by Celia Imrie
She watched him as he squeezed along the front row.
Then he stopped and thrust the microphone into the hands of Appenzell.
‘I was wondering, Suzy,’ he asked with a beaming smile, ‘what can have happened to your partner in crime, Mr Jason Scott? Was he not supposed to be reading with you? I noticed the spare chair right away.’
Suzy knew that he was throwing down a challenge.
She smiled, looked him in the eye and said, ‘I believe that he was unexpectedly detained.’
‘That sounds like a very accurate description, Suzy. And may I thank you for an excellent talk.’
As Suzy took a bow, the audience clapped again. Her heart was beating so fast she could barely breathe.
So Appenzell not only knew Jason was aboard, but there was no doubt in Suzy’s mind that he was behind Jason’s failure to appear this afternoon.
She took a final bow and walked back to exit through the curtains.
Andy was waiting, ready to relieve her of the microphone.
‘Weird bloke, that last one,’ he muttered under his breath as he removed the tape which stuck the microphone to Suzy’s cheek. ‘I’ve seen him round the place. Slimy customer.’
‘You don’t know the half of it.’ Suzy pulled the bum-pack cable up through the back of her blouse. ‘And now I’m very worried for both Amanda and Jason. That man has a grudge against him.’
Suzy went straight down to Jason’s cabin and knocked at the door.
George opened up.
‘Hello, Suzy. Did it go well?’
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I suppose you don’t know why he didn’t turn up?’
‘I don’t understand?’
‘Jason.’
‘Jason?’ George raised his eyebrows. ‘What do you mean? Jason didn’t turn up? But this morning I couldn’t shut him up about it, rehearsing, muttering away, underlining bits in the script you’d left. He was very keen to do it. In fact I got the idea he was exceedingly excited about doing your show.’
‘When did you last see him, George?’
George rubbed his chin. ‘At noon Jason was certainly in the cabin with me.’ He nodded, as though agreeing with himself. ‘Yes. When the Captain gave his talk about today’s passage we were in here together. We were laughing about the name “Old Cape Cod”, and wondering how it ever came to sound like a place romantic enough to get a song written about it. Then we wondered who Martha was and how she managed to choose such a dreary, foggy place to have her vineyard. Jason even asked if, maybe, when we were in New York, we might be able to find a bottle of Martha’s wine.’
‘What time did he finally head off for the theatre?’
‘Probably about an hour after that, cos he went back to studying his script very intently for a while. We left together at lunchtime. I was heading up to the cafeteria, and I thought he was going straight down to wait for you backstage, actually.’
‘Was there anything else?’
‘Not really. He was full of the show, and what fun it would be.’
Suzy turned away.
‘Oh, there was one other thing,’ said George, catching her attention. ‘On our way out of the cabin Jason picked up a note from our letter rack. It was from that lad with the unlikely name of Tyger. Jason said he needed to go and find him; then, as far as I know, he was immediately going down to the theatre to join you.’
Suzy walked briskly round the decks scanning everywhere for Myriam and Tyger. She eventually tracked them down in the ballroom, where they were polishing off the remains of their final onboard afternoon tea.
‘I was wondering if either of you have seen Jason today?’ Suzy asked. ‘He didn’t turn up for my talk this afternoon.’
‘You were giving a talk?’ said Myriam. ‘What a pity. I was bolivious of that.’
‘He got your note, Tyger? Did you arrange to meet Jason somewhere?’
Tyger looked blank.
‘What note?’
‘You left a note for Jason this morning.’
‘No, I didn’t. Why would I send Jason a note? We’ve arranged to meet later on this afternoon on the top deck for a game of shuffleboard. I could tell him anything I wanted to say then.’
‘You were going to play shuffleboard in the dark?’
‘The decks are floodlit at dusk. It’s more fun.’
‘And you are certain that you sent him no note, and haven’t seen him today?’
‘Totally absolutely one hundred per cent certain.’
