Day Four (29 page)

‘Doesn’t it stink down there?’

‘Yeah. Bad. But that means there won’t be any crew down there to stop us. When I was down there last night the place was deserted. Well, I saw a security guy, but he didn’t stick around.’

‘Okay.’

A man and a woman were lying snoozing on a naked mattress outside the elevators, crusty plates and soda cups littered around them. God. At least she hadn’t had to go through that. She followed Xavier down the stairs and onto the Promenade Dreamz deck, gagging as the smell of vomit wafted her way.

Talk. Speak, take your mind off it.
‘What’s with your obsession with Celine, Xavier? Do you have some kind of personal history with her or something?’

He gave her a half-smile. ‘No. I just don’t like what she does. I don’t like what she did to Lillian Small.’

‘Yeah. That was . . . That wasn’t like Celine, either. She usually stays away from anything that can be proven.’

‘So what was her motive for that, you think?’

She shrugged. ‘Publicity, maybe. Notoriety. Perhaps she just wanted to be part of the whole Black Thursday circus.’

‘Figures. By the way, it isn’t just Celine. I don’t like what any of them do. Vultures. Predators. Telling the parents of missing children their kids are still alive. It gets to me.’

‘How did it start? Your interest in all this, I mean.’

He hesitated. ‘I wanted to be a magician when I was a kid.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’ He grinned self-consciously. ‘Didn’t have the patience. But I got into Ouija boards, messed about with the arcane. You know. A stage. And I saw how easy it is to fool people.’

They’d now reached Deck Six. The smell of mildewed carpet coated her nostrils. ‘So what do you do for cash?’

‘I have my blog.’

‘Yeah, no offence, but I’m guessing that doesn’t keep you in champagne and caviar.’

‘My grandfather left me some money.’

‘You’re a trust-fund kid?’ No wonder he had so much time to devote to chasing down Celine.

‘I hate that word.’

‘You’re rich?’

‘I’m not rich. I’ve got enough to live on.’

The smell on Deck Five’s landing was just as bad as she’d expected, and the entrances to the passageways housing the cabins were hidden in darkness. She hesitated on the bottom step. She hadn’t realised just how dark the interior of the ship could get. A velvety blackness – no, that was bullshit. There was nothing soft about it.

‘Wait here. I’ll go see if any of the doors are unsecured.’

‘How are you going to see down there?’

He grinned and held up a mini flashlight attached to a keychain. ‘I’ve got it covered.’

Gripping the railing with a gloved hand, she watched as he was swallowed up by the shadows. The fear was dissipating; she couldn’t maintain it.

A spirit guide come to life. Ridiculous. Now she was out of the suite, had some distance, she could see that. She was even becoming used to the shitty smell down here. The light came darting back towards her. ‘We’re all set. There’s one open down here.’

She followed him down the passageway, keeping her eyes on the beam of the torch and holding a hand over her mouth. And God, the carpet was wet, squishy. Her feet seemed to sink right into it, as if the ship was trying to inhale her. Xavier held the door open for her, and she stepped through, crossing a small landing and moving down towards a narrow stairwell. She moved aside to let Xavier squeeze past. Grubby white walls hemmed them in; the fluorescent emergency lights on the ceiling flickered. It was a different world from the passenger areas: utilitarian, stripped back to the ship’s skeleton, and the air felt twice as heavy.

Xavier stopped abruptly, and she almost crashed into his back. Footsteps were clumping towards them. A small Filipino man was running up the stairs, halting when he spotted them. ‘You shouldn’t be down here. No passengers down here.’

‘We need help,’ Xavier said.

‘You need a doctor? You must go back.’

Maddie peered around Xavier to read his name tag: Angelo.

‘Not a doctor. We need to get to the stage. The Dare to Dream Theatre?’

The man frowned. ‘Why not just go around the front?’

‘We have . . . reasons.’

‘It is that woman? Mrs del Rio?’

