Murder on Board

by Mark Rice

  “People have died on this cruise?” I questioned raising my eyebrows in fake astonishment.

  “Yes, Mr Luke, many people have died on every cruise I have been on. This one is longer than most. Even one of the crew died this time” said Persel.

  “No! Who?” I dug a little deeper.

  “Ahmed Crutz. You probably don’t know him.”

  I felt perplexed. This was not the answer I was seeking. “His name doesn’t ring a bell. Who was he?”

  “He was a kitchen porter. He’d been on board this ship for the last seven months. He had problems, Mr Luke.” He pointed a rotating finger to his head. “He killed himself in his cabin, one, no, two weeks ago.”

  “Was he your friend?”I probed.

  “Oh no, Mr Luke. I didn’t know him at all. It’s said his mother had died suddenly back home in Mumbai so…” his voice trailed off leaving the sentence unfinished.

  “Are you sure no-one else died in the crew?” I couldn’t put a name on the tip of his tongue but longed to hear Richard Chad’s absence had been noticed.

  Persel scratched his head for a moment but eventually replied in the negative. “Maybe, there are others but there are a lot of crew members—it’s hard to keep track of everybody. Why do you ask?”

  “Just something I heard a few days ago,” I replied. “Probably nothing Persel.”

  “Anything else Mr Luke?” he said, pushing his trolley towards the door.

  “No, that’s all, thank you.” So, if Persel could be believed, I was still in the clear.

  We passed three hours, happily sunbathing, swimming, eating some local chicken stew and drinking ice cold beer.

  Back at the terminal by the ship, a live band and singers in Caribbean clothing occupied a bandstand hidden behind the market stalls. They performed so well that at first, I assumed I was listening to a CD.

  Margaret spotted some nice earrings and matching necklace and bought them for Rachel.

  On board, we showered and changed for the Sail Away party and Margaret bought two non-alcoholic cocktails, mocktails, while I added the rum disguised in a water bottle.

  Our plans, and that of the ships entertainments team were then scuppered by a heavy rain downpour. We fled inside and found the Lorcan Bond Trio playing to a handful of passengers and waiters so we took a window seat and, clutching our cocktails, enjoyed the smooth jazz right to the end of their session

  Outside on the deck night had fallen and we took a walk along the deserted promenade deck. With no-one about, I burst into song and Margaret joined in. Together, under the stars, we crooned a Cole Porter number that he had written for the 1932 musical Gay Divorce. The sea door behind us opened moments later and Lorcan emerged, catching us mid-song. We had been singing his last song of tonight's set, Night and Day and he smiled broadly and joined in. Now the dance became a threesome, slowly rotating clockwise, and all singing merrily along. It was a magical moment.

  The singing ended and Lorcan produced his camera capturing the last images of a beautiful diminishing Tobago, bathed in bright red moonbeams.

  Feeling uplifted, I light-footed it down the swirling atrium staircase, Fred Astaire style while Margaret pretended not to know me.

  We climbed early into bed with the ship motoring along at 18 knots. The anchor and chain periodically clanging iron against iron as SS Azara pitched and rolled in the turbulent sea.

  Margaret took her nightly hip painkiller and we lay in the darkness awaiting the next shudder, crash, bang and then roll. I drifted off but was awoken by the bright light from the corridor beaming into our room. I saw Margaret passing through the doorway in her pyjamas and she was gone in seconds. I glanced at my watch and it showed 00:30.

  Five minutes later she was back, with a white-suited officer in tow. He spoke to me. "I have agreed to move you, but I need confirmation from the bridge before it’s definite."

  "Will you look at the new cabin?" he asked me.

  "Can you show my wife?" I responded. "If she’s happy then I'm happy!"

  We left cabin F100 and travelled wheeling suitcases and dragging bags along to D179 on deck 8, a location somewhat further back along the ship. I made sure, even in my semi-conscious state that I brought the shaving bag and its contents, hidden deep within my case. We moved through the sleeping ship traversing its long corridors and lifts not meeting a soul.

  Within an hour we had relocated and unpacked all our possessions. The room fell dark, with the only sound being the creaking of the wardrobes as the cases rolled gently against their wooden doors. Lying there in the dark, I found it hard to drift off to sleep and wondered why? Then it hit me. I realised I was missing the noise!

