A Wide Berth

by Stella Whitelaw

  ‘Do I have to meet him again?’

  ‘Only once more.’

  ‘I think I’ll jump ship with the five hundred, buy some nice clothes and head for home. Business class, of course.’

  ‘I might come with you.’

  I didn’t know if he was joking. His private life was still a mystery. He seemed to like me a lot, but cruise ships have that romantic atmosphere for any age. Maybe he was sowing a few wild oats, if a little on the late side. Happiness is a choice and maybe he never had a choice. This was not the time to ask him.

  ‘I’ll book you a seat.’

  ‘Are you going to the medical centre this morning? That dressing ought to be looked at. I’m sure Judith will fit you in without an appointment.’

  He was right. I thought I could feel a throb in my arm and that was not good. I’d been trying to ignore it. I’d be in trouble if an infection had set in. Judith Skinner would be jabbing me with antibiotics.

  ‘I’ll keep in touch,’ I said, getting up unsteadily.

  Judith Skinner was not happy when she removed the dressing. ‘It looks a bit nasty, though all the stitches are still in place,’ she said, peering close. ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Did you get any sleep?’

  I nodded. ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Perhaps you’ve knocked it. There’s no muscle damage. Does this hurt?’

  ‘Ouch.’

  ‘I’ll start you on a course of antibiotics to be on the safe side. Take them all, finish the course.’ She wrote out a prescription. ‘Take this out to Helen and she’ll get the tablets for you from the dispensary.’

  ‘Sorry about the drip.’

  ‘Damned things,’ said Judith.

  Helen bustled with the prescription to the drugs cabinet. ‘Let’s see what we can find for you, Casey. Soon have you fit again. Everyone is talking about the pirate raid, you know. You’re a real heroine.’

  ‘I don’t feel like a heroine.’

  ‘It took some guts to face the raiders like that.’

  ‘I don’t remember much about it. Instinct, I guess.’

  ‘You’ll be getting rows of gold stars from Head Office.’ She found the prescribed antibiotics and labelled the packet with my name. ‘Take one immediately, then one every six hours for five days. Please finish the course.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Helen made a neat job of putting on a fresh dressing. I noticed her ring. It was a dull old gold ring with an opal in an ornate setting. I thought nurses didn’t wear jewellery on duty because of germs.

  ‘My mother’s engagement ring,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I forgot to take it off.’

  It was time for a late breakfast. I had not eaten anything since the crumbled croissant. And I had only sipped at a coffee while sitting with Edmund Morgan. I’d been too stressed to eat.

  Dining staff were clearing away the breakfast buffet, but I managed to get the last of the scrambled eggs and mushrooms. One of the stewards carried my tray and another followed with a cup of coffee.

  ‘Very brave lady,’ he said with the faintest wink.

  ‘Please stop saying that.’

  ‘You certain to get medal,’ said the other one.

  I smiled back. I might as well enjoy the glory before I went back to work. Most of the passengers were enjoying their second day in St Lucia, so there was not much work to do. It was a lovely island and there were lots of beaches to visit. Debbie and Gary were getting on famously and I knew I would be sending in glowing reports for both of them. I could see Gary being promoted one day. He didn’t plan on being a DJ forever and would make a good deputy.

  Pierre was apparently still in a state of shock. A state of shock which needed copious refills of Pimm’s to steady his nerves. He was in the Bridge Bar regaling everyone with his version of events. When I enquired how he was feeling, he didn’t answer or even bother to thank me for saving him.

  ‘You’re not properly dressed,’ he said, barely glancing at me. ‘Put your full uniform on.’

  ‘I can’t do up the shirt buttons with one hand,’ I said.

  ‘Excuses, excuses. Do the buttons up before you put it on.’

  ‘I can’t pull it over my head with one arm in a sling.’

  He had a black eye which was turning a lurid shade of orange and green. I did not comment on it. And I could see strands of grey on his forehead where he had not been able to touch up the roots to their customary black sheen.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be glad to know that the entertainment department is running smoothly,’ I said. ‘And that things are back to normal. Will you be introducing tonight’s show?’

