Crippen

by John Boyne

  ‘Really,’ said Inspector Dew, his stomach turning at the very idea. ‘I think you’re all letting your imaginations run away with you now.’

  Eager to spend time with the inspector and be painted by association with a little glamour, several people reported minor crimes on board the Laurentic; necklaces disappeared, coats were taken from deckchairs, money went missing from wallets.

  ‘Not my department, I’m afraid,’ Dew said whenever someone reported any such occurrence to him. ‘You’ll have to speak to Captain Taylor.’

  ‘But you’re from Scotland Yard,’ they protested. ‘Surely you can do something about it.’

  ‘I’m on a manhunt,’ he announced firmly. ‘And other than that, I have no jurisdiction for anything else on board this ship. I’m afraid I can’t help you.’

  This satisfied no one, but he held his ground. A late-night visit to see Captain Taylor on the evening of the 25th, however, provided him with some happiness.

  ‘We’ll make it all right,’ the captain confirmed, studying his charts. ‘Seems to me that we’ll pass by the Montrose some time on the evening of the twenty-seventh. Should we telegraph ahead to Captain Kendall and tell him you’ll be coming aboard?’

  Dew thought about it. ‘How would I do that?’ he asked.

  ‘We could lower a boat and one of my men could row you across to them. Then you board the other ship.’

  Dew considered this and shook his head. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘As long as we pass them by, that’s all that matters. The last thing I need is to have to spend three days on board that ship as she approaches Canada, before having to turn around again. I think it’s best to leave Dr Crippen ignorant of what’s going on until the last possible moment.’

  ‘So what would you have us do?’

  ‘We’ll wait until the day they would be coming into port. And that morning, before they do, I’ll ask Captain Kendall to come to a full stop while I board. I’ll arrest him then, and after we dock I’ll take the third of August boat back to England.’

  Taylor nodded. ‘I’ll use the Marconi to let them know,’ he said. ‘If that’s permitted.’

  ‘Indeed, indeed. But reiterate to them that no one should be told anything until the very last moment. Dr Crippen may be capable of anything and I do not want him vanishing into thin air or taking any hostages before I can get to him. And the last thing I need is another dead body on my hands.’

  Taylor nodded and switched on the telegraph apparatus.

  At night-time on the Montrose fierce music could be heard coming from the steerage deck of the ship while elegant violins played in the dining hall attached to first class. Most evenings, Ethel would have preferred to visit the former in order to see how the lower classes enjoyed themselves; it certainly sounded a lot more entertaining than the dirges to which she was otherwise subjected. Victoria Drake, on the other hand, was only just aware that there were people living in that part of the vessel. She had heard of the poor, naturally. And she was sure that it was all very unpleasant, but it had hardly anything to do with her, had it?

  It was eleven o’clock and Mr Robinson had retired to his cabin with an improving book. Mrs Drake had gone to bed, claiming a headache after Matthieu Zéla had spun her around the dance floor one time too many and she had felt her dinner returning to upset her, a deliberate move on his part to get rid of her for the rest of the night. Her departure had meant that he and Martha Hayes could talk in peace, without having to watch their every move or announce their engagement at the end of the night.

  Growing weary of playing the role of Edmund, a couple of nights before Ethel had found a quiet spot where she liked to sit alone and watch the stars, and she sat there tonight, still dressed in her male garb, her legs stretched out in front of her, her back leaning against a lifeboat, enjoying the sound of the waves crashing against the sides of the boat. She thought of Hawley Crippen, not John Robinson, and shook her head, laughing a little as she looked at the clothes she had been forced to wear for love. It had always shocked her that such a good man could be treated so cruelly and with such contempt by a woman not fit to shine his boots, let alone call herself his wife. She wondered how Cora had tricked Hawley into marrying her in the first place. But she was gone now, Ethel thought with a smile.

  Victoria Drake had decided that tonight she would finally conquer Edmund’s resolve or perish trying. They were drawing closer and closer to Canada now, and it would be outrageous if she arrived there, having practically thrown herself at a man and been rejected at every opportunity. It had never happened before in her life and she was damned if she was going to allow it to take place now. Why, once one person got away with that, any number could. And what if Edmund told people? Her reputation would be shattered. She might never have the upper hand again.

  Going to bed the previous night, she had spotted Edmund sitting alone in his new secret hideaway by the lifeboats and had spent the day plotting her move. It was an entirely different ploy: she would win him over by subverting her true nature entirely and being everything she suspected a sensitive fellow like him wanted in a girl. In short, she would be nice. The idea revolted her, but there was little else she could do.

  She made her way towards him carefully, picking her footsteps with caution for she did not want the glasses to clink together. Only when she was practically beside him did he look up, startled out of his daydream, and notice her standing there.

  ‘Victoria,’ he said. ‘You gave me a shock.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I did call your name but you didn’t hear me.’ A lie.

  He glanced at the bottle and glasses she was holding in her hands and he sighed. Surely she was not going to make another attempt at romance between them.

