Murder on the Orient (SS): The Agatha Christie Book Club 2

by C. A. Larmer

  “Anita, I heard a rumour that Corrie was… how do I put this? Not exactly faithful to her husband.”

  Anita shot her a glance. “So?”

  That sounded like confirmation to Alicia, and she tried not to sound too eager as she said, “So she was having an affair?” Anita rolled her eyes, refusing to answer, so Alicia said, “Well do you think the threatening letter might have had something to do with that?”

  “How many times do I have to tell everyone, Tonio didn’t do it!”

  “I never said he did,” Alicia replied quickly. “But I did hear they’d had a fight about it on the night she fell overboard.”

  “I’m telling you, he doesn’t have it in him!”

  Alicia held a hand up this time to placate her. “Okay, okay, so who do you think did it? What do you think happened to Corrie?”

  Anita went to answer and then frowned. “Why do you care so much? What’s it to you anyway?”

  “I told you, she came to my book club asking for our help. I feel we let her down. I wonder whether it has something to do with a man.”

  “Corrie and her bloody ‘men’!” She dragged on the cigarette irritably.

  “Men? So there was more than one?”

  Again the woman clamped up and said nothing. Alicia wondered whether to push her further. If Corrie was like a lion, this one seemed more like a clownfish, bobbing in and out of the anemone, bold one minute, skittish the next. Alicia tried a different tactic to draw her back out.

  “Please, Anita. We’re just trying to help. We need to find out who might possibly have wished her harm, that’s all.”

  Anita exhaled loudly and eventually said, “It could have something to do with the thefts I suppose. Maybe Corrie knew more about it than she let on. Maybe she’d worked out who the thief was and he’d threatened her.”

  “Really? You’d threaten to kill someone over a few missing frocks?”

  “Frocks?” Anita stared at Alicia like she was a bit dim before it clicked. “Oh, God no, it was much more serious than that! Some jewellery had disappeared.”

  “Jewellery?”

  “Yah! Why do you think all those rich madams jumped ship in Sydney? Wouldn’t want to lose the family heirlooms!” She took a quick swig of her drink then explained, “Somebody had been stealing jewellery, and I’m not talking costume crap, this was the real deal. It’s all very hush-hush, of course, poor Tonio is terrified they’ll lose all their high-class clientele. But yeah, it’s been a bit of a racket for a while and even made quite a few passengers sick. I guess losing a hundred grand worth of pearls will put your heart out of kilter. I think one had to be stretchered off in Sydney by that hot new doctor we’ve got on board.”

  “Dr Anders?”

  She nodded. “Sure, it’s the only reason he’s here, right? Corrie said they hired him to help out with all of that.”

  Really, thought Alicia. This was news to her. “They brought a doctor on board to help with missing jewellery? Why would they do that?”

  “I don’t know, maybe he’s not really a doctor. Maybe he’s an undercover agent!” She chuckled at that, then pointed her cigarette at Alicia. “You should be grilling him. If you ask me, he’s the one with all the answers.”

  Alicia plastered a smile to her lips and got to her feet. “Good idea, Anita. I think I’ll do just that.”

  Chapter 8

  Grilling was too good for Dr Anders, Alicia decided as she raced down four flights of stairs to the surgery. He needed to be roasted, slowly, in a boiling hot oven.

  “You’ve just missed him, I’m really sorry,” said the nurse, a young man this time, one with a more sympathetic bedside manner. “He’s just on the way to his room, but if you want to take a seat, I’ll see if I can get him back for you.”

  “No need, thank you!”

  Alicia dashed out and up again, this time heading for cabin S38. Just as she reached the third-floor landing, she spotted Anders holding his door ajar about to step inside. She called out, and he stopped, spun around then stepped back out into the hallway, calling loudly, “Alicia Finlay, what can I do for you?”

  She held a hand up, waiting until she got closer, then said, “We need to talk.”

  She indicated the cabin, but he just pulled the door tighter behind him.

  “Can it wait? I’m in the middle of something.”

  She put one hand on her hip. “Yes, an investigation into some stolen jewellery, apparently.”

