Cruising to Murder

by Mark McCrum

  ‘He’s told you all this?’

  ‘Yes. We know them quite well. We were on a cruise with them last Christmas.’

  ‘In Antarctica?’ Francis asked.

  ‘It was, yes. Along with quite a few of the others here, as it happens.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Sebastian looked over at his partner. ‘Can you remember, Kurt? Daphne and Henry, for sure. Eve, the English widow. That boring old American colonel who’s never seen action – what’s his name?’

  ‘Joe,’ said Kurt. It was the first word Francis had heard him speak. His voice was deep and resonant, like the lower notes of a church organ.

  ‘They were all on that trip, weren’t they?’ Sebastian added and Kurt nodded.

  Francis turned to Carmen. ‘Is that normal?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘To get a cluster of guests like that? Going from one cruise to another.’

  ‘Yes … no … I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’d have to check the records.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s any great mystery,’ Sebastian said. ‘We all love Goldencruise. Both the Antarctic and this are exciting itineraries. More so than the normal paddle around the Mediterranean bath tub.’

  ‘But this ship did several Antarctic cruises last winter,’ Francis said. ‘Yet you were all on the same one …’

  ‘The Christmas one. Maybe it’s as simple as that. For us folk without families. And I know the colonel wanted to see the Falklands. Like Kurt here. Not all the itineraries include that. Port Stanley and South Georgia, those war places.’

  ‘I see,’ said Francis. ‘So on that cruise Don told you his life story?’

  ‘In dribs and drabs. As you do. We’re bar flies, us two. We needed to have something to talk about as the glaciers were drifting past. But yes, if you want to know, he was upset. About the way things are. He wants – wanted, I should say – to support Lauren. Or at least to be her equal financially. And things have just gone from bad to worse for him. He’s quite desperate about it, in fact.’

  ‘So she paid for the cruises?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought about it, but I suppose she does – did.’ Sadness flickered over the designer’s handsome features.

  ‘Why, exactly, did she stick around?’ Francis asked.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, he is that much older, isn’t he? So if she had the money … I mean, no offence to him, but when you see them together you do rather assume, don’t you?’

  ‘Just goes to show that you should never make assumptions,’ said Sebastian.

  ‘Yes, but still …’

  ‘As I said, her father died young. Maybe Don is the classic father figure. And there is of course another possibility.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Perhaps she loved him. Did that thought occur to you?’

  His sudden scorn made Francis feel almost ashamed. Maybe his take on all this was too cynical. Rich people had feelings too. ‘I think we need to talk to him again,’ he said to Carmen.

  ‘I think we do.’

  She got to her feet and Francis followed.

  ‘I don’t think he’s got anything to do with her going overboard, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ said Sebastian. ‘For all their arguing, he doted on her. You only had to see the way he looked at her, or watched her dancing.’

  ‘With the hotel director, Gregoire, for example.’

  ‘Him, yes. Or me. Or Brad and Damian. She loved boogying with them too.’

  ‘The gay …’ Francis said and immediately felt stupid.

  ‘Couple, yes. The other gay couple,’ Sebastian replied tartly. ‘There are actually three on board. You might not have identified the third.’

  Francis thought for a moment, but he was stumped. ‘I’m not sure I have,’ he said.

  ‘Carmen?’

  The Australian shook her head. ‘I really have no idea. It’s not something I particularly notice.’

  ‘Then that will have to remain my secret,’ said Sebastian, turning archly from one of them to the other, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘I thought for a moment you were going to say Klaus,’ said Carmen. ‘And Colonel Joe.’

  Sebastian laughed. ‘Colonel Joe is almost certainly as queer as a coot. Never married. Loves male-bonding activities. Goes to the gym every morning, religiously. Is pretty much glued to baseball and wrestling in the TV lounge. I’m not so sure about Klaus.’

  Don was still in bed.

  ‘Now what d’you want?’ he said grumpily, turning his head away from the window.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you again,’ said Francis. ‘But there’s something we need to clear up.’

