by Dawn Brookes
It’s a shame she has to travel alone.
Rachel got lost at least three times while she was strolling around the ship. She found it hard to familiarise herself with the huge floating five-star hotel, which seemed to offer every amenity going. The theatre she had attended the previous night at the rear of the ship ran over two decks, providing a balcony and a stalls area. She found a cinema on deck fourteen, but noticed there was not a deck thirteen.
Her father had told her that sailors were very superstitious.
“If Apollo 13 had been a ship, it would never have been called that, and,” he’d argued, irrationally, “it would never have got stuck in space.”
“Really, Dad, the name caused the problem?” Rachel had given him her most derisive look.
“Mock me if you will, but sailors would never risk it.”
“You’re supposed to be a man of faith. How can you believe in such nonsense?”
“It’s because I am a man of faith that I know there is more to the world than what we see.”
Rachel had given up, exasperated.
Continuing her tour of the ship, she found a nightclub next to the cinema for those who wanted to stay up late. Bars were scattered throughout the ship and they all had different names that she didn’t try to remember. The jogging area went the whole way around the ship on deck sixteen. On the upper decks, she discovered some false grass and a barbecue area, and there was a golf simulator somewhere, but she couldn’t remember where she had seen it.
When she tired of trying to remember where everything was, she paused for a while and looked down from an inner rail to the pools where the party had been the night before. The grill bar was well and truly open and people were already lying on sunbeds with waiters walking around, serving drinks. Rachel saw that there were large racks containing blue-striped towels that could be used for the loungers and for drying after a swim. It had turned into a pleasant though not hot day, but that did not deter people from wearing the flimsiest of bikinis and trunks.
Rachel also noted that there was a large outdoor cinema screen on the deck where she stood. In her room the previous night, she had found a Coral News magazine that listed all of the day’s activities. She decided to go and get it from her room and find a quiet place to read.
She turned to leave.
“Rachel. What a nice surprise!”
Rachel felt slightly unnerved. “Carlos, hi. Have you been touring the ship?” she spluttered her words out.
“I have been wandering around for hours admiring the beauty of the ship, and now I see so much more beauty before my eyes.”
She felt herself redden. Why did this man have such an effect on her? She decided to ignore the remark and was about to reply when she saw a furrow in his brow as he glanced away from her. Following his gaze, she studied the people below them but couldn’t work out who, or what, had attracted his attention. She did spot Marjorie, though, making her way along the deck below.
Carlos quickly looked away, and Rachel surmised that he must just have been looking around.
“There is indeed much beauty to be seen on this ship.”
He laughed as he looked towards the women bathing in the pool.
“Well, enjoy your day.”
Annoyed and bemused, Rachel moved away.
Was I mistaken? If not, what had drawn his attention to the lower deck? There are so many people walking around, he must have noticed some bombshell to set his sights on. Rachel did not kid herself that she would be this man’s only interest.
Rachel spent the rest of the day enjoyably reading a tense spy thriller, and the hours passed quickly. Against her better judgement, she had lunch at the grill bar and consumed more fat in that one meal than she normally ate in a week. After a whole day without thinking about Robert, which in itself was progress, she felt the tension of the past few months leaving, and admitted to herself that Sarah had been right to cajole her into taking this break.
The mysterious Carlos did keep cropping up in her thoughts, though.
It’s perhaps as well I’m eating elsewhere tonight.
Rachel dressed for dinner in a smart deep-blue cocktail dress which complemented her figure and clung to all the right curves. It was low cut, but not revealing. Her long blonde hair was brushed through and she had used curling tongs to add some waves. She applied her makeup in a simple way that highlighted her face. Looking in the mirror, she could see that she already had a healthy glow. Her eyes looked an even deeper blue than usual thanks to the reflection of the dress, and she looked happy.
Sarah was smug. “You look beautiful,” she said. “But then you would look beautiful in a carrier bag! You are glowing.”
“Thank you, and you look rather gorgeous yourself in that uniform. You know about men and their uniform fantasies.”
They giggled. Their friendship had picked up where it had left off, as all good friendships do.
Marjorie was ready and waiting for them when they knocked at her door.
“Hello, Lady Snellthorpe,” said Sarah.
“Oh, do call me Marjorie.” The old lady smiled.
“You look lovely,” said Rachel, admiring Marjorie’s dress sense. She had donned a Ralph Lauren evening dress of pale green and a chiffon scarf to match. Her shoes and handbag were a darker green and they complemented her clothes. The ship was warm, but she wore a light jacket.
“And you look gorgeous,” Marjorie said to Rachel.
“What did you do with yourself today?” asked Rachel.
“I spent most of the day in the ship’s library, apart from one venture outside on the lido deck to get some fresh air. The day passed by nicely, and I read a travel adventure about a couple who trekked through Nepal, which provided some light entertainment.” She winked at them. “It made me want to be twenty again.”
Marjorie still looked spritely for her age – Sarah had told Rachel she would be eighty-five this year.
“You are looking well,” Rachel said.
