Dead Slow Ahead (Casey Jones Book 2)

by Stella Whitelaw

  ‘No. I didn’t go anywhere near it.’

  ‘Had you noticed any suspicious behaviour of any kind during the day?’

  Where did I start? I had the most suspicious mind of anyone on-board. I was a female Sherlock Holmes (call me Sherrie H), piecing things together, spotting irregularities, wondering why this and that was happening. This was not the time, nor the place to tell him.

  ‘Well, a few things but nothing that’s especially relevant,’ I said.

  ‘That’s all for the moment, Miss Jones. Thank you.’

  I got up to leave. It had been easy. No gruelling interrogation.

  ‘Just one more thing, Miss Jones,’ he said, sipping his iced coffee. ‘Did you go ashore at the last port of call?’

  It was that last question. The one that mattered. That detective on telly in the shabby raincoat, Colombo, always had a last question. The barbed one with the poisoned dart.

  Did I go ashore? For a second, I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t even remember where we had been, which port, or what I did that day. So much had happened since then. It was all a blur.

  I shook my head. ‘No, I don’t think I went ashore. It was St Tropez, wasn’t it? Yes, I went ashore there. No, sorry, it was Villefranche. I’m a day out. That’s it … Monaco and Monte Carlo. No, I’m sure I didn’t go ashore. Positive. It was a busy day.’ I sounded flustered. I was annoyed with myself for using sure and ashore in the same sentence. It sounded like a weak joke.

  DCI Everton was writing something down. ‘Thank you, that’s all, Miss Jones. Please let me know when you can remember exactly your whereabouts and activities that day. Perhaps you could let me have a list.’

  I went outside, grateful for some fresh air. I leaned over a rail and watched the tenders plying their continuous service between the ship and the quayside. Santa Margherita was one of my favourite places. I could easily spend a month here, in a small hotel, having a lazy time, exploring all the picturesque villages nearby, eating at local cafés.

  That last question was meant to pin me down. There’s always one last question that tricks the villain into saying something he didn’t mean to say. The DCI was checking up on me. Surely I wasn’t a suspect?

  But I could be. I was the only witness as to what happened in the interview room in the morning. Mr Belcher might have threatened that they were going to report me for interfering in a domestic matter, for publicly humiliating them in front of other passengers. If they had threatened to report me, it gave me a motive of sorts.

  I tried to dredge up any other fragments of a motive. If Miss Ember was found brutally murdered, I’d certainly be top of the suspect list. I’d probably give the murderer an alibi.

  Derek Ripon was the next one to waylay me. It was a day of entrapments, ambushes, accosting. Pass me Harry Potter’s invisible cloak.

  ‘I suppose now we’ve got a murder, no one is interested in petty crime,’ he said bitterly. ‘I’m still losing stuff out of Bond Street.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said, clucking with heartfelt sympathy, playing cute.

  ‘Yesterday it was a silver bangle off a display. We had chained it to the stand but the thief took the stand as well.’

  ‘Missing: one stand. Missing: one chain,’ I said, pretending to write it down like a copper on the beat.

  ‘You’re not taking this seriously,’ said Derek Ripon. He was so thin, he could go through an ajar door sideways. He prided himself on never eating any of our sumptuous food. He lived on rice cakes and Ryvitas. ‘That bracelet was priced at £175. It was elaborately engraved, very pretty.’

  ‘And worth every penny, I’m sure,’ I said. ‘Well, you’ll soon find out who has taken it. The passenger list is thinning. Three women and one man down, only a thousand or so suspects left.’

  ‘I don’t think that kind of flippant talk, Miss Jones, is exactly helpful. It doesn’t suit you,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘Sorry, it’s the only way I can stop myself from screaming the place down and tearing my hair out.’

  I must have looked fierce and wild-eyed, because Derek Ripon backed off quickly, muttering something about talking to me another time when I was in a better mood. Not if I could help it. I thought I knew every nook and cranny on the Countess but there was nowhere I could hide. I desperately wanted to hide.

  ‘Like a nice, quick jab?’ said Dr Mallory, appearing at my side like a good genie. ‘I’ve got something that would put you out for twenty-four hours. It’s guaranteed painless with the sweetest of sweet dreams. Pay me a twenty, and I’ll make it Brad Pitt.’

