Second Sitting

by Stella Whitelaw

  ‘The Blue Curaçao.’ I wondered if he was a drinker and if I would have to watch him. I hoped not. He was so pleasant. His first solo show was tomorrow night. Plenty of time for a rehearsal and a run through.

  Ray Roeder disappeared to sleep off his jet lag in his cabin. He only had one piece of luggage. He travelled light.

  Estelle was on to me in a flash. ‘Was that Ray Roeder I saw coming on-board?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, terrific isn’t it? A great favourite. He’ll go down well.’

  ‘He’s going down the drain if you ask me. Hasn’t had a hit for years.’

  ‘But everyone loves his old hits. They’ll be happy enough to hear them all again.’

  Estelle sniffed, flapping her eyelashes. ‘Perhaps he’d like to do a double act with me. We could put something together. I could help him.’

  I doubted it. Ray Roeder would not want to be upstaged, outsung and manipulated by madam. She’d make sure that his gravelly voice was drowned and that the songs were unsuitable for his style of delivery.

  ‘I’m sure he’s got plenty of material but you could ask. No harm in asking.’

  ‘I’ll ask him at dinner tonight. I expect he’ll be on my table. There’s room for another man.’

  I didn’t tell her that he’d requested to eat in the Grill. He preferred to eat very late, a habit from the old days. And on his own. He was a loner, steak and chips every night.

  It was a gorgeous afternoon when I went ashore. A colourful group stood on the quay, welcoming our passengers to their island, a melting pot of so many nationalities and a history of the slave trade. I wanted to find the Internet Wilhelmina Plein in the Punda district and cruise Google. The Internet Study on board ship was too public. Someone might be watching.

  I took the free ferry and then wandered through the town. A blue sign pointed to the first floor of a big old house that had been converted into shops and offices. The staircase was wide with an iron balustrade, a relic from the days when it was a home. The internet room was lined with computers and I didn’t have to wait long. It was a modest cost, one hour for four florins. The ceiling was ornate with lotus flowers and Roman figures, once a beautiful sitting room. So sad to see it downgraded.

  Missing paintings. There were an awful lot of missing paintings. Pictures went AWOL every day of the week either through criminal activity or because of an anonymous bidder at an auction. I began scribbling notes. Name of painting, artist, size was important, date, medium used, how long missing … I had enough material to write a feature if I had time to write a feature.

  I kept finding the same title coming up over and over again. It was a lost Cézanne. A small painting, only eighteen inches by twelve inches, a watercolour called L’Orange de Mer, which had been mostly in private hands since it was painted between 1902 to 1906. It was last handled by an art gallery in Bond Street, London called Fine Art.

  It was sheer chance that I had a few minutes of time left and Googled Fine Art, Bond Street in London. There was a lot of information and a list of directors. One name was familiar: Mr George Foster. Our late Mr Foster? Surely it could be no other.

  I came out into the sunshine, blinking, head buzzing. The pavements were thronged with shoppers walking past the café tables. Lots of passengers were sitting in the shade, drinking coffee or a cold drink. People smiled and waved.

  ‘Miss Jones, come and have an iced coffee. It’s delicious.’ It was Maria de Leger and Mrs Fairweather. They had struck up a friendship although they were rather an unlikely couple. One slim and elegant and worldly, the other a rather dowdy matron from the depths of Shropshire.

  ‘Now that would be very nice. It is unbelievably hot,’ I said, taking the vacant chair at their table. A cool wind was blowing the umbrella shade. Maria de Leger waved over a waiter and ordered three more iced coffees.

  ‘Bedankt,’ she said. She could speak Dutch. ‘Hoeveel?’

  ‘Maria can speak four languages,’ said Mrs Fairweather proudly. ‘Isn’t that amazing? French, German, Dutch and English. The war, you know.’

  ‘I remember you saying you were you in France during the war,’ I prompted.

  ‘Only for a while, not for long. It was a difficult time.’ She was not going to say much. She was more interested in the people walking by, making comments.

  ‘Were you working for the Resistance?’ I put in.

  ‘Now that’s a leading question.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I know so little about the war. It’s always amazing to meet someone who lived through it.’

