Premeditated. I hadn’t thought about that.
An image of Mum pulling a chair to the ship’s railing, climbing up on it and preparing to jump overboard popped into my head. In the image, Mum was wearing her White Night outfit, her long white dress billowing in the wind. I couldn’t picture her falling; the insignificant splash that her body would have made hitting the water. But was the thought that her disappearance – potentially her death – had been her own choice better or worse than the alternative?
I’d hardly been walking fast on my way from my cabin to Mum’s, but my steps slowed even further as I approached the door to Mum’s suite. While a part of me really wanted to see her things; another part was dreading it. Already there was a lump of solid emotion stuck in my throat. It wasn’t lost on me that the last time I’d been into her suite had been on her birthday; I’d been singing Happy Birthday, drinking champagne for breakfast, and looking forward to a day in Mykonos.
When I reached the cabin, the door was on the latch but I stood for a minute outside, forcing myself to take a few deep breaths before I pushed the door gently and slipped inside.
Doris was in the living area, fiddling with a plastic gadget.
‘Mrs Scrivener,’ she said. She took a step towards me. ‘You shouldn’t be here. I’m afraid I have to ask you to leave.’
I heard the words but, in that moment, I was oblivious: I stood stock-still in the small entranceway that led to the living and dining area and breathed in the scent of night jasmine that still lingered in the air. Its familiar notes were a lynchpin of my childhood that triggered a flood of images in my head, and my knees buckled. I leaned a shoulder on the wall for support and fanned my face with my hand.
‘Mrs Scrivener,’ said Doris. ‘I’m sorry. I must ask you to leave now.’ She took another step towards me but I held up my hand.
‘I just want to look. Please.’
‘I can’t let you in.’
‘Why? Why not? I just want to …’ I shook my head and waved my hand at the room, ‘one last time.’ Beyond Doris I could see Mum’s sandals paired neatly by a lounge chair. I stared at them. ‘Please?’
‘It’s against protocol. I was just about to seal the room.’
‘Why?’
‘Unless your mother is found before Venice, the police will want to come aboard and the room must be exactly as it was.’
An image of police tape sprang into my head. ‘You mean it’s a … crime scene?’ I almost laughed but Doris nodded.
‘It will be treated as one, yes. We need to rule out any chance of foul play.’
‘Foul play?’
Doris pressed her lips together. ‘We just need to make sure that we don’t impede the police in any enquiries they might wish to make. That’s all.’
‘But I’m here now. Please? Just two minutes?’ Doris shook her head. I ran over to her and took her by the arms. ‘Please? I beg you. She was my mother!’ My voice broke.
Doris closed her eyes and inhaled, then she gave a tiny nod. ‘Okay. Two minutes,’ she said. She moved over to the wall and stood with her back to it. ‘But I can’t leave you.’
‘Thank you.’ I gave her a weak smile and moved further into the cabin, wondering where to look first. Apart from the sandals and a pile of what looked like port guides, I couldn’t see anything of Mum’s in the living and dining area.
I walked slowly towards the bed. It was neatly made, the cruise line’s signature pillows and throw arranged in the house style on top of the covers. There was nothing of Mum’s on the bedside table: no book, no hand cream, not even the small silver alarm clock that she always took on holiday. Looking at the bed, it was as if Mum had never slept in the room.
I turned into the bathroom and immediately felt Mum’s presence in a way that I hadn’t in the main suite. Her scented candle – burned almost to the glass – sat on the edge of the bathtub. I picked it up and inhaled the scent deeply, then I touched the tip of my finger to the wax and rubbed it on my wrist: a little of Mum to stay with me. I moved to the wash basin. Here, Mum’s cosmetics were arranged around the rim: deodorant, body lotion, face cream, toothpaste, toothbrush, and the face soap she always swore was better than any fancy cleanser.