Suzy didn’t know what to do next, so she headed back to her cabin.
‘He was unexpectedly detained.’ Appenzell’s retort echoed around her brain. ‘That sounds like a very accurate description, Suzy.’
As she turned towards her cabin, Ong handed her a sealed handwritten letter. ‘My friend Jun gave this for you. He says it’s urgent.’
Suzy ripped open the envelope and pulled out the note while she unlocked her door.
A careless scrawl: ‘Trapped 8127. Bring help. J.’
Appenzell’s room number. Jun was his steward. Jason was with Appenzell.
Appenzell had him.
Suzy considered heading straight to the cabin, but realised that it would be folly. She was a 60-year-old woman. Appenzell, male, younger and fitter, could easily overpower her.
That was if he opened the door when she knocked.
And Jason had explicitly asked her to bring help. So, help she would get. Without even entering her cabin she turned about and ran down the stairs, straight to the purser’s office.
19
Amanda felt terribly groggy but, with enormous effort, opened her eyes. It was hard to keep them open. However much she wanted to wake up, her eyes seemed to shut again of their own accord.
She couldn’t remember anything. Where was she? It was as though life was happening in slow motion. She could hear herself breathing. But she wasn’t breathing normally at all. Each gasp was coming in a sharp loud snort.
She tried to move her body, but it felt as though she was paralysed.
She wiggled her toes.
But her back ached. It was a dull pain, as though something was pinning her down to the bed. Sluggishly, she twisted her head around and was startled to see a face lying on the pillow beside her.
Amanda blinked again, to be sure she wasn’t dreaming.
No. There really was a face there. She was too close to make out the features but she could feel the breaths, coming from the nostrils, dampening the skin of her cheeks.
Whoever it was lying beside her was leaning heavily against her hip. She pulled her head back a bit to get a more focused look. Straight away she recognised the black curly hair, the slender male fingers draped across her rump.
It was that Jason Scott, the dancer.
But why did he have no mouth?
Amanda couldn’t work it out. She blinked again and took another look. The lower part of Jason’s face was bound with flesh-coloured tape.
More than that, when she looked down at his hands she could see tape tied around his wrists.
She pulled her own hands up and realised they too were strapped together. She reached around herself to nudge Jason.
When she tried to cry out she realised that her own mouth was taped shut too.
She shook the boy and poked her fingers in his face but got no response.
She could feel her heart beating strongly.
A vague memory flashed through her head of Karl, dragging her along the bed.
But how had Jason got here? And why was he gagged and bound, and lying beside her in Karl’s cabin?
Her breast filled with a surge of terror. Something was terribly wrong.
They had to get out of here, to get help.
Amanda flung her hands out again, feeling the bedside table for the phone. But it was not there. She opened her eyes, and remembered the empty tops, all cleared and bare.
Until this moment, she had never even thought about the phone. Why had the phone been removed?
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There was nothing she could use to call for help.
It was like waking to find yourself imprisoned in an asylum cell in a horror film.
She struggled for some minutes to move her legs, sitting up, using her hands to pull them out from under the dead weight of Jason Scott. Eventually she swung them down on the floor. Getting herself to a standing position was harder than she thought it would be. Using her bound hands to keep balance she groped her way around the bed, then, grabbing on to the walls and the wardrobe and drawer handles, she hauled herself towards the door.
To hell with the fact she was wearing nothing more than a skimpy nightgown. She would fling open the door and call out till somebody came and rescued them.
After what felt like an interminable effort, Amanda arrived at the door. She thrust her hands forward to grab the handle, but they swung straight down again to rest against her belly. She peered hard at the door. Momentarily she had forgotten where the handle was.
She bent down, scrutinising the door, fumbling at it with her fingertips. Eventually she came to the conclusion that there was no handle.
When had that happened?
Cabin doors always had a handle.
Another wave of panic flooded through her and she fell to her knees, sobbing.
How had it come to this?
