by Ruth Ware
“Shut up!” She put her hands over her ears, shaking her head. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Neither of us wanted to be in this situation!”
“Really? You think it’s coincidence he fell in love with someone who bears a startling resemblance to Anne? He planned this from the beginning. You’re just a means to an end.”
“You know nothing about it,” the girl snarled. She turned away from me, walked to where the window would have been if I had one, and back. There was nothing of Anne’s weary serenity in her expression now—it was naked fear and fury.
“All the money, without the controlling wife—I think he had that carrot waved in front of his nose by Anne’s illness, and suddenly found he liked the idea: a future without Anne, but with the money. And when the doctors gave her the all clear, he didn’t want to let go of it—is that right? And then he saw you—and a plan started to form. Where did he pick you up—a bar? No, wait.” I remembered the photo on Cole’s camera. “It was at his club, right?”
“You know nothing about it!” the girl shouted. “NOTHING!”
And before I could say anything else, she turned on her heel, unlocked the door with a trembling hand, and slammed out of the room, The Bell Jar still clutched beneath her arm. The door banged shut behind her, and I heard her key scraping shakily in the lock. Then farther away another bang, and then it was still.
I sat back on the bunk. Had I made her doubt Richard enough to put her trust in me? Or was she going upstairs right now to tell him this whole conversation? There was only one way to find out, and that was by waiting.
But as the hours slipped away and she didn’t come back, I started to wonder how long that wait would be.
And when she didn’t reappear with supper, and hunger began to claw at my stomach, I began to suspect I’d made a horrible mistake.
- CHAPTER 28 -
It’s terrifying how long the hours can feel when you have no clock, no means of telling the time, and no way of knowing if anyone will come for you.
I lay for a long time, staring at the bunk above me, running over the conversation in my head and trying to work out if I’d just made the worst mistake of my life.
I’d gambled on establishing some kind of bond with the girl, forcing her to face up to what she was doing—and it was starting to look like I’d failed.
The hours dragged on and still no one came. My hunger grew more and more distracting. I wished I hadn’t given her back the book, there was nothing in the cabin I could distract myself with. I began to think about solitary confinement—how prisoners went slowly crazy, heard voices, begged for release.
At least the girl had left the electricity on, although I wasn’t sure it was an act of mercy—she had been so furious when she left the room she’d probably have switched it off just to punish me. More likely she’d just forgotten. But that small fact—the idea that I could choose my environment even in such a minor way—helped.
I showered again and licked the dried croissant jam off the plate. I lay on the bed and shut my eyes, and tried to remember things—the layout of the house I grew up in. The plot of Little Women. The color of Jude’s—
But no. I pushed that away. I couldn’t think of Judah. Not here. It would break me.
In the end—more as a way of taking charge of the situation than because I really thought it would help—I turned out the light and lay, staring into the blackness, trying to sleep.
I’m not sure if I did sleep. I dozed, I guess. Hours passed, or seemed to. No one came, but at some point in the long darkness, I was jerked awake and sat up, my pulse spiking, trying to fathom what was different. A noise? A presence in the dark?
My heart was thumping as I slipped out of bed and felt my way by touch to the door, but when I flicked on the light nothing was different. The cabin was empty. The tiny en suite as bare as ever. I held my breath, listening, but there were no footsteps in the corridor outside, no voices or movements. Not a sound disturbed the quiet.
And then I realized. The quiet. That was what had woken me. The engine had stopped.
I tried to count the days on my fingers, and although I couldn’t be sure, I was fairly certain it must now be Friday the twenty-fifth. And that meant that the ship had arrived at its last port, Bergen, where we were due to disembark and catch planes back to London. The passengers would be leaving.
And then I’d be alone.
The thought brought panic rushing through my veins. I don’t know why—maybe it was the idea that they were so close—sleeping, most likely, just a few feet above my head and yet there was nothing, nothing I could do to make them hear. And soon they would pack their cases and leave, and I would be alone in a boat-shaped coffin.
The thought was too much to bear. Without thinking, I grabbed the bowl that had held yesterday’s breakfast and banged it against the ceiling as hard as I could.
“Help!” I screamed. “Can anyone hear me? I’m trapped, please, please help!”
I stopped, panting, listening, hoping desperately that with the sound of the engine no longer masking my cries, someone might hear.
There was no answering thump, no muffled shout filtering back through the floors. But I heard a sound. It was a metallic grinding, as if something was scraping the outside of the hull.
Had someone heard? I held my breath, trying to still my thumping heart, beating so loud it threatened to drown out the faint sounds from outside the ship. Was someone coming?
The grinding came again. . . . I felt the ship’s side shudder, and I realized suddenly what it was. The gangway was being lowered. The passengers were disembarking.
“Help me!” I screamed, and I banged again, only now I was noticing the way the plastic ceiling deadened and absorbed the sound.
“Help me! It’s me, Lo. I’m here! I’m on the boat!”