  Day 31

  Thursday 2nd February.

  At sea heading for Brazil.

  My alarm went off at. I turned it off and promptly went straight back to sleep. When we finally awoke properly it was a matter of a short shower, a hurried dress and out. We snatched a quick breakfast before joining Brendan Flood for Beginners Bridge.

  An empty chair sat opposite me. Jimmy had made good his promise and had quit the program. Brendan distributed a preset hand to everyone and then sat opposite me at our table. His presence was more than slightly off-putting, but he saw my dismay and gestured to me, in an encouraging manner, to go ahead. I did but very hesitantly and with constant glances in his direction.

  Thirteen hands later I had done it. I’d actually won nine tricks. My hands were shaking as I laid the final card. Brendan came up to me afterwards and said “Well played,” patting me on the shoulder. These little gestures of encouragement go along way with unconfident amongst us.

  The by now infamous Intermediate Bridge Class had begun to gather and I’d normally be getting angered by their chatter but on this day nothing could upset me and I smiled warmly towards them as I left the room. I'm sure they muttered to each other "I wonder what’s got into him" as they took their places.

  We exited Lawton’s with Jennifer and chatted with her before visiting our old cabin where Margaret sought out Persel and told him of our relocation. She passed him £25 as thanks for his work over the last twenty-eight days’. He looked at me. I nodded that he should accept it and he did.

  I visited reception and sought an update on our room. They fobbed me off for now and when we met Edgar, our new cabin steward, he had been told that we were there temporarily! Not true. This was meant to be a permanent move for us. The mere thought of returning to F100 filled me with despair.

  We enjoyed coffee and then made it to the midday choir practice, the first under the tutelage of Aoife, who firmly took control. Tony, the male Topstars singer/dancer floated about, and the music director, David Dunne, sat by the piano. Aoife introduced our first two songs, Three Little Birds, a Bob Marley reggae classic. and Can't Help Falling In Love, a slow, lumbering ballad most memorably performed by Elvis Presley. In both, she sought to complicate with harmonies and the reggae tune posed far more challenges, with the typo’s on the lyric sheets not helping. We numbered again around a hundred singers but the proof of the pudding, for her, is how many will return for tomorrow’s practice.

  Aoife operates in a no-nonsense manner, has a powerful voice and brooks no debate, asking that we all give it a try, as the song sounded great in her cabin last night when she first thought of the arrangement. It sounds like she has done this job before on other ships so I'm confident she'll make it work this time.

  We ate lunch with Arthur, my Australian choir buddy in the Palace restaurant. He and his wife had been booked on this ship for its next cruise too but have a problem with the room they were allocated. He'd moved three times already on this cruise and was happy with the current room but hadn’t been able to change the room allocated to them for the next cruise, a Norwegian adventure.

  Lunch over, I took to our room where I updated my diary while Margaret catnapped, making up for last night’s lost sleep.

  The ship was still pitching and rolling so there would be no tennis today and th
e clouds meant no sunbathing topside.

  We passed a quiet afternoon in the Palace restaurant playing a couple of hands of bridge and analysing the cards and the bidding process.

  Yet another formal black-tie dinner loomed for this evening! Most passengers conform but by now are thoroughly fed up with dressing up. We have four more to look forward to. Tonight we took our first malaria tablets. Maybe they have some side effects for Margaret just wasn't herself. She actually asked me to finish her wine.

  We had just taken our seats in the theatre when. Benny Mathews, New Zealand's leading tenor of Polynesian descent, bounded onto the stage and delivered forty-five minutes of operatic, New Zealand traditional and classical blockbuster songs. Nessun Dorma went down a bomb. The SS Azara orchestra accompanied him and, once again, performed very well. Its quite a tribute to all the performers and musicians that they can perform while the ground moves beneath them, the stage curtains roll from one side to the other and the occasional banging noise sounds in the distance.

  We traversed the ship to the Pacific Lounge where Julie Decott changed her show to a tribute to Cilla Black from the soprano based opera and musical show advertised. Maybe she had a vocal problem but she accurately captured the bubbly Liverpudlian’s accent and intonations as she sang her way through Cilla's career. It didn't take long, so a few of Cilla’s lesser known songs padded out the forty-five minutes.