  I didn’t wait to hear the answer. I could see the indecision lapping like waves across his face. He wanted to introduce the show, but he also wanted to continue milking the hostage situation. It was worth a few drinks more.

  My phone was ringing. I moved away to a window to answer it. I guessed it would be Bruce with an appointment with the death-watch devil.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Casey?’

  ‘Sorry, Casey is not here at the moment,’ I said. ‘She is with Captain Wellington, helping to steer the ship. Please ring back later.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Casey. I know it’s you. Edmund wants to see you in his office immediately.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘He’s emailed you.’

  ‘You’re reading my emails?’ Clouds like bruises were gathering in the sky. It was going to rain. The tour of passengers visiting the rum distillers would be happy. Time for a few more tasters. Some of the mother tanks were 95 per cent alcohol. ‘Not exactly. I’m reading his emails.’

  ‘I’m not going into his office. That’s final. Full stop. Finale.’

  ‘Casey, it’s only for a few moments to hand over the money. You’ll be bugged. I’ll be outside the door. He can’t hurt you.’

  ‘You think you can guarantee that?’

  ‘Think of Tracy, Mrs Fletcher and the unknown Sally Newman.’

  ‘I am thinking of them and what happened to them.’

  There was a silence. I knew Bruce was disappointed in me, but I couldn’t suddenly become Joan of Arc. I felt a tight edge of sadness. I was letting him down. For some reason I thought of mangrove trees growing through ramshackle shacks and steel drains. My mind was in a turmoil, half on this Caribbean island, the other half drowning in fear.

  ‘OK, I’ll go,’ I said, my voice lost somewhere down in my trainers.

  ‘That’s great,’ said Bruce. ‘I’ll meet you in the Boulevard Café, at the far corner table, starboard. Ten minutes.’

  ‘Starboard? Star bright, star right?’

  ‘Well done, Casey. You can still remember then?’

  I had ten minutes to get myself into gear. Not clothes gear, mind gear. I wanted everything to be finished so I could go home. To hell with the annual assessment. They could keep cruising. I’d become a manager at some yacht club on the south coast. There were plenty of them.

  Those ten minutes were spent wisely. I did change my clothes, put on my full-deck uniform, even the jacket, despite the heat. It meant throwing off the sling for a while, but I managed. Immaculate make-up followed. I dusted rouge with a big brush to disguise the pallor. But I wasn’t wasting my favourite perfume on Edmund. I used a sample spray of old stock from the ship’s shop.

  Bruce was waiting. The customary coffee was waiting. I didn’t even sit down.

  ‘Just give me the money and the bug and I’ll be off,’ I said tersely.

  ‘Casey, it’s not as easy as that. I have to brief you. Tell you what to say. It’s important if the tape is to be used as evidence.’

  Bruce was back in police mode, no expression on his face. He pushed a slim envelope towards me and I put it in my jacket pocket. It didn’t even make a bulge. Fifty-pound notes, I guessed. Ten of them.

  ‘This is the bug,’ he said. ‘Put it inside your clothes and clip the microphone to your bra strap so that
it’s not visible. Clip the on and off switch to your waistband. Don’t forget to switch it on.’

  ‘I can do all that. You don’t need to tell me.’

  ‘Don’t forget to mention the five hundred pounds out loud. Say it’s for the incriminating photos. Remind him that he demanded that amount from you. We must have every step of the transaction. Don’t simply hand it over, saying, ‘Here it is’.’

  ‘I was going to say, ‘Up yours, guv’.’

  ‘Hardly appropriate in the circumstances, Casey, however strongly you feel.’

  ‘Can I go now?’

  ‘You’re still annoyed with me?’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t think it would be like this. I don’t know what I thought it would be like, but not like this.’

  The bug was bundled into my other jacket pocket and I marched off to the nearest ladies’ cloakroom. The anger and indignation were inexplicable but the feelings were real. I wanted to get it over. There was no fear, despite the fact that I was dealing with a possible murderer. It hadn’t been proved.

  The tiny microphone clipped to my bra strap felt huge, scratching my skin, but it didn’t show. I switched it on.

  ‘You OK, Casey?’ said Daniel Webster, passing me in a corridor as I went down in to the depths towards Edmund’s office.