  ‘Give it to me quick. I’m stressed out. That DCI thinks I’m a suspect. He wanted to know where I was every minute of the day Mrs Belcher was murdered, whether I went ashore or not. I couldn’t remember. I can’t remember anything.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Casey. Everyone is a suspect. We all are. Practically everyone had the opportunity but who had both the opportunity and a motive? That’s the crucial question. Who had a motive?’

  ‘It wasn’t me.’ I sounded about five years old, accused of stealing a packet of Smarties from Woolworths. Samuel put his arm round me in a purely bedside manner. But it was comforting and as always, he smelt so refreshingly nice.

  ‘I need to hide somewhere,’ I went on. This didn’t sound like me. ‘People keep finding me. The wrong kind of people. It’s very alarming.’

  ‘I know a single cabin, top deck, rarely used. You wouldn’t be disturbed. Rather heavy reading on bookshelves. Nice bathroom.’

  I knew where he meant. I had been there once before, to use the bathroom. Not exactly a romantic rendezvous. A very urgent call which I could not ignore.

  ‘I’ll remember that when I need to hide.’

  ‘Take it easy, Casey,’ he said, patting my arm. ‘No heavy lifting.’

  *

  I went ashore, much later. Hardly time to look at the Basilica of St Margaret of Antioch, the fondant pink and yellow church in the square, or at the numerous paintings for sale outside in the Piazza Caprera. The church had huge, double height steel doors. There was hot air coming out of grids in the pavement.

  I found two hotels where I would like to stay, right on the front. The Helios and the Metropole. And there was the Trattoria Da Pezzi where I would eat, with a photo outside of the beaming chef. It was a rural restaurant with counters of delicious fresh fish, marble tables, wooden chairs, bar stools of cane. I would eat huge bowls of pasta and grow fat. Italians like big women. I like Italians. Well, some of them.

  The lightness and brightness of the place washed over me and my spirits lifted. It was what I needed. Dr Mallory often said I had a chip on my shoulder. But here it was barely noticeable.

  Fifteen

  At Sea

  The Italian maritime police took the yacht away and the body of the man found aboard. That much I learned though I have little Italian and they were not disposed to chat about the find. They had a list of missing lone yachtsman and apparently he fitted a description. He’d been missing for over a week.

  Though from what I gathered, there was not a lot of him left to identify. He’d died in the cabin, open to the elements and the mercy of seagulls. It made me feel quite sick. Apparently seagulls are partial to a touch of necro-snacking, a source close to the enquiry told me. And to think I saved them my uneaten rolls.

  The DCI had spent the day interviewing people and he’d been closeted with Samuel for a long time. I kept out of his way. We passed once on deck and he nodded, possibly not remembering my name.

  He reminded me of someone but then I’d met so many hundreds of people since I started working cruise lines. I’d need a megabyte computer instead of a brain to remember them all.

  Lee was MC for this evening’s shows. He was somewhat nervous but not showing it too much. He looked smooth in a well-cut dinner jacket, white shirt and bow tie. I noticed that the black trousers were not an exact match. It’s difficult to match blacks. He’d put the outfit together from separates. I wondered if this meant any
thing.

  ‘Someone stole my trousers,’ he said, volunteering what I wanted to know. ‘I was pressing them in the ironing room. Went to my cabin to fetch a damp cloth and when I got back, they’d gone. I couldn’t believe it. I was only away half a minute.’

  ‘No one will notice. It’s my eagle eyes. That’s funny, about them being stolen. We’ve got a light-fingered shopper on-board too. Someone who forgets to pay. I hope your trousers turn up. Perhaps a passenger took them by mistake and will discover they are the wrong pair when they try to fasten the waist.’

  Lee was slimly built. He grinned. ‘I’ve lost weight despite all the lovely food. I never seem to have time to eat.’

  ‘And you’ll have even less tonight. Watch the time carefully. It’s easy to miss that final curtain of each show. You get distracted and the time flies.’

  ‘I don’t intend to leave backstage for a second. I’ll hang around in some dim corner till it’s time to go on again. It’s too risky. But I could still get distracted, all those lovely dancers in their skimpy costumes.’