On hands and knees, she crawled back to the end of the bed, then reached up to grab Jason’s dangling foot. She shook it with all her might. She had to wake him. If she was left on her own, neither of them stood a chance. She had to wake Jason.
When she tried to shout through the tape covering her mouth nothing came out. Her vocal cords simply didn’t work.
It was like being in a terrifying nightmare.
Perhaps none of this was true.
Maybe she really was still dreaming.
She lay back against the bed and shut her eyes.
That’s right.
It was all a dream.
Best stop fighting now and let herself fall asleep again, and then when she woke up everything would be all right.
*
Suzy spent ten minutes trying to convince the pert little Irish girl behind the purser’s desk that she was not drunk and that she really needed to talk to a senior crew member about a criminal onboard this ship who might have kidnapped one of the gentleman hosts.
Finally, and only, she suspected, because she was unsettling the other passengers in the queue, Suzy was ushered behind the desk and through a side door into a cramped little office, where a uniformed man sat typing at his computer.
‘Miss Marshall!’ He rose and held out his hand. ‘I’m Robert, the Junior Third Officer. How can I be of assistance?’
Suzy started to explain everything: the Zurich job, the paedophile party, the death of Stan, the mysterious Appenzell. The more detail she told him, about everything, the more she realised that she sounded quite mad. It was obvious that, to this boy now sitting here in his uniform, she must look like some crazy old loony woman.
When, finally, her tale came to a halt, the officer put his head down, holding his hands together on his lap in a position of prayer.
Before replying to her long desperate rant, he took a deep breath.
‘And what would you like me to do about this situation?’
‘It’s him, you see. The man onboard is called Appenzell. But he actually boarded as Stanley Arbuthnot. But Stan is dead, suffocated. In this very man Appenzell’s apartment in Zurich.’
‘And …?’
‘Appenzell is holding my friend, Jason Scott, one of the gentleman hosts, as a hostage in his cabin. I think he didn’t find out Jason was aboard till today. Jason, you see, was a witness to the paedophile party where Stanley was killed.’
Again, Suzy realised that she sounded lunatic.
‘I need you to come with me to Room 8127, Officer. To his cabin …’
‘Whose cabin?’
‘Appenzell. I mean Stanley Arbuthnot.’
‘And when we get there, what would you expect me to do, Miss Marshall?’
‘Just get Appenzell to open up. I know he is holding Jason. There’s no other reason Jason wouldn’t turn up for my show.’
The Junior Third Officer gave Suzy another up and down look. She knew he was measuring her for psychological assessment.
‘I believe Jason didn’t show for one of the dance sessions, claiming a migraine. Perhaps he has another.’
‘But where would he go? His room-mate, George, says Jason hasn’t been seen since around one o’clock when he got the note from Tyger.’
‘Tyger?’
Every time Suzy added anything she realised it made the whole story sound more and more absurd.
‘So then, Miss Marshall, what would you like me to do about all this?’
‘Go to Appenzell. I mean Stanley Arbuthnot. Ask to see Jason.’
‘You simply want me to knock on the door of 8127 and ask Mr Arbuthnot if Mr Scott is there with him?’
Meekly, Suzy nodded.
‘Have you tried doing this yourself?’
‘I’m too scared of him. I believe Appenzell has killed someone already.’
The officer nodded slowly. Suzy thought he looked like a silly toy dog in the back of a car window.
‘Please,’ she cried. ‘I have to help Jason. Please! I beg you. Please come with me. When we find Jason is inside, we can take it from there and decide what to do next. But I have to check it out.’
The Junior Third Officer rose and took his peaked cap from the hatstand.
‘Let’s go,’ he said.
Timidly, Suzy followed him out of the office.
They stood together in silence as the lift ascended to the eighth deck.
On the landing they took a sharp right and strode briskly along the corridor, passing rows of suitcases waiting to be taken away to the bowels of the ship for offloading in the morning. At one stage they both had to stop and wait as a large, fully laden trolley swept across their path, heading towards the lifts.