  ‘It was not amazing at the time. It was quite dreadful and frightening.’

  ‘What if you were caught?’

  ‘Oh, we had ways and means, you know,’ she said, her mouth clamping firmly. ‘Let’s talk about something more cheerful.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  No, I didn’t know about ways and means. But I was beginning to think there was more to this charming lady than we would ever discover.

  Mrs Fairweather decided to change the subject. ‘I love this town. It’s so picturesque. I could stay here forever.’

  ‘So could I,’ said Maria. ‘All the shops and restaurants. It’s a wonderful island. It would be perfect for a longer holiday.’

  ‘Thirty-five beaches,’ I said. ‘All those coral reefs.’

  ‘No snorkelling for us,’ they laughed. ‘We are well past wearing masks.’

  ‘Perhaps they have glass-bottomed boats.’

  ‘Dozens of them.’

  We moved on separately when we had finished our drinks. I felt it was acceptable to have a drink on shore with a passenger, but not on board ship. We had some unwritten rules, no fraternizing, no flirting, no sponging.

  The ferry back was refreshing and breezy. I leaned over the rail as if I had never seen water before. I was always leaning on rails, it was my natural position. Then began a brisk walk back to the ship through a square of market stalls. Sun-dresses, sunhats, sarongs, shirts and sandals. ‘You buy, missy,’ they called out, sensing the departure of the ship and moneyed passengers.

  But missy wasn’t buying anything, nor was she going to miss the departure time. I saw Mrs Foster ahead of me, pulling along a new suitcase. This seemed a bit strange. Why would she want an extra suitcase? Passengers who bought a lot of souvenirs often bought an extra suitcase halfway through a trip. But Mrs Foster was hardly a shopaholic.

  After our cruise cards were checked quayside, I helped Mrs Foster pull the case up the gangway. Not easy, even empty. Then it went through the scanner on-board without any trouble.

  ‘Thank you so much,’ she said. ‘I can manage from here.’

  Tamara was in a state of near panic before her Sailaway Auction. I had heard she was a bit temperamental. She was immaculately made-up, very TV presenter in the making, classy clothes and face, checking the champagne flutes on the trays, the canapé offerings. I suppose if she did not make her sales target for the cruise, she would be demoted, sent back to some sales room in Newcastle.

  ‘Everybody always wants to know everything,’ she fumed. ‘As if they couldn’t read. I’ve written a Frequently Asked Questions handout, yet they still ask the same questions. Can we have it framed? Do we pay extra for the framing? How is the bidding handled? What is the manifest or the reserve price? They drive me mad, these people.’

  ‘You’ll cope,’ I said. ‘You’re very professional.’

  ‘Why are you here?’ she asked, putting out more brochures.

  ‘Just to make sure everything is all right,’ I said vaguely. ‘And to check on the purchase made by Nigel Garten. The sadly, late Nigel Garten.’ She didn’t ask me how I knew he had bought a picture.

  She paused for a second. ‘Yes, very sad. He was a nice man. However, there’s no problem about his painting. Mrs Foster has offered to buy it off us and put it in her husband’s gallery in London. It does save us a lot of paperwork, Mr Garten being dead. We would have had to approach his estate for payment. It’s such a rigmarole, probate and every
thing. He won’t want the painting now.’

  ‘No, I guess he won’t want it now,’ I echoed. ‘I’m glad that’s all sorted out. No problems then?’

  ‘Unless you’ve got ten minutes to spare?’ Tamara looked desperate. ‘My assistant hasn’t turned up. She went ashore and has mis-timed her return. Could you circulate with the champagne? Is it too much to ask?’

  ‘Sure. I’m great at circulating with champagne.’ Not my job, but anything to oblige. It’s all part of smiling. I took one of the trays.

  That’s how I happened to be there when Mrs Foster arrived and started bidding for all sorts of limited editions and reproductions, engravings and lithographs. She was buying like she was high on meths. I felt that she needed steering towards a cup of tea. Then I noticed that everything she bought was small. A size of only, say, eighteen inches by twelve.

  ‘Are you opening a new gallery?’ I asked, coming alongside with a tray of champagne.

