by Fiona Leitch
“What do you think that is?” I said. She shrugged. “I thought at the time it was the door opening, but then I realised that the door’s on the other side of the room. That’s why I wanted to come and have a look around now.”
I stood up and let my gaze travel in the direction the flash had come from. The end of the bar was on that side of the room, blocking everything else from view. I got up and walked around it. The wall behind the bar was painted black, and with the rich decor in the rest of the room it kind of made this area invisible. The door into the Pearl’s kitchen was back here, but more to the centre of the room; so the sudden burst of light had not come from there. But as I got closer to the wall I noticed an outline, and a small handle, wooden, painted black; another door. I pulled.
Inside was a large storeroom, full of pots and pans, tinned goods, spices, flour - all the pantry essentials. It was cool but brightly lit, the large windows along one side of the room painted out. I remembered Will telling me about the cabin that had stood between Louise’s room and the Pearl, which had been turned into a storeroom; this was it. Maybe the killer had come in here and slipped through the connecting door into her cabin?
Convinced that I had a lead at last, I searched for the connecting door. It took me some time to find it, as it was blocked by a rack of metal shelves, covered in oven trays. I pushed them aside, frustrated, and found the door handle. It was firmly locked and, by the look of it, the door opened into this room, rather than the room next door; or would’ve done, had there not been a bloody great rack of metal shelving in the way. So that was yet another dead end. There was no way the murderer could’ve come in here, slipped through the door and done the deed, and then got back to the Pearl. Even if they had been able to, the lights weren’t out for that long, so it was really pushing it for time.
I sighed in frustration.
“Not what you were hoping for?” I jumped; Zoé was right next to me, and I’d almost forgotten she was there.
“No,” I said, “unless…” I looked around for the door out into the corridor; but that too was blocked, by a tower of drink crates. Had this been a bar on land, there would have been the possibility that these had just been delivered, meaning the doorway might have been clear a few nights ago; but we were in the middle of the Atlantic - everything in this room would have been put there in Southampton, and wouldn’t be moved again until we reached New York, tomorrow morning.
I turned and made my way out of the storeroom, pausing at the door. On the wall, just inside the room, was a telephone. It was an odd place to have a phone, I thought. But then it had been a cabin, so the cabling would already have been there; and it was probably handy for the chef when he was putting an order for supplies in.
It also meant that Louise’s final phone call - made by the murderer - could have been made here…
Mind whirling, I went back into the Pearl followed by Zoé. We sat at the table again and I opened up the footage once more.
“This is so frustrating,” I said, and she patted my hand comfortingly.
“I know.”
“I need to prove someone else did it,” I said, and she nodded again. “What if the police don’t believe me? What if they blame me?”
“It is annoying when the wrong person gets the credit for something,” she said soothingly, although I thought ‘credit’ was a slightly weird choice of word. I reached for the iPad again and scrolled back to the beginning of lights out.
There was the flash of light - I was certain it was someone going into the storeroom - and then the illuminated phone screen at the bottom, as Zoé’s phone rang for a good 10 seconds before shutting off.
Something stirred in my mind. I replayed it.
The phone screen lit up - and then it just went dark. Surely if Zoé had picked it up, I would see it move on the footage? It would look like the phone was floating upwards, as she picked it up and declined the call to turn the ringing off.
The phone stayed on the desk. There wasn’t even a shadowy figure or hand reaching out to turn it off, obscuring the screen. It just stopped ringing. Or the person calling had rung off, after letting it ring just long enough for everyone in the room to hear it.
Zoé had kept her phone under her nun’s habit costume; that was where she had pulled it from earlier, and then replaced it.
Zoé had said she had gone behind the bar when the lights went out, for an assignation with Rob, and that her phone had ended up on the floor when she fumbled trying to turn it off.
So why was her phone on the table? She hadn’t picked it up to turn it off - if she really was behind the bar snogging Rob, she couldn’t have done.
