by Ruth Ware
From: Rowan Lonsdale
To: Laura Blacklock
CC: Jennifer West
Sent: Wednesday, 23 September
Subject: Update?
Lo, could you please reply to my e-mail sent two days ago requesting an update on the cruise? Jenn tells me you’ve filed nothing, and we were hoping for some kind of copy by tomorrow—a sidebar piece at the least.
Please let Jenn know ASAP where you’re at with this, and cc me to your reply.
Rowan
- CHAPTER 6 -
Even rich people’s showers were better.
The jets buffeted and massaged from every angle, numbing in their ferocity, so after a while it was hard to tell where the water started and my body ended.
I soaped my hair, then shaved my legs, and finally I just stood underneath the stream, watching the sea and the sky and the circling gulls. I’d left the bathroom door open and I could see across the bed and out to the veranda and the sea beyond. And the effect was just . . . well, I’m not going to lie, it was pretty nice. I guess you had to get something for the eight grand or whatever it was they were charging for this place.
The amount was slightly obscene, in comparison to my salary—or even Rowan’s salary. I had spent years drooling over the reports she sent back from a villa in the Bahamas or a yacht in the Maldives and waiting for the day when I, too, would be senior enough to get those kinds of perks, but now I was actually getting a taste of it, I wondered—how did she stand it, these regular glimpses into a life no regular person would ever be able to afford?
I was idly trying to work out how many months I’d have to work to pay for a week on the Aurora as a passenger, when I heard something—an indistinct little noise—beneath the roar of the water, that I couldn’t place, but it definitely sounded like it came from my room. My heart quickened a little, but I kept my breathing firm and steady as I opened my eyes to turn off the shower.
Instead, I saw the bathroom door swinging towards me, as though someone had shoved it with a swift, sure hand.
It banged shut, the solid, firm clunk of a heavy door that was made of the very best-quality material, and I was left in the hot, wet dark with the water pounding on the top of my skull and my heart beating hard enough to register on the boat’s sonar.
I couldn’t hear anything above the hiss of blood in my ears and the roar of the shower. And I couldn’t see anything, apart from the red gleam of the digital controls to the shower. Fuck. Fuck. Why hadn’t I double-locked the cabin door?
I felt the walls of the bathroom closing in on me, the blackness seeming to swallow me whole.
Stop. Panicking, I told myself. No one’s hurt you. No one’s broken in. Chances are it’s just a maid come to turn down the bed, or the door shutting by itself. Stop. Panicking.
I forced myself to feel for the controls. The water went freezing, then agonizingly hot so that I yelped and staggered back, cracking my ankle against the wall, but then finally I found the right button, the stream stopped, and I groped my way to the lights.
They came on, flooding the little room with an unforgiving glare, and I stared at myself in the mirror—bone white, with wet hair plastered to my skull like the girl from The Ring.
Shit.
Was this going to be what it was like? Was I turning into someone who had panic attacks about walking home from the tube or staying the night alone in the house without their boyfriend?
No, fuck that. I would not be that person.
There was a bathrobe on the back of the bathroom door, and I swathed it hastily around myself and then took a deep, shaking breath.
I would not be that person.
I opened the bathroom door, my heart beating so hard and fast that I was seeing stars in my vision.
Do not panic, I thought fiercely.
The room was empty. Completely empty. And the door was double-locked, even the chain was across. There was no way anyone had got in. Maybe I’d just heard someone in the corridor. Either way, it was obviously just the tilting movement of the ship that had caused the door to swing shut, impelled by its own weight.
I checked the chain again, feeling the thick weight of it heavy in the palm of my hand, reassuringly solid, and then, on weak legs, I made my way to the bed and lay down, my heart still pounding with suppressed adrenaline, and waited for my pulse to return to something approaching normal.
I imagined burying my face in Judah’s shoulder and for a second I nearly burst into tears, but I clenched my teeth and swallowed them back down. Judah was not the answer to all this. The problem was me and my weak-ass panic attacks.
