“Have you talked to the veterinarian lately?” Mona asked. “It isn’t outside the realm of possibility that someone has been looking for Katie.”
“I need to speak to him, actually,” Fenella said. “I’ve brought her up-to-date on her vaccinations, but now I have to make arrangements to have her spayed. I’m not looking forward to that.”
“No, but it’s the responsible thing to do,” Mona replied. “If you have any doubts, go and visit one of the local animal shelters. There are far too many animals that need loving homes.”
“I really must do that, actually. Not for that reason, but to help Shelly find a kitten of her own.”
“Maybe she’d just like to take Katie,” Mona suggested.
“You don’t mean that,” Fenella said.
Mona opened her mouth to reply and then shrugged. “What are you doing with the rest of your evening?” she asked after a moment.
“I don’t really know,” Fenella told her. “Why? Did you want to do something?”
“I’d love to do something,” Mona replied. “I miss having a body to use. Still, I mustn’t complain, really. I’ve a pretty good afterlife, at least so far. Not like some people, I must say.”
“Really? What do you mean?” Fenella asked.
“Not everyone has the same choices,” Mona told her. “I’m not planning on staying here forever, but it is nice that I’ve had the chance to get to know you.”
“It’s kind of nice, sharing the apartment with you,” Fenella admitted. “Nice, but strange.”
“Anyway, if you aren’t doing anything interesting, I have been invited to a party tonight,” Mona said. “A few of the other ghosts from the building are having a small gathering in what used to be the ballroom.”
“Seriously?” Fenella asked skeptically.
“This time I’m totally serious,” Mona said. “There are quite a few of us, you know, still living here, even though we’re dead.”
“So you have ghost friends?”
“I suppose you could call them that, although I wouldn’t.”
“What do you all talk about when you get together?” Fenella asked.
“Our lives and our families, mostly,” Mona said. “It isn’t much different to being alive.”
“If I came down, I wouldn’t be able to see you, would I?”
“I don’t know,” Mona replied. “You might be able to see me, but you probably wouldn’t be able to see the others. I’d look like a sad and lonely woman, sitting all by myself in what used to be a grand ballroom but is now a bunch of boring old offices.”
“Maybe I’ll just make myself some dinner and watch some television,” Fenella said.
“I’ll give Winston Churchill your best, shall I?” Mona asked.
“Winston Churchill is going to be there?”
“Probably not, but you never know,” Mona said.
Before Fenella could ask her any more questions, Mona faded away. Fenella frowned. “I never know when she’s telling me the truth and when she’s lying,” she complained to the kitten.
“Meemmeow,” Katie said.
Fenella went into the kitchen and got Katie a small treat. “Here you are,” she told the pet. “But just the one, as I’m still quite cross with you.”
Katie rubbed her head against Fenella’s hand and then gobbled down the treat. When she disappeared into the master bedroom, Fenella was quick to follow her. Katie blinked at her from the middle of the huge bed and then shut her eyes and curled up in a ball.
“You aren’t fooling me,” Fenella said. She crossed the room and pulled the bathroom door shut. “That might just protect my toilet paper,” she said. Katie didn’t look up as Fenella left the room.
Having eaten too much at lunch, Fenella made herself a light dinner. Going to the pub on a Monday night seemed a bit too indulgent, so she curled up in front of the television with a bag of microwave popcorn. Katie still hadn’t moved when Fenella took herself to bed a few hours later.
“I guess shredding toilet paper takes a lot out of you,” she said to the slumbering animal.
While Fenella had a restless night, she was grateful that the nightmare didn’t return. As she switched off her alarm, she realized that she’d never talked to Daniel about the meeting she was going to that morning. Katie jumped off the bed and raced into the kitchen, with Fenella following at a more leisurely pace. She gave the kitten her breakfast and then headed for the shower. Maybe she’d try reaching the inspector when she was ready to go.
Time and the morning didn’t want to cooperate with Fenella, though. First she dropped a bottle of shampoo on the bathroom floor and had to clean that up, then she couldn’t find a matching pair of socks anywhere. She managed to spill her handbag when she picked it up to move its contents to a different bag. Crawling around on the floor to find everything she’d dropped left her with dusty knees on the black pants she’d been planning to wear.
Sighing deeply, Fenella went back into her bedroom and took off the now dirty bottoms. Of course, then she couldn’t find anything else in the wardrobe that would be a suitable replacement. Finally pulling on a black skirt, she wasted several minutes more looking for a pair of pantyhose that didn’t have a run in them. It was ten to eight when she finally made her way out of the apartment, all thoughts of calling Daniel Robinson completely forgotten.
She walked briskly along the promenade, not wanting to be late. Of course, once she arrived at the sea terminal, there was a long line of people waiting in the ticket office. While she was tempted to push her way to the front, as she simply needed directions, she’d already lived on the island long enough to know that that sort of behavior was inappropriate. Instead, she stood patiently behind a young couple with two toddlers who were taking it in turns to see which could shout the loudest.
“It was Fenella, wasn’t it?” a voice said from somewhere behind her.