  I nodded. ‘You’ll be on the ball backstage. Break a leg.’

  ‘Not literally, I hope.’

  I left Lee rehearsing his introduction. The show tonight had an Italian theme — films, shows and a snatch of opera. The dancers’ costumes were fantastic. Lee would have to keep his mind on his words with all the girls running from their dressing rooms in their flimsies.

  I joined my table of eight at the first sitting for dinner. It was the second time there had been an extended space in my timetable to join them. They gave me a warm welcome, indicating that I should share the wine that they had ordered. There were two jolly married couples from the Midlands, an elderly lady with her companion, and a woman of about fifty on her own. She didn’t say much, smiled rarely. Her name was Mrs Hilary Miles.

  As I hadn’t wanted to out-dress the ladies, I was wearing a black silk trouser suit and flat silver sandals. It was cool, casual and comfortable.

  It was another meal fit for the gods. It was a miracle that the kitchens produced food of this standard, day after day, in kitchens down in the depths. And everything served with such flair, like an artist’s creation. Swirls of this sauce and that, an edible decoration, a carrot or radish carved into a fancy shape, a sprig of dill, a tiny morsel of shaped pastry. It seemed a sin to plunge a fork into such artistry.

  This table was a nice crowd and I was glad I had joined them. They were amused by some of my stories of past cruises, but I was careful not to tread on any toes or monopolize the conversation.

  ‘We get asked such funny questions. One passenger asked me if the crew slept on board, and another wanted to know if an outside cabin was outside the ship.’

  There was general laughter. Mrs Miles said little. I tried to draw her into the table talk.

  ‘Which port of call have you enjoyed the most so far?’ I asked her.

  ‘I never go ashore,’ she said.

  ‘Never?’ This was surprising. Wheelchair-users sometimes stayed on board or a very frail passenger. But Mrs Miles was neither. She looked a fit and healthy fifty-year-old, despite a certain pallor to her face. Perhaps she didn’t go out on deck either.

  ‘I don’t like foreign countries,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Some of them are really interesting,’ I said. ‘Conway always choose ports that are stimulating or historical. Or simply picturesque. Some of the scenery is outstanding.’ I wanted to say that she didn’t know what she was missing, but it might have been misconstrued. ‘We shall have to put together a special tour that you simply can’t resist. In Rome perhaps,’ I suggested.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ she said, turning her attention to the roast duck, and signalling that the conversation was at an end.

  The two couples had never been to Elba but had looked up its history on Google. The talk degenerated into a discussion of Napoleon’s life and habits and we became a table convulsed with laughter. Even the elderly lady contributed a few risqué remarks which astonished her companion.

  ‘Mildred, dear,’ she reprimanded, stiffly.

  ‘Don’t Mildred dear, me,’ said the elderly lady, laughing. ‘I’ve lived even if you haven’t. But never mind, there’s still time for you, even if it’s running out for me.’

  The companion maintained her huffy attitude, refusing to be amused by anything. I wondered how long she had been with Mildred. When the meal ended, a waiter came by with a silverheaded stick and handed it to Mildred, helping her out of the chair. She was very stiff and lame.

  ‘Arthritis,’ she said, smiling at me. ‘Damned nuisance. Thank you for making it a lovely meal, Miss Jones. I haven’t laughed so much for years.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ I said. ‘I’ve enjoyed your company, all of you.’

  I smiled round the table to include everyone, but Mrs Miles had already gone.

  *

  ‘Evening off?’ Sam asked, putting on a funny Jack Warner voice. Jack used to say ‘Evening All’ in some long-ago television programme called The Blue Lamp. It became a catch phrase, but I didn’t remember the show. I wondered how Sam knew it. Perhaps he liked reruns and repeats.

  ‘DVDs of old television shows,’ he said, reading my mind as usual. ‘I used to watch them when I was on night duty and it was quiet.’

  ‘I expect you really liked Muffin the Mule.’

  ‘And Sooty. I loved Sooty. One of my favourites.’

  ‘Bill and Ben?’

  ‘Terrific. But I shan’t attempt an impersonation. Funny looks from the passengers,’ he said, with a grin. ‘Your deputy was good tonight. I caught the end of the show for five minutes. He went down well with the ladies. Very smooth.’