Nothing happened. Nothing happened.
I repeated it in time with my rapid breaths, until I felt myself begin to calm down.
Nothing happened. Not now. Not then. Nobody hurt you.
Nothing happened.
Okay.
God, I needed a drink.
Inside the minibar was tonic, ice, and half a dozen miniatures of gin, whiskey, and vodka. I shook ice into a tumbler and then emptied in a couple of the miniature bottles, pouring with a hand that still shook slightly. I topped up with a splash of tonic water and gulped it down.
The gin was so strong it made me choke, but I felt the warmth of the alcohol spreading through my cells and blood vessels and felt instantly better.
When the glass was empty, I stood up, feeling the lightness in my head and limbs, and pulled my phone out of my bag. No reception, so clearly we were out of range of the UK transmitters, but there was Wi-Fi.
I clicked on mail and downloaded my e-mails, chewing my nails as they popped one by one into the in-box. It wasn’t quite as bad as I’d been fearing—it was a Sunday after all—but as I scanned down the list, I realized I was tense as an elastic band about to snap, and at the same time, I understood what I was looking for, and why. There was nothing from Judah. I felt my shoulders slump.
I answered the few that were urgent, marked the others unread, and then pressed compose to start a new e-mail.
Dear Judah, I wrote, but the rest of the words wouldn’t come. I wondered what he was doing right now. Was he packing his bag? Crammed onto some economy flight? Or was he lying on his bed in his room, tweeting, texting, thinking of me . . .
I relived again the moment I’d smashed the heavy metal lamp into his face. What had I been thinking?
You weren’t thinking, I told myself. You were half-asleep. It’s not your fault. It was an accident.
Freud says there are no accidents, said the voice in the back of my head. Maybe it’s you. . . .
I shook my head, refusing to listen.
Dear Judah, I love you.
I miss you.
I’m sorry.
I deleted the one to Judah and started a new one.
To: Pamela Crew
From: Laura Blacklock
Sent: Sunday, 20 September
Subject: Safe and sound
Hi, Mum, safe on board the boat, which is seriously swanky. You’d love it! Just a quick reminder to pick up Delilah tonight. I’ve left her cat basket on the table, and the food is under the sink. I had to change the locks—Mrs. Johnson upstairs has the new key.
Lots of love and THANKS!
Lo xx
I pressed send, then pulled up Facebook and messaged my best friend, Lissie.
This place is insanely nice. There are UNLIMITED free drinks in the minibar in my cabin—sorry, I mean fucking enormous SUITE—which doesn’t bode well for my professionalism, or my liver. See you on the other side, if I’m still standing. Lo xx
I poured myself another gin and then I went back to the Judah e-mail.
I had to write something. I couldn’t leave things the way they were when I walked out.
Dear J. I’m sorry I was such a bitch before I left. What I said—it was incredibly unfair. I love you so much.
>
I had to stop at that, because tears were blurring the screen. I paused and took a couple of shaking breaths. Then I scrubbed crossly at my eyes and finished.
Text me when you get to Moscow. Safe journey.
Lo xxx
I refreshed my in-box, less hopefully this time, but nothing new downloaded. Instead, I sighed and drained my second gin. The clock by the bed read 6:30, which meant it was time for ball gown number one.
Rowan, after she’d informed me that the dress code for dining on board was “formal” (translation: insane), had recommended that I rent at least seven evening dresses, so that I wouldn’t have to wear the same dress twice; but since she wasn’t proposing to shell out the cost, I had rented three, which was three more than I’d have done if left to my own devices.
My favorite in the shop had been the most over-the-top one—a long silvery-white sheath studded with crystals that, the shop assistant had claimed without a glimmer of sarcasm, made me look like Liv Tyler in The Lord of the Rings. I’m not sure I kept my face sufficiently straight when she said that, because she kept shooting me suspicious looks as I tried on the others.