  His eyes widened. “How did you—?”

  “Find out my boyfriend is keeping a secret from me? Good thing my new bestie, Anita Monage, has a big mouth.”

  Glancing around furtively, he lowered his voice and said, “Look, it’s not how it appears.”

  “Oh, so you weren’t brought on board specifically to help investigate some missing jewels?”

  “Well, yes, I was, but… well, I’m not an investigator as such.”

  “Yah! As Anita would say. I know that! You’re just a family doctor, and we’re all just lowly book lovers. You’re always the first to remind us of that, to insist we butt out of other people’s mysteries because we’re just amateurs. But here you are investigating a mystery that I didn’t even know existed! I thought Corrie had just lost a few tacky kaftans.”

  “No, well, yes. Corrie didn’t have any jewels stolen, not that we know of, but the others did.”

  “Others? What others?”

  “Look, I’m sorry, Alicia. I would have told you. I nearly did tell you several times, but Captain Van Tussi insisted on confidentiality. I wouldn’t have gotten this job if I’d blabbed to anyone.”

  “Anyone? I’m not just anyone!” Then she stopped and folded her arms. “Although, you know, that’s exactly how I feel whenever I’m around you these days. No, it’s worse than that. I feel like nobody.”

  “Oh, Alicia—”

  “Sorry, but you have pretty much ignored me since we got on board, and I was supposed to be cool with that because you had a surgery to run. Turns out you’re off on some little adventure of your own and I am cordially not invited.”

  “Alicia, come on, please. I…” He glanced towards his door again, then sighed heavily. “Look, I can’t talk right now, I’m really sorry. I’ve got to go. But let’s meet up… later.”

  “Oh, great idea because that worked out so well last time.”

  She swivelled around to storm off when something occurred to her, and she turned back, expecting to see him standing there, a pitiful look in his eyes, but he had also turned away and was now disappearing behind his cabin door.

  Unbelievable!

  Alicia dashed back to grab the door before it closed.

  “And another thing!” she cried out, swinging the door wide and stepping inside. “I’m going off to have a long, hard chat with that smarmy barman, and I don’t care what you have to say about—”

  She stopped. The “smarmy barman” was sitting on Anders’s bed, back in civilian clothes with a wide, smug smile on his face.

  Chapter 9

  Instead of looking embarrassed, humiliated or both, Anders just looked annoyed.

  “Alicia!” he said, stepping in front of the barman as if trying to shield him. “You shouldn’t be in here. I told you I’d find you later, I told you—”

  “It’s okay, Anders,” the barman said. “Let her in.”

  Let her in? Alicia glared at him with a heady mixture of animosity, curiosity and confusion. What was the barman doing giving Anders orders? And would someone please explain what he was doing in Anders’s cabin?

  Then it clicked.

  Now her jaw dropped, and she glanced from the barman to Anders and back again.

  “You’re not really a barman are you?”

  God, she had been so blind.

  He smiled. “No, but I can be a bit smarmy, that part you did get right.” He held out a hand to shake hers. “Detective Liam Jackson, I’m a senior investigator with the New South Wales Robbery and Serious Crime Squad.”

&nb
sp; She hesitated briefly before stepping into the room properly and shaking his hand. “So, let me guess, you’re undercover. Investigating a series of jewellery thefts, am I right?”

  The two men exchanged looks, and then Detective Jackson said, “You don’t miss a beat do you?”

  “No, and Anders would have told you that if he had bothered to let me into his confidence.” She turned back to him. “Why lie to me, Anders? Why all the secrecy?”

  “Hey, don’t blame Anders. He had orders to keep his involvement in the matter under wraps.”

  “Involvement?” She swept her eyes from Anders back to Jackson. “What I want to know is, why do you need a doctor to uncover a thief? And don’t tell me it’s because you heard he was in the Agatha Christie Book Club and liked a good mystery. That spiel might have worked on Corrie, but you look slightly brighter than that.”

  He laughed. “No, nothing to do with crime fiction, I can assure you. It has more to do with Dr Anders’s expertise in poisons and other toxins. But you might want to ask him that yourself.”

