‘Have you got problems at school?’
Timmy looked up. Martin saw with horror how tired his son was. Almost as tired as he was.
‘No. Everything’s okay. No one’s making me eat doners, if that’s what you mean.’
At Timmy’s school, a ‘doner’ was a handful of leaves and mud that the strongest in the class gathered up to shove into the mouths of the weakest. Just because they could.
‘It’s because of you. Because you’re away so often, and with Mama…’ Timmy’s voice cracked. Martin could see how desperately hard he was trying not to cry in front of his father.
‘Hey, come here.’ He went over to him, kneeled beside the desk and put his arms around his son.
He could feel how much weight Timmy had lost since the gaps between their marital arguments had become so short they were now sustained fire.
‘When Mama and Papa row it’s got nothing to do with you. I hope you know that.’
Timmy nodded and sniffed.
‘It’s all my fault, big man. I’m away far too often. But I swear that’s going to stop. I’ve just got one more job to do, then I’m going to resign and find a job I can do from home. How does that sound?’
His son freed himself from their embrace. His face was writ with scepticism. It was evident that he didn’t believe the good news.
‘And then you’ll be with me all the time?’
‘Yes. I promise. I’ll come back soon and then we’ll be together forever.’
Martin gave Timmy a kiss on his forehead and tousled his hair.
Then he got up, went to the door and took his duffle bag that he’d already packed.
He opened the door to Timmy’s room and turned around again, as something had occurred to him.
‘I’m afraid I’ve lied to you, sweetie.’
Timmy, who hadn’t moved, nodded.
His tears had vanished. With a stony face he said, ‘I know, Papa. We’ll never see each other again.’
Timmy swallowed. ‘I’m going to die. Just like you, now.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. You know. Water is ouch. And you’re falling into the…’
*
Water.
Hard.
Black.
The pain of impact wrenched Martin from his memory-filled unconsciousness. The sensation – as if a giant were tearing his spinal column from his back – shot upwards from his coccyx to his brain. At the same time, the deeper he sank, the greater the pressure in his ears.
Martin gasped for air, but not even water would flood into his lungs. His head was still stuck inside the bag. At least his arms were no longer like lead and he could free himself from it.
Disoriented, he thrashed about with his arms and legs. His boots hung like weights on his feet. His clothes would become a coffin if he didn’t get rid of them.
There was no hope in making it back to the surface with them on.
But do I want to make it back?
While his body was instinctively being guided by a survival programme, in his head Martin was already regretting having survived the fall.
You’re falling, he heard the dream voice of his son say, and thought of another Tim. Tim Sears, one of the few people to have survived a jump from a cruise ship. But he’d plunged twenty metres into the warm Gulf of Mexico after a booze-up. In the ice-cold Atlantic there’s no way Sears would have survived seventeen hours before being rescued.
Although… it wasn’t that cold. The electric shock that the killer had shot through Martin’s body must have reset the synapses in his nerve centre.
He couldn’t feel the thousands of pins sticking into his face. The water was cold, but not icy.
A warm current?
Martin thrashed around more frantically. Wore himself out.
Air, I need…
Air. Cold. Wet.
Suddenly the pressure in his ears was gone.
Martin’s head pushed through the surface of the water. He screamed for oxygen. And anticipated the worst: to be fully conscious on the choppy ocean in the middle of a black nothingness. Unable to see any lights. Neither those of the Sultan, which would have sailed on without anyone raising the alarm, nor those of the stars in the cloudy sky above him.
What he didn’t anticipate was the arm he knocked against. And the laughter he heard.
Then Martin was moved by a force he couldn’t explain. He felt a jolt and the water beneath his back turned hard.
And as the laughter rose in volume and a woman with a British accent and shrill voice said, ‘He must be as pissed as a fart,’ Martin stared up at the dark, hooded figure by the railings. Up to the faceless individual on the naturist deck who’d immobilised him with a taser and shoved a bag over his head, before dragging him over to the front end of the deck and hauling him over the railings, sending him five metres down into the Sultan’s outdoor pool.
37
The connecting door wouldn’t open. Lisa had bolted it from her side and she wasn’t responding. Neither to the hammering of Julia’s fists on the door, nor to her shrill, angst-ridden calls.
‘Lisa, darling. Open up!’
Key, where is the sodding key?
Her own was in a small, mouse-grey wall cabinet by the door. But where was the spare key card for Lisa’s cabin? Until yesterday it had been on the sideboard right next to the telephone. Now the small paper wallet with the cruise line’s logo, which had held the card, was gone.
How is that possible?
Julia tossed some prospectuses and magazines from the table, lifted her handbag and a blotting pad. Nothing.
Oh, God, dear God…
Suppressing the urge to run screaming into the corridor and throw herself against Lisa’s door, she picked up the phone. The hectic beeping in her ear made it even more difficult to concentrate.
Room Service
Housekeeping
Laundry
Spa…
Ten direct-dial buttons. None of them was labelled PANIC.
1310… 1310…
She’d just been about to call reception when she remembered Daniel’s direct number.
