by Dawn Brookes
“Of course not. You just don’t understand what it needs. Dad left it in a right mess.”
Jeremy snatched the cheque. Marjorie didn’t believe for a moment that this was true, but knew the pointlessness of trying to speak to her son when he was in that sort of mood.
“Oh well, Randolph and Philip are going to bring me in to explain the business and accounting side of things when I get back from my cruise, so I should understand it better then.”
Randolph was the family lawyer and remained as loyal to Marjorie as he had been to her husband. He had called the previous week to say that he needed to speak with her and explain some things about the business, but that she should go and enjoy her holiday first. It could wait until she returned. Philip Mason was financial director of the company and a close friend of Ralph’s. Randolph had explained he wanted Philip to be present at the meeting.
“I don’t know why he feels the need to get you involved. I am managing things perfectly well. You have to trust me, Mother.”
Before she had time to think about her reply, Jeremy had gone. The sadness of having a son who didn’t seem to care about her returned, but it made her determined to do what Ralph would have wanted. Jeremy would just have to lump it. She feared it would not be good news awaiting her on her return, but she decided to try not to think about it too much until then.
The car stopped and she could see that they were at the cruise terminal. It looked busy, and for a brief moment, Marjorie wondered if Johnson might have been right about her travelling on her own.
It’s too late now. She straightened up as Johnson opened the door to let her out.
Chapter 4
At long last, the train arrived in Southampton, and people were making a dash for the doors as if their lives depended on it. The elderly man who had been sitting next to Rachel had got off a stop earlier. Phone-girl and her boyfriend had gathered their things and gone to block the corridor, along with all the other people who hadn’t yet wound down into holiday mode.
Rachel remained seated. It wasn’t as if people needed to hurry as the train terminated here. She had plenty of time to get to the cruise terminal, and having attended far too many crowd-control events, she was happy to let the crowds disperse. She did keep one eye on her suitcase, though, just to be sure that it didn’t leave without her.
After about five minutes, it was safe to get up and walk to her luggage without being crammed up against people. She noticed that a few other people had had the same idea and were casually gathering their things together, too.
She collected her suitcase and negotiated her way on to the platform, pausing to ensure that her hand luggage and handbag were securely in place before extending the suitcase handle and wheeling it along the platform towards the ticket barrier. She couldn’t resist smiling as she noticed phone-girl and her partner, stuck in a queue at a different ticket barrier. Phone-girl was now chewing gum with mouth wide open and blowing bubbles.
Not a great look.
Once outside, Rachel joined a taxi queue. It appeared that the majority of people were heading to the cruise terminals with three sailings taking place today, so she heard a man in front say. After about twenty minutes of waiting, she got into a taxi and asked the driver to take her to the Mayflower Terminal where the Coral Queen would be berthed.
“You going on a cruise then?” he asked.
“Yes, I am.”
“Where are you going?”
“Around the Med,” Rachel replied. “I’m meeting a friend who works as a nurse on the ship.”
“Oh, you’ll get to see Upstairs, Downstairs then.” The taxi driver laughed.
“Yes, I suppose I will. I hadn’t thought of that.” Rachel joined in and laughed for the first time that day, relaxing. She even started to feel a little bit excited.
“You’ll see the ships any minute.”
Just as he said that, she saw the enormous cruise ships in the distance. They became bigger and bigger as the taxi got closer.
“Wow! I don’t think I imagined they would be that big. Which one is the Coral Queen?”
“That one on the right. We just have to do a bit of a circle and then we will be there.”
Once at the gate, the taxi driver held out a pass that was checked by a security guard and then he was allowed through. As they pulled up at what appeared to be the terminal, there were more queues of people. The driver pulled in to the side, getting out to open her door.
On opening the boot, the driver stood aside as the ship crew came to collect her suitcase. After checking the label, they put it on a luggage crate and it was taken away. Rachel paid the taxi driver and walked towards the crowds that were heading inside the terminal.
“Bye, love, have a nice holiday,” shouted the taxi driver and Rachel waved.
“Thanks, I think I will.”
Once inside the terminal, she showed her ticket to a security guard at the bottom of an escalator.
“Go up to the next floor where you can check in and pass through customs.”
The man stood aside. Once at the top, Rachel joined a long queue which was organised by makeshift barriers into the shape of a snake. She counted twelve desks at the end of the queue where people were checking in.
While standing in the queue, Rachel noticed people passing through on the right-hand side to two VIP desks where they were immediately checked in. She saw an elderly lady being pushed in a wheelchair by a uniformed chauffeur. The lady had beautiful white hair and was well-dressed in a fine silk dress with a white cotton jacket. Once at the desk, she was greeted warmly by the staff and taken through by one of the volunteers that Rachel had seen milling around. The chauffeur said goodbye and walked away, but then turned to watch. Rachel couldn’t help but notice the look on his face as he watched the old lady go.
I wonder what he’s worried about?
