Day Four (13 page)

The footage – they might recognise me.

No chance.

Really? What about last night? How will I explain walking to her cabin?

You were in shock, disorientated by the ship’s sudden stop.

And DNA. My DNA will be all over her stateroom.

They’re not going to test everyone on board.

You don’t know that for sure.

They’ll want to keep it quiet. You know the drill. By now they’ve convinced themselves that she died of alcohol poisoning. Why else aren’t they interrogating the crew and passengers?

He had to believe that.

He sat up, and hobbled into the bathroom, slightly thrown by the fact that the ship was now listing to the left. He adjusted his balance and tried not to look at the clothes he’d left lying in the stall last night, which Marilyn had hung on a line in the shower. The water spattered out of the tap, and he splashed it over his cheeks. He decided not to bother shaving – anything he could do to change his appearance would help. He sprayed himself with deodorant, slipped on a fresh shirt and pair of shorts, and made his way out of the cabin and towards the stairwell. A crew member polishing the handrails eyed him warily as he passed, stumbling as the listing floor unbalanced him. He cut through the atrium, pushing through a clump of angry people who were waiting for their turn to shout at the Guest Services staff. The woman at the front of the line was yelling: ‘My dogs are in kennels. Kennels! I was supposed to fetch them today!’

A wall of noise hit him as he stepped out onto the Lido deck. The place was heaving with people, every sun-lounger taken up. The light stung his eyes, and framed by the railings, the ocean undulated sluggishly.

‘They’ll come soon,’ a middle-aged man was saying to a group of women who were gathered round him, slathering each other in sun cream. He stepped over the outstretched legs of a passenger fanning herself with a copy of Damien’s daily entertainment bulletin, and scanned the area for Marilyn.

‘Gary!’ He craned his neck, and spotted her next to the entrance of the indoor buffet seating area, waving her arms over her head. ‘Gary! Over here, hon!’ As he made his way towards her, people turned to look at him, and he coloured and kept his head lowered. She was sitting at a table with a couple who were flashier and younger than last night’s pair. No surprise there; he’d expected that Marilyn would have moved onto fresher pastures.

‘Hey, hon,’ Marilyn said. ‘This is Samantha and Mason Patchulik.’

The guy – late twenties, flinty eyes, crewcut, scorched scalp – nodded at him. ‘Some vacation, huh?’

‘You gotta see it as an adventure, baby,’ the woman – Samantha – crooned, crossing her legs and giving Gary a calculated smile. Fake breasts, fake hair, bleached teeth. A manufactured woman. Not Gary’s type. ‘Just wish I could tell my folks what’s going on. You think Foveros will have let everyone know? They’ll be leaving to fetch us from the airport in an hour.’

Gary looked around for an empty chair, but they were all taken. He had no choice but to stand awkwardly next to the table.

‘Samantha and Mason are from Michigan,’ Marilyn said, oblivious to his discomfort.

‘Oh really? That’s nice.’

Mason shook his head as if Gary had said something woefully stupid. ‘You think? Been freezing our asses off back home. Thought we’d get some sun, booked at the last minute, got a good deal, but look what else we got. Stranded. Gonna miss our flight. They’d better fly us home business class now to make up for this. Or at the very least give us a comp cruise.’

Marilyn’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh, I didn’t think of that. You think they’d do that?’

‘If they don’t want their asses sued, they will. Gonna get them for missed earnings as well.’

Good luck with that
, Gary thought. He’d read the contract when he booked; he read it carefully every year, and he knew Foveros had its ass well and truly covered. The company could practically sell the passengers to Somalian pirates and the consumer wouldn’t have a case.

‘So, Gary,’ Mason continued. ‘Marilyn says you’re a teacher, huh?’

‘I am, yes.’

‘High school?’

‘Middle grade.’

‘Those who can’t do, teach, am I right?’

Gary managed a rigid smile. ‘Something like that.’

‘Hey, don’t mind me. I’m just messing with you. I’m in construction.’

‘He has his own business,’ Samantha preened, rubbing his thigh.

