panorama Lounge briefing, so he would be perfectly able to talk. She had dosed him up enough to calm him, that was all.
In daylight, the skin of Don’s face was baggier and more parchmenty than it had seemed in the flattering evening light of the bar. Even with – particularly with – that shiny black hair, he looked his age, and that was something over seventy, Carmen had found out from the passenger records.
‘Don,’ said Carmen, as they stood at the foot of the bed. ‘This is Francis Meadowes, who is trying to help us piece together what happened to Lauren last night.’
The old man took in his visitor, then stared out through his porthole at the empty sea.
‘So what are you?’ he asked, eventually. ‘Some kind of police officer?’
‘No,’ Franci
s replied gently. ‘For what it’s worth, I write crime novels.’
There was a mirthless gurgle. ‘Crime novels! So, because you can construct a plot, you think you can untangle this real-life horror, do you?’
‘Not necessarily.’ Francis looked over at Carmen, who gave him an encouraging nod. ‘But I was asked to help, by the captain, and the leader of the expedition team, Viktor, so here I am.’
‘And what do they think?’ Don asked. ‘That I threw Lauren overboard in some mad fit of jealousy? They all saw that stupid fight, didn’t they?’
‘I don’t think anyone has any idea what happened,’ Francis replied. ‘We know she was, perhaps, rather inebriated last night …’
‘Rather inebriated.’ Don mimicked Francis’s English accent. ‘She was soused, not to put too fine a point on it. You saw her. Me, I can have a couple of cocktails, bit of wine with dinner, maybe a bourbon or two afterwards. That’s enough. But once Lauren opened the sluices, there was no stopping her. Of course, a ship like this is the very worst place to have brought her. Free booze everywhere, all day long. It’s an alcoholic’s wet dream.’
‘So what do you think happened last night?’ Francis asked.
Don looked over at him, but it was a blank sort of look, filmy, not quite engaging. ‘I have no idea. I guess it’s possible she fell off. But then again …’
‘Then again what?’
‘I don’t think so.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t see it.’
‘So where were you?’ Francis asked. ‘When it happened?’
‘Here, I guess. I went to bed. After she left the bar, I followed her down. We carried on arguing for a bit. But fighting like that never quite had the appeal for Lauren if there wasn’t an audience. She liked insulting me in public. Telling me I was a useless old man, that only she would look at me now.’
‘And what did you say in private?’
‘I agreed with her. Told her she had a point. Told her, as I always did, that if she didn’t like the situation she could leave. That just made her even angrier.’
‘So you weren’t married?’
For a moment Francis wondered if he’d pushed it too far. There was a powerfully beady glint in the old man’s demeanour; despite the hippyish exterior, you could imagine him putting the fear of God into his employees if he needed to.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘That was at the root of it all, I guess. She didn’t just want big diamonds on her earlobes. She wanted them on her finger too.’
‘And you didn’t want to put one there?’
Don sighed. ‘I’ve been married before. Twice. Maybe it works for some people, but it didn’t for me. I didn’t want to go down that route again. Having a freakin’ sexual partner who’s suddenly telling me how to run my businesses, what to do with my investments. Jesus! I built up my own fortune. I made some bad decisions along the way, but they were my decisions, so I lived with them. I also made some very good decisions.’
‘I see,’ said Francis. ‘Though presumably there is a middle way where you remain in charge of the business and your wife only has a say on the domestic side of things.’
Don laughed. ‘You married?’
‘I was. A long time ago.’ Francis didn’t elaborate.
‘See. In my experience there’s always mission creep. One moment it’s, “Let’s change the carpets in the house,” the next it’s, “Why are we still hanging on to such and such a company?” She was a sharp operator, Lauren, don’t get me wrong. And thorough, too. Boy, was she thorough. She’d double-check everything. That was part of the problem, to be honest.’
‘So was that what you were arguing about last night?’ Francis asked. ‘Business? I heard her talking about “financial decisions” at one point.’
‘Did you?’ Don gave him a sharp look, then turned away.
Francis waited. Best to let him say what he wanted to say, in his own time.
‘She had a thing about charity,’ Don continued, after a pause. ‘She wanted to give my money away all the time. To this or that worthy cause. Orphans of the rainforest. War children of Sudan. Aboriginals of the Australian desert. You name it. I always told her that charity begins at home. And ends at home, too, in my book. I’d say, “But sweetheart, maybe giving money to those little orphans of the rainforest isn’t the best way to help them. Maybe if you give them money the first thing they’ll do is buy a car and drive out of the freakin’ rainforest.” But she never saw it that way. We had it and they didn’t. We had a duty to help.’
‘So what are you saying?’ Francis said. ‘Your argument was about a charity donation?’