There was a phone in the storeroom. Someone had gone in there. Someone had rung Zoé and given her an alibi for the time of the murder.
I had assumed she’d been in the room because I’d heard her phone go off. But I hadn’t seen her. I hadn’t even really seen where she’d come from when the lights had come back on.
All this time I’d ruled her out because of that phone call…
Zoé was watching me, an unfamiliar expression on her face. She no longer looked like an over-excited puppy, and her IQ seemed to have gone up a couple of notches. Zoé’s played me like a fool, I thought. I’d been pre-disposed to, if not like her, at least think kindly of her, because she was my number one fan and because she was apparently going through a traumatic marriage breakdown, just like I had.
I am a bloody idiot.
“Oh dear,” she sighed. “I was hoping you wouldn’t work it out.” She chuckled. “I was hoping to write the book and send it to you in prison, when it was too late. Believe it or not, I was hoping not to kill you.”
My mouth suddenly felt very dry. I swallowed hard. “Well that’s one thing we’ve got in common, then,” I said. “I’m hoping you don’t kill me as well.”
“Ah, but I think it’s too late for that,” she said regretfully. She almost sounded sincere. I went to stand up, but then stopped as I felt something sharp pressed into my side. I looked down to see a very sharp carving knife, pressed against my kidneys.
“Bloody hell!” I said. “You say you were hoping not to have to kill me but you still came prepared.”
She shook her head. “I just got it out of the store cupboard,” she said. Bollocks. Note to self: when on the trail of a serial killer, avoid big cupboards full of potential weapons. It was a rookie mistake, but it was also possibly my last one.
But Will was on his way. If I could just keep her talking long enough for him to get here… On cue, my phone rang. I looked at her.
“If that’s Will and I don’t answer, he’ll know something’s wrong,” I said. She stared at me thoughtfully.
“Okay, take it out and see who it is.”
I took out my phone and placed it on the table. “It’s my agent.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Susie Slater? Answer it.” I went to pick the call up but she stopped me. “Put it on speakerphone and don’t try anything. Just tell her everything’s fine.”
I answered the call. “Hi Susie.” My voice sounded funny, kind of like I was being held at knifepoint by a mad woman. She was sure to know something was up.
“Oh my god!” said Susie, speaking in her normal slightly rushed you-are-NOT-going-to-believe-this voice. “I just got your message. Sorry, Guy took me to this Buddhist retreat place, did I tell you he’s thinking of taking up meditation? Anyway we went for a look round and you would NOT believe it, they don’t let you take your mobile phone in with you! We had to leave ours in a box by the entrance. That put Guy off, I can tell you. Anyway - ”
“Yeah, I’m fine thanks for asking,” I said, somewhat aggrieved that she hadn’t asked how I was. I’m stuck on a boat with a serial killer and I’m being set up for their murders, and you are NOT going to believe this but being framed is currently not the worst thing I’m facing.
“Sorry, darling, how are you? Anyway I looked into this Sarah woman and act
ually, you really wouldn’t believe it but I’m in the middle of reading her book and it’s really good! If you see her tell her I’ll be ringing for a chat.”
“That’s great…” I said. I was trying to recall a conversation we’d had a while ago, inspired by something daft I’d seen on Twitter. You’ve been kidnapped and your captors are listening in to your phone call, so you can’t tell anyone - what would you say that was so out of character that the person on the other end of the phone knew you were in trouble? We’d had a good laugh at that. I could remember what I’d come up with, but I wasn’t sure I could introduce the phrase, ‘Actually I think Boris Johnson is a misunderstood genius and not at all twattish’ without it sounding suspicious.
Susie hadn’t noticed my uncharacteristic lack of conversation and carried on.
“I did come up with someone else, though. Do you remember, after we brought out Dead in Venice, that woman who contacted me and said you’d stolen the idea from her?”
I looked at Zoé and I immediately knew who that woman was.