After four rings he answered with a sleepy ‘Hello?’
‘She… she’s…’ Julia’s voice cracked. Only now did he realise that she was crying.
‘Lisa? What’s happened?’ The captain’s voice already sounded much more awake.
‘I think she… she’s… going to…’
She didn’t have to say any more. Daniel promised he’d be with her in a couple of minutes and hung up.
A couple of minutes?
A long time if you were having your fingernails extracted. And even longer if you were worried your own flesh and blood was about to kill herself.
Now. This very moment.
Julia couldn’t wait. She yanked open the balcony door.
She was hit by damp, cold wind. She knocked her bare foot on a lounger, heard the rushing of the ocean which to her ears sounded like the roar of a wild animal throwing open its mouth to devour anything coming within range of its fangs.
‘Lisa?’ she screamed against the raging sea.
The balconies were separated by hard, white plastic screens. Julia leaned far over the railings to peer past the screen onto Lisa’s side on the right.
Light!
The ceiling lights were on and, because the curtains behind the balcony door weren’t drawn they lit up part of Lisa’s balcony too.
That means she must still be in the cabin, Julia thought with relief. Until the pendulum of fear that had swung away from her for a split second came crashing back with a vengeance. To save energy, the electric circuit was broken when you took the key card from the wall cabinet as you left the room. Normally a lit-up cabin was evidence that the passenger was in. Unless they hadn’t taken their key card.
Or they’d chosen another way out.
When Julia bent further forwards, she felt as if she were being struck by a wave.
Too far to have a safe grip.
>
The wind spat into her face. Drizzle fell in beads from her eyebrows. Rain and tears. All she could see was a blur. She blinked, she howled. Screamed.
And then she caught sight of them! The boots! Lisa’s boots. They were lying on the floor between the bed and the TV chest, half covered by a bedspread, beneath which the rest of Lisa’s body appeared to be lying.
Julia’s brain switched to a primaeval instinctive mode. She was a mother. Her harassed daughter had written a farewell letter. Stolen her key card for the cabin. Locked herself in. Failed to respond to her knocking. And was lying motionless on the ground.
She didn’t need to ignore the thought that Daniel would be there any second now, as it didn’t even cross her mind. One hand on the screen, the other on the railing. One foot on the bottom rung. The other on the second…
She climbed automatically.
She didn’t realise she was risking her life until she was standing on the balcony rail and, with both hands firmly gripping the edge of the partition screen, tried to lift a foot so as to put it down on Lisa’s side. And… slipped.
Her bare foot was still numb from having knocked into the lounger. She didn’t feel any pain, but nor did she feel that her wet sole had lost its grip.
Suddenly the entire weight of her body pulled on her arms. She didn’t have a chance. The screen needed a joint, a grip or something else to hang onto. But now hands followed feet and slipped too.
And her body fell.
Julia screamed, but the water below her roared back more loudly. The predator sensed blood when it saw Julia hanging onto the railing, right between the cabins.
In falling she’d managed to hold onto the highest rail. But it was wooden, too wide for her slim hands, and too wet to hold on for long. And Julia was too exhausted, too weak and too heavy.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down! she commanded herself, as if that could change anything. As if she could make the sea disappear simply by closing her eyes.
The wind wrested her like a flag. Julia closed her eyes and felt her fingers slowly slide from the round rail.
I’m sorry.
Were those the final words? Her daughter’s final words in this life?
One last time she screamed the name of her daughter and heard her own as an echo.
‘Julia?’
Someone was calling from a distance, but it wasn’t her daughter. Lisa’s voice wasn’t so deep. And her grip not so firm.
‘I’ve got you!’ cried the man, whose face suddenly hovered above hers. And pulled her back up at the last moment, back onto the ship.
Back into the nightmare.
38
Tiago was lying on his bed, sweating. In his new cabin the air conditioning wasn’t working, in itself a good reason why number 4337 was empty. The fact that water dripped from the shower with the velocity of honey and that the bedroom stank of cat’s pee definitively made the cabin uninhabitable.
If he’d had the choice he’d have looked around for a better bolthole, but the computer at reception, which Stacy had allowed him a brief glimpse of, hadn’t shown a suitable alternative. A total of 2,892 passengers. The Sultan’s cabins were totally booked out apart from this one renovation case where he’d been hiding for twenty hours.
What a shitty trip!
Tiago sat in bed, his back leaning against the padding of the cabin wall, using the remote control to surf the channels of the television which he’d set at whisper volume. The light was dimmed, the door joints covered with towels so that no one passing would notice the cabin was being used.
What a nightmare.
He hadn’t even stolen enough to cover the fare and he was buggered if he was going to spend the rest of the passage in this sweatbox.
Tiago’s stomach grumbled. He’d long since finished the pack of nuts from the minibar, but his hunger wasn’t so great that he’d dared leave the room.
Outside. To the thugs, who must know who he was by now and were just lying in wait for him to show his face again.
‘Were you listening in on us?’
He’d barely slept and spent most of the time in his new abode mulling over the mess he was in. He kept imagining he could hear the voice of the officer:
‘You’re dead.’