No answer, just the breath tearing in my throat, my blood in my ears.
“Anyone? Please! Please help!”
I put my hands to the wall, feeling the thumps against the gangway being transmitted down through the hull and into my hands. The impact of goods trolleys . . . and luggage . . . and departing feet.
I could feel all this. But I could not hear it. I was deep below the water—and they were up above, where any faint vibrations that I could make with my plastic bowl would be drowned out by the sound of the wind and the screech of the gulls and the voices of their fellow passengers.
I let the bowl fall from my hands to the floor, where it bounced and rolled across the thin carpet, and then I dropped to the bed, and I crouched there, my arms wrapped around my head, my head pressed into my knees, and I began to weep, great choking tears of fear and desperation.
I had been afraid before. I’d been scared half out of my wits.
But I had never despaired, and it was despair that I was feeling now.
As I knelt on the thin, sagging mattress, sobbing into my knees, pictures passed through my head: Judah reading the paper, my mother doing the crossword, her tongue between her teeth—my father, mowing the lawn on a Sunday, humming tunelessly. I would have given anything to see one of them in this room, just for a moment, just to tell them I was alive and loving them.
But all I could think of was them waiting for my return. And their despair as I didn’t arrive. And finally the endless sentence of waiting, waiting without hope, for someone who would never come.
From: Judah Lewis
To: Judah Lewis, Pamela Crew and Alan Blacklock
BCC: [38 recipients]
Sent: Tuesday, 29 September
Subject: Lo—an update
Dear All,
I’m very sorry to be sending this news in an e-mail, but I’m sure you’ll understand that these last few days have been very difficult and we’ve had trouble responding to everyone’s concern and enquiries.
Up until now we didn’t really have an
ything concrete to share, and this has resulted in a lot of hurtful speculation on social media. However, we have now received some news. Unfortunately, it’s not what we were hoping for, and Lo’s parents, Pam and Alan, have asked me to send this update to her close friends and immediate family on behalf of them as well as myself, as some details seem to have been leaked to the press already, and we didn’t want anyone to find this out from the Internet.
There is no easy way to say this—early this morning Scotland Yard asked me to identify some photographs they received from the Norwegian police team handling the case. They were photographs of clothes, and the garments are Lo’s. I recognized them immediately. The boots in particular are vintage and very distinctive, and unmistakably hers.
We are obviously in pieces at this discovery, but we are holding on and waiting to find out what the police can tell us—this is all we know at present as the body is still in Norway and the Norwegian police have not shared any information on when we may be able to see it. In the meantime we would please ask you to use your discretion in talking to the media—if you have anything to add to the investigation, I can give you the names of the officers at Scotland Yard handling the case at the UK end. We also have a family liaison officer who is helping us deal with media enquiries, but some of the stories that are running are upsetting and untrue and we’d like to ask you all for your help in respecting Lo’s privacy.
We are just devastated at this turn of events and trying to come to terms with what it means, so please bear with us, and know that we’ll update you as soon as we can.
Judah
- CHAPTER 29 -
She didn’t come.
The girl didn’t come.
The hours ticked past, blurring into one another, and I knew that somewhere on the other side of the metal coffin of the hull people were talking and laughing and eating and drinking, while I lay here unable to do anything except breathe, and count down the seconds, minute by minute, hour by hour. Somewhere outside the sun was rising and falling, the waves were lifting and rocking the hull, and life went on, while I sank into the darkness.
I thought of Anne’s body again, floating through the depths of the sea, and I thought with bitterness that she was lucky—at least it had been quick. One moment of suspicion, one blow to the head—and that was it. I was beginning to fear that, for me, there would be no such mercy.
I lay on the bed, hugging my knees to my chest, and I tried not to think about my hunger, about the pains that were gnawing in the pit of my stomach. My last meal had been breakfast on Thursday and I thought at the least it must be late Friday now. I had a raging headache and stomach cramps, and when I stood to use the toilet I felt weak and light-headed.
The nasty little voice in the back of my head spoke, needling. What do you think it’s like to starve to death? Think it’s a peaceful way to go?
I shut my eyes. One. Two. Three. Breathe in.
It takes a long time. It’d be quicker if you could manage not to drink. . . .
An image came into my mind—myself, thin and white and cold, curled beneath the threadbare orange blanket.
“I choose not to think about these images,” I muttered. “I choose to think about . . .” And then I stopped. What? What? None of Barry’s tutorials had focused on what happy images to choose when you were being held prisoner by a murderer. Was I supposed to think about my mum? About Judah? About everything I loved and held dear and was about to lose?
“Insert happy image here, you little fucker,” I whispered, but the place I was inserting it probably wasn’t the one Barry had in mind.
And then I heard a sound in the corridor.
I leaped upright, and the blood rushed from my head so that I almost fell, and only just managed to lower myself to the bunk before my legs buckled beneath me.
Was it her? Or Bullmer?
Oh shit.