“Yes, I’m thankful that apart from a bit of high blood-pressure, I am in good health. I occasionally use a stick for support as my hips are not as strong as they used to be, but I can walk for miles on the flat. I may decide to go out on deck later. One of the things Ralph and I loved to do was to look at the stars at night.”
Sarah linked arms with Marjorie and they started the long walk along the corridor to the lifts. As soon as they arrived in the officers’ dining room, a dapper man in his late fifties came towards them. Rachel noticed he was in uniform with three gold stripes on his epaulettes. He was around six feet tall with a muscular physique, and the only sign of the good life was a slight belly paunch. His engaging smile reached his dark brown eyes, and his short fair hair only had a hint of grey to the sideburns.
“Lady Snellthorpe, how wonderful it is to see you again.” He took her hand and lightly kissed it. Rachel felt she had been transported into a 1950s movie, but she warmed to his chivalry. “And you must be Rachel?”
“This is Rachel, my best friend, and this is Dr Graham Bentley, our chief medical officer,” Sarah said, laughing.
“How do you do, Doctor.”
“Tonight, you can call me Graham.”
“Only if you call me Marjorie,” interjected Marjorie.
“Come along then, Marjorie,” he said and put her arm through his before leading them towards a table set for six.
“I hope you don’t mind, but Lord and Lady Fanston will be joining us. I believe you know them, Marjorie.”
Rachel noticed a slight reticence on Marjorie’s part.
“A little. They are friends of my son Jeremy, really. I met them at a fundraising event that Ralph organised. They came along with Jeremy and his then wife, Flora.”
“I didn’t realise,” said Graham, looking a bit embarrassed at inviting the couple. He didn’t let it show for long, though. Years of medical training had obviously given him the ability to hide his feelings. “They said they were friends so I invited them along, hopin
g that they would look after Lady Snellthorpe during the cruise,” Rachel heard him whisper to Sarah. Rachel saw for a brief moment that he was obviously annoyed.
As it turned out, a note was delivered to the table to say that Lady Fanston was suffering from seasickness and could Dr Bentley look in on her later? The evening passed in a pleasant, convivial manner and Rachel warmed to the charming but professional CMO. He made a fuss of Marjorie, who had visibly brightened when she heard the Fanstons wouldn’t be joining them.
“I don’t think she likes them,” whispered Sarah to Rachel.
“No, I don’t think so either. She is such a nice lady; it’s so sad when people lose their soulmates, isn’t it?”
“We’re not going there tonight. Come on, get some champagne down you. To brighter days ahead.”
Sarah clinked her glass against Rachel’s in a toast.
“To brighter days ahead.”
Chapter 10
Rachel walked Marjorie back to her room after the meal. Sarah was on-call and had been called away to an emergency after the main course. Apparently, a lady had fallen from a bar stool in one of the bars and the baby doc was already dealing with a crew member who was showing signs of appendicitis.
“It’s interesting, getting the inside scoop into what goes on during a cruise,” Marjorie said. “I had never given it much thought before, but I suppose, with thousands of passengers and crew on board, accidents and illnesses do occur.”
“Yes, Sarah told me there is never a dull moment in the life of a ship’s nurse. It’s certainly not a revolving holiday for her, but she loves the work, and she does get to see parts of the world that she would never have seen otherwise. She has already been around the world once – not everyone can say that at twenty-five.”
“Or eighty-five, dear. Ralph loved cruises in later life, but when we were younger, travel wasn’t quite so easy and business kept him tied to England for most of his life. I’m pleased we got to travel over the past twenty years, and we had some marvellous holidays. There were some countries Ralph would never visit though. I would have loved to visit Asia and Africa but Ralph was never that adventurous. He loved Europe and we often travelled to the USA, so I can’t complain.”
“You must miss him,” Rachel replied with genuine compassion.
Marjorie sighed. “I do, but we had a wonderful marriage and not everyone can say that. You mustn’t feel you have to look after me, you know. I am quite alright, and you are a young woman who needs to enjoy your cruise and spend time with young people, not an old codger like me.”
“Oh, I am enjoying it so far, and you should understand that you are a delight to be with. I think you’re as sharp as any of my friends. I like your company and I don’t think you need looking after.”
They said goodnight and Marjorie entered her stateroom. She had enjoyed another pleasant evening, apart from the near miss with the Fanstons. Marjorie hadn’t elaborated over dinner, but she had not taken to the couple when she’d met them. They had spent the whole evening telling everyone how much they did for charity, but they didn’t contribute to the fundraising at all. Ralph had been furious with Jeremy as they hadn’t even paid for their tickets. Jeremy had given them tickets and seemed to want to impress them. The whole idea of the ticket price was that it paid for the dinner adding a little bit to the charity for those who didn’t donate on the night. There had been a row between father and son, and Ralph had looked quite ill at the end of it.
Thank goodness for seasickness, she mused as she got ready for bed.
After walking Marjorie to her room, Rachel decided to go for a walk on the upper decks where she could get some fresh air. The champagne had made her head feel light for a while, but that was wearing off.