The queue started to move again and she forgot about the old lady. Eventually, she arrived at one of the desks.
“Have you cruised before?” the lady at the desk asked.
“No I haven’t,” Rachel replied.
“Okay, I need to take a photo of you for your cruise card. This card will be your pass on and off the ship and also used for purchases while you’re on board. I need to register a credit card to link it to.”
Rachel handed over a credit card and signed a form permitting payment to be taken from her card at the end of the cruise.
“Look into the camera.”
Rachel saw what looked like a web-cam. She was about to smile, but it flashed before she had the chance. She glanced at the photo on the screen that would be linked to the card. It made her look like one of her prisoners, but she wasn’t that worried.
After all, who will see it?
She was then given a folded, cardboard map of the ship. Finally, she was handed a questionnaire to fill out in the departure lounge.
“Enjoy your cruise,” said the lady. “Follow the crowds.”
Next stop was security, and all her hand luggage was passed along a conveyor belt to be scanned. Rachel passed through a metal detector, and once given the all clear, she moved into an enormous room where people were being asked to wait until their key-card colour was called. She caught a glimpse of the elderly lady coming out of a lift at the top of the stairs and being wheeled towards the ship.
Rachel filled out the questionnaire relating to recent gastrointestinal upsets, of which she had had none. She looked around at her fellow passengers and was not surprised that there were lots of young people and families. Sarah had explained that cruises were likely to be taken by anyone now, and not just the elderly rich.
I guess we are all much better off than we used to be, thought Rachel. She had recently had a pay rise herself when she qualified as a police constable. WPC Prince, she thought proudly, finally allowing some self-satisfaction to surface. She had spent so much time being maudlin and was ready to allow a little bit of joy back into her life, deciding right then and there that she would b
e the old Rachel again: the girl who loved life and had a great sense of humour. It was time to put Robert in the past and get on with her life.
She felt better already, and her excitement mounted as she caught sight of Sarah collecting questionnaires. Sarah and Rachel had been friends since schooldays. They had lived two blocks away from each other, gone to the same church where Rachel’s dad was the vicar, and ended up at the same university in Leeds. Sarah had studied for a nursing degree while Rachel studied history. They’d shared the flat where Rachel still lived from the second year of their student days, but Sarah had tired of hospital life and decided she wanted to travel.
Rachel had graduated with a first-class honours degree in history, but she hadn’t known what she wanted to do for a career when she started the course. Initially, she thought about teaching, but one term in a secondary school convinced her it wasn’t for her. In spite of her father’s occupation, she had never considered pursuing theology, and her parents had always allowed her to choose what she wanted to do with her life. They had never pushed religion down her throat, either; she had realised for herself that she believed in God from an early age.
It was an incident that had occurred in her first year at university that sparked her interest in becoming a police officer, and her ultimate dream now was to become a detective and join the intelligence services. One day while studying in the shared sitting room at university, she’d heard a group of students come in. Some were speaking Arabic and some were speaking in English. There had been recent terrorist attacks in France and Belgium, and she could hear that they were having a heated argument about them. They were not aware of her presence because she was sitting in a high-backed chair in a corner of the room – she had chosen the spot deliberately to do some studying.
While she couldn’t understand a lot of the conversation because the students kept switching languages, she could hear that a couple of the boys and one girl were saying how awful the terrorist attacks were and that it went against Islam. However, a boy who sounded older than the others shouted them down, and whatever he said, they seemed afraid to challenge him. She heard words like ‘holy war’, ‘infidels’, and that the West was full of immoral people.
“LOOK AT HOW THE WOMEN DRESS!” he shouted. “They have no shame.”
“It’s a different culture,” said another male voice. “We should not judge, Allah would not want us to judge.”
“You are only saying that because you have been sucked in by their ways,” one of the girls replied. “I have seen you hanging around with Bethany.”
More Arabic shouting followed, and then Rachel heard some of them leave. Shocked by the parts of the conversation that she had understood, she took a peep around the chair to see if she recognised any of the remaining students. She was horrified to see that the man who had been doing all the shouting was Mohab from one of her history classes. She had spoken to him a few times during a study group and he’d seemed mild-mannered, even if he was a bit aloof.
One of the boys turned his head to check if anyone was in the room and she just managed to duck back behind the chair in time. She could feel her heart pounding; she felt frightened.
What will they do if they realise I am here?
She tried to convince herself that it was a free country and they were just having a political argument like many students do. Certainly, nothing she had heard gave any impression that they were plotting anything or that they would be likely to do so. Should she go to the police? What would she say if she did? That a group of students were discussing events that had occurred and were arguing about it – these sorts of arguments occurred in universities all of the time. In her history class, a few people stated they were republican and they would like to see the monarchy removed. It didn’t mean that they intended to march on Buckingham Palace and kill the Queen! She reasoned that she needed to keep the conversation she had overheard in perspective; she didn’t even know who the students were, apart from Mohab.
