And yet, there was something defining about that girl, something I was sure I’d recognize if I saw her again. It wasn’t the features—they were pretty, but ordinary enough. It wasn’t the hair, or the Pink Floyd T-shirt. It was something about her, the sheer liveliness and vivacity of her expression as she peered sharply out into the corridor, her surprise as she had seen my face.
Was it really possible she was dead?
But the alternative was not much better. Because if she wasn’t, the only other possibility—and suddenly I wasn’t sure if it was better or worse—was that I was going mad.
- CHAPTER 13 -
Ulla and Nilsson both excused themselves when my breakfast arrived, leaving me to stare out the window as I ate. Up here, with a view of the sea and the deck, I didn’t feel quite so sick, and I managed a respectable amount of breakfast, feeling the energy come back into my limbs and the nagging nausea abate. It struck me that at least half the reason I had been feeling so crappy was probably low blood sugar. I always get strange and shaky on an empty stomach.
But though the food and the sight of the ocean made me feel physically better, I could not stop running over last night’s events in my head, replaying the conversation with the girl, the surprise on her face, the touch of irritation as she shoved the mascara into my hand. Something had been going on—I was sure of it. It felt like coming into a film halfway through, struggling to work out who the characters were. I had interrupted the girl doing something. But what?
Whatever it was, it was probably linked to her disappearance. And whatever Nilsson thought, I could not believe she had been cleaning the room. No one cleaned a room in a thigh-skimming Pink Floyd T-shirt. And besides—she just hadn’t looked like a cleaner. You didn’t get hair and nails like that on a cleaner’s wage. The gloss on that thick dark mane had spoken of years of conditioning wraps and expensive low lights. Industrial espionage? A stowaway? An affair? I remembered the cold glint in Cole’s eyes as he spoke about his ex-wife, and Camilla Lidman’s bland reassurances downstairs. I thought of Nilsson’s lumbering strength, of Alexander unpleasantly dwelling on the topic of poison and unnatural death last night at dinner—but each possibility seemed more unlikely than the last.
It was her face that troubled me. The more I struggled to remember it, the more it blurred. The concrete bits—her height, the color of her hair, the state of her nails—all that I could picture clearly. But her features . . . a neat nose . . . narrow dark brows carefully plucked. That was about it. I could say what she was not: plump, old, acne-spotted. Saying what she was was far harder. Her nose had been . . . normal. Her mouth . . . normal. Not wide, not rosebud, not pouting, not bee-stung. Just . . . normal. There was nothing distinctive that I could put my finger on.
She could have been me.
I knew what Nilsson wanted. He wanted me to forget what I’d heard, the scream, the stealthy slide of the screen door, and that horrible, huge slithering splash.
He wanted me to start doubting my own account of things. He was taking me seriously, only to make me start undermining myself. He was letting me ask all the questions I wanted—enough to convince myself of my own fallibility.
And part of me couldn’t blame him—this was the Aurora’s maiden voyage, and the boat was stuffed with journalists and photographers and influential people. There was hardly a worse time for something to go wrong. I could imagine the headlines now: “Voyage to Death—Passenger on Luxury Press Trip Drowned.” As head of security, Nilsson’s neck would be on the line. He’d lose his job, at the very least, if something went wrong on the Aurora, on the very first voyage he was involved in.
But more than that—the kind of publicity that an unexplained death would generate could sink the whole enterprise. Something like this could scupper the Aurora before she was even launched, and if that happened, everyone on board could lose their jobs, from the captain down to Iwona, the cleaner.
I knew that.
But I had heard something. Something that had made me start from my sleep with my heart pounding two hundred beats per minute, and my palms wet with sweat, and the conviction that somewhere very close by, another woman was in grave trouble. I knew what it was like to be that girl—to realize, in an instant, how incredibly fragile your hold on life could be, how paper-thin the walls of security really were.
And whatever Nilsson might say, if nothing had happened to that girl, then where was she? The scream, the blood—all those I could have imagined. But the girl—I definitely hadn’t imagined the girl. And she could not have vanished into thin air without help.
I rubbed my eyes, feeling the gritty residue of last night’s eye makeup, and I realized—I had just one single thing to prove she had not been a figment of my imagination: that Maybelline mascara.
Wild thoughts tripped through my head, one after the other. I would take it back to England in a plastic bag and get it fingerprinted. No, better yet, I’d get it DNA tested. There was DNA on makeup brushes, wasn’t there? On CSI: Miami they would have based an entire prosecution case on a trapped eyelash. There must be something they could do.
I pushed aside the mental image of myself marching up to Crouch End police station with a mascara in a bag and demanding advanced forensic analysis from a police officer only barely restraining his amused smile. Someone would believe me. They had to. And if they didn’t I’d—I’d pay to get it done myself.
I pulled out my phone, ready to google “private DNA testing cost,” but even before I had unlocked the home screen, I realized how crazy it was. I wasn’t going to get police-grade DNA testing from an Internet company specializing in cheating spouses. And what would the results tell me anyway, without anything to compare it to?
Instead, I found myself checking my e-mail. Nothing from Judah. In fact, nothing at all. There was no phone reception, but I seemed to be connected to the boat’s Wi-Fi network and I forced a refresh. But nothing happened. The little “updating” icon whirred and whirred, and then NO NETWORK CONNECTION popped up.
With a sigh, I put the phone away in my pocket and surveyed the blueberries on my plate. The pancakes had been delicious, but my appetite was gone. It seemed impossible, surreal: I’d witnessed a murder—or had heard one at least—and yet here I was, trying to force down pancakes and coffee, while all the time there was a murderer walking free and there was nothing I could do.
Did they know they’d been heard and reported? With the noise I’d been making, and the questions I’d been asking all round the boat, if they didn’t last night, they did now.
The boat took another wave, broadside on, and I pushed the plate away and stood up.
“Is there anything else, Miss Blacklock?” Bjorn asked, and I jumped violently and swung around. He had appeared as if by magic from a door set into the paneling at the back of the room. It was almost impossible to see unless you knew it was there. Had he been there all that time, watching me? Was there some kind of spy hole?
I shook my head and did my best to smile as I walked across the slowly tilting floor.
“No, thank you, Bjorn. Thanks for all your help.”
“Have a wonderful morning. Do you have plans? If you haven’t tried it, the view from the deck-top hot tub is stunning.”
I had a sudden vision of myself, alone in the hot tub, a hand in latex gloves pushing me beneath the water . . .
I shook my head again.
“I’m supposed to be going to the spa, I think. But I might go for a lie-down in my cabin first. I’m very tired. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Of course.” He pronounced it like off course. “I completely understand. A little ara and ara is prescribed, perhaps!”
“Ara and ara?” I was puzzled.
“Is that not the expression? Ara and ara, rest and relaxion?”
“Oh!” I blushed. “Rest and relaxation. Yes, of course. Sorry—like I said, I’m so tired . . .” I was edging towards the door, my skin suddenly crawling at the thought of the unseen eyes that could be watching our conversation. At least in my cabin I could be sure of being alone.
“Enjoy your rest!”
“I will,” I said. I turned to go—and walked slap into a bleary-eyed Ben Howard.