‘Del Ray. Yeah.’

‘You know her?’ Maddie asked.

‘No. But I know about her. How does she do what she does? A trick?’

‘Yes,’ Xavier said.

‘So why is it you want to see her?’

‘Tell you what, if you show us how to get there, I’ll make it worth your while.’

‘How much?’

Xavier took out a hundred-dollar bill, and the guy made it disappear. ‘I will show you. But if we see any security, then you are to say that I didn’t try to help you.’

‘Thank you. We will. We won’t get you into trouble, I promise.’

The man backtracked, and waved at them to follow him down another two flights of stairs. He ushered them through a heavy metal door, and they emerged into a low-ceilinged corridor that stank of paint, cigarette smoke and worse. The floor was scuffed, the red paint worn down.

She jumped at the sound of voices. Angelo was striding ahead, and she and Xavier had to jog to keep up with him. The air was becoming hotter; her whole body was slick with sweat. The slam of metal against metal, a clatter. They passed several small tiled rooms. In one, two surly-faced men wearing plastic gloves were slicing green peppers, discarding the slimy pieces. They glanced at her with little interest.

‘How much food is left?’ Xavier asked Angelo.

A shrug. ‘Some of the fridges are still cold. There is cereal. Stuff that was frozen. We need the electricity to cook, but there are some hotplates we can use.’

They whipped through another passageway, and now she was completely disorientated. The air wasn’t getting deep enough into her lungs.

Oh God.

She couldn’t breathe.

Angelo opened another white metal door and pushed them into a wider, featureless conduit that appeared to stretch on forever.

Angelo pointed to the left. ‘So what you must do is to—’

Their guide froze. And then he ran.

A stocky figure was stalking towards them, barking into a radio. ‘Stop!’

‘Oh shit,’ Xavier muttered as a security guard, his hand on the baton at his belt, approached at speed.

‘You can’t be down here. How did you get down here?’

‘I’m sorry,’ Maddie tried. ‘We got lost.’

The man – Ram, according to his name badge – had the darkest, hardest eyes she’d ever seen. ‘How did you get down here?’

‘Chill out,’ Xavier said. ‘We were just—’

‘You cannot be down here.’

‘Look. You guys aren’t telling us anything. We have a right to know—’

‘If you do not lower your voice, I will be forced to subdue you.’ Xavier clamped his mouth shut. It was clear that Ram meant every word. ‘I will escort you out of here. If you are found here again I will make sure you are locked in your cabins.’

He motioned harshly for them to walk ahead of him.

‘Shit,’ Xavier muttered.

They weaved through another series of passageways, up another narrow metal staircase, and then the man flung open a door and pushed them through it. Maddie got her bearings: they were on the Promenade Dreamz deck. The air smelled like a fresh meadow after the depths of the ship.

Ram slammed the door behind them.

‘Now what?’ Maddie pulled off her gloves and wiped her hands on her jeans.

‘We could go up onto the exercise deck, I know some people there.’

She thought about it, remembering the woman in the Lido buffet queue, the crowds pushing and shoving. People pissing over the side. No. She couldn’t bear it. They wandered past the casino, where a small group of people had set up a mini corral of mattresses next to the slot machines. A woman with a stricken face and clutching a bucket was making for the blackened doors of the dining room. They rounded the atrium, and Maddie could make out the entrance to the theatre. Ray was at his usual post, and he stood aside to let a small man with black hair styled in a quiff and a woman in a steward’s uniform enter. With a jolt, Maddie recognised Althea. And she realised that the man with her was one of the assistant cruise directors. She’d liaised with him a few times about the technical details of Celine’s performances. She’d been charmed by his cheerful demeanour.

‘Don’t go there, Maddie,’ Xavier said.

‘I have to know, Xavier.’

‘Know what?’

‘Why Celine’s cutting me out. Why she’s . . .’

‘Let’s get out of here, Maddie. Go back up to Celine’s suite.’

