by Fiona Leitch
“And Zoé, and Joel,” Will pointed out.
“Yes, but they were in the Pearl when Louise was murdered, weren’t they? They were there when the duty purser came up with the message.”
“True.” Will agreed reluctantly.
“Joel can be called many things, most of them not particularly complimentary, but not a murderer,” I said gently. He smiled.
“Sorry. I am inclined to think ill of him for the way he treated you,” he said. “But I should really be thanking him. If he’d treated you the way he should have done, we would never have met.”
I squeezed his hand. “He did us both a favour.”
“There you are!” Zoé stood in front of us, breathless. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere. You’re needed in the library.”
I grimaced. “Not another amateurish murder, I hope?”
“No,” she said, tugging me off the stool. “Your team of eager detectives awaits!”
Chapter 15
My would-be saviours were waiting in the library, with coffee and cake. My waistline gave up, waved a little white flag and accepted a slice of lemon drizzle cake. I thanked whoever had invented elasticated waistbands as I studied my team.
I was touched to see Michael and Harvey, taking time out of their busy designer shopping schedule just to clear my name. Sylvia and Heather were there too, Heather in particular looking militant on my behalf. I wondered if Sylvia knew what her cabin mate had been up to…
Michael and Harvey both leapt up and enveloped me a big double hug. It was sweet, even if it meant I could hardly breathe.
“Thank you…” I gasped. They got the hint and released me.
“Poor Bella,” said Michael. “The whole thing is just horrible. And so ridiculous! As if you would ever hurt anyone!”
Zoé sat down next to Heather, with a troubled look on her face.
“It is ridiculous,” she said, “but I can kind of see why they think it’s you.” There were a few exclamations and protestations around the table. Zoé shook her head. “No. no, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Bella did it either, but…”
But?!! Thanks, Zoé… I bit my lip but Heather glared at her.
“I was there, Zoé,” she said, angrily. “I saw poor Bella trying to save that woman’s life. There’s no way she did it.”
I sat quietly, bemused as they all discussed me like I wasn’t there.
“I’m not saying she did!” protested Zoé. “I know she didn’t do it! But they’ll say she’s the only one on this ship who had a grudge against Louise - ”
“I didn’t have a grudge against Louise,” I said mildly. “I mean, I didn’t like her, I don’t deny that. But I didn’t have a grudge…”
“They’ll say, look at the photographs on Twitter,” Zoé went on, ignoring me. “They’ll say, what about the long-standing feud between the two of them? What about the jealousy over her relationship with Joel - ”
“I wasn’t jealous,” I said, looking at Will. “Honestly, I couldn’t give a toss.”
“And then what about the murder itself? That was in one of your books.” Zoé sat back with an almost satisfied look on her face.
“Who the bloody hell are you, the case for the prosecution?” snapped Harvey. “We’re supposed to be proving her innocence, not fitting her up!”
“I’m just saying what the police will say,” said Zoé, defensively.
“To be fair,” I said, “I’ve lost count of the number of murders I’ve committed in my books, but at some point I must’ve used every conceivable murder method and weapon known to Man.”
“Yeah…” said Sylvia, but I could see she was a little less convinced of my innocence than her roomie. “The security people searched our cabin today, did they search yours?”
Harvey and Michael nodded, Zoé shook her head.
“No, why did they do that?” she asked. “What were they looking for?”
“Corkscrews,” I said. She looked puzzled.
“But they’ve already got the murder weapon.”
“They told me that all the penthouse cabins have very distinctive corkscrews, and they found Louise’s one still in her cabin after they moved her body,” said Sylvia. “So that means…”
“That means the murder weapon came from another penthouse cabin.” Zoé worked it out aloud. “So the murderer - the murderer must be a passenger in one of the penthouses!” She turned to me excitedly. “But that’s brilliant! All we have to do is find out which cabin is missing their corkscrew - ”
I sighed heavily. “It’s mine.”
“What?” Zoé looked puzzled. “But you - you didn’t - ”
“Of course she bloody didn’t!” snapped Will. “Someone took it from our cabin and planted it in Louise’s room.”
“Who would do that?” Sylvia now looked quite sceptical. “And why?”
“To throw suspicion onto me and off them,” I said.
“But why you?” asked Michael. Harvey nudged him in the ribs. “What? It’s a reasonable question.”
“We think someone saw that the finger of suspicion was being pointed at Bella and they decided to keep it that way.” Will looked around the table. “I know Bella, and I know she didn’t kill anyone. If you believe differently, then perhaps you should be off enjoying yourself at the spa or getting your nails done rather than being here.”
For a moment I thought Sylvia was going to leave. But she exchanged glances with Heather, who glared at her meaningfully, and bit into her cake instead.
“So who had access to your cabin?” asked Zoé. I laughed.
“You mean apart from you?” She looked shocked and I quickly reassured her. “It’s alright, I’m joking. There were quite a few crew members popping in and out - ”
“And Joel,” said Will. All eyes widened and looked at me. Thanks babe, I thought.