  Poisons? She turned her glare upon Anders who had gone very quiet. She intensified the glare, and he appeared to shrink a little under it. Finally, she thought, a glimmer of remorse.

  “I’m sorry, Alicia, I didn’t really lie as such. I just left some stuff out. Dr Hardinger from the Royal Academy of General Practitioners really did implore me to come on board, but it was because they needed a toxicologist.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I’m an expert in drugs and—”

  “No, I know that.” You idiot. “Why would they need a drugs expert on the SS Orient? What’s it got to do with stolen jewellery?”

  He looked to Jackson again as if seeking permission to speak, and she wanted to snot him for it but silently talked herself down.

  “We suspect some of the victims were unwittingly administered with strong tranquillizers. The previous doctor couldn’t get a handle on it, but I think I’ve worked out what it was. I think it was Rohypnol.”

  “Rohypnol?”

  “Yes, it’s the date rape drug—”

  “Again, I know that, thanks, Anders!” Could he be any more patronising? “What do ‘roofies’ have to do with all of this?”

  Anders glanced at Jackson who took up the story as Alicia dropped onto the seat beside the bed.

  “About the second week of the cruise, midway between London and the Cape, some expensive pieces of jewellery went missing, and the women involved have no recollection of how it happened. At first the captain didn’t take it too seriously. I think he expected the jewellery to turn up underneath the beds or something, but then he noticed a common thread. Each woman had been severely intoxicated before it happened and can remember very little from the night before. I was brought on in South Africa to investigate undercover. It was hard to establish anything at first because some of the victims couldn’t really pinpoint when their stuff got stolen. It was only later when they went to put the jewellery on that they noticed it was missing. But there was one common factor. Each woman recalled a night when they felt really woozy and woke up not able to remember almost anything from the night before. We think that’s when the thief gained access and stole the gear. We suspected drugs, which is why we needed a toxicology expert and got Anders to join us in Fremantle.”

  “Maybe they were just drunk,” Alicia said. “There is a lot of alcohol consumed on board this ship in case you hadn’t noticed.” Then she sniggered. “Oh I forgot. You were the one pouring the drinks.”

  He smiled at her again, but Anders was shaking his head.

  “These were not alcoholic blackouts, Alicia. Much more extreme than that. The problem is it’s hard to prove. Rohypnol passes through the system very quickly. Dr Linwood, the ship’s regular doctor, had not thought to check for it, but even if she had, she wouldn’t have known what to check for. I know to take blood and a urine sample as quickly as possible. It’s serious business, that stuff can kill you.”

  Alicia felt a sudden prickle of revulsion and turned to Jackson. “Oh my God, that vial of orange liquid you dropped when I first met you in the stairwell, that wasn’t…?”

  He laughed. “’Fraid so.”

  She shuddered. “So Cecilia Jollson? That wasn’t a heart attack was it?”

  They both shared another glance, then Anders said, “Well yes and no. We suspect she was given a lethal dose—whether by accident or design we don’t know. But it most likely triggered her heart attack. We’ll know more once we dock in Auckland; we’d be closer to knowing if it wasn’t for Corrie going overboard.”

  For a terrible moment Alicia had forgotten all about the captain’s wife. “Do you think that’s related to this? Do you think she was drugged as well? Maybe she caught the thief at it and he threw her over?”

  Jackson said, “As far as we know, she hasn’t had any jewellery stolen, a few items of clothing, but that’s it. The Captain is smart enough to keep the good stuff in the safe. As for whether she was drugged or caught the perp, well, I guess we’ll never know now.”

  Alicia had a sudden awful thought, and her stomach did a flop. “Please tell me that wasn’t just a distraction, that Corrie wasn’t thrown overboard to slow the ship down?”

  “We’re still investigating.”

  Alicia sighed softly, then turned to Anders. “That note she showed you, maybe the thief suspected she knew his identity and was warning her to shut up.”

  “Maybe, but if she really did know who was doing all this, why didn’t she go straight to the captain or the head of security, Packer?”