  ‘Fine,’ I said, brightly. ‘Back on track.’

  ‘Captain Wellington would like you to dine at his table this evening,’ he went on. ‘I’m supposed to deliver the invitation.’

  ‘How kind,’ I said. ‘I’d be delighted. Formal?’

  ‘As formal as you like.’

  Would it be my pink Versace or my black fishtail chiffon? It depended which looked best with an arm dressing and a wrist and collar sling. Maybe the silver trouser suit was the best cover-up.

  I knocked on the door of Edmund’s office but didn’t wait for an answer. I went straight in. He looked up from his desk, surprised, perhaps not expecting me so promptly.

  ‘I’ve brought the five hundred pounds that you demanded from me for keeping quiet about the incriminating photographs taken in my cabin last night without my permission.’ I said it all in one breath. ‘You don’t have to count the money. It’s all there.’

  ‘Sit down, Casey,’ he said. ‘We don’t have to hurry this.’

  ‘Yes, we do have to hurry this. I don’t want to be breathing the same air as you for one moment longer than I have to. How many other people have you blackmailed like this? Did you blackmail Tracy and Mrs Fletcher and Sally Newman?’

  His face tightened, a tic showing at the corner of his mouth. ‘What’s all this? Sally Newman? How do you know about Sally Newman?’

  ‘Was she a friend of yours or simply another unfortunate passenger?’

  ‘I don’t think it is any of your business,’ he said, standing up. His hands were splayed on top of the desk. ‘Hand over the money and we’ll call this matter finished.’

  ‘Where are the photographs?’

  ‘In my safe. And that’s where they will stay until we dock at Southampton. I’ll return them to you then.’

  ‘But I’m not staying on the ship until Southampton. I’ll be returning to the UK as soon as they have found a replacement for me.’

  We were getting into muddy waters. And I had a grim feeling that I had said too much in the heat of the moment. Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned the other three women.

  ‘This one’s going to be trouble,’ said another voice from behind me, a woman’s voice. ‘I knew she was going to be as soon as she spotted the ring. I shouldn’t have worn it. A big mistake. But we won’t make any more mistakes, will we, Eddie?’

  Suddenly there was a bare arm across my throat. No silken scarf, but bone and flesh pressing down on my larynx.

  I gasped and started struggling, but the woman had my mobile arm in a lock. I couldn’t move. Edmund looked at me with a face that figured pound, euro and dollar signs.

  ‘Don’t squeeze too hard,’ he said. ‘I want her alive for a bit longer.’

  24. At Sea

  It was like a Wild West film with the sheriff bursting into the saloon in the nick of time to save the heroine from kidnap by the baddies. Only it was Bruce Everton with several burly seamen, and he was followed by Dr Judith Skinner, her face ashen.

  My throat was released and I fell back, coughing, gasping for breath. It was all happening so fast. But I was alive, just about.

  Edmund seemed to shrink behind his desk. Bruce Everton went straight over to him and said something which I couldn’t hear. Everywhere was noise. There was another commotion as the woman was restrained behind me. She was putting up a struggle.

  Judith clutched my good arm. ‘Have you taken any of those tablets I prescribed for you, Casey? You know, the antibiotics?’

  ‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Sorry, but I forgot …’

  ‘Thank goodness. Helen gave you the wrong pills. I’ve only just spotted the mistake. She gave you some Warfarin which I only keep in case we get a patient with a blood clot or heart valve disorder.’

  ‘And is that dangerous?’

  ‘You’d start bleeding in a few days. Eyes first, nose, internally. Very nasty.’

  It was then that I recognized the woman’s voice from behind me, the owner of the muscular arm across my throat, pressing down on my larynx. It was Helen, the chief nurse, the strong woman in Edmund’s life.

  She was the garrotter with a stick and a silk scarf. It had been a chain of blackmail and murders. He did the extortion and she did the extinction if the victims refused or threatened to expose them. They were an unlikely couple. One weak, the other strong.

  Helen was standing there, heaving, glaring at me with hatred.