“Yes, and Joel, briefly.” I sipped at my café latte, willing my cheeks not to get hot. “But of course we know neither Joel or Zoé murdered Louise - ” Zoé was mid-sip and almost choked. “ - because they were both in the Pearl at the time.”
Michael patted Zoé on the back. “We all know where you were, sweetheart.” he said, then he started to sing. “Snitches, end up in ditches, and this music, gives me the itches…”
Everyone laughed, except for Zoé who blushed. “Oh don’t!” she said. “I was so embarrassed.”
“So anyway…” I said. “There were crew members popping in and out all the time.” I stopped as something occurred to me. “Zoé, do you know who that steward was, the one who helped you get Louise back to her cabin?”
Zoé shook her head. “No, sorry. I hadn’t seen him before, I don’t know where he normally works. Why?”
“Well, not to put too fine a point on it, Louise was as smashed as a plate at a Greek wedding. She could barely stand up when she left the Pearl.”
Zoé nodded. “Yes, we had to almost carry her.”
“She wasn’t in a fit state to let the killer into her cabin,” I said. “So how did they get in?”
“When the cabin door shuts behind you, it automatically locks,” said Will. “Maybe you put it on the latch as you left, so you could check on her later?”
Zoé shook her head. “No, we didn’t even think of that. We were just going to let her sleep it off.”
“You and the steward?”
“Me and Joel.” Zoé looked meaningfully at me. Don’t look at me like that every time his name comes up! “I’d propped the door open to carry her inside, then the steward left - I was trying to be discreet, like you said, so I sent him away - and then Joel stuck his head around the door to make sure she was alright. But we made sure the door shut behind us when we left.”
“So the murderer must have had a key card…” said Heather thoughtfully. “There are spare keys at the pursers’ desk. Mine wouldn’t work properly yesterday, so I took it down there and they programmed a new one for me.”
“Exactly,” said Will. “A crew member - not necessarily someone on the pursers’ desk - might be able to get hold of a duplicate or a master key.” He looked carefully at Zoé. “Or maybe they took Louise’s own key after you carried her inside.”
“You think the guy who helped me carry her back to the cabin might be the killer?” Zoé looked alarmed, and even shuddered a little bit. “That’s pretty scary, to think I was on my own with him…”
“I’m sure you were never in any danger, honey,” said Harvey, patting her hand, but she still looked worried.
“Would you recognise him if you saw him again?” asked Will. Zoé thought for a minute, then shook her head.
“I don’t know… You don’t think he’d - you don’t think he’d target me next, if he thought I could identify him?” The poor girl looked terrified. I fought down a massive irrational and unsympathetic surge of irritation - I was starting to get used to situations like this, but it was probably a bit much for an unassuming bookseller to handle - and smiled at her.
“No, of course not. We don’t even know if he’s involved. I’d just like to talk to him.”
Sylvia hadn’t said anything for a while, but now I could see that she was itching to say something. Spit it out, woman, I thought.
“Is something on your mind, Sylvia?” said Will calmly, on my wavelength as usual, and I could’ve kissed him.
“Let’s say the murderer got in with a key, or the door was left unlocked by mistake,” she said. “So how did Bella get into Louise’s cabin? I’m no murderer but I’m damn sure I’d make certain I’d locked the door behind me after I left.”
“Maybe they were disturbed?” suggested Harvey. “Maybe they heard someone in the corridor and panicked, and ran off without shutting the door properly?”
“Hmm…” I thought about it. It didn’t feel right, but I didn’t know why.
“That makes sense,” said Will vaguely, because actually, it didn’t. Like it didn’t make sense that the murderer was in such a rush to attack her and then leave. Did they know I was on my way there? Maybe they’d overheard Louise talking to the duty purser on the phone, as they lurked outside her cabin waiting to kill her…
But then why leave the door unlocked, so there was a real danger of me finding the body? I’d have knocked, then got angry at Louise’s lack of response and just gone back to the Pearl. The body wouldn’t have been discovered until much later, probably not until the next afternoon at the earliest, as we would have assumed she was sleeping off her hangover.
Maybe I was overthinking it. Maybe the killer had accidentally knocked the latch up or just not pulled the door all the way shut after them. Killers weren’t always the most intelligent people; an intelligent person would know that killing someone on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic was an idiotic move, as there was a finite pool of suspects and no way to escape.
The murderer was trapped on a ship full of people looking for them. But of course that also meant that we were trapped on the ship with a killer…
Chapter 16
It was a slightly downcast and less enthusiastic group of detectives who left the library. Will and I went back to our cabin to mull over what had been discussed, and the only conclusion we were able to come to was that we had no conclusions. The team’s support, though well meaning, had just underlined what we were up against; circumstantial evidence overseen by the court of public opinion via social media, half of whom had already decided I was guilty because they hated my books (or me personally, usually because I was successful and they didn’t deem me worthy of it or were jealous). All of which should have been easy enough to dismiss, only there wasn’t any firm evidence that anyone else had killed Louise. And in the absence of that, I was looking good for it.
