by C. A. Larmer
The waiter nodded and scurried off.
“What happened? What do you know?” Dermott asked, kneeling down in front of her as a small crowd of passengers gathered round.
Billie sighed heavily and dropped her head against the back of the seat, closing her eyes for many seconds before opening them and finally speaking. “It was my sisters and Perry.”
Alicia’s stomach lurched. “What was your sisters and Perry? What are you talking about?”
“They heard her,” Billie said, sitting forward now. “They heard Corrie fall.”
That silenced everyone again. Eventually someone said, “How? What do you mean?”
And so Billie explained. “We were all having so much fun in the bar, but it was close to 2:00 a.m., and somebody mentioned that we should let the poor staff get some sleep or something. So we were leaving. I was ahead of the others, and they were taking so long on the deck, singing and carrying on.” She smiled apologetically. “We had all had a little too much to drink.”
As if on cue the waiter reappeared, a tumbler of whisky on a tray, and she snatched it up with a nod and downed it without any sense of irony.
“Anyway,” she continued, wiping her mouth with one hand as she dropped the empty glass to her lap. “I was almost at my cabin when Tillie came running down the hallway, screaming like a madwoman about someone going overboard and we had to stop the boat. I almost had to slap her to calm her down.” She smiled thinly. “I thought she was being ridiculous at first, but I followed her back up to the deck, and Perry and Millie were both there, clutching onto the side of the railing, looking down into the water.” She gulped, and for a moment Alicia worried she was going to throw up, but she quickly took control her herself. “I asked them what had happened. They were frantic. Millie was screaming, I’ve never heard her so… frantic!”
“And Perry?”
“Him too. Distraught! They said they had heard a scream, a very bad scream and then a splash!” She gasped as if hearing it herself for the first time. “I… I didn’t really believe them at first.” Another apologetic glance. “They had drunk so much, you see and… well, I thought maybe they were joking or had got it wrong. It could have been a deck chair going over in the wind or… But they were adamant!”
“Did they see Corrie?” Lynette asked, and Billie shook her head.
“I don’t see how they could have. It was dark, so dark.”
“Then how did they know it was Corrie?”
She looked up at her, confused for a moment then said. “They didn’t. Not at first. We… we ran back to the bar and alerted the staff, and well, they alerted the captain, and then I guess he must have checked on his wife. I don’t know. I just don’t know!”
She dropped her head into her hands and Dermott gave her back a comforting pat.
“There, there,” he said. “They will find her, you will see.”
She shook her head again as if she did not believe him, so he added, “Remember that cruise where we first met? The Bahamas? That drunk guy fell over, and they found him? Within an hour they had him back on deck, dripping and grinning like a fool?”
“That was the middle of the day,” she muttered. “This is different.”
Eventually another passenger who had been listening in asked, “Where are your sisters now, Billie?”
Billie looked up and fluttered a glance towards the book club friends.
“The doctor has given them all something to settle their nerves. They are very distressed. They have spent the past two hours with the crew, telling them everything they know. I am hoping, finally, they are back in their cabin, getting some rest.”
“And Perry?” Claire asked.
She lifted one shoulder. She did not know.
Dermott sighed. “It’s tragic. Absolutely tragic. Poor, poor Corrie.”
They all nodded along, but Alicia’s mind was doing some back peddling. She remembered that first night on board, the way Dermott had spoken of Corrie, the way she herself had seen Corrie whispering sweet nothings in the handsome barman’s ear. Maybe when the captain went to check on his wife she wasn’t in her room because she was in someone else’s. Perhaps this was all just a terrible misunderstanding.
She felt a stab of guilt again and then quickly pushed it aside.
It didn’t make any sense anyway. Even if Corrie had been in someone else’s cabin last night, surely the commotion—the jolting of the ship, the siren—would have flushed her out. No, there was no getting around it. Corrie was in the drink.
Chapter 13
By the time breakfast was served in the galley, most of the passengers had returned to their cabins to catch up on their sleep. Those who remained headed straight to the coffee bar where bleary-eyed waiters struggled to keep up with the orders.