  ‘You two are the self-appointed ship’s detectives now, are you?’

  ‘The captain needs to find out what might have happened to Lauren,’ said Francis. ‘He’s obliged to report her disappearance, not just to the ship’s owners and the Bahamian Police Authority, but to the FBI. There was a law passed recently that means that if there’s an American citizen overboard, they have to look into it too. So I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was someone to meet us when we get to Freetown the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘The FBI, huh. And what power do they have out here? Can they keep all these wealthy international citizens on board in the port of a foreign country until they’re satisfied they’ve got answers? Or is this just a box-ticking operation?’

  ‘I don’t know what authority they have,’ said Francis. ‘But for the moment we’re doing our best to find out what happened.’

  ‘How very public-spirited of you. So how can I help you now?’ His tone was disdainful, but Francis wasn’t to be deterred.

  ‘As we understand it,’ he said, ‘the story you had about Lauren wanting to marry you wasn’t true.’

  ‘Who said that?’

  Francis repeated what Sebastian had told them, not mentioning his name.

  ‘So you’ve been speaking to my personal bankers, have you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I didn’t think so. This sounds rather like something I told Sebastian once, late one night when we were boozing together. There is some truth in it, but it’s not the whole truth.’

  ‘Then why did you tell him?’

  ‘Perhaps I have a penchant for exaggerating. You forget that I began life as a journalist. Before I was sensible enough to realize where the money was in the magazine world.’

  ‘But it’s true that Lauren had money? Her father was a songwriter, I believe.’

  ‘That piece of crap kept her afloat, yeah. Gave her a little independence. But if Sebastian told you it made her rich enough to sponsor both of us on regular luxury cruises he was sadly misinformed.’

  ‘And you? You still have—?’

  ‘I don’t see how my personal net worth is any of your damn business.’

  ‘Let’s be blunt, Don. If Lauren did have the money, and you were – are – the beneficiary of her will, marriage or no marriage, then there’s no way out of the conclusion that this terrible event would benefit you. Substantially. Maybe critically.’

  Don looked back down at his hands, twisted together above the blue eiderdown. ‘As always in these cases, it’s the partner who’s in the frame. Regardless of any feelings they might themselves have …’

  ‘Don, I appreciate that this is all very shocking for you. I certainly don’t want to cast unwarranted suspicion. But we need to establish the facts, if only to help you.’

  ‘Perhaps you could explain exactly how this helps me?’

  ‘If you could tell us, for example, that there was no will in existence between Lauren and yourself. Or that we’ve got things wrong about your business. That obviously takes away a motive that anyone who is looking into this is otherwise going to see, whether it’s me and Carmen here or some FBI agent currently on his way to Freetown.’

  ‘You have knowledge of this FBI agent, do you?’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not allowed to say.’ Francis looked over at Carmen, who
held his gaze steadily.

  ‘And if he does turn up, this agent …’

  ‘When he turns up …’

  ‘He’s going to want to go through all this again? Or is he going to be happy to accept your view of things?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘I do. He’ll want to do his own investigation. So maybe I should just wait until I have to answer to the freakin’ professionals.’

  Don’s gaze was now firmly focused on the ocean. His mouth was set.

  ‘And that’s all you’re going to say?’

  Don turned. ‘Who exactly are you? As I understand it, some Brit who was invited on the ship to lecture about crime novels. It’s none of your business how Lauren and I were situated financially. Or anything else, for that matter.’

  EIGHT

  If Don wasn’t going to talk about his relationship with Lauren, it certainly wasn’t stopping the rest of the guests. As Francis headed downstairs and waited in the short queue for the buffet lunch, snippets of speculation came flying past his ears. ‘Probably did it to shut her up’ … ‘They’d been rowing earlier in the bar’ … ‘More than once’ … ‘It wasn’t about dancing, it was about money’ … ‘One heck of a flirt, no doubt about that …’

  Francis sensed the excitement, but very clearly, just underneath that, the fear: of what had happened and could so easily happen again. The wide, choppy ocean around them no longer seemed so reassuring. To him, too. He was suddenly very aware that he was stuck on a large floating metal box which might very well contain a man or woman who had killed twice and most likely would not hesitate to kill a third time to protect themselves.