I checked to see if Doris had followed me, then picked up the pot of moisturiser and quickly twisted off the lid, inhaling the scent I’d known all my life. The cream lay in peaks and troughs where Mum’s fingers had touched it. I imagined her applying it to her cheeks – when would have been the last time? After the party on her birthday? Or, more likely, the night before her seventieth birthday. My insides clenched. The cream, bought no doubt in St Ives Tesco, had lasted longer than my mother. I imagined the checkout girl sliding it under the scanner, no idea that the customer buying it would be missing off a cruise ship – or dead – before the pot was finished.
I twisted the lid back on, put the pot carefully back and turned into the dressing area. Mum’s suite had a large walkin wardrobe and I couldn’t avoid the sight of her clothes hanging on the rails, her shoes paired neatly underneath, the suitcase with its ‘VCE’ airline tags still stuck around the handle. I opened the top drawer of the vanity table. Inside, Mum’s heated rollers and the hot brush she took everywhere. A glasses case – I picked it up and opened it – empty. Mosquito repellent. A little cosmetics case containing bits and bobs for First Aid: antihistamine cream, arnica cream, plasters, antiseptic spray, a strip of painkillers.
The next drawer contained mum’s underwear and swimwear. I closed it quickly, feeling like I was prying. As far as John would be concerned, there was nothing of any financial value here. These were the holiday essentials of an old lady. Guessing that all Mum’s valuables – her purse, cash, jewellery, and passport – were in the safe, I checked the door. I stepped back out into the living room.
‘Can anyone open the safe?’ I asked Doris. ‘I mean, without using her code?’
‘We have a master key.’
Of course they did. ‘Can I look?’
Doris shook her head, her eyes on the carpet.
I sighed.
‘If you’re finished …’ she said.
‘Yes. Yes, thank you.’ I put my hand to my heart. ‘I just feel a bit … it’s hard. I mean, she was here. We were on holiday. It was her birthday. The trip of a lifetime. She was so excited. And now …’ Tears welled, and I dabbed my fingers along my lashes. ‘I’m sorry … I just can’t believe she’s gone. Where is she?’ I pressed my hand to my face as if the pressure could stop the tears. ‘I wish I knew where she was. And why.’
Doris put a hand on my arm. ‘I’m very sorry. But, if you’re ready, we must …’ She motioned towards the door. ‘You should not be in here.’
I nodded and followed her into the corridor, composing myself as I walked. Doris closed the room door with a click, checked it was properly shut, then placed the plastic gadget, which blocked off the card slot, over the door handle and padlocked it into place.
‘This will stop any unauthorised personnel from entering the cabin,’ she said. I lifted a hand and touched the closed door, feeling bereft: locked both physically and metaphorically out of my mother’s life.
18 July 2013, 10.30 a.m.
‘How did it go?’ John intercepted me as I returned to my cabin.
‘I had to fight Doris to let me in. The room’s now a crime scene.’
John gave a low whistle. ‘So they’ve given up. Did you find anything?’
I shook my head. ‘No. Anastasia will have to wait for her earrings.’ I spat the words, my bitterness taking me by surprise.
John held out his hands, palms up. ‘Whoah! Where did that come from?’
I got out my key card and slammed it through the swipe slot. ‘From you!’ It felt good to vent my frustration. The anger was a release. ‘It came from you. Your whole handling of this … this … situation has been abysmal! I feel like I don’t know you at all.’
‘What do you mean?’
I pushed open my door but John
was behind me, his foot in place to stop me slamming it on him. He shoved his way in and let the door bang shut behind him.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
I spun to face him, hands on hips, and he stared back at me, both of us breathing heavily. There was a hardness at the corners of his mouth; a coldness in his eyes, and I remembered the night in the Buzz Bar; how desperate he was for money; how scared he was that Anastasia might leave him and I stiffened, involuntarily recoiling from him.
‘Oh my God,’ I said, my voice quiet now. I backed away, getting the coffee table between me and him. ‘You know what happened. That’s why you’ve been so calm. Giving me all that “what will be, will be” rubbish! Refusing to admit she was missing! You know exactly what happened!’
John stared at me. ‘Lexi, what’s got into you? What kind of a monster do you think I am?