  Amazingly, we learned that John Lennon wrote a song for Cilla and Julie performed it. She also included a song written by Cilla’s husband and manager, Bobby Willis. It was instantly forgettable which only goes to prove that there is generally a good reason why some songs never achieve chart success.

  Day 32

  Friday 3rd February.

  Approaching the mouth of the Amazon River, Brazil.

  It’s early morning and the motion of the ship is that of a steady rise and fall-with-a-slight-twist. The SS Azara is the fastest ship in the Octavian Cruise fleet and has a top speed of 24 knots but is travelling at a mere 18 knots. We are sailing parallel to the South American land mass and expect to reach Brazil and enter the Amazon River sometime tonight.

  We are due to spend the next eight days cruising up the Amazon River and visiting Manaus, a city of 3 million people.

  From this evening and for the next seven days, the open deck lighting will be dimmed, and passengers are asked to switch off their balcony lights. These steps are taken to minimise the attraction of the ship to millions of disease-carrying insects and flying creatures. Doors must be kept closed to assist the air conditioning system deal with the Amazon's high humidity and heat.

  Once again, breakfast was a leisurely affair at the Palace restaurant’s buffet. We sat by the window watching the ship cut its way through the undulating waves, the white foam rolling out from under her bow. The brilliant sun is only a warm hazy glow as it’s actually on the other side of the ship. No birds appear in the sky. We are too far from land for them.

  The room echoed to the babble of human chatter and the clanking of cutlery and plates. The officer of the watch reported our progress and speed and said we will enter Brazilian waters at midday. Around me, waiters in khaki long trousers, aprons and white shirts bustle about offering tea or coffee refills, collecting breakfast detritus or cleaning tables.

  Anita and Brian joined us and chatted for a bit. Free Wi-Fi on board has been my mantra since day one of the cruise, but today, in Brian, I met someone who put strongly the case for no Wi-Fi. He recalled with horror the intrusive nature of the internet. The days sat on a train or on a bus, close to someone who was broadcasting their conversation to a wider unintended and long-suffering audience.

  Anita then remembered a restaurant lunch being ruined by a neighbouring table occupant who used the meal to berate and belittle his lunching juniors and some sorry individuals, also chastised over a loud outspoken conference call. When her lunch was finished she spoke with the restaurant manager and refused to pay for her meal. She also walked up to the neighbouring table and told the man that he was a bully and a horrible person and that the staff sitting around him were ten times the man that he was and she turned on her heels and left!

  So maybe the peace and quiet of the cruise would be ruined by the provision of free Wi-Fi. Maybe Octavian Cruises realise that by making it freely available their product, the cruise, would suffer. Maybe the majority of their customers can live very happily without the internet and have no desire to connect now to the internet. It certainly gave me food for thought.

  At 09:45 the ships PA system comes alive with Laura, the Entertainments Manager, giving a rundown of today’s events, talks, classes, special offers and cinema showings.

  “I’m shattered,” Margaret yawned. Her poor night’s sleep resulted from the absence of the mattress topper on the bed. The topper we had brought to the new cabin had been removed by Edgar and we only discovered this at bedtime last night. This action had led to both of us being awake for much of the night. We’d confronted the miscreant this morning and had squeezed a promise from him to return the topper ASAP. Margaret reckoned he’d removed it out of spite because we’d forced ourselves on him and his rooms and had added to his workload.

  “I’m not sure I have the energy to sit through this mornings bridge class” she moaned.

  “Well just do your best love” I answered.

  The beginners bridge class took an unexpected turn when Mabel, a slightly unsteady, slim white-haired pensioner sought to join our table. With Jimmy gone, we needed a fourth person. Mabel was attending the follow-on session for intermediate players too but felt she needed to rejoin the beginner’s classes to clarify in her mind the basics of bridge. Being a current member of the Intermediate Class she was an instant enemy of mine, but I had no logical reason I could explain to the others to object to her presence.

  We all agreed to let her join but, although she is now my playing partner, it will take a while for her to settle in and for me to trust her.