  His eavesdropping was curtailed by Carmen, who had popped down to her cabin for five minutes, and had now returned with a fresh layer of crimson lipstick.

  ‘Everyone,’ she said, ‘but everyone, is talking about Lauren.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t they be? Big news for our little ecosystem. No one’s going to be looking at that two-page round-up of world news today.’

  ‘People are scared.’

  ‘Of course they are. Until it’s established exactly how and why Lauren went overboard, and whether there was anyone else involved, it’s bound to make you look over your shoulder a little. Especially if you’re not as young and strong as you once were.’

  ‘And none of them even know about Eve,’ said Carmen, her voice dropping to a near whisper.

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘So what did you make of Don?’

  ‘Maintaining his right to silence?’

  ‘Does that make him more or less guilty?’

  ‘Hard to tell,’ said Francis. ‘He’s clearly stubborn.’

  ‘But then again, he has a perfect right not to talk about his relationship. He’s only just lost Lauren.’

  ‘Though if there was nothing in Sebastian’s story, it would be easy enough to refute it. Before he decided to shut up he more or less admitted there was some truth there, didn’t he?’

  ‘I’m sorry the FBI agent backfired,’ Carmen said. ‘I was rather enjoying him. Or was it her? But actually that did put the wind up him. On reflection, he might decide to spill the beans after all.’

  They had reached the front of the queue, so the next couple of minutes were spent choosing from a wide and tempting array of lunch dishes. Francis restricted himself to two small helpings: Thai chicken curry and boeuf bourgignon, with a mound of plain rice in between.

  ‘Couldn’t choose, mate?’ said Carmen, grinning at his selection as she joined him at the table for two in the corner which John-since-1972 had just finished relaying. ‘I always end up putting on weight on these trips, even though I’m out half the days leading expeditions.’ She plunged knife and fork into a plate heaped with cold meats and salad.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ she asked. ‘Report back to the captain?’

  ‘I guess we have to admit that we’ve got as far as we can for the moment with Don. What about the other couple who were drinking with them last night? Shirley and her partner.’

  ‘Hello, stranger.’ Francis looked up to see Sadie, right by their table, almost in silhouette against the bright light from the portholes opposite.

  ‘Sadie, hi. You know Carmen?’

  ‘Only from the expeditions. Hi.’ Sadie acknowledged her with barely a glance. ‘Where’ve you been, Francis?’

  ‘Doing a bit of work in my cabin.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ She didn’t look convinced. ‘So what d’you make of all this?’

  ‘The man overboard situation?’

  ‘Woman overboard situation. Of course.’

  ‘We were just discussing it.’

  ‘Pretty spooky, huh? Especially when you consider everything else that’s been going on.’

  ‘Yes,’ Francis replied. He didn’t want to get into a three-way conversation about Eve right now. Nor, particularly, for Carmen to know that he’d shared this secret with Sadie.

  ‘I’m going to have to catch up with you a bit later, Sadie,’ he said. ‘Carmen and I were just …’

  Sadie held up two flat palms in a gesture of bogus supplication. ‘Sure, whatever. Come and join me for a coffee when you’ve finished. I’m going to be up in the Whirlpool Bar. There’s something else I urgently need to talk to you about.’

  ‘I’ll find you,’ Francis said. ‘How’s your aunt, by the way?’

  ‘Completely freaked out about what happened last night. I don’t think she’d realized that you can fall off a ship. And that if you do your chances of being picked up are not so great. She had an idea that if anyone ever went over, a crew member would chuck a life ring after them, the ship would be stopped, Zodiacs launched, and hey ho, they’d be pulled back on board again in time for evening cocktails.’

  ‘Wow!’ said Carmen, after Sadie had gone, weaving her way between the tables towards the door out to deck five. ‘That was some display of passive-aggression.’