As she opened a door to go outside, a huge draught of air almost knocked her over and she noticed the ship lurching up and down a lot more than it had done during the day, even though she was in the midships area. They were travelling through the Bay of Biscay, and the captain had said in his announcement this evening that the sea would be slightly choppy overnight.
“Take that as captain-speak for nasty storm,” Sarah had warned. “That means I am in for a very busy night – the Bay of Biscay can be a nightmare when it’s rough, but don’t worry, this baby is one of the best in the fleet and she will cope with the journey without too much discomfort. The stabilisers prevent her from rocking too much.”
Rachel wasn’t afraid of the sea. She liked the idea of seeing huge, undulating waves crashing against the ship, knowing that the liner could take it.
She didn’t think she would be staying out on deck for long as the wind was picking up. Even on a ship this size, she was struggling to keep her feet on the ground. She noticed members of the crew tying things down to stop them from disappearing over the side. The man-overboard scenario at the emergency drill the previous night had made some passengers laugh at the time, but it was not funny to contemplate someone going overboard in seas like this, and she shuddered at the thought.
Passengers were now being encouraged to move inside, so Rachel went back in to the safety and the warmth of the internal areas. Once inside, she went and sat in one of the lounges where jazz music was playing. She liked jazz, but after rebuffing the interests of a few men who had been drinking heavily, she decided to retire to her room.
Why can’t they just leave me alone?
She was still feeling like she was being watched, and no matter how much she told herself that she was being paranoid, she found the feeling difficult to shake off.
When she got back to her stateroom, she became more rational. She was not used to men approaching her all the time, but then, she had never been on a cruise by herself.
That must be what’s unsettling me.
She stood out on the balcony for a while, watching the swell of gigantic waves. Huge breakers crashed into the side spraying the hull, but they were way below where she was standing. Because her room was in the bow of the ship, it was tossed up and down more than those in the middle.
The activities on Coral Queen produced a lot of light pollution, even in the vast darkness of the ocean. There were no other ships visible, and she couldn’t see any stars through the overcast sky. Rachel could just about make out the moon in the distance. The cacophony of sound produced by the waves rose above the noise of the musical activities on the lower decks.
Finally, at around 2am. Rachel went inside and climbed into bed.
An hour later, an unfamiliar noise woke her. The ship was still rocking up and down and side to side, but it now sounded like someone was trying to get into her room.
Maybe it’s Sarah.
Bleary eyed and unsteady on her feet, she made her way to the door. Looking through the spy hole out into the corridor, she could only see the wall opposite. She unlocked the double lock and opened the door cautiously. Her heart raced as apprehension gripped her and she put her head outside to see where the noise was coming from. The corridor was clear.
At that moment, someone tapped her from behind. She almost leapt out of her skin, but managed to suppress a scream.
An American voice she recognised from the room next to hers broke the silence.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes, I thought I heard a noise, but it must have been the storm.”
“Did it sound like someone trying to get in your room, ma’am?”
“Yes, it did.”
“Don’t worry, it was a drunk trying to get into the room next door to you. I saw him off. He was on the wrong deck.”
“Oh, I see,” said Rachel, suddenly becoming aware that she was wearing a flimsy cotton nightdress and was in the corridor in the middle of the night with a man. “Thank you, I think I’ll go back to bed now.” Then she turned to him again. “What did the man look like?”
“Let me see now – just over six foot, but he wore a hat and scarpered pretty quickly when he realised he was in the wrong corridor. It happens a lot on cruise ships, ma’am, don�
�t be alarmed. The old lady didn’t come out so I guess she didn’t hear.”
The man turned and went back to his room, and Rachel closed her door, but she couldn’t get back to sleep. The ship was still being tossed about, but this wasn’t what was keeping her awake. Was it a coincidence that someone was trying to get into Marjorie’s room, or was there something sinister going on? Carlos’s face came back into her head – had he been watching Marjorie when she had met him on the deck the previous day? What was going on?
She told herself that she needed to get some perspective. Her police training and experiences were starting to give her a warped view of the world. Sarah had said it was the same for nurses: they see so much illness that it is sometimes hard to believe that there are people in the world who are healthy.
Could that be what is happening to me? Rachel had spent so much time catching criminals that maybe she thought a criminal lurked around every corner. She pulled a pillow on top of her head. Oh boy, I need this holiday.
Chapter 11
After a very restless and disturbed night, Rachel awoke to a knock on the door. She staggered to answer in the dark and was greeted by the ever-cheerful Josie.
“Sorry, madam … Rachel, I was going to do your room. I didn’t realise you were asleep. Shall I come back later?”
“Yes please.”
As Rachel closed the door, the first thing she noticed was that the ship was moving normally with just a slight rocking motion. She opened the curtains to a glorious, clear sky, and she couldn’t believe it when she looked at her watch and realised it was 11am.
She picked up the phone and asked for coffee to be sent to her room, and then went for a shower. When she got out of the shower, she heard a knock at the door and a kitchen waitress brought in a pot of coffee. Rachel gave her a tip and closed the door behind her. She had left the demons of the previous night in her bed and told herself to relax and enjoy her holiday.