‘Yeah. Started my own business. Own boss. Get to make my own hours.’ Mason was clearly one of those guys who had to one-up everyone – Gary knew the type. He saw fledgling Masons in the schoolyard every day. He’d never been one of them – or one of their victims, for that matter. He knew how to keep his head down, disappear, blend into the background. He was practised at avoiding the staffroom dramas and the occasional parental gripes at work. And he knew what his students thought of him: Mr Johansson, the world’s most boring teacher. He rarely had trouble in his classes; got the impression the students didn’t see the point. They’d figured out that he was just going through the motions.

He glanced around, looking for anyone from his girl’s group. It was possible they were hunkering beneath one of the sheets that several people were attaching to the railings as sunshields.

‘You seen what they’re putting on for breakfast?’ Marilyn said to no one in particular. ‘Sandwiches!’

‘I know, right?’ Samantha gasped. ‘I asked one of the guys serving and he said there wasn’t much they could do as there was no electricity.’

Mason (what kind of a name was Mason, anyway?) shook his head. ‘Should have had a redundancy in place.’

‘Redundancy?’ Marilyn asked.

‘A system that would kick in during a situation like this one. It’s the regs. Saw it on Cruise Critics. All Foveros ships were supposed to be equipped with them after the incident with
The Beautiful Wonder
.’

‘How clever of you to know that!’ Marilyn said, eyeing Mason with awe. Gary hated her for it.

‘The least they could do is send one of their other ships to check on us. A helicopter, something,’ Mason said. ‘Hey!’ he shouted at a passing crew member who was stepping through an obstacle course of prone bodies collecting plastic soda cups and discarded water bottles. ‘When the hell we gonna hear what’s going on?’

‘The captain will be making an announcement soon, sir,’ the crew member said in a voice leached of any inflection.

‘That’s what we’ve been hearing all morning. This is bullshit.’

‘Hon,’ Samantha said. ‘It’s not his fault.’

‘I’m sick of this shit. I paid good money to be here.’

‘I know, baby. I’m just saying—’

‘And I don’t need you telling me what to do.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Yeah? Sounds that way to me.’

‘Sorry, babe,’ Samantha said, with a little girl pout.

Marilyn’s eyes were gleaming at this unexpected entertainment. Mason puffed his chest out like a rooster and waved the crew member away. The man drifted off, only to be accosted by a group sitting at the neighbouring table, who asked him the same question.

‘It’s gonna be a hot one,’ Samantha mumbled, fiddling with the straps of her top.

‘That reminds me,’ Marilyn said, turning to Gary. ‘Hon, I left my hat in the cabin. Could you get it for me? I’m gonna cook out here without it. And you’d better go to Guest Services and find out what’s going on.’

‘Sure.’ At the very least it would give him a chance to get away from the Patchuliks. Hopefully Marilyn would tire of them soon. If not, he’d feign illness again and find a place in the ship to hide that wasn’t as stuffy as the cabin. ‘I could be a while. The line looked like it—’ he froze as a security guard strolled past the pool deck; Gary could have sworn the guy looked right at him.

‘Hon?’ Marilyn and the Patchuliks were looking at him curiously. ‘You okay?’

‘Sorry. Sure I am. I’ll go right now. See you later.’

Gary picked his way through the herd and headed into the heart of the ship. The line for Guest Services had almost doubled, as had the clamour of raised voices. He cut past the art gallery and padded down towards his deck. In contrast to the racket outside and in the atrium, the lower decks were eerily silent. A door banged, making him jump. He told himself not to be ridiculous; he’d only just been down here. The low ceilings and endless corridors didn’t usually bother him, in fact he liked the idea that he was bobbing in a subterranean underground, surrounded by miles of ocean, but for some reason he was beginning to feel on edge. The lights were dimmer than they were before – he was almost sure of it, and the screen-printed murals, all of which showed angels wrestling with each other, were now a blur of lumpy limbs and holes for eyes. The garish carpet seemed to be breathing. A door banged again, and then he heard a steady thumping sound. A sick heartbeat. As if someone was running up to him.