  Francis smiled. ‘She did seem a bit intense, didn’t she?’

  ‘I’d say.’

  When Francis and Carmen had finished eating they returned to the bridge to report their findings to the captain. They were joined by First Officer Alexei and Viktor, who was particularly intrigued by Sebastian’s version of the Don and Lauren story.

  ‘So you think it’s true?’ he asked. ‘That she was the one with the money?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Francis replied. ‘Do we, Carmen?’

  ‘Maybe the truth lies somewhere between the two,’ she said. ‘But surely the “Chumba Chumba Cha-Cha” story must be kosha. Why would you make up something like that?’

  A smile crossed the captain’s swarthy features. ‘“Chumba Chumba Cha-Cha”,’ he repeated, in a sing-song manner. ‘Now that was tune I used to like dancing to when I was young. In Ukraine it was big hit.’

  ‘Whether the song made Lauren as rich as Sebastian suggested,’ Francis said, ‘I’ve no idea. But Don is being stubborn for a reason. It may be as simple as pride. Perhaps he doesn’t want people to know that his business empire has failed.’

  ‘It’s not good enough,’ said Viktor. ‘If he really has no money, he had a clear motive. Assuming, of course, that he’s a beneficiary of her will. You need to go back to him. Be tougher. I am happy to come with you, if you like.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Francis. ‘For the moment, we’ll keep the double act going. We’ve still got to talk to the others who were drinking with Don and Lauren last night. The English couple.’

  ‘Fat lady with thin husband?’ said the captain. ‘She is quite something.’

  ‘She is,’ Viktor agreed. ‘You should have seen her doing the voodoo dance in Togo.’

  ‘Between ourselves,’ said Francis, ‘I found out something interesting about her. She has terminal cancer. Just a few months to live. This is probably her last ever trip.’

  The four others were silent at this, as if embarrassed at their own flippancy.

  ‘I am sorry to hear that,’ said Viktor. Then: ‘Are you saying
that this is in some way significant?’

  ‘No,’ Francis replied. ‘Why would it be?’

  ‘She has nothing to lose?’ Carmen suggested.

  ‘This is no surprise to me,’ the captain said. ‘We often get these cases on these cruises. People dream all their lives long about doing something like this, then suddenly they’ve got six months to go, so they blow their savings and do it. You know, in strange way, it makes me feel good about job I do. That people want this experience so bad.’

  Both Viktor and the captain agreed that talking to Shirley and her husband about Don would be a good thing to do. Despite what Carmen had said earlier, Francis asked again about interviewing the engineer.

  ‘I thought we had spoken about this,’ the captain replied tersely. ‘He was up all night and has to go straight back to work later. He is safety officer, so I don’t want him in bad shape. His next shift starts at four p.m. We will wake him for interview shortly before that. Say three thirty. Alexei, you take charge of that; you can bring him up to bridge. Until then he sleeps.’

  ‘OK,’ said Francis. There was little point pressing this; it was only a couple of hours to wait.

  All the necessary authorities, the captain went on, had now been alerted to the missing person situation.

  ‘So we can expect a policeman from the Bahamian Police Authority to meet us on the dock at Freetown?’ said Francis.

  For all his Ukranian reserve, the captain had a sense of humour. ‘As you say in UK,’ he said with a smile, ‘“If pigs could fly”.’

  ‘It still seems extraordinary to me,’ Francis replied. ‘When you’ve actually lost someone overboard. May I ask: have you experienced an MOB situation before?’

  The captain nodded. ‘Yes. Not with Golden Adventurer, though. And I wasn’t captain of that vessel, I was first officer. In that case it was clearly suicide. Woman left note. Her marriage had broken down. Her only son had died in motorcycle accident. She had terminal disease, like this Englishwoman we were talking about. She had come on cruise alone. She drank bottle of whisky and downed pills before she jumped. Sad story. But these things happen.’

  ‘So did you find her then? To know all that …’