  ‘I’m not disturbing you, am I?’ she asked gently.

  ‘No,’ he replied, without much enthusiasm but willing to observe social decorum. ‘No, you’re welcome to join me. Sit down. I see you brought some drinks.’

  She laughed. ‘It’s been one of those days,’ she said. ‘And I fancied some champagne on my own, away from everyone. I thought I’d hide myself away here for a little while. I didn’t expect anyone else to be here.’

  ‘But you brought two glasses.’

  ‘I told the wine steward they were for my mother and me. Otherwise he might not have given me the bottle. But here,’ she added, handing him one, ‘you might as well have one.’

  Edmund thought about it for a moment and finally smiled, accepting the glass from her. The bottle she had brought with her was a large, two-litre bottle of champagne, a veritable magnum. ‘When you bring a bottle, you really bring a bottle,’ he said. ‘You weren’t going to drink all that on your own, were you?’

  She shrugged and looked away from him, into the dark, black sea, the waves glinting in the moonlight. ‘I thought I’d have a glass,’ she told him. ‘And then I’d have another. And if I felt like it, I’d have another. And then see how I got on from there.’

  Edmund laughed. ‘Well, let’s start then,’ he said. He reached down and popped the cork and held it away from himself while a little foam poured over the top.

  Victoria loved champagne. It had been her favourite drink in the world from the age of fourteen. Edmund poured two glasses full and set the heavy bottle down behind him in a groove cut out by the holding bays, which prevented it from falling over. ‘Cheers,’ he said, clinking glasses.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Victoria. ‘To Canada.’

  ‘Canada.’

  Silence fell between them for a few moments while they watched the water and listened to its rhythmic melody crashing against the hull. Edmund felt pleased that Victoria was in a quiet mood for once. It didn’t look as if she was going to start attempting to seduce him again, and this made him relax and enjoy his champagne even more.

  ‘If you could change any one thing about this voyage,’ she said finally, ‘what would it be?’

  Edmund thought about it. ‘It sounds like a strange answer,’ he said,
‘but I think I’d change the captain.’

  ‘The captain?’ she asked, surprised. ‘Why ever would you do that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘There’s something about the man that I don’t trust. Every time I turn around, he seems to be standing there, watching me. I come out of my cabin and he’s lurking around, I sit in the dining hall and he’s ten feet away from me. I take a walk on deck, look up towards the wheelhouse, and he’s up there with his binoculars pointing in my direction. The second I look, he turns away of course, but nevertheless I find him unsettling.’

  Victoria raised an eyebrow and brushed some strands of hair away from her face. ‘I’ve barely noticed him, to be honest,’ she said. ‘Although I did see him in the corridor outside our cabins one day, acting very oddly indeed.’

  ‘I’m probably being paranoid,’ said Edmund. ‘But what about you? What would you change?’

  ‘Easy,’ she said. ‘I’d have my own cabin. Believe me, you haven’t had sleepless nights until you’ve heard my mother snoring.’

  Edmund laughed. ‘That’s a pleasure I believe I will be able to live without,’ he said.

  ‘Honestly, I asked for a separate cabin originally, but she said it was too expensive. And that’s a joke because she asked my father to book us the Presidential Suite, which is almost twice as expensive as ours anyway, but he refused because he said that was too expensive. I come from a long line of skinflints, Edmund.’

  They drank their champagne and for the first time he felt an attachment towards Victoria. He refilled their glasses and reflected that she wasn’t such a bad girl really, just a little too keen to get her own way all the time. Was he any different? He thought not. After all, when he considered his own actions in recent times, it put Victoria’s deeds in the shade.

  When Victoria had been spying on Edmund earlier that evening and choosing her moment to make her presence felt, she had been unaware that she herself was being watched. Tom DuMarqué, freshly bathed for the first time in days, had been observing her from a distance and wondering why she was behaving as she was. She had a bottle and two glasses, but she was hovering in the shadows, watching something or someone in the distance. How he wished that he was sharing that bottle with her. When eventually she had made her move, he had followed her, but on the other side of the lifeboats, and when she settled down with her back to one of them, he had settled in on the other side, listening to her every word. It appalled him to see who she had gone to meet, and it was all he could do not to march around and break up their party. His hand reached into the inner pocket of his jacket where he kept his pocket knife and his fingers touched it with relief. If Edmund Robinson tried anything underhand, he would put an end to his Lothario ways once and for all. He had been warned.

  ‘I think I owe you an apology,’ Victoria said, inwardly almost gagging on the word.

  ‘An apology? For what?’

  ‘My tiresome attempt at seduction in your cabin the other day. I don’t know what was wrong with me.’

  ‘Really, Victoria, don’t give it another thought.’

  ‘I thought you were playing hard to get, you see.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s a tactic I’ve not seen very often.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And the thing is, I’m not used to rejection.’