“Oh yeah, I remember her,” I said deliberately. “She was a bloody nutcase.”
Zoé opened her mouth to speak, but remembered the phone in time. Damn.
“Well I have to confess I did rather downplay the situation,” said Susie. “You’d been through such a lot, and you were just finding happiness again with Will, I didn’t want anything to spoil it…”
“What happened?” I asked, looking unwaveringly at Zoé, who was starting to look flushed and angry.
“She was convinced you’d read a manuscript she’d sent in,” said Susie. “Ludicrous of course, I’d never pass someone else’s story onto you.”
“No, you never have done that.” Zoé was looking very flustered. Good.
“Anyway, I explained all this but she was insistent and threatened to take you to court for plagiarism.” I shook my head slowly, my eyes still locked on Zoé’s, as Susie spoke. “She was a bloody pest. I pointed out the expense of a court case, the unlikelihood of her winning - even if it was true, which it wasn’t, these things are almost impossible to prove - but she kept sending us letters. Guy was quite concerned at one point. In the end we had to get Geoffrey - ” Geoffrey Maddox was the company’s solicitor - “to send her a strongly worded letter, threatening her with the police. It did the trick.”
“Did it now.”
“Well, yes, we thought so. But you think she’s connected with this terrible business there? Do you think she’s on the boat?”
Zoé reached out and disconnected the call.
“Yes,” I said. “I think she’s on the boat…”
Chapter 31
Zoé picked up the phone and tapped on the text messages. Bugger. She spotted the message I’d sent to Will.
“So you planned to keep me talking until he turned up to save you, did you?” she said. I shrugged.
“Maybe. Possibly. I don’t know - ”
“And you’re still trying to keep me talking until he gets here.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m not stupid. Get up.” She prodded me with the knife and I stood up. She followed suit, turning briefly to pick up the iPad, which was still playing the CCTV footage. “Let’s go for a little walk.”
“Fine by me,” I said. How far did she think we were going to get on a ship full of people, without someone spotting the carving knife in my side?
But when we left the Pearl, walking through the Excelsior dining room towards the lifts, other than a few staff getting ready for the evening’s dinner service there was hardly anyone about. I realised that it must be around 5 o’clock, and many of the guests would be having a lie down, before scrubbing up for the night’s festivities; as it was our last night at sea, there was to be a big gala dinner and dance, all black ties and fancy frocks.
We stepped into a lift and Zoé pressed the button for deck 5. Someone else must get in I thought, but they didn’t.
We got out and Zoé prodded me through a doorway and out onto the deck. The life boats, including the last resting place of Rob the steward, lay ahead of us.
“Returning to the scene of the crime,” I said. “Or one of them, anyway. Why did you kill Rob? Was he going to dob you in?”
“Shut up.” She pushed me along the deck, past the lifeboats until we reached the end of the metal passageway. After a calm and sunny morning, the wind had picked up and was whipping the sea into peaks and troughs. The ship was heavy enough and had a stabilising mechanism that meant it could plough through some pretty big seas, but we still staggered a little as the waves parted briefly and then came together again to thrust the boat upwards.
She pushed me against the thin metal railing. Passengers tended not to come this far along the deck, the purser David had told us, because the life boats blocked the view. Not that there was much of a view when you were mid-Atlantic; just sea, sea and more sea. We were close to our journey’s end now though, and if you squinted your eyes there was the suggestion - no more than a faint haze - of land on the horizon. If you came out here in a few hours’ time, when it was dark, the lights of New York would just be beginning to twinkle in the distance.
But I might not be here in a few hours’ time.
“So you’re going to kill me, then?” I asked, with an attempt at nonchalance. I’m not sure it fooled either of us. “What are you going to do? Stab me then leave me a in lifeboat, or push me off the deck? Or had you not planned that far ahead? Tell me, was killing Louise part of your plan?”