Dermott had left, escorting a downcast Billie back to her room, but the book club friends were feeling wired, and all agreed sleep was impossible now. Their first instinct was to seek out Perry, but they quickly concluded that if he was in his cabin, he probably needed some rest, so they decided to join the stragglers in the restaurant and sat, dispirited, in front of coffee cups and soggy pastries.
Alicia didn’t know if Missy’s earlier comment was correct, but she had certainly heard of passengers going overboard cruise ships before. Most recently an Australian couple had been lost at sea after a suspected lovers’ tiff—she had thrown herself over, apparently, and he had foolishly jumped in to save her, his unflinching devotion sealing their fate forever. Or so the story went. Unlike the incident Dermott had mentioned, this tragedy had happened in the dead of night, and their disappearance had not been noticed until the next morning after the ship had docked.
She realised that Corrie was one of the lucky ones. Someone had heard her scream the moment she went over. There was still a chance she would be found before hypothermia kicked in. Alicia glanced at her watch and frowned. It was now 4:45 a.m., several hours since Corrie had fallen in, and hope must surely be fading.
“I suppose you already imagined this in all its gruesome glory?” Lynette was saying, pulling Alicia from her thoughts. She looked up with a start.
“What? No, no I really didn’t. I mean, Dame Dinnegan sure—although I never really took that seriously, or not at first—but Corrie? Never!” She sighed. “Perhaps I should have.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.” She was too weary to think about it now.
“Terrible way to go,” said Missy.
“They may find her yet!” snapped Claire, whose mood had turned as dark as the sky outside. They all longed for the sun to do everyone a favour and poke its head up, not just to lighten their moods but also to assist in the search.
“So did she jump, do you think?” asked Missy, biting down on an apricot Danish. “Or was she pushed?”
Unlike Claire, the ordeal seemed to have lifted the librarian’s spirits. It was not that she was heartless. It had more to do with the fact that an intriguing mystery had just landed in Missy’s lap and she loved nothing better than a little intrigue. She was a member of the Agatha Christie Book Club, after all.
“The scream is a bit of a giveaway,” said Alicia. “Billie said the others heard a scream before the splash. If you were committing suicide—and I can’t imagine that beautiful, confident woman trying to top herself—but even if you did, would you scream?”
Missy was nodding enthusiastically now. “I read once that almost every person who tries to commit suicide regrets it a second after.”
Claire scoffed. “Goodness, the stuff you read! How on earth would they know that, Missy? They’re all dead.”
“Well obviously some of them survived, and they must have done a survey or something.”
Claire glared at her like she was a complete fool and said, “In any case, the fall would make me scream whether I intended to jump or not. It was chilly out last night, that cold, dark water rushing towards you…” She shivered. “Dreadful business. I can’t see how we can poss
ibly continue on and pretend to be having fun after all of this.”
That was clearly one reason for her foul mood. This beautiful ship had now been sullied. Claire would gaze at its lush, walnut interiors and ornate furnishings a little less romantically from this point on.
The group stared moodily into their cups for many minutes before Alicia had a bright idea.
“There must be cameras on the balconies. They’ll know more once they check the CCTV footage, right?”
She was recalling the grainy black-and-white images she had seen on the TV news of the aforementioned Aussie couple. It had been released by the cruise line and flashed all over the Australian media showing first one then the other fall from their balcony to their deaths. Alicia recalled feeling helpless at the time as she watched from the comfort of her living room, but the feeling she had now was so much more intense. It was as though she had failed somehow. As though she was still failing. She felt like she should be out there too, calling Corrie’s name, swinging life buoys into the sea.
Something!
Missy was shaking her head again. “I don’t think so, Alicia. Don’t you remember the history lecture? This is a replica of an old steamship. The lecturer said it was true down to almost every detail, which is why we don’t have TVs in our cabins, no Wi-Fi on board. I suspect there are no cameras either.”