  ‘These are all the paintings that George was interested in. He left a list. I’m only following his orders. I’ve no idea why. He thought that most of these paintings were really of little value.’

  ‘Wallpaper paintings.’ He left a list. Perhaps this was what the intruder had been looking for. A simple list. A piece of paper.

  ‘That’s right. Just something to put on the wall.’

  I missed the sail-away music on deck which was a bit of a nuisance. We were way out at sea before I got a chance to go on deck and talk to people. I checked that Ray Roeder was back on board after his walkaround. Safe and sound. He’d even been to see Trevor, the stage manager, and checked a few points. Truly professional.

  That evening I wore a party dress dripping with romance. It was a short black tulle and sequin dress with black patent high-heeled and ankle-tied sandals. I didn’t care. I needed a load of confidence. I looked stunning and there were a few gasps as I came on stage.

  Ray Roeder was sitting at the side of the audience, well back, and even he clapped. This was another of Estelle’s solo performances. She was wearing the celebrated red dress which had caught up with us. She directed most of her songs towards Ray. It was a wonder she didn’t go and sit on his knee. He was professional enough not to worry and joined in all the applause with enthusiasm.

  But when she came back on stage to take a second encore, he had gone. It was neatly done, a fast exit. He’d probably gone up to the Grill for a late supper.

  All the shows over, I sat in on a film about the Windmill Theatre. I’d seen it before but like a good book, I could always see a classic film again. I wrapped a pashmina round my shoulders as the cinema was air-conditioned and it was chilly.

  ‘How’s my baby?’ a voice whispered in my ear. I knew that voice. I knew who was sitting beside me in the darkened cinema without even looking.

  ‘Don’t talk,’ I said. ‘This is a special scene.’

  ‘Anything newly broken or bruised or strained? Do you need an X-ray, bandaging, a poultice perhaps?’

  ‘Please be quiet.’

  But I was pleased that he was there, leaning towards me as if he cared enough to ask, even in the middle of a good film. I could smell something really nice, an expensive aftershave. It wafted over me and I drank in the freshness and masculinity.

  ‘This is a scary bit,’ he hissed.

  ‘I’m not scared. I’ve seen it before.’

  ‘Shall I hold your hand, just in case?’

  The man had such a nerve but he made me smile. I needed smiles. I needed him but he was never going to know. He was my fantasy man. Someone to dream about. Nothing to do with real life.

  Twenty - Panama Canal

  Mrs Foster had bought about sixteen pieces of art. She wanted them hung in her stateroom, not packed and delivered to her home. So she would need that extra suitcase when we reached Southampton. It seemed irrational behaviour.

  I cornered Tamara after the auction. She had calmed down now. Maybe she had reached her target sales and there was a big bonus in her bank account for buying more Jimmy Choo shoes.

  ‘What do you know about ultrasound scanning?’ I asked, fairly off hand.

  ‘That’s all clever stuff,’ she said, fiddling with her calculator but ready to show off her knowledge. ‘It’s a sensor which sees beneath a painting to what is underneath, measuring a map of deviations. Lots of painters were so poor that they had to re-use a canvas. But if paint layers are thicker than those specified, it could mean deliberate over-painting. This can be criminal. Hiding a stolen painting. Why do you ask? It’s pretty rare these days. Sometimes what is underneath is more valuable than what’s been sloshed over the top.’

  I didn’t think her bosses would care for her use of the word sloshed. But they were not here, and she had sipped a lot of free champagne to lubricate her vocal cords and her sales technique.

  So Reg Hawkins had brought on board the ultrasound equipment in his box of tricks. And had probably been paid to do so. But he had been murdered for his trouble. So who murdered him and why? Maybe it was a big mistake, an accident.

  I kept thinking of that missing Paul Cézanne. Supposing it or some other lost painting had been painted over and someone knew about it. Mr Foster, for instance, being a director of Fine Art, a Bond Street gallery, and he found out that somehow it was aboard the Countess, smuggled in among the huge offering of reproductions and prints, ready to be offloaded to a special client along the way, all seemingly above board. So he booked a stateroom for himself and his wife and came cruising. But he had an ulterior motive that no one else knew about. Except one other person.