Since leaving his desk the officer had not spoken a word.
They reached Cabin 8127.
The Junior Third Officer adjusted his cap and rapped gently on the door.
Silence.
They waited.
‘I know he’s in there,’ said Suzy. ‘Knock again.’
The officer ignored her.
They waited some more.
The officer was on the verge of knocking a second time when they heard a shuffling noise.
The door opened a crack.
Appenzell’s head appeared.
He looked surprised.
‘Can I help you, Officer? I was just taking an evening nap.’
‘Open the door,’ cried Suzy. ‘I know you’ve got Jason trapped inside. Open up and let us see.’
Appenzell shrugged and exchanged a man-to-man look with the Junior Third Officer.
‘Are you feeling quite well, Miss Marshall?’ said Appenzell calmly. ‘I have to tell you, Officer, Miss Marshall acquitted herself very bravely this afternoon in the theatre when her colleague failed to put in an appearance. I was very impressed.’
Suzy knew all about his smooth talk. She also knew how he’d pulled this act once before, and there was a man behind him who was dying or dead. In Zurich it had been Stanley. Perhaps Jason was lying smothered on the bed.
‘You seem anxious to look inside, Miss Marshall.’ Appenzell opened the door wide. He stood before them, wearing a maroon paisley silk dressing gown and fancy embroidered velvet slippers. ‘Please do come in.’
Suzy rushed in. The room seemed utterly normal. A library book was lying face down on the coffee table.
‘Agatha Christie,’ said Appenzell. ‘She never fails, does she?’
Suzy looked around her.
The cabin was too tidy, too perfect.
‘I’m so sorry to have disturbed you, Mr Arbuthnot.’
‘Absolutely no problem, Officer.’
The officer reached out to take Suzy’
s arm, but she pushed past him and hauled open the balcony doors.
‘I’m so sorry, Mr Arbuthnot,’ said the officer, under his breath.
‘Poor thing.’ Appenzell shook his head. ‘If it’ll keep her quiet …’
Suzy caught the interchange and realised it was one of those condescending moments shared by men when patronising older women. Also she noticed how Appenzell was barefacedly answering to the name Arbuthnot.
But Suzy was not to be put off by their smug attitudes.
Appenzell had Jason hidden somewhere. She knew he had him. She had to find Jason.
‘We’ll be on our way, Mr Arbuthnot,’ said the officer.
‘No,’ cried Suzy. ‘You can’t. We have to …’
But the officer spoke over her.
‘Might I offer you a complimentary bottle of wine, sir, as compensation for this unfortunate disturbance?’
A reward for his suave ability to lie and make pretence? Suzy was appalled.
She darted swiftly back towards the door, pulling open the wardrobe and sweeping her hand through the clothes, bending down to check the racks at the bottom.
‘He must be in the bathroom then,’ she cried, stepping briskly inside. She tore at the shower curtain which was pulled tightly closed around the bath.
But the bath was empty.
Frustrated, angry and desperate, Suzy started to shout. ‘Murderer! Embezzler! Paedophile! Where have you hidden him? You bastard! BASTARD!’
The Junior Third Officer grabbed Suzy round the waist and steered her sharply out of Appenzell’s cabin.
‘I’m sorry, Miss Marshall, but I am going to accompany you down to the Medical Centre, so that a doctor can take a look at you.’
As Appenzell clicked the door shut on them, the officer let go of Suzy. His voice took on a wheedling tone. The kind of voice you would use to a child holding a gun. ‘I believe, Miss Marshall, that you are not feeling quite yourself.’
Suzy looked into the young man’s eyes. He actually appeared frightened. Frightened of her!
Suzy wanted to scream.
‘I’m sure that if the doctor can give you a little something to relax you, you’ll feel better in a whizz. Let’s go down there together, shall we?’
He was tiptoeing stealthily towards her, as though she was a wild animal: a tiger or a wild dog on the loose.