As dead as channel 5 of the on-board television programme, which he had alighted on, and which showed images from a selection of outside cameras. From the bridge looking forwards and to the stern. At this time they were all black. The only variety was provided by a banner running along the bottom of the screen, letting Tiago know that they were sailing at 19.4 knots with moderate swell and heading westwards.
How did I get into this mess?
This much was certain: he’d been witness to a violent episode of blackmail. Apparently a young girl was on board, a stowaway perhaps, and the cleaning lady knew of this secret which, according to the officer, was worth a lot of money. So much money that it was worth feeding chambermaids with broken glass.
Or am I just paranoid?
Quite possibly the two madmen were no longer interested in him. The more time that passed without someone who’d been witness to a violent attack showing their face, the safer they might feel.
Might. Perhaps. Possibly.
The most uncertain words in the world.
Tiago would never have made it so far if they’d been part of his lexicon. Here, in this windowless cat loo, he was safer than anywhere else on the ship. Cabin 4337 wasn’t on any cleaning plan. Nobody knew that he was here.
Hopefully.
He thought about getting another drink from the minibar and stood up. The few supplies that clearly had been forgotten in the small fridge would not last for long. There were two juices left, past their best-before date, a diet cola and then spirits.
Tiago left the minibar door open and brought his small travel case into its light. An old-fashioned box with a brown snakeskin design that he’d inherited from his father. It dated from a time when suitcases with extendable handles and wheels were derided as women’s gear.
Real men carry their load, was his father’s view. A view that he’d passed on to him together with the suitcase. Tiago opened it. The side compartment was full of drinks. Before switching cabins he took the wise precaution of emptying the minibar in the old one. To avoid anyone noticing his disappearance and possibly reporting him missing he’d have to return to it occasionally – at least once a day – to rumple the bedclothes, chuck a few towels in the shower and leave the usual tip on the pillow.
But the question was: when?
Now, in the middle of the night, when the corridors were empty? Or perhaps in a few hours, around nine, during peak breakfast time, when he’d be protected by the bustle and when someone could come to his assistance in case of an attack?
At a loss, he stared at a can of tonic water as if this might be able to make the decision for him. Then his gaze fell on the envelope which he’d taken by mistake from Lisa Stiller’s cabin. It was lying on top of his clothes.
Tiago picked it up.
Until now he’d held himself back. He might be a thief, but he wasn’t a voyeur. He didn’t stick his nose into other people’s private business for fun, and as the envelope didn’t have any money in it (a quick glance had established that) he wasn’t interested in the contents of the letter.
On the other hand…
Might it be an important document? The envelope, after all, looked classy and highly official. What if Lisa needed the letter? If it was a doctor’s certificate, for example, detailing the dosage of essential medicines?
Tiago couldn’t help smiling at himself. It was more likely that the envelope contained a lottery ticket with a guaranteed win in the next draw. He searched for an excuse to satisfy his curiosity, which reminded him of one of his father’s sayings: When a woman strokes a head, sometimes she just wants to know its secrets.
Tiago stroked the seal of the envelope, unable to resist any longer.
He pulled out the two-page letter.
A whiff of lavender tickled his nostrils as he unfolded the first page.
Probably a letter to her first boyfriend, he thought, amazed by the almost artistic-looking handwriting.
The ‘P’ bulging out at the top, the ‘l’ with an elegant sweep, leading into a razor-sharp ‘a’, which like the ‘n’ almost had living features.
The letters were beautiful. Unlike the words they formed. And the dreadful text they comprised.
‘Plan,’ Tiago read, and after the first sentence his eyes flew from line to line, jumped from paragraph to paragraph. When he’d reached the horrendous conclusion and glanced at the second page which listed the position of all the security cameras onboard the Sultan, he knew he mustn’t stay one second longer in this cabin.
39
Julia was teetering. She hadn’t even allowed herself ten seconds. Coughing, panting and shivering with tiredness, she’d pulled herself up on Daniel Bonhoeffer’s arm. Now she had to hold onto the frame of the sliding door so as not to collapse again. Her saviour was standing beside her, his hands outstretched in case he had to intervene again.
‘Where is she?’ Julia rasped. She’d screamed herself hoarse and gripped the rail so tightly that her fingers were still white. Her legs were shaking; she could feel large bruises forming on her kneecaps. In the struggle she must have bloodied her legs on the ship’s side as well as biting open her lips. She could taste blood.
‘Where. Is. My. Daughter!’
She pointed at the empty bed.
The boots lay at her feet. There had just been pillows under the bedspread on the floor.
No body. No Lisa.
‘Where?’ she screamed at Daniel, but the captain merely shrugged.
‘We came as quickly as possible.’
He pointed to a suntanned officer in the cabin door with wildly unkempt, blond hair, although every strand appeared to have its defined place.
‘That’s Veith Jesper, one of our security officers,’ he introduced the man.
‘I’ve searched everything,’ the pretty boy said self-importantly. As if looking for a teenager in a thirteen-square-metre cabin demanded the training of an FBI profiler.
Passenger 23 Page 16