Fenella turned around and smiled at Sarah Grosso who was three people behind her in the line. “My dear, I’m so very sorry for your loss,” she said quickly.
“Thank you,” the woman replied. “I’ve been trying to keep busy and not think about things, but today seems like it’s going to be difficult.”
“I’m sure it will be,” Fenella said. “You should have refused to come.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that,” Sarah said. “I want to do everything I can to help solve Robert’s murder.”
The man between Fenella and Sarah was clearly listening intently. He looked shocked and took a large step backwards when he heard the word “murder.”
“Are you two together?” he asked Sarah. “Because I don’t mind if you want to move up to be with your friend.”
Sarah smiled and moved up to stand next to Fenella. The woman who had been between them gave her a nasty look. She was on her phone and clearly hadn’t heard the exchange between Sarah and the man.
“We’re together,” Sarah said apologetically to the woman.
“Hmph,” the woman said. She glanced at the man, but he was staring off into the distance, looking as if he was trying to pretend he was anywhere but there.
“Do you think they’ve asked everyone who had a cabin to come in?” Fenella asked Sarah.
“I don’t know,” Sarah replied. “I didn’t realize that anyone else would be here until I saw you.”
“What time were you meant to be here?” Fenella asked.
“Eight o’clock, but I was running a little late.” Sarah glanced at her watch. “It’s only ten past, though, and I might even have been on time if the queue wasn’t so long.”
“Yes, I hate being late for anything, but I didn’t anticipate there being this many people here,” Fenella agreed.
A moment later a door opened behind the customer service desk and a woman peered out. She frowned at the crowd and then stepped forward.
“If Fenella Woods, Sarah Grosso, or Nick and Brenda Proper are here, please make yourselves known,” she announced.
Fenella glanced at Sarah
and then they both raised their hands. From the back of the room, a loud voice shouted.
“We’re here. Parking was horrible and then we got stuck in this queue,” Brenda Proper announced. “We’d have been on time if you’d simply told us where to go instead of insisting that we check in here first.”
The woman frowned again and then sighed. “Right, if you’d all like to come with me, please?”
Feeling slightly self-conscious, Fenella walked around the other waiting customers to join the woman at the desk. Sarah and the Propers were right behind her. The woman opened the door between the desk and the waiting area and motioned for them all to walk through.
“Right this way,” she said, leading them through another door and into a long corridor. At the end of the corridor, she stopped and opened a door. The large room had a single long table that stretched nearly the entire length of the space. At least twenty chairs were spaced around the table. Captain Howard was sitting at the head of the table, scowling at the new arrivals.
“Sit,” he barked at them.
Fenella and the others quickly took seats. While she was tempted to apologize for being late, she bit her tongue. It only took a moment for her to look around the table and see that all of Saturday’s cabin passengers were there.
“As we are all finally here,” Captain Howard said, “perhaps we can begin.”
“We’d have been on time if you hadn’t had such a long queue at customer service,” Brenda told him. “I told Nick that we should simply walk to the front of the queue and explain why we were there, but he insisted on waiting for our turn.”
“I’d like to go over the events from Saturday morning,” Captain Howard said, ignoring Brenda’s words. “I’d like to try to work out where everyone was and how Mr. Grosso came to be in the wrong cabin.”
“I believe you would be better off talking to the police about such things,” Stanley March said. “It is their job to investigate, after all.”
“I hope that you’re all willing to cooperate,” the captain said. “We’ve reviewed the security camera footage, so I believe I know in what order everyone collected their keys from the customer service desk. Let’s work in that order.”
“I thought the poor man was dead before we even started boarding,” Charlotte Masters said. “What difference does it make who collected their keys first?”
“I’m not looking for a murderer,” the captain told her. “I’m trying to work out what everyone saw and how Mr. Grosso ended up in the cabin that was assigned to Ms. Woods, that’s all.”
“This seems very irregular,” Charlotte said. “I thought you told me that the police were going to be here. That’s the only reason I came.”
“Yes, well, the police have been informed that we are conducting our own investigation. They declined an invitation to join us this morning,” the man replied tightly.
“I still don’t see what we can tell you that will help in any way,” Charlotte said tartly.
“Let’s get started and see, shall we?” the man asked.
Charlotte sighed deeply and then sat back in her chair with her arms tightly crossed. Fenella doubted that the captain would get any useful information out of Charlotte, based on her expression.
“There are a few gaps in the security camera footage,” the man said. “And it only becomes active on the passenger decks when we begin loading passengers onto the vessel. Unfortunately, as Mr. Grosso appears to have managed to get on board before that time, we don’t have any video footage of his arrival. We aren’t sure who he was with or what he did on the ship before his unfortunate demise.”
“What could he have been doing?” Charlotte demanded. “Did he have criminal intent?”
“No,” Sarah said firmly. “He probably arrived early and didn’t realize it wasn’t time to board yet. If he was too early, the ferry staff probably wasn’t in place yet, so he probably just walked onto the ferry without even realizing they weren’t ready for passengers yet.”