She couldn’t. She couldn’t go back there. The tune Lizzie Bean had been humming drifted through her mind. She shivered. ‘Wait here.’

Ray gave her a broad grin as she walked up to him. ‘Hey, Maddie. Round two? Or you gonna try to bribe me with something else?’ Then his expression changed, became serious, and he leaned towards her, taking her off guard. ‘Listen, you’re better off, trust me. You don’t want to be part of this scene. They’re treating her like Jesus fucking Christ.’ His eyes locked on something over her shoulder and his face shut down.

Maddie turned to see Jacob walking towards them, a bottle of cleaning spray tucked under an arm. The purple surgical gloves he was wearing matched his bow tie.

He gave her a smile that appeared to be genuine. ‘Maddie! I haven’t seen you for ages. I hope you’ve finally decided to join us.’

Jacob’s eyes flicked over to Xavier, who was leaning against a pillar at a safe distance from Ray. Maddie had no clue whether Jacob recognised him from the New Year’s Eve reading. It was likely. Xavier’s old-school hipster look didn’t exactly help him blend into the ship’s crowd.

‘Jacob. Listen . . . has Celine said anything about me to you?’

‘No. Why would she?’

‘Do you know why she doesn’t want to see me?’

‘We’re welcoming everyone, Maddie. We all have to stick together.’ He leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘Celine says it won’t be long now. We’ll be out of this mess very soon. And about time.’ He snapped off his gloves. ‘Just between the two of us, I’m getting heartily sick of tomato sandwiches and baloney.’

‘How are the others? The other Friends, I mean.’

‘We’re all doing wonderfully. It’s been such a tonic being able to share Celine’s gift with so many. Some of the crew are joining us now, Maddie. They’ve been working so hard on the ship and we’re doing all we can to put their minds at ease. Spirit will take care of us.’

Jesus.
She glanced at Ray, but he was staring off into the distance. ‘Listen . . . Jacob, I owe you an apology.’

‘An apology for what?’

‘I told Celine about your sister.’ Maddie fished for her name, came up empty. ‘You remember? You told me all about her at the meet ’n’ greet. Celine uses information like that, spins it to make you believe that she’s talking to the dead. It’s a con.’

Jacob gave her a sad smile. ‘You’ll come round, Maddie.’ Shaking his head, he walked off to the entrance to the theatre. Maddie tried to catch Ray’s eye again, but he was clearly avoiding looking in her direction.

‘Well?’ Xavier asked when she re-joined him.

She shook her head.

‘Back to the suite?’

‘Yeah.’ Xavier was right. There was nowhere else to go.

The Condemned Man

He’d made himself a nest in a shadowy area under the overhang, near to the towel station. After he’d fallen yesterday, someone had given him a couple of tablets and a bottle of water, and Gary had spent much of the night and the morning drifting in and out of consciousness. He hadn’t wanted to take the tablets or drink the water, but Marilyn insisted. The curious cloud that kept the black thoughts at bay was slowly clearing. He didn’t want it to go. There were things he’d rather not think about waiting on the other side of it. He still felt weak, and the whole of his body ached, but the physical pain helped keep his mind from latching onto the dark thoughts. And he kept having strange, hyper-real dreams. Last night he’d dreamt he’d woken to see Marilyn – he was sure it was Marilyn – naked and shrieking, her arms around someone in the Jacuzzi.

He scrunched his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around his head. Time went smoother if he slept.

When he woke, his friend from the medical bay, the big black man in the shabby dungarees, was leaning against the railings. He grinned at Gary, then pressed a finger to his lips.
Shhhh, don’t tell.

I won’t
, Gary mouthed back at him.

Don’t tell what?

A hot stone in his gut.

Of course.

The girl. His girl. Did the man know what he’d done?

How could he?

A whisper of fear tickled over his skin. And the fear was real. Something else had happened. Something that had caused him to end up in the infirmary, but it was slippery, and he couldn’t get hold of it.