But I wasn’t feeling quite brave enough to kick off with crystal studs, given there might well be people there wearing jeans, for all I knew, so I picked out the most modest choice—a long, narrow slip in dark gray satin. There was a little spritz of sequined leaves across the right shoulder because you didn’t seem to be able to get away with none. Apparently the majority of ball gowns were designed by five-year-old girls armed with glitter guns, but at least this one didn’t look entirely like an explosion in a Barbie factory.
I wriggled into it and zipped it up the side, then I shook out the full array of ammo from my makeup bag. It was going to take more than a swipe of lip gloss to get me looking even halfway human tonight. I was just smudging concealer across the cut on my cheekbone when I realized my mascara wasn’t among the clutter.
I hunted through my handbag in the vain hope that it might be there, trying to remember where I’d last seen it. Then I realized. It had been in my handbag—pinched along with everything else. I don’t always wear it, but without dark lashes, my smoky-eye makeup looked strange and out of proportion—like I’d given up halfway through. I thought briefly and ridiculously about improvising with liquid eyeliner, but instead I tried one last, vain hunt in my bag—tipping everything out onto the bed, just in case I’d misremembered, or had a spare one stuck in the lining. In my heart, though, I knew it wasn’t there, and I was replacing everything back into the bag when I heard a noise from the cabin next door—the roar of the pressurized toilet flushing, recognizable even above the muted hum of the engine.
Taking my room key in my hand, I went out barefoot into the corridor.
The ash wood door to my right had a little plaque that read 10. PALMGREN, which made me think that the supply of eminent Scandinavian scientists must have worn a little thin by the time they finished fitting out this boat. I knocked, slightly hesitantly.
There was no answer. I waited. Maybe the occupant was in the shower.
I knocked again, three sharp knocks, and then, as an afterthought, a final loud whack in case they were hard of hearing.
The door flew open, as if the occupant had been standing on the other side.
“What?” she demanded, almost before the door had opened. “Is everything okay?” And then her face changed. “Shit. Who are you?”
“I’m your neighbor,” I said. She was young and pretty with long dark hair, and she was wearing a ratty Pink Floyd T-shirt with holes, which somehow made me like her quite a lot. “Laura Blacklock. Lo. Sorry, I know this sounds really weird, but I wondered if I could borrow some mascara?”
There was a scatter of tubes and creams visible on the dressing table behind her, and she was wearing quite a bit of it herself, which made me fairly sure I was on safe ground.
“Oh.” She looked flustered. “Right. Hang on.”
She disappeared, closing the door behind her, and then came back with a tube of Maybelline and stuck it into my hand.
“Hey, thanks,” I said. “I’ll bring it right back.”
“Keep it,” she said. I protested, automatically, but she waved my words away. “Seriously, I don’t want it back.”
“I’ll wash the brush,” I offered, but she shook her head impatiently.
“I told you, I don’t want it.”
“Okay,” I said, slightly puzzled. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” She shut the door in my face.
I went back to my cabin wondering about the odd little encounter. I felt out of place enough on this trip, but she looked even more of a fish out of water. Someone’s daughter, maybe? I wondered if I’d see her at dinner.
I’d just finished applying the borrowed mascara when there was a knock at the door. Maybe she’d changed her mind.
“Hey,” I said, opening the door, holding it out. But it was a different girl outside, one wearing a stewardess’s uniform. Her eyebrows had been rather savagely overplucked, giving her an expression of permanent surprise.
“Hello,” she said, with a singsong Scandinavian inflection. “My name is Karla and I’m your suite attendant along with Josef. This is just a courtesy call to remind you of the presentation at—”
“I remember,” I said, rather more brusquely than I’d intended. “Seven p.m. in the Pippi Longstocking Room or whatever it’s called.”
“Ah, I see you know your Scandinavian writers!” She beamed.
“I’m not so hot on the scientists,” I admitted. “I’ll be right up.”
“Wonderful. Lord Bullmer is looking forward to welcoming you all on board.”
After she’d gone I rummaged in my case for the wrap that had come with the dress—a sort of gray silk shawl that made me feel like a long-lost Brontë sister—and draped it round my shoulders.