‘You’ve already spent half the money!’ I tried to edge around John towards the cabin door but he grabbed my arm, gripping me by the bicep. I shrugged him off and took a step back from him. ‘The way you’ve been behaving since Mum told us about the will. The way you’ve been so gleeful,’ I spat the word, ‘about the whole thing!’
‘Lexi!’
‘Don’t you remember asking me? That night in the champagne bar: “How long do you think she’s got?” You asked me! You were practically counting the days. In Mykonos, you asked me if I’d finished her off!’
John started pacing the room. ‘Oh, for God’s sake. It was a joke. It wasn’t like that.’
‘It was exactly like that and don’t you deny it. And then you refusing to believe she was missing. We could have started the search days ago. She might have stood a chance! I knew back in Santorini that something was wrong. I told you then but you ignored me.’
‘You didn’t need my permission. What stopped you?’
I shook my head. ‘God. You’ve been like a vulture since she told us about Dad’s will. It’s almost like you wanted her overboard …’ I stood there staring at him and then, with the sense that I was crossing a line, I let the thought that I’d been suppressing come hurtling out. ‘It’s just like what happened with Valya. There she was, about to go into an expensive home – and, suddenly …’ I couldn’t say it. ‘My God, John! I don’t know who you are!’ A wave of sickness ran through me.
‘Lexi! You think I pushed Valya? Oh my God!’ John shook me by the shoulders. I jerked my face away, expecting him to slap me. ‘Get a grip!’ he yelled in my face, giving me a shake with each point. ‘Listen to yourself. This has nothing to do with Valya. Valya fell down the stairs. I was in the kitchen doing the bloody washing up. I had no reason to push her. No reason whatsoever!’ He suddenly let go of me and backed away, his shoulders slumped. ‘Believe it or not, I actually liked the old mare.’ Now he looked at me with all the vulnerability he’d had as a child etched on his face. ‘Do you really think I’d do such a thing?’
I stared at my twin brother standing there and saw him as a boy: John shouting from the top of the apple tree, showering me with mushy apples; me dodging them, shrieking down the lawn to Mum. I saw the image; tried to reconcile it with the man he’d become.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to think any more. All I know is that Mum was a nuisance to you. She got in your way. She was a hassle you could do without. Add to that the fact that you’ve got no money and you stood to get rich when she died and … well!’ I threw my hands in the air. ‘Let’s just say I wouldn’t like to be you when the police come on board.’ I spun on my heel, marched to the door and flung it open. ‘I think it’s time you left.’
I glared at John and he glowered back. Finally he moved towards the door. I stood back to let him pass and, once he’d crossed the threshold, he turned back.
‘It’s not looking so different for you either, by the way,’ he said quietly. ‘Don’t you forget that.’
18 July 2013, 8.30 p.m.
I couldn’t settle all day, nor into the evening as the row with John echoed in my head. I needed to clear my thoughts. I’d accused my twin of murdering our mother! How could we possibly move on from this? I spent a fretful day on the ship; settling in different areas before moving on. In the evening, I returned to my cabin. With the television droning on in the background, I paced again, sitting down for seconds at a time before jumping up and pacing once more.
I clicked off the television, grabbed a notepad, and went out to the balcony. Thoughts still racing, I stared out at the darkness and hoped the rhythmic sound of the engines might soothe me as I tried to get my thoughts in order. On the notepad, I put two headings: on the left, ‘He did it’; on the right, ‘He didn’t’.
I filled the left side of the page up quickly. John had motivation by the bucket-load: he was fed up of looking after Mum; he wanted his inheritance; he was terrified he’d lose his marriage. Goodness, he’d talked about how long Mum had left; he’d been very specific about how she might have bumped her head on the way down – he’d certainly given the matter some thought.
He’d never been that close to Mum anyway. He hadn’t been close to anyone – but did that make him a killer?
Although the motivation was there, when push came literally to shove, I had my doubts. Was my brother really devious enough to plan something like this? Strong enough to heave an adult over the chest-high railings? Brave enough to risk a murder, knowing the ship was full of CCTV cameras? Or was he clever enough to have found a spot that wasn’t covered? I tried to imagine John plotting to kill Mum; staking out the ship, looking for the ideal location, planning how to lure her there. He’d left the White Night party early to go to bed. Or had he? I thought back: had John lain on the sun lounger planning his strategy while we watched Mum dance? Had he deliberately left early; lain in wait for Mum, knowing she’d be tipsy, and bundled her overboard then? On her birthday? Had he bashed her over the head first? With what? Oh please. This was my twin!