I knew I was breathing too fast, I could feel my heart speeding up and the tingling in my muscles, and then my vision began to fragment into little scraps of black and red—
And then everything went black.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck . . .”
One word, over and over, being whispered in a panicked, tearful monotone from somewhere close.
“Oh Jesus, just wake up, will you?”
“Wh—” I managed. The girl gave a kind of teary gasp of relief.
“Shit! Are you okay? You gave me such a scare!”
I opened my eyes, saw her worried face looming over mine. There was a smell of food in the air and my stomach groaned painfully.
“I’m sorry,” she said rapidly, helping me to sit up against the steel bunk edge, with a cushion behind my back. I could smell alcohol on her breath, schnapps, or maybe vodka. “I didn’t mean to leave you so long, I just . . .”
“S’the day?” I croaked.
“What?”
“Wh . . . what day is it?”
“Saturday. Saturday the twenty-sixth. It’s late, nearly midnight. I’ve brought you some dinner.”
She held out a piece of fruit and I snatched it, feeling almost sick with hunger, and tore into it, barely even noticing that it was a pear until the taste exploded in my mouth, almost unbearable in its intensity.
Saturday—nearly Sunday. No wonder I felt so awful. No wonder the hours had seemed to stretch out forever. No wonder my stomach was even now cramping and griping as I gulped down the pear in huge, wolfish chunks. I had been locked up here without food or contact for . . . I tried to do the maths. Thursday morning to Saturday evening. Forty-eight . . . sixty . . . sixty-something hours? Was that really right? My brain hurt. My stomach hurt. Everything hurt.
My stomach shifted and cramped again.
“Oh God.” I tried to scramble to my feet, my legs weak and shaky. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
I stumbled to the tiny en suite, anxiously shadowed by the girl, who put out a hand to steady me as I elbowed my way through the narrow doorway, and then fell to my knees and vomited sourly into the blue-stained pan of the toilet. The girl seemed to feel my wretchedness for she said, almost timidly, “I can get you another one, if you want. But there’s some kind of potato thing as well. That might be better for your stomach. The cook called it pittypanny or something. I can’t remember.”
I didn’t reply, just knelt over the bowl, bracing myself for the next heave, but it seemed to be gone, and at last I wiped my mouth and then stood slowly, pulling myself up by the handrail and testing the strength in my legs. Then I walked unsteadily back to the bunk. The cubes of fried potato looked and smelled divine. I picked up a fork and ate, more slowly this time, trying not to gulp the food. The girl watched me as I ate.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I shouldn’t have punished you like that.”
I swallowed a mouthful of the tepid, salty potato pieces, feeling the caramelized skin crunch between my back teeth.
“What’s your name?” I said at last.
She chewed her lip, looked away, and then sighed.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you, but what does it matter? Carrie.”
“Carrie.” I took another mouthful, rolling the word around as I chewed. “Hi, Carrie.”
“Hi,” she said, but there was no warmth or life in her voice. She watched me eat for a moment longer and then scooted slowly back across the floor of the cabin and slumped against the opposite wall.
We sat in silence for a while, me eating methodically, trying to pace myself, she watching me. Then she gave a small exclamation, felt in her pocket, and pulled something out.
“I nearly forgot. Here you go.” It was a pill, wrapped in a scrap of tissue. I took it, almost wanting to laugh with relief. It seemed pathetically hopeful, the idea that this tiny little white dot could make me feel better about my situation. And yet . . .
“Thanks,” I said. I put it on the back of my tongue, to
ok a gulp of the juice on the tray, and swallowed it.
At last the plate was empty, and I realized, as I scraped up the last of the potato, Carrie still watching me from across the room, that it was the first time she had waited while I ate. The thought made me bold enough to try something, maybe something stupid, but the words came out before I could stop them.
“What’s going to happen to me?”
She said nothing, only levered herself to her feet, shaking her head slowly and dusting down her cream silk trousers. She was painfully thin, and I wondered, briefly, whether that was all part of the part for impersonating Anne or whether she was naturally that skinny.
“Is he—” I swallowed. I was pushing my luck, but I had to know. “Is he going to kill me?”
She still didn’t answer, just picked up the tray and made for the door, but as she turned to pull it shut behind her, I saw there was a tear, welling up, about to spill. She paused for a second, the door almost shut, and I thought for a minute that she was about to say something. But instead, she just shook her head again, sending the tear tracing across her cheek, and then she wiped it away, almost angrily, and the door slammed shut behind her.
After she had gone I stood, holding on to the bunk, steadying myself, and then I saw it, on the floor, another book. This one my copy of Winnie-the-Pooh.
Pooh has always been my comfort read, my go-to book in times of stress. It’s a book from the time before I started getting afraid, when there were no threats that were not Heffalumps, and I, like Christopher Robin, could conquer the world.
I had almost not packed it. But at the last moment, when I was shoving clothes and shoes into my case, I had seen it there, resting on my night table, and I’d put it in as a kind of protective charm against the stresses of the trip.