“Yes but she also said they had all the mod cons,” said Claire. “It’s not really a steamship. There’s a gym and spa for goodness’ sake! They must have state-of-the-art security too. They wouldn’t be allowed not to.”
It turns out they did have surveillance cameras on board, just not on the private balcony of the luxurious stateroom from which Corrie was thought to have fallen. Cameras were limited to the public decks only, a minimum safety requirement for this cruise line, and so there would be no grainy footage to reveal just what had happened on that dark and lonely deck several hours earlier.
The book friends only learned this later after they finally caught up with Perry, who was not in his cabin as they suspected but perched on a wooden deck chair at the stern of the ship, shivering profusely despite the woollen blanket around his shoulders. He was refusing to go inside.
Anders was with him and growing increasingly concerned, so he had despatched a steward to track down the book club friends who promptly deserted their breakfast and rushed to help out.
“Please talk some sense into him,” Anders said as they gathered around, swapping anxious looks while Perry stared silently out to sea. “There’s nothing more he can do for Corrie. He needs to get inside, in the warmth. Hell, he needs some sleep, but he won’t go in and take the pills I’ve prescribed.”
Lynette leaned down to him and said, “Well that’d be a first! Perry Gordon refusing drugs.”
That brought a sliver of a smile to the man’s lips, and he glanced up at her then back out at the sea, the smile vanishing again.
Lynette and Anders shared another worried look, then Claire said, “There’s nothing you can do from here, honey. You need to come inside.”
He didn’t look up this time, but Alicia had an idea.
“Actually, there is something you can do.” She perched on the deck chair beside him, ignoring the cold, wet canvas beneath her jeans. Perry didn’t look around, so she gave his elbow a light bump with hers and added, “We’re the Agatha Christie Book Club, remember?”
Someone made a strangled sound, Anders she thought, but she ignored it and kept on going, her arm now around Perry, who had stopped staring outwards and appeared to be listening.
“Corrie said she had a mystery for us, remember? When we first met her, just after the drill.”
“She lost some clothes, Alicia, nothing very serious,” Claire said gently, but there was scorn in her voice too, and Alicia glared at her.
“I know that, Claire, but the fact remains, Corrie believed in us. She asked for our help. Maybe we can do more than find a few lost frocks. Maybe we can help find out what happened to her.”
Anders cleared his throat noisily, and Alicia glanced up at him. It was as though he wanted to say something, but she wasn’t in the mood for more defeatism. It was Perry she was trying to help, and it was clearly working. He had turned to look at her, a glimmer of hope in his eyes.
“How?” he croaked, his voice almost blown away by the howling wind that slapped around them.
“We can do what we did the last time we lost somebody. You remember? We didn’t dismiss it. We didn’t pretend it was somebody else’s responsibility. We stepped up, and we tried to find her.”
“That’s right!” said Missy, getting in on the action. “We could use the remaining few days of the cruise to investigate!” She turned to Claire, who still looked sceptical. “You said it yourself, honeybun, how can we possibly continue on, pretending to be having fun? Well, we don’t have to. We continue by solving this! Working out just what happened to the poor lady!”
“But…” It was Claire again, looking like everyone had flipped. “She might still be found. She could still be okay!”
“And if she is, fantastic,” said Missy. “But if she’s not, well, we’ll do everything we can to find out what happened.”
“But,” Claire persisted, “it was probably just one of those horrible, dreadful accidents. I mean, we don’t know. We can’t possibly know!”
“Sure, but it can’t hurt to try, and it might even help,” Alicia said, giving Claire a pointed look, nudging her eyebrows towards Perry.
Anders went to say something just as a high-pitched whistle came from the other side of the deck. He swung around to find a crewmember waving to him anxiously.