  “Or me,” said Jackson.

  “So she knew you were undercover too?” she said to Jackson, feeling suddenly very foolish. “So that first night on the promenade deck when I caught you with Corrie…”

  He smiled. “We were discussing the case. She’d just got back from the drill and found that nasty letter waiting for her. She wondered if it had anything to do with the jewellery thefts. I didn’t take it very seriously, to be honest. I didn’t believe it was connected.” A sudden frown accentuated the lines under his eyes and around his lips, and he began rubbing at the side of his jaw. “Mrs Van Tussi was a major flirt. I figured it was an angry wife telling her to back off, to be honest. She hadn’t lost any jewellery, and I didn’t take those kaftan thefts seriously either.” He stopped rubbing and folded his arms. “I’m not proud to say, I gave her the brush off. I guess that’s why she turned to Anders and asked for his help.”

  “I brushed her off too,” Anders said, slumping down beside Alicia now.

  Jackson’s blue eyes squinted again. “Now you’re here, Ms Finlay—”

  “Alicia, please.”

  “—Alicia, you might be able to clarify something. Anders mentioned you witnessed Mrs Jollson returning to her cabin the night she died. She had another woman with her?”

  Alicia nodded and proceeded to tell him exactly what she saw. “So you think this woman in green could be responsible?”

  “We’re not sure; we’re certainly not ruling it out. On one other occasion while we were docked at The Cape, a steward spotted a tall woman with long blond hair, a captain’s hat and a flowing dress near the cabin of another burgled victim. We dismissed it at first. Date rape drugs are usually associated with men. But now we have to wonder whether our perp is in fact a woman, befriending rich ladies at the bar, slipping ‘roofies’ in their drinks and then walking them back to their cabins, popping them in bed and pilfering what she can.”

  “So why kill Mrs Jollson if she’s out of it? And why throw Corrie overboard?”

  “Good questions,” Jackson said. “Did the thief mean to do it? Did they go too far? Maybe they used too much of the drug by accident. Maybe Mrs Jollson or Mrs Van Tussi woke up and caught them at it and threatened to expose them. What is clear is it’s escalated and that really concerns me.”

  “Can’t you just search the cabins? Surely the jewels are still on board.”

  “We’ve searched the
staff quarters and common areas and found nothing, but the captain won’t permit us to even mention this to the passengers let alone go through their private property. That’s why I was brought on board. I’ve done security on ships before, and had a little experience behind a bar, so I was a pretty logical choice to go undercover. The Captain fears that if the real story gets out, it will be the kiss of death for the ship. Has asked me to try to solve this thing before it gets to that.”

  “Yes, but surely now…?”

  He nodded, finishing her sentence, “… now, it’s out of the captain’s hands and officially in the hands of a barman.” He added with a coy smile, “Sorry, make that a ‘smarmy barman’.” He glanced at his watch and stood up. “Speaking of which, I really do have to get back. Anders, we can discuss logistics later, but if I don’t get back to my post soon, they’ll start suspecting something.”

  “You’re going to stay undercover?” asked Alicia, her eyebrows high, and he smiled back as he opened the cabin door.

  “Don’t see why not. It’s amazing what people will tell you after a few champagnes.”

  Alicia blushed crimson red as he closed the door behind him, and she tried to remember what exactly she had said to Jackson last night during her alcoholic meltdown in the music bar. Anders misunderstood her discomfort and sat down beside her, taking her hands in his.

  “I really am sorry, Alicia. I wanted to tell you.”

  She looked at him wearily, her anger now drained. It was getting late; they had all been up since three that morning, and her eyes felt like they were about to pop out of their sockets.

  “I need to get to bed,” she said, trying to pull herself up, but he held her hand.

  “Why don’t you stay here tonight, let me make it up to you.” He raised his eyebrows playfully, and she stared at him, aghast.

  Was the guy serious?

  She tugged her hand away. Two nights ago she would have jumped at the offer. Tonight she couldn’t think of anything she wanted less.

  “I’m too tired for this,” is all she could manage as she reached the door.