I locked the door behind me and dropped the key inside my bra, and then I made my way along the corridor, up to the Lindgren Lounge.
- CHAPTER 7 -
White. White.
Everything was white. The pale wood floor. The white velvet sofas. The long raw-silk curtains. The flawless walls. It was spectacularly impractical for a public vessel—deliberately so, I had to assume.
Another Swarovski chandelier hung from the ceiling and I couldn’t help but pause in the doorway, more than a little dazed. It wasn’t just the light, the way it glinted and refracted from the crystals on the ceiling, it was something about the scale. The room was like a perfect replica of a drawing room in a five-star hotel, or a reception room on the QE2, but it was small. There could not have been more than twelve or fifteen people in the room, and yet they filled the space, and even the chandelier was scaled down to fit. It gave the strangest impression—a little like looking in through the doorway of a doll’s house, where everything is miniaturized and yet slightly off-kilter, the replica cushions a little too large and stiff for the tiny chairs, the wineglasses the same size as the fake champagne bottle.
I was scanning the room, looking for the girl in the Pink Floyd T-shirt, when a low, amused voice came from the corridor behind me.
“Blinding, isn’t it?”
I turned to see the mysterious Mr. Lederer standing there.
“Just a touch,” I said. He held out his hand.
“Cole Lederer.”
The name was faintly familiar but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
“Laura Blacklock.” We shook, and I took him in. Even in jeans and a T-shirt struggling up the gangway, he was what Lissie would have called “eye candy.” Now he was wearing a dinner jacket in a way that made me remember Lissie’s rule of thumb: a dinner jacket added 33 percent to a man’s attractiveness.
“So,” he said, taking a glass off a tray proffered by yet another smiling Scandinavian stewardess. “What brings you to the Aurora, Miss B
lacklock?”
“Oh, call me Lo. I’m a journalist, I work for Velocity.”
“Well, very happy to meet you, Lo. Can I offer you a drink?”
He picked up a second flute and held it out with a smile. The empty miniatures in the cabin floated up before my eyes, and I wavered for a moment, knowing I was on the cusp of drinking too much so early in the evening but not wanting to seem rude. My stomach was very, very empty and the gin hadn’t quite worn off, but surely one more glass couldn’t hurt?
“Thanks,” I said at last. He handed it over, his fingers brushing mine in a way I wasn’t sure was accidental, and I took a gulp, trying to drown my nerves. “How about you? What’s your role here?”
“I’m a photographer,” he said, and I suddenly realized where I’d heard the name before.
“Cole Lederer!” I exclaimed. I was ready to kick myself. Rowan would have been all over him, right from the gangway. “Of course—you did that amazing shoot for the Guardian of the melting ice caps.”
“That’s right.” He grinned, unashamedly pleased at being recognized, though you would have thought the thrill would have worn off for him by now. The guy was only a couple of steps down from David Bailey. “I’ve been invited to cover this lot, you know, moody shots of the fjords and stuff.”
“It’s not usually your thing, is it?” I said doubtfully.
“No,” he agreed. “I tend to do mainly endangered species or at-risk environments these days, and I don’t think you could say this lot were at any particular risk of extinction. They all look particularly well-fed.”
We gazed around the room together.
I had to agree with him when it came to the men. There was a little knot in the far corner who looked like they could survive for several weeks off their fat reserves, if we were ever shipwrecked. The women were a different story, though. They all had that lean, polished look that spoke of hot Bikram yoga and a macrobiotic diet, and they didn’t look like they’d survive long if the ship went down. Maybe they could eat one of the men.
I recognized a few faces from other press shindigs—there was Tina West, whippet-thin and wearing jewelry weighing more than she did, who edited the Vernean Times (motto: Eighty days is just the start); the travel journalist Alexander Belhomme, who wrote features and foodie articles for a number of cross-channel and in-flight magazines and was sleek and rotund as a walrus; and Archer Fenlan, who was a well-known expert on “extreme travel.”