What evidence there was - or ‘evidence’, as Will insisted on calling it, complete with air quotations, in order to show his contempt for it - was probably unlikely to get me convicted; Will had far more faith in the New York police than that. But probably unlikely still meant possibly likely. And of course, mud sticks. If we didn’t find out who had really killed Louise my name would be forever linked with her death, and I would always be viewed with suspicion.
Will got out his notebook - a policeman to the end. We looked at each other.
“So what do we do now?” I asked.
“We write down what we know.” He smiled. “The first thing we know is that you didn’t do it. We work backwards from there.”
Will drew out a timeline. We didn’t know the exact times; hardly anyone wears a watch these days, using their phones instead, and even then how often do you check the time when you’re at a party (unless it’s crap and you’re wondering when you can escape without it looking rude)? But the Chief Purser had told us what time the lights went out, so we were able to guesstimate from that when Louise had gone back to her cabin, what time Joel and Zoé had returned to the Pearl, and what time I had left. We were able to narrow that down to a period of between 7 and 10 minutes when the attack had taken place, between Louise calling the pursers’ desk and me finding her.
“So we kind of already knew that…” I said, my mind starting to wander. I was wondering what prison food was like. At least I’d have plenty of time to write. Hell, I might even lose some weight…
“I know we did,” said Will patiently. “That’s the framework we build on. Now we start to fill in the gaps. First, we mark out where everyone was when the murder took place.”
“There are about 3,000 people on this ship,” I pointed out.
“I know. But most of them would never even have known Louise was on board - ” I raised my eyebrows and he laughed. “Okay, with that awful laugh of hers and her need to be the centre of attention, they might have spotted her. But the only people who really had any interaction with her, and therefore the most opportunity or motive to kill her, are our murder mystery party and the crew who served her deck and in the Pearl.”
“There could be someone else on the ship who knew her, and who purposely steered clear of her until they got the chance to strike,” I said. Will shook his head.
“Not really. It looks like this was an opportunist murder. The murderer saw that she was pretty much incapacitated and would be an easy target. They may even have had the opportunity to take her key while Zoé and Joel were preoccupied with making sure she was okay.”
“That steward,” I said, and this time he nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “Although of course we have no idea what their motive would be, but they had the greatest opportunity.”
“We need to find them.”
“We will.”
I looked at his timeline. “So who was in the Pearl when the murder happened? That’s the easiest place to start.”
“Well, you were for some of that period, obviously. We were with Joel, and the Chief Purser…”
I thought back to the other murder - the pretend one - and who had gathered around the body, which must have been happening as Louise made her final phone call.
“Okay, Harvey and Michael were all over the pretend corpse, laughing at the poor man. Sylvia, but not Heather or Karl - we’ve got a pretty good idea where they were.”
Will nodded. “Yes, but we can’t discount those two. They were in the cabin next door when you showed up - I know you heard them apparently going at it like a couple of Duracell bunnies, but they could feasibly have bumped off Louise then run next door and made ooh and aah noises when they heard you coming.”
“If that’s the case then they both deserve a BAFTA for the Most Convincing Sex Noises, because it sounded like I wasn’t the only one coming.”
Will laughed. “I thought most women could fake a convincing orgasm? Or did When Harry Met Sally lie to me?”
“I can honestly say I’ve never had to fake it with you, babe,” I said loyally, fluttering my eyelashes. He laughed again and leaned across the table to kiss me.
“Thank you. I don’t even care if you’
re lying.”
I studied the timeline again. “The Bauers were there, and the other two - what were their names again? Laura and…?”
Will consulted his notes. “Lauren Donaldson and Peter Maguire. Yes, all four of them were on Louise’s team. The Bauers were poking around looking for the murder weapon - the pretend murder weapon - but I noticed at the time the other two were hanging back a bit.” He looked at me, with a small but triumphant smile on his face.
“What?”
“I reckon they’re actors, and they were hanging back because one of them was the pretend murderer.”
‘Well that’s brilliant, detective, but let’s concentrate on the real murder, shall we?”
Will laughed. “Sorry. Who else was there?”
“The old dear - you know, the deaf one whose hearing dramatically improves every time she’s offered a free drink? And the younger one who I assume is her daughter, I don’t know their names…”
Will looked at his list. “I think that’s Doris and Sarah Pullman. Not much of a holiday for the daughter.”
“No, poor woman. Then there was James Bond and Moneypenny - ”
We went through the list of names, and sure enough everyone was in the Pearl throughout the whole murder window. Everyone, except me.
“Oh, and Zoé was there of course.”
“Where was she?” asked Will, marking her down on the timeline. “I don’t remember seeing her when the lights came up.”
“No, but her phone went off in the dark, remember? And then she gave the grieving widow a brandy.”
Will nodded. “Oh yes, the Chief Purser wasn’t too happy about that.”
“She must’ve been near the bar, behind us,” I said. “Talking of which, who was serving at the bar?”