  ‘Then you have some competition at last. You won’t have it all your own way, collecting a blonde harem on every cruise. I didn’t check on his delivery. I thought it might put him off if he saw me hovering in the aisles. There was no need anyway. I had every confidence in his ability,’ I said.

  ‘You can talk, Miss Jones,’ said Sam. ‘You’re collecting admirers by the dozen this cruise. There’s poor rejected Richard Norton who nearly falls over his own flat feet every time he sees you. The new DCI is totally smitten, said he’d never met anyone so charming. And young Lee, despite being a wow with the ladies, is your devoted slave. He’d polish your boots if you asked him to.’

  ‘What rubbish,’ I said, feeling a blush colouring my cheeks. ‘You do talk absolute nonsense, Dr Mallory. Hardly a suitable bedside manner.’

  ‘It’s my in-bed manner,’ he said in a loud whisper, which made my blush deepen. He was teasing me, as he always did, those light grey eyes twinkling. I hoped no one heard.

  ‘So how is DCI Bruce Everton getting on with his enquiries? He’s not going to tell me,’ I said. ‘But you can tell me, seeing how we are such buddies.’

  ‘Strangely, I am not supposed to tell anyone. We are all suspects, including me and you. But of course we all know that you wouldn’t have smashed an ashtray down on Mrs Belcher’s head. Your aim is rotten. You would have missed. I’ve seen you playing deck quoits.’

  ‘So it was an ashtray?’

  ‘One of those heavy crystal ones, the old type, rarely seen around the ship these days. One of the bright stewardesses noticed it had traces of blood. Soon the ship will be non-smoking from bow to stern. But not yet, passengers are still allowed to smoke in certain areas since we are in waters outside UK regulations.’

  ‘Was the ashtray from the Belchers’ cabin?’

  ‘No. It was from the Galaxy Lounge. Someone nicked it, later wiped it clean — but not very well — and put it back. The barman noticed that it had no cigarette ends in it and was suspicious. The ashtrays in the bars fill up quickly. He asked a stewardess if she’d emptied it.’

  ‘Did you ever smoke?’

  ‘In my student days, those little cigars, until I did an autopsy on the lungs of a smoker. Black as tar. That put me right off. And you?’

  ‘I was caught smoking at a bus sto
p. Aged eleven, wearing my posh school uniform. And I was caught by a policeman, big mistake. I didn’t sleep that night, thinking I would be publicly humiliated by the headmistress at assembly the next morning. That put me right off.’ I echoed his words.

  ‘And were you publicly humiliated?’

  ‘No, nothing happened. She never said a word. It was in the days when a policeman could frighten the life out of a youngster. Not today.’

  ‘So, Miss Casey Jones, degenerate smoking schoolgirl, what else about your career of vice are you going to tell me?’

  He was too close for comfort. This man had charisma in excess, such charm with that air of genteel kindness. There must have been a dozen good fairies at his christening, bobbing around on gossamer wings, waving their wands, trying to out-do each other with the magnificence of their gifts.

  ‘The tests have come back on the blood found in Miss Ember’s shower,’ said Samuel, changing the subject. ‘I took them ashore at Barcelona. They emailed the results.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. Yes, do tell me.’

  ‘Animal blood, as I thought. Probably pig.’

  ‘This gets worse and worse. I don’t want to hear any more.’

  ‘The engineers discovered that a pouch of blood had been attached to the head of the shower, quite cleverly, with a device for a slow drip. Hardly visible. So what do you make of that, Miss Holmes?’

  ‘Nothing much, Dr Watson. Oh sorry, have I got the name wrong?’

  ‘I’m flattered.’

  ‘It’s probably the bald patch, pipe and paunch.’

  *

  Later that night I bumped into DCI Everton. The detective was clearly lost, trying to find out where he was on the mini-sized deck plan issued to every passenger in their cabin.

  ‘This is worse than the London Underground map,’ he said, trying to work out whether he was starboard or port. ‘Can you tell me where I am? Please help me before I end up in the cargo area or down in the engine room.’

  ‘We don’t carry cargo,’ I said. ‘Unless you count mountains of vegetables, booze and unwanted luggage. I’m Casey Jones, entertainments director. We’ve spoken before. I’m one of your suspects.’