‘What I’m saying, young man, is what I just said. And that’s all I’m going to say on that subject.’
From the settled line of his mouth, it clearly was. Next to him, Carmen made a ‘whatever’ face.
‘So after you left the bar last night,’ Francis continued, ‘you came down here, and carried on arguing for a while …’
‘For a while,’ Don repeated.
‘And then what happened?’
‘Lauren went off. Said she was going upstairs for another drink. I didn’t stop her. When she’s in that sort of mood, it’s best just to let her go.’
‘And she didn’t come back?’
‘That was no surprise to me. She would often wander off for half the night, then come back when it suited her. My attitude was to say nothing. Because if I said jack shit that would only provoke her. And we’d be back to: “So what right have you got to control me? When there’s nothing between us.”’
‘So what did you think she got up to when she went off like this?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Didn’t you care?’
‘Of course I cared!’
Don’s tone and his angry look made Francis step back. He glanced over at Carmen, who raised her eyebrows a fraction. Eventually, in his very gentlest tone, he asked, ‘So when did they tell you she’d fallen off the ship?’
Don didn’t answer. For a few long seconds, Francis thought the interview had run its course. Then there was the sound of the old man shifting himself on the pillows and that gravelly voice started up again.
‘One of the expedition staff called me around two thirty,’ he said. ‘Just as the ship was turning. Told me that there was a man overboard situation. That they thought it was Lauren. I got dressed straightaway. Went up on deck seven with my field glasses. It was hopeless. Even if she’d survived the fall, how would we have seen her? It’s a huge ocean. They did their best. Worked out the likely coordinates of where she’d gone over. Hung around till daybreak. But when they came to tell me they were abandoning the search I didn’t put up an objection.’
‘Which one of the expedition staff was that?’ asked Francis. ‘Did they actually knock on your door?’
‘Yeah, I went up with him. That Australian fellow with the beard.’
‘Mike,’ said Carmen.
‘I guess. I’d warned her about this stupid behaviour before. Stumbling around the ship in the night. Drunk. In high heels. “One day you’ll fall off,” I told her. She’d already fallen down a flight of stairs. On this very same ship. When we were in Antarctica last Christmas. Banged her head, but amazingly no more damage was done.’
Yet another pair who had been in Antarctica, Francis thought. ‘So is this what you think?’ he asked. ‘That she fell off?’
‘You think I pushed her?’
‘Maybe somebody else did.’
‘Who? Gregoire. I don’t think so. She was only ever any good to him while she was alive.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Work it out for yourself.’
Francis let him sit in silence for a good half minute or so. Then: ‘She was a bit younger than you, I think,’ he said.
‘You think?’ Don laughed bitterly. ‘Of course she was! That was one of her arguments. “I’m thirty years younger than you, why don’t you marry me? How can you expect me to behave myself, Papita, if you won’t marry me?”’
Don mimicked her voice so well it seemed for a moment as if she were in the room. ‘That’s what she called me. Papita. It means “sugar daddy”. It was a joke when we were younger.’
‘So what are you saying?’ Francis asked. ‘That she was unfaithful?’
‘That bastard,’ Don muttered. ‘You know, they’re not supposed to have any relations whatsoever with the passengers. The staff. On pain of dismissal. And of course, they claim they don’t. But …’
‘You think he did? Gregoire?’
‘You want to know?’
‘Whatever you want to tell me.’
When Don spoke, it was in a quiet, almost defeated voice. ‘The truth is I have no idea. She certainly used him to wind me up. “I’ll go and see Gregoire,” she’d say. And then return hours later. One day I went looking for her. Guess where I found her? In the library, reading a book. So, I don’t know.’ He turned back to look up at Francis. ‘But yes, as I’m sure you noticed, she loved to flirt with him. Publicly. Dancing like that. Although, to be fair, she danced like that with everyone. Except me,’ he added sadly.
‘I see,’ said Francis.
‘OK, yes, that’s what we were arguing about. In the bar and down here. I really thought she had been with him this time. She denied it. But you’re right, there has been history. She’s done it before. With the younger guys. There was a purser, in Australia, when we did a cruise along the Kimberley coast a year or so ago. And a gaucho in Chile, that was on dry land, in the Torres del Paine National Park. It’s always a way of forcing my hand. Marry me, and I’ll never cheat on you again. But why was I to believe that? Once she got her hands on my dough, she could do what she likes …’
‘And if she didn’t fall off?’ Francis asked.
‘If she didn’t fall off – what?’
‘How did she end up going over? It doesn’t sound as if she were suicidal. Unless she was making a gesture to force your hand?’
‘Suicide, no. Not in that way. Even though she was a lush, she loved life too much. Dancing, drinking, spending money, keeping up with her charity projects. I don’t see it. No.’