I stood up and paced the small balcony, trying not to see in my mind’s eye Mum’s surprise as she came across John lying in wait for her; her confusion as he lifted her up and struggled to get her overboard. Had she made eye contact with him? Screamed as she went over? Or fallen in stunned silence, her last emotions shock and confusion?
I picked up the notepad and, leaning on the railings, scribbled on the right-hand side. ‘Too wimpy’, I wrote. ‘Wouldn’t go through with it’. But then I thought again about his financial troubles; how he’d started spending the moment he knew he was coming into a windfall. But, in the cabin just now he’d looked shaken. He’d stepped back, clearly shocked, when I’d accused him, and he hadn’t had a defence ready. I suppose, like he’d said, to outsiders, I’d look as guilty as he did.
Maybe the police would think we’d been in it together.
I tore up the notepaper as small as I could and let the wind take the pieces. As I watched them scatter in the blackness, John’s suggestion that Mum’s disappearance may have been premeditated came back to me. If Mum had jumped overboard, what had driven her to it? Why had she invited John and me on the cruise in the first place? Was it for the pleasure of our company? To tell us about the will – or to say a final goodbye?
Had we driven Mum to suicide by pushing her to sell her house? I stared out to sea, shaking my head as I thought back to the conversations we’d had about Harbourside. We hadn’t pushed her that hard, had we? Anyway, she’d come around to the idea. She’d said she’d consider it after the cruise – the ‘last hurrah’ as she’d called it; her last bit of fun.
Last bit of fun before what? Before she died?
With the thought came a sense of inevitability. Standing there on the balcony I realised this was the moment I’d been subconsciously waiting for all my life. I realised that the undercurrent of fear that had had run through my childhood wasn’t so much a fear of Pa: it was the fear that Mum would leave. It was the sense of impermanence that had permeated the house. That night, when John and I had seen Mum packing her bag, I’d known – as m
uch as a tiny child can know – that she was planning to leave. The essence of me had known, even if I was unable to comprehend it. And that subliminal fear, that sense that I might wake one day and find Mum gone, had never left me.
I rammed my knuckles against my temples. And now she’d finally done it! The conversation Mum and I had had in Corfu ran through my head.
‘I used to worry what would happen to you – who would look after you – if I … well, you know … she’d said.
And I’d replied: ‘Well, you don’t need to worry about that any more.’
‘I know,’ she’d said.
Tears slid down my face.
I was startled by the screech of the telephone inside my cabin. Eyes puffy, I stumbled back inside, tripping over the door runners, dashed around the bed and sank onto it as I picked up the receiver.
‘Hello? Alexandra Scrivener speaking.’
‘Mrs Scrivener,’ said Doris. ‘I have …’
‘News? Is there any news?’ My mind filled with images of Mum saved; Mum pulled up from the ocean alive; Mum wrapped in a foil blanket. ‘Did one of the boats find her?’
Doris paused and I knew before she spoke again that the news was not what I was hoping for; that she wasn’t going to answer my question. ‘I apologise that it is so late, but Captain Stiegman has asked to see you.’
I was buzzing with a torturous mix of hope and despair, my breath suddenly coming in rasps. ‘Do you know what it’s regarding? Do we have reason to hope?’
Doris paused again. ‘Captain Steigman has asked to speak to you. That’s all I can say.’
‘But … but … if it was good news? If they’d found her? You’d tell me, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes, of course I would.’
‘So they haven’t found her?’
Doris sighed. ‘Mrs Scrivener. I haven’t been told anything. The captain has asked if you can report to the ship’s library at ten o’clock.’ I looked at my watch, not taking in the time at all. ‘That’s in one hour,’ said Doris. ‘Ten o’clock. Do you know where the library is?’
The Disappearance Page 23