She rolled her eyes. “Do you really think I’m going to stand here and tell you how I planned everything?” she asked. “The murderer always does that in your novels, it’s so tedious how everything gets tied up in a neat little bow at the end.”
“It’s called ’giving your readers what they want’,” I said sarcastically. “They want a resolution. I’m assuming you’ve had less success with doing that than I have.”
She glared at me furiously. “Only because you stole my idea - ”
I snorted. Not Will-level contemptuous snorting, but getting there. “I don’t need to steal anyone’s ideas, I’ve got plenty of my own.”
“I sent you my manuscript! Your agent - that bitch - said she hadn’t passed it onto you, but six months later what comes out? Your book, with too many similarities to mine to be a coincidence.”
I laughed incredulously. “You stupid tart, that was based on a real life case that happened when I was staying in Venice. I didn’t have to make much up and I certainly didn’t copy anyone.”
“Your agent tried to fob me off with that excuse, then she got her lawyer to send me a threatening letter and I knew she was running scared. I knew I couldn’t leave it at that. This has ruined my whole life - my marriage - my husband left me, he said I was becoming obsessed - ”
“Well I think he might have had a point, don’t you, you daft bint?”
She was silent for a moment, fuming, but I thought I could see a hint of confusion and doubt.I pounced on it.
“You tried to drug me, didn’t you? You roped Rob into it somehow. I saw him put something in my wine that night, only I didn’t drink it, Louise did. So how did you end up murdering her?”
“She was bloody annoying,” hissed Zoé, and I could hardly disagree. But being annoyed and being homicidal were rather different things.
“You took her back to her cabin, you didn’t have to kill her - ”
“But I did!” she said defensively. “That idiot Rob blurted it out in front of her - I wasn’t sure how much she’d remember - ”
“I don’t understand why you tried to drug me in the first place,” I said. I had to keep her talking.
“It wasn’t meant to knock you out, like it did with Louise,” she said, and there was a definite sense now that she was panicking; she really hadn’t planned any of this. “It was meant to be a truth drug, but it was too strong. Maybe I gave Rob too much…”
“What was supposed to happen?”
“
You were supposed to drink it, and then I would either ask you why you copied my book right there, in front of everyone, or if it was too obvious that I’d drugged you I would get Rob to help me carry you back to your cabin, and then film you on my phone confessing to stealing my idea.”
“Why would Rob help you?” I asked. “Was he a friend of yours?”
“No,” said Zoé. “Not at all. He wasn’t a very nice person. I heard him talking to that other steward - Karl? - out here on my first night, about stealing from the passengers. My cabin isn’t a fancy one like yours, it’s just there - ” she pointed to a porthole just along the deck. “One of the cheap ones. The cheapest room on the ship, because the life boats block the view. I was going to carry out my plan alone, but I thought it would be easier for him to spike your drink. So I came out here when Karl left him and told him that I was going to make a very rich woman pay for wronging me, and that I would be coming into a lot of money.”
“And the promise of that was enough to get him on side?”
She shrugged. “That and a blowjob.”
I looked her, shaking my head. “You are one very sick puppy.”
“It’s not like you’re a bloody nun, is it? The way you’re leading Will and Joel on…”
A light bulb came on in my head. “Those photos on Twitter - they were you, weren’t they? You were trying to make me look bad before getting me to confess.”
“The first photos weren’t,” she said. “But they gave me the idea of taking the ‘guilty’ picture of you.”
“So when did you stab Louise? You can’t have had time when the lights went out.” Zoé had said she wasn’t going to stand there and tell me everything, but I was hoping she’d forgotten that. If there’s one thing that I’ve found to be true in real life investigations (I’ve read police reports and occasionally been allowed to watch interrogations) as well as in crime novels, it’s that when the murderer is cornered or nearing the end of the line, they really do like to tell you what they’ve done; whether it’s to unburden themselves or show how clever they’ve been, I don’t know.