  ‘I could have been like you, in a fancy uniform with fancy clothes,’ she snarled. ‘Only they turned me down. Too big and too ugly for the entertainment department, only they didn’t quite put it like that. They said it was something to do with attitude.’

  ‘I’m sorry if you wanted my job,’ I said, forcing the words out. ‘But you’ve rather blown it now.’

  Bruce was removing the microphone from my bra strap and the recorder from my waist. ‘You should go now, Casey,’ he said. ‘You need a strong coffee and a brandy. Go and sit down. I’ll get a statement from you later.’

  ‘A statement?’

  ‘It all has to be written down. Statutory police procedure. More for the paper mountain.’

  ‘But she was going to kill me. Twice. The wrong pills and then half-throttling me.’

  ‘I know. We saw and heard everything that was happening, but you are safe now. Leave it all to us.’

  ‘Saw?’

  ‘There’s a tiny camera fixed in the corner, up there. We didn’t tell you in case you looked at it. You might have given it away.’

  I saw a familiar face in the doorway. It was Captain Wellington. He was opaque with rage and shock. He took in the situation immediately.

  ‘Lock them up,’ he said. ‘I’ll arrange for their deportation ashore immediately. We can delay our departure from St Lucia. We can easily make up the time overnight.’

  ‘I’d like reinforcements from shore police,’ said Bruce.

  ‘You’ll get it.’

  Judith was ushering me out. She did not look at Helen. She could not hide her disappointment and outrage.

  ‘She was going to kill me,’ I said again. I was like a broken record.

  ‘Don’t think about it, Casey. Let’s check you out first. You might have a few bruises.’

  ‘I’d rather have a brandy,’ I said.

  ‘You deserve a double.’

  It was the nicest thing anyone had said for days. I was emerging from the nightmare. Perhaps Bruce would explain it all to me when he had time. I’d gathered that Edmund blackmailed passengers and maybe even members of the crew. Helen helped him gather evidence for blackmail. She would obviously pass on any snippets of gossip from the medical centre. And she had access to medical histories.

  Then i
f any blackmail victim became difficult and threatened to report the situation, she was the one with the stick and the scarf. Edmund would be too squeamish. Helen had probably trashed Tracy’s cabin, some sort of twisted revenge.

  Tracy had discovered Edmund’s after-hours activities and had to be silenced. Lorna Fletcher had enough spirit to resist his blackmail. Edmund wouldn’t have known that Mr Fletcher had been in the police force. But Sally Newman was a mystery. We knew nothing about her or the circumstances of her death.

  Then I remembered what Romanoff had told me. He had a wife in Moscow.

  Edmund had tried to blackmail him and Tracy found out, threatened to go to the captain and that was enough to sign her eternal silence.

  I didn’t want to go to Judith’s cabin or to the medical centre. I had a severe case of claustrophobia. No small spaces, please, and nowhere that would remind me of recent events. We went instead to the Bridge Bar which was usually quiet at this time of day.

  The only person there was Ted Sullivan, looking his old self.

  ‘Allow me,’ he said. ‘Two double brandies, ladies? You both look as if you need them.’

  ‘And some coffee, please,’ said Judith hastily. ‘One of us still has to work.’

  ‘Both of us still have to work,’ I reminded her. ‘There’s this evening’s show to introduce. Pierre has been drinking all day. I doubt if he’ll be fit for it.’

  ‘He can hold his drink remarkably well,’ said Judith. I didn’t mention her sister. I was not supposed to have heard that quarrel.

  ‘I won’t join you,’ Ted went on. ‘I have a feeling you ladies have a lot to talk about. Perhaps another time, Doctor? Would you care for a late night drink?’

  Judith looked slightly disconcerted. She didn’t get many late night dates. ‘Thank you, Mr Sullivan. That would be very nice. How are you feeling now?’

  ‘Top of the world,’ he said, raising his glass.

  ‘We never found out who spiked your bottle of water.’

  ‘I shouldn’t bother. It was that mean-faced John Fletcher who couldn’t stand the sight of me, especially when I made his wife laugh. He offered me a water bottle in the departure lounge before we boarded the tenders to go ashore. Said I might need it on the rough trip. Nice little thing, Lorna. We got on rather famously.’