  The intermediate class gathered like flies around a large steaming dung pat. This time Mabel remained seated and beckoned her husband to take a chair at our table.

  We exchanged pleasantries and I gathered my notes and got up to leave.

  He had sat out the beginner’s class, reading a book in another corner of the room and now settled into Margaret’s still warm chair.

  Brendan, pressured by the intermediate class’s presence, finished our class five minutes early and then rushed to the door to belatedly hand out homework for completion by tomorrow. He apologised to our departing members and shrugged his shoulders when I queried why he just didn’t lock the door.

  “No key I’m afraid,” he answered. “And if I leave it closed its opened every few minutes by passengers just looking inside to see what’s going on in here.”

  That was the final straw. Tonight I intended to make it my business to find a little time to deal with this lot once and for all.

  I opened the door into the theatre and found many passengers already inside, early for today’s choir practice. I’d wondered yesterday at how many would return for today’s practice having witnessed Aoife’s School Mam approach to teaching music yesterday. To my surprise, they’d all returned! Aoife continued to spend a third of the forty-five minute class on breathing exercises but managed to add two new songs to the two we’d learnt yesterday. Both of the new songs were taken from the musical South Pacific—There Is Nothin’ Like a Dame was the men's number while the women were given I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of my Hair. First attempts showed the women had got a better handle on their song than the men.

  At the end of the class David, the pianist, announced he was going to work with the bass section of men on two numbers, neither of which are in the choir’s repertoire at present. I suspect the experienced bass singers have formed a side group for the SS Azara's Passengers Have Talent show and were getting assistance. Leonard Cohen's Halleluiah was being sung as we left.

  After a light lunch, I attended
a lecture on the Amazon River by C Lee in the Gaiety Theatre and though it was facts and figures heavy, it was also contained interesting information about the region. Battling against C Lee was the warm room and the all-enveloping darkness. Many attendees fell asleep during his excellent if dry, presentation.

  Back in our room, I couldn't shake off the lethargy and switched on the TV to find C Lee’s previous lecture being broadcast. This time I fell asleep in our bed watching it. He clearly has a gift for all insomniacs. They just need to watch his CD to get a good night’s sleep!

  We both took it easy that afternoon until we exited the cabin to find Brian and Anita ready to play mini-bridge. The games are fun and the four of us get on easily. Brian is a bit of a moaning old toad, of course, but no one’s perfect.

  There were only seven of us at dinner tonight as Roger was cabin-bound with a cold.

  Rose turned up and chatted happily, not unduly anxious about her husband. The ship was vibrating quite a bit and caused the cutlery and plates to rattle and dance across the tables. Not sure why this was the case.

  In high spirits, we all shared amusing tales of life before the cruise. My contribution had happened a few weeks ago when I decided to go shopping for some new underwear for the cruise. Too often in the past, Margaret would find some timeworn threadbare pairs in the wash and promise that she would disown me if I was found dead in them. As luck would have it, a sale was on before we departed for the cruise and I picked up twelve pairs of medium-sized briefs for six euro, a bargain. I stored them away and into my cruise luggage they went. It was only when I was onboard that I tried them out and found them cripplingly tight. Not in the pouch area but from one hip to the other hip. I persisted with them for twenty-two days by which time I was crippled with pain from both hips and all areas in between.

  Finally, I had to act so when we docked in the island of St Vincent I vowed I'd buy some underwear with more room in them. It was market day in the town and many stalls sold underwear but of the boxer variety which I don't like as everything hangs unsupported, if you follow me. Finally we visited a shop that did sell my type of underwear but they only had medium or XXL so I bought three pairs of XXL and returned to the ship where I tried them on. Margaret sat on the bed, watched on with amusement, fighting back the tears. Unfortunately, I discovered I had jumped from the too-tight-to -tango problem to the too-loose-to-lasso problem. The pouch dangled so low between my legs that I appeared to have grown an elephant trunk and the underpants so loosely covered the hips that I ran the risk of them descending with the slightest cough. Well I couldn't go back to the strangulation solution, so I had to continue wearing the XXL or Liar size as I like to call them and have tonight binned the other twelve pairs.