She stopped, her breath coming fast and choking, but just as I was trying to grapple with the horror of what she might have done, think of what I could possibly say in reply to her confession, she spoke.
“I haven’t been able to sleep, ever since, you know? Every night I lie there, thinking about her, thinking about how she could have been alive.”
She looked up at me, and for the first time I saw her feelings naked in her eyes—the guilt and fear she’d been trying so desperately to hide ever since that first night.
“This isn’t what was supposed to happen,” she said brokenly. “She was supposed to die at home, in her own bed—and I—and I—”
“You don’t have to do this.” I spoke urgently. “Whatever happened with Anne’s death, you can stop this now. Can you really live with killing me? One death on your conscience has driven you half-crazy, Carrie. Don’t make it two—I’m begging you—for both of us. Please, let me go. I won’t say anything, I swear. I’ll—I’ll tell Judah I got off in Trondheim and must have blacked out. No one would believe me anyway! They didn’t believe me when I said a body went over the side—why would this be any different?”
I knew why: because of DNA. Fingerprints. Dental records. The traces of Anne’s blood that must remain on the glass screen and somewhere in Richard’s cabin.
But I didn’t say any of that, and Carrie didn’t seem to have thought of it. Her panic seemed to have been excised along with her tumbling, spewed-out confession, and her breathing had slowed. Now, her face, as she stared at me, was tearstained but calm, and oddly beautiful now that her hysteria had passed.
“Carrie?” I said timidly, hardly daring to hope.
“I’ll think about it,” she said. She got to her knees, picked up the tray, and turned for the door. As she did, her foot knocked against the copy of Winnie-the-Pooh, and she looked down. Something in her face changed, and she picked it up, riffling the pages with her free hand.
“I loved that book as a kid,” she said. I nodded.
“Me too. I must have read it a hundred times. That bit at the end, with the ring of trees . . . it always makes me sob.”
“My mum used to call me Tigger,” she said. “She used to say, you’re like Tigger, you are, no matter how hard you fall, you always bounce back.” She gave a shaky laugh and then tossed the book onto the foot of the bunk, making an obvious effort to snap back to practicalities. “Listen, I might not be able to bring you supper tonight. The cook’s getting suspicious. I’ll do my best, but if I can’t, then I’ll bring you something extra for breakfast, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, and then, moved by some impulse, “thank you.”
I thought about it after she left—the stupidity of thanking a woman who was keeping you captive, buying your compliance by withholding food and drugs. Was I developing Stockholm syndrome?
Maybe. Although if I was, she had a considerably more advanced case than I did. Maybe that was closer to the truth—we weren’t captor and captive, but two animals in different compartments of the same cage. Hers was just slightly larger.
That day passed agonizingly slowly. After Carrie had left I paced the room, trying to ignore my growing hunger, and my growing fear of what would happen if Carrie didn’t face up to the reality of Richard’s plan.
I was absolutely certain that he had never intended Carrie to live much beyond establishing Anne’s departure at Bergen. When I shut my eyes, pictures rippled in front of them—Anne’s face, glassy-eyed with terror as Carrie let the suitcase fall. Carrie, walking innocently along some alleyway in Norway, a figure coming up behind her.
And now me. . . .
To distract myself I thought about home and Jude, until the pages of Winnie-the-Pooh blurred in front of me, and the familiar well-worn phrases dissolved into a flood of tears that left me too exhausted to do anything but lie there.
I was just beginning to lose hope of supper, and conclude that Carrie hadn’t been able to get any food after all, when there was a sound from the outer door and the noise of rushed footsteps in the corridor outside. I was expecting her to knock, but instead I heard the key in the lock and she flung the door open. It was obvious as soon as she came into the room that she wasn’t carrying any food, but all that went out of my head when I saw her panicked expression.
“He’s coming,” she burst out.
“What?”
“Richard. He’s coming back tonight—it was supposed to be tomorrow, but I just got a message, he’s coming back tonight.”
Tuesday, 29 September
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BREAKING NEWS: Second body found in search for missing Briton Laura Blacklock.
- CHAPTER 31 -
“He—he’s coming back?” My mouth was dry. “What does that mean?”
“What do you think it means? We’ve got to get you off the boat. They’re docking to pick up Richard in about thirty minutes. After that . . .”
She didn’t have to say anymore. I swallowed, my tongue sticky against the roof of my mouth.
“I— How . . . ?”
She pulled something out of her pocket and held it up, and for a moment I didn’t understand. It was a passport, but not mine: hers.
“It’s the only way.” She pulled off the headscarf, revealing her shaven head beneath, bristly with regrowth, and then began to strip.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re going to walk off this boat as Anne and get on a plane as me. Understand?”
“What? You’re crazy. Come with me!”
“I can’t. How the fuck am I going to explain this to the crew? Here’s my friend who’s been hiding out in the hold?”
“Tell them! Tell them the truth!”
She shook her head. She was down to her underwear now, shivering in spite of the fuggy heat of the stale air in the cabin.
“And say what? Hi, I’m a total stranger, the woman you think I am got pushed off the boat? No. I have no idea if I can trust any of them. At best he’s their employer. At worst . . .”
“So what then?” I was half hysterical. “You’ll stay here and let him kill you, too?”
“No. I’ve got a plan. Just stop arguing and take my clothes.” She held them out, a bundle of silks that felt featherlight in my hands when I took them. Her skinniness was shocking, her bones practically poking through her skin, but I couldn’t look away. “Now give me yours.”
“What?” I looked down at myself, at the stained, sweaty jeans and the T-shirt and hoodie I’d been wearing for almost a week now. “These?”
“Yes. Hurry up!” Her voice was edgy. “What size are your feet?”
“Six,” I said, my voice muffled as I stripped off my T-shirt.
“Good. Mine, too.” She pushed the espadrilles she was wearing towards me and I kicked off my boots and began to peel off my jeans. We were both down to our underwear now, me awkwardly trying to cover myself, she completely focused as she began to pull on my discarded clothes. I pulled the silk tunic over my head, feeling the expensive fabric whisper cool against my skin. She pulled an elastic band off her wrist and handed it silently across.
“What’s this for?”
“Pulling back your hair. It’s not ideal. You’ll have to be very careful with the headscarf, but it’s the best I can do. We don’t have time to shave your head, and in any case, if you’re going to skip the country under my passport, it’s probably better that you have real hair for passport control. We don’t want to give them a reason to look twice at the photo.”
“I don’t understand. Why can’t I just go as me? The police must be looking for me, surely?”
“For starters, Richard has your passport. And he has a lot of friends around here—not just in business, he knows people high up in the Norwegian police force as well. We have to get you far away from him before he puts two and two together. Get out. Get away from the coast. Cross the border into Sweden. And when you do get on a plane, don’t fly to London. He’ll be expecting that. Go via somewhere else—Paris, maybe.”