Later that night, Rachel had discussed it with Sarah, and although she’d agreed the conversation was disturbing, she’d also agreed that people were entitled to their views and no threats had been made.
“The only thing I can suggest is that you report Mohab to the anti-hate crime hotline to make them aware of his extremist views.”
“Yes, good idea. I would never forgive myself if he turned out to be dangerous and I hadn’t done anything.” Mohab’s aggression and dominance had unnerved Rachel, even though some of the group had disagreed with him. She reported what she had heard, and as far as she was concerned, that was the end of the matter.
She had watched Mohab more carefully during the classes they shared, sitting a few rows back from him to see how he behaved. He behaved normally in classes and was respectful to the lecturers and other students, but occasionally she noticed a glimpse of anger in his eyes when certain girls entered the room, particularly Muslim girls who chose not to wear the hijab. Rachel knew some Christian men felt the same way about how girls from their churches dressed and behaved, so this alone was not a major cause for concern. Her own father had often had to calm down the more dogmatic members of his congregation.
About six weeks after the sitting room event, Rachel was returning to her halls of residence after a class when she noticed Mohab having a particularly heated argument with two boys. She saw two men approach him, show him a card, handcuff him and march him away. The boys he had been arguing with actually looked pleased and she wondered whether they too had reported him to the authorities.
It was at that moment she realised that she may have prevented a serious crime, and she knew what she wanted to do with her life. As soon as she finished her degree, she applied to the police force, and after passing the rigorous selection process, she was offered a trainee constable position.
Chapter 5
Sarah had agreed to meet Bernard in the medical centre before going off ship. The medical centre consisted of a passenger waiting area, two clinic rooms, a treatment room, an office and a clinical store. During a cruise, two surgeries were held for passengers and staff, one in the morning and one in the evening.
One member of the medical team held the emergency bleep at all times. When on call, they had to lug around a large suitcase on wheels which contained emergency equipment for any eventuality. Sarah had found this stressful initially, but once she had got used to the layout of the ship and discovered the quickest routes to any given area on board, it became easier. The most difficult places to access were those below the waterline as conditions were cramped. Engineering was the worst as the space was really tight.
“Hello, darling,” Bernard greeted Sarah as she arrived. “We were just having coffee.”
Sarah could see that Bernard was relaxing with Dr Graham Bentley while they had the opportunity. She poured herself a mug of filter coffee from the steel jug which had been sent up from the kitchens and joined them.
“I will be with the captain later so I will leave it to you two to welcome our new team members,” Graham said. “The senior nurse is Australian and has worked on cruise ships for another cruise line, so you will need to brief her on how this girl runs. Her name is Gwen Sumner.”
“Don’t you worry, sir, we will sort her out,” said Bernard with a mischievous glint in his eye.
“Mm, I will rely on you to be the sensible one, Sarah,” continued Graham. “The new baby doc is called Alessandro Romano. He’s Italian and has been working in refugee camps in the Middle East for a year. Before that, he worked in emergency care for a hospital in Rome so he should be able to cope. He may need guiding with medication names, but thankfully you two can prescribe and Brigitte is used to foreign sounding meds.”
“It’s as well he will be dealing with more crew than passengers. Some of our wealthier visitors might be too much of a culture shock after refugee camps,” said Sarah sympathetically. “Come on, Bernard, time to go.”
“Okay, you’re in charge, Doctor,” Bernard teased as
they left the medical centre.
“I’ll get you back for that one later,” retorted Graham. He was happy to banter, but everyone knew who was in charge when leadership was required.
Sarah and Bernard left the ship, passing through security, and made their way down to the passenger waiting areas. The VIPs and people requiring assistance from volunteers were allowed to board immediately, and only if they had given a positive answer to the diarrhoea and vomiting question were they detained, so most of the action took place in the main waiting area.
Passengers were called through in order of the decks they were to be staying on. Sarah and Bernard collected the questionnaires as they queued to pass through security. It was a tedious job, but it had to be done in order to protect both passengers and crew from the unpleasant virus. As this was a summer cruise, the likelihood of Norovirus was much lower than during the winter, but Graham would not be happy if they missed a potential outbreak.
“Oh, I can see Rachel,” said Sarah.
“Where?” Bernard asked as he continued to keep one eye on the questionnaires being handed to him.
“Over there, in the pink t-shirt and jeans. There’s a pink polka-dot suitcase next to her.”
“You didn’t tell me she was beautiful,” said Bernard admiringly. “So sad she has a broken heart.”
“She’ll be alright.” Sarah looked at her friend and saw that Bernard was quite right. Rachel was perfectly proportioned with long blonde hair, and she really was stunning.
“I hope so. She’s far too beautiful to become a wallflower.”
“Now the queue has died down, do you mind if I go and say hello?”
“Go ahead, I’ll call you if anyone collapses,” said Bernard, laughing.