  It was out of my league. I was a cruise director not a private investigator. I had enough problems. There was not enough paper for one of my bullet lists.

  *

  The next day was a day at sea, watching the crested waves, hoping for a shoal of dolphins. We spotted another cruise ship on the horizon, a great white whale, bigger than the Countess. I wasn’t sure if we were programmed to wave. The day was all about lolling on deck in flimsy clothes and eating dressed up.

  Ray Roeder’s evening shows went brilliantly. The audience loved all his old hits, seeing the man in the flesh, reliving their youth, then they could talk to him, buy his CDs. He took time afterwards, signing CDs, talking to fans, and it must have worn him out. He looked pale and drained. Eventually I took him away and let him escape from his admirers.

  ‘Thank you, thank you,’ he said. ‘I gotta eat. I need a drink.’

  I took him up top to the Grill, where he had booked a table, made sure that he had a bottle of wine and some decent food. I only intended to stay for a few moments, to make sure he was settled and not being pestered.

  ‘Thanks, Casey,’ he said. ‘I was on my last legs.’

  ‘Both your shows were wonderful,’ I said. ‘I know how much energy goes into a show.’

  ‘And you would know. Didn’t I once see you as a dancer?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ I said, my mouth dry. ‘I wasn’t that famous.’

  ‘But promising,’ he insisted. ‘Didn’t you break a metatarsal in the middle of a jazz ballet? I saw it. I was there.’

  I couldn’t believe it. No one had been there. No one remembered.

  ‘You were actually there? That’s amazing. I didn’t think anyone was there or saw it happen.’ It was all a fuzzy dream to me now, the stuff of nightmares.

  ‘I saw it and I heard it. My hearing is acute and I was sitting near the front. I heard it snap.’

  I had to sit down at his table. The snap was still in my brain. I couldn’t move. No one registered when it happened but Ray Roeder remembered. He had been there. It was like a valediction, someone knowing that it really had happened. It was not an invention of a disappointed dancer.

  ‘You can understand, then, can’t you, how I felt? Or how I still feel.’

  He poured out a glass of white wine and pushed it towards me. ‘I can understand. I know how you felt and still feel. But you are still in show business on board ship and what yo
u do here is important. You make things happen for the passengers and the entertainers. Sad about the dancing, sweetheart, but fate decided otherwise. You have to accept fate.’

  If he wasn’t quite a bit older than me, I would have fallen for him, headlong, hook, line and fishing weight, there and then. I drank the chilled wine and waited until his order arrived, then I rose and left him tucking into a medium rare steak and chips. The colour had come back to his face. He looked normal again.

  Tomorrow was the Panama Canal. Everyone would be on deck all day, looking for alligators basking on the shores. I did not like alligators. Their huge, gaping mouths and smeary eyes … not happy creatures at all.

  The Panama Canal is one of those engineering miracles. This bright idea of cutting through land and slicing through hills so that ships had a short cut from one ocean to another. From the Caribbean to the Pacific Ocean or vice versa. It was excavated through one of the narrowest areas of the Republic of Panama. It was wide enough to take simultaneous transit of ships through the cut, in both directions, and was forty miles long. The locks were a little more tricky.

  The passengers hung over the rails to watch the water levels elevate the ship twenty-six metres above sea level. At some point, the lower lounges were so dark, being tight against dock walls, barely a foot away, that the interior lights had to go on. It was eerie, being so close to the dock brick wall, looking through our windows to gloomy darkness, as if we had descended to another world.

  ‘This is really creepy,’ said Amanda Banesto, peering through the lounge window at the dock walls. ‘We are so close. We could almost touch them.’

  Although most vessels use their own propulsion through the Panama Canal, the Countess was assisted when passing through the locks by electric locomotives using cables to align and tow the ship.

  Every ship had to pay a toll rate per net ton or displacement ton. I had no idea how much Conway paid for their ships. I only knew that the average was $47,000. And we probably paid in advance so that we could reserve a transit slot. Cruises didn’t have the time to wait in a queue. We had an itinerary to keep to.