He frowned. “I’ve got to run. But listen, before I go.” He stopped and looked directly at Alicia. “I know what you’re doing, and it’s very gallant I must say, but you’re forgetting one important thing.” She raised her eyebrows in response. “There are professionals on board to investigate all of this, there’ll be enquiries, there’ll eventually be an inquest. It’s sweet that you want to help, but it would actually be interference. Besides, without solid evidence, without CCTV footage, this is a really complex investigation. Unless Corrie left a suicide note, and I don’t believe she did, who knows what happened? We may never know. This time, guys, you’re out of your depth.” He grimaced at his own pun. “We need to just leave it to the experts, okay?”
Alicia went to object, but he held up a stalling palm. “Right now your priority is to Perry. He needs to be inside and warm. And I really, really have to go.”
He turned and strode swiftly down the deck towards the waiting officer.
The book club friends watched him disappear inside, and then Claire sighed heavily. “I have to agree with Anders. I mean, I want to help, really I do, but what can we possibly do? We’re just a group of amateurs.”
“No we’re not!” It was Perry at last, and he was pushing the blanket off. “Anders is wrong about that. We’re more than just amateurs.” He turned to Alicia. “You’re spot on, Alicia. We’re mystery devotees, experts at complex puzzles—we’ve been reading crime books since we outgrew Dr Seuss!”
“Yes, but that’s fiction,” said Claire.
“A mystery’s a mystery, Claire,” said Missy. “Besides, we have form, remember? We have a track record.”
“Exactly!” said Perry again. “Nobody knows their way around a mystery better than we do, and what could be more mysterious than a woman vanishing overboard?”
He stood up, his eyes blazing bright. “If anybody can work out what happened to poor Corrie Van Tussi, it’s the Agatha Christie Book Club!”
Part 2—The Evidence
Chapter 1
It was 6:00 a.m., and the sun had finally bothered to join the crowd on the deck, a bedraggled gathering of crew, voyeurs and worrywarts who were drawn as if by some misguided heroism to the stern of the ship. All eyes were on the sea below, each scanning the whitecaps as if somehow, miraculously, they would be the one to spot the poor woman, to save t
he day, to rescue the damsel in distress.
Several helicopters now cut across the horizon, and this surprised Alicia. She wondered how they had managed it. They were so far from land, “somewhere in the middle of The Ditch” was the general consensus, referring to the popular nickname for the body of water between Australia and New Zealand. There were multiple vessels too, some coast patrols, some passing fishing boats that had volunteered or been commandeered to help the search.
The book club friends had done as Anders instructed and forced Perry back indoors, but it was only temporary. They all agreed to freshen up and get a bite to eat before continuing their vigil on deck.
The truth was, though, that it was not the hot shower or toasted blueberry muffin that revived Perry’s spirits. It was the renewed sense of purpose—the idea of investigating Corrie’s disappearance—that provided the much-needed adrenalin shot. Now clutching a mug of cocoa, he, too, was staring back out at sea, his eyes sparkling this time.
“How far out are we?” Claire called out as a gust of wind roared past.
“I heard someone say it’s about 2,000 kilometres between the two countries. That’s 1,200 miles,” said Perry, “and as far as I know we’re not even halfway yet.”
“Are you able to tell us what happened?” Alicia asked gently, not wanting to upset him again, but he was keen to unload.
“I just can’t believe it,” he began. “Feels like a really bad dream that I just can’t wake up from. We were all having so much fun last night, none of us would ever have guessed what was about to…” He broke off as his eyes watered up.
“By ‘all’, who do you mean?” asked Alicia, trying to keep him on track.
He thought about it. “I know it was late, but there was a bit of a crowd after midnight.”
“I thought most of the passengers cleared off when the DJ started up.”
“Yes, and they did the first night, but last night it was packed. You see the staff are allowed to come join us after twelve, they don’t have their own dance floor, the ship’s too small for that, so it’s like a second shift starts up. They’re off duty and out for a bit of fun. But there were still plenty of paying customers too. The Solarnos—they were all over the dance floor that night—myself, at least six or seven younger couples, some older single women, that gigolo guy, and of course Dermott. Poor man, he barely gets a break. Oh and there was that strange friend of Corrie’s, you know, the anorexic one? Anita I think it is.”