He turned. No one there. ‘Hello?’

With no warning, his bowels cramped. He fumbled for his room card, dropped it on the carpet. The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck bristled, his heart sped up. Gary didn’t think of himself as possessing an overactive imagination, but it really did feel as if he was alone down here; the sole passenger on an entirely empty ship.
Thump, thump, thump
– he whirled again, but the corridor was deserted. He couldn’t decide where it was coming from: beneath his feet or from one of the cabins, perhaps. He tried the card again, and this time it opened. He propped the door open on its magnet and flicked the switch. The lights were out. His shirt was now soaked through, and he stripped it off and fumbled in the closet for another one. He was swamped with a strong, urgent sense that he had to get out of there, but his bowels cramped again, and he had no choice but to hurry to the bathroom. He barely made it. The flush button plinked hollowly. He tried it again. Nothing. Screw it.

Get out get out get out.

He lurched into the hallway, was about to hurry away when he realised he’d forgotten Marilyn’s hat. Reluctantly, he returned. The cabin reeked of his own waste and he gagged. The hat, a pink straw thing that she’d bought from a vendor in Cozumel, hung innocently over the edge of the television. He ran for it, almost had it in his grasp, when he heard the door slam behind him. He looked around wildly, thought in the blackness he could sense movement, getting the impression of two darker shapes twitching at the far end of the space.

Gary backpedalled, the backs of his knees bashing against the bed.

It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. No one’s coming to get you, there’s no one there, you’re just
—

He screamed and bit down on his tongue as a weight landed on his chest, squashing the breath out of his lungs. He tried to thrash out, but his arms wouldn’t – or couldn’t – move. Paralysed, there was nothing he could do as icy breath tickled his cheeks and cold fingers slowly spidered up his thigh.

The Devil’s Handmaiden

‘I haven’t been able to spare anyone to service your cabins this morning,’ Maria said to Althea by way of a greeting. ‘Trining is still sick, and Joan says she is unable to work today.’

Althea nodded in response. There were no eyebrows on Maria’s face today, just a smudge where they should be. It made her look as if her facial features were slowly disappearing. Perhaps tomorrow her nose would be gone, then the eyes, then the mouth, and then just smooth, blank skin. Althea mentally shook herself – what thoughts were these? She ran her tongue over her teeth. She’d been plagued with hyper-real nightmares last night; a man with rusty pliers – she couldn’t see his face – yanking her teeth out one by one. She could still hear the crunch of each root being ripped out of her gums in her mind. Her
lola
firmly believed in finding meaning in dreams, and Althea had heard somewhere that pregnant women were more likely to suffer nightmares. And then there was the boy . . . he hadn’t haunted her dreams, but somehow, that was worse.

‘Althea? Are you listening to me?’

‘Sorry, Maria. Could you repeat what you just said?’

‘I said that Security would like to talk to you as soon as possible.’

‘Yes, Maria.’ Althea was expecting this. She needed to get her story straight. She could hardly tell them that a ghost boy had led her to that particular cabin. Or admit that she was going loco. After she’d been dismissed by the tall security guard, who’d returned to the dead girl’s stateroom accompanied by a senior officer, Althea had fled to her cabin. Grateful that Mirasol, her cabin mate, was absent, she’d rolled herself in her blanket and shut her eyes tight, feigning unconsciousness. She was practised at that, it was what she did at home when she wanted to avoid Joshua’s attentions. Sometime later – it could have been minutes, or hours – she’d fallen asleep. She had a vague recollection that Mirasol had tried to wake her this morning, but when she finally crawled out of bed – three hours late for her shift – the cabin was empty. And now her brain felt like overcooked rice; she needed to clear her head, sharpen her wits.

Maria wiped a finger over the bald patch where her left eyebrow should be. ‘I know what occurred last night. I know about the dead passenger.’

‘Security informed you?’ Althea hadn’t yet told anyone about the girl, but she was not surprised that Maria knew. Maria made it her business to know everything about her staff, and it made sense that Security would have spoken to her.