“Didn’t you have passengers getting off the boat?” Harry Hampton asked.
“It was the first sailing of the day,” the captain explained. “The ferry arrived at Douglas last night around seven o’clock and all passengers disembarked. The cleaning crew went through, finished around ten, and then the ship was shut down for the night. The early morning staff arrived around six on Saturday morning to begin checking in freight passengers.”
“So the man could have snuck onto the ferry at any time in the night,” Charlotte suggested.
“He was at work,” Sarah objected.
“The police have verified that Mr. Grosso finished his shift at six,” the captain said. “He only worked a short distance from the ferry terminal and could have arrived there within minutes of leaving his office.”
“And you think he snuck onto the ship?” Stanley asked.
“We know he must have done,” the captain said. “The time of death indicates that he was on the ship not long after six, which means he either snuck in or someone from my crew let him board without proper authorization.”
“I hope you’re taking a good look at your crew,” Sarah snapped. “Robert had no reason to sneak onto the ship.”
“We are, of course, investigating the crew,” the captain replied.
“But what was he doing on the ship early?” Charlotte asked.
“He’d just finished work,” Sarah said quickly. “He was probably tired and wanted to get to our cabin and get some sleep before I got there. He probably thought it would be a nice surprise for me.”
“I’ve heard there was a massive smuggling operation going on,” Charlotte announced. “Someone told me that when they unloaded the ferry, they found three containers full of stolen property that weren’t even meant to be on the ship.”
The captain flushed. “Those sorts of rumors don’t help matters any,” he said. “I can assure you that nothing was found on the ferry that didn’t belong there.”
Fenella narrowed her eyes at the man. Something about the way that he’d said that had her doubting his words.
“Are there criminal reasons why someone might want to get on the ferry early?” she asked. “I mean, surely Mr. Grosso was simply an innocent victim, but what possible reasons could someone else have for trying to board an empty ferry?”
The captain shrugged. “I could give you a long list,” he said. “Starting with teenagers who think it’s something to try to get away with when they’re bored, through to career criminals who are smuggling things across.”
“What sort of things?” Fenella asked.
“Drugs usually come from the UK to the island,” the man said. “And I’ve never seen people being smuggled between the two countries. Mostly, as Ms. Masters suggested, stolen property gets sent both ways.”
“None of this has anything to do with Robert,” Sarah said insistently.
“Perhaps he saw something he shouldn’t have,” Stanley suggested.
“Did he know anyone on the crew?” Charolotte asked Sarah.
“He used to spend a lot of time at the terminal,” Sarah told her. “His company ships things back and forth all the time. I’m sure he knew some of the people who work at the terminal. He sometimes helped the guys who loaded or unloaded their containers off the ferry. I’m sure he knew crew on the ferry itself as well.”
“So, if he turned up and he was tired, he might have just asked a friend to let him on board and into his cabin early,” Captain Howard said. “We just have to find which member of staff let him do that. Can you suggest any names?”
Sarah shook her head. “He didn’t talk about his work very much,” she said apologetically. “He might mention that he spent the day at the terminal or that someone called off and he had to load the containers himself, but I can’t recall him ever mentioning the names of anyone particular.”
“If he was killed before the ferry started loading, why are we even suspects?” Stanley demanded. “None of us were on board when he died. The killer must
have been one of your crew.”
Captain Howard shook his head. “The police have reason to believe that he met someone in that cabin, someone else who was due to sail that morning and had a cabin booked.”
“That’s just stupid,” Charlotte snapped. “What possible reason could they have for thinking that?”
“I don’t know,” the captain admitted. “But they seem pretty certain. They’ve questioned the crew extensively, but it seems as if they are only trying to find out who let Mr. Grosso on board, rather than anything further.”
“They should be trying to work out who let the killer on board early, instead of focusing on Mr. Grosso,” Fenella suggested.
“Yes, well, perhaps they’re working on that,” the captain replied.
“So why did you ask us all here?” Stanley asked. “I’m sure you weren’t expecting anyone to confess to murder.”
“No, not at all,” the captain said quickly. “I’m more interested in hearing about your interactions with the crew. I’d like to work out the order in which you all arrived and approximately what time you each arrived at your cabin.”
“Surely your cameras and computers can tell you all of that,” Stanley said. “Our tickets were scanned when we were checked in. Of course, then we had to wait in a ridiculously long queue for quite some time before we were allowed onto the ferry. No doubt you have a camera pointed at the customer service desk where we eventually collected our cabin keys. This is a complete waste of time.”
“As I said, there are gaps in the camera footage,” Captain Howard said. “We can’t accurately place everyone.”
“What caused the gaps?” Fenella asked.
“We aren’t sure,” the captain told her. “There appears to have been some sort of problem with the camera that day.”
“Is that usual?” Fenella wondered.
“No, not at all,” the captain said quickly. “When such things are discovered, they are fixed immediately, as well. It’s just unfortunate that it happened on the one day when we really needed the footage.”
An Isle of Man Ghostly Cozy Collection - ABC Page 38