  Edmund turned to look at her. In the moonlight, her pale beauty seemed a lot more vulnerable, especially when taken alongside what she had just said. ‘I wouldn’t imagine you are,’ he said. ‘You’re too beautiful to be rejected.’

  ‘And yet you did.’

  He sighed. ‘If you’re not used to being rejected,’ he said, ‘trust me when I tell you that I’m even less used to having beautiful girls throw themselves at me.’

  ‘Now I find that hard to believe,’ she said, laughing.

  ‘Well, it’s true.’

  ‘You underestimate yourself, Edmund. I was drawn to you the moment I saw you.’

  ‘Really?’ It amazed him to hear this, but intrigued him as well. ‘Might I ask why?’

  ‘Fishing for compliments, are we?’

  ‘No,’ he said, flustered. ‘No, I just meant—’

  ‘It’s all right. I’m just teasing you. But since you ask, you have a sensitive look that many boys don’t have. Your skin is so soft and your bone structure . . . listen to me,’ she said, blushing in the darkness, amazed to hear herself carry off her deception so well. ‘I sound like a romance novel.’

  ‘You surprise me,’ he said. ‘And it surprises me to feel so flattered.’

  ‘You do have a girlfriend somewhere, don’t you?’

  ‘Me?’ he asked, shaking his head. ‘No.’

  ‘You must have had one once, though. You can’t be . . . I mean surely you’re not . . . you have had a girlfriend at some point in your life.’

  ‘I’ve been in love, if that’s what you mean,’ he admitted. ‘Once. I was lucky, really. I met someone very special. Someone damaged. Someone who had been hurt by another. And I helped this person out because I found feelings within myself I had never known before. I didn’t realize the things you could do for love.’

  ‘And what happened to her?’ asked Victoria. ‘She didn’t die or anything, did she?’

  ‘No,’ he said, smiling. ‘No, nothing like that. Let’s just say, we have great hopes for the future.’

  Victoria nodded. Edmund continued to confuse her, but their closeness on deck made her flesh tingle.

  ‘This champagne is starting to go to my head,’ he said, pouring a fourth glass for each of them. ‘I’ll be drunk soon.’

  ‘There’s half a bottle to get through yet,’ she said, smiling, pleased that her plan was coming to fruition. It was a cheap trick to get him drunk in order to seduce him but it would be worth it. At least when the deed was done he could no longer act in so superior a way towards her.

  From his vantage point a few feet away, Tom DuMarqué pressed the nails of his fingers into the palms of his hands and had to restrain himself physically from crying out in anger. Listening to Edmund speak, he grew to despise his rival even more; his fruitless talk of beauty and love and feelings disgusted the boy. This was the talk of a silly, romantic girl, not of a healthy young fellow. Had he and his friends cornered this popinjay back home on the streets of Paris, they would have known what to do with him. And as for her! Bone structure indeed. I’ll give you bone structure, he thought. What a cruel world it was that wasted a beautiful girl like her on a useless fool like Edmund Robinson when he, Tom DuMarqué, strong, virile and athletic, was willing to take her on. It was almost too much for him to bear, but he could neither walk away nor interrupt their conversation.

  ‘The thing about this boat,’ said Edmund, beginning to slur his words a little, ‘is that it’s too slow. Now I bet that fifty years from now they’ll put bigger engines on these things and they’ll speed across the ocean in a couple of hours.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘Of course. It’s inevitable. Technology always progresses. If you think that by the end of the twentieth century, transatlantic boats will still be going at this speed . . . well, you’d be crazy to think that because it just won’t be so.’

  ‘You should be an engineer,’ Victoria murmured, nestling closer to him and desperate to run the tip of her finger along his jawline. ‘Or an inventor.’

  ‘Maybe I should,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sure you’d be very good at it,’ she continued, encouraging him. ‘You’re so strong-willed and filled with ideas. I can see myself opening a newspaper in a few years’ time and finding out that you’ve discovered some wonderful new idea that’s changed the world. I’d be so proud of you then.’

  ‘You’d be proud of me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But why? You scarcely know me.’

  ‘I’d be proud that I knew you at all,’ she said, and her words filtered gently into his ear, warming him, intriguing him. ‘I’m proud I know yo
u now.’

  Edmund turned his head slowly and looked at his companion. His head was a little light and he felt as if he didn’t have full control over his body any more. It had been so long since he had drunk this amount of alcohol that it was in danger of overwhelming him. He stared into Victoria’s face and wondered how he could ever have found her annoying. The things she was saying to him were so thoughtful, so gentle; he almost never received encouragement like this, not even from Hawley.

  ‘You’re so kind, Victoria,’ he whispered, but she shushed him by putting a finger to his lips and holding it there for a moment. The sensation of touching those full red lips sent waves of desire through her body and she had to restrain herself from jumping on him, but she had succeeded this far and she was determined not to spoil it at the end.

  ‘Don’t say anything else, Edmund,’ she whispered, taking her finger away and positioning her face so close to his that there was nothing else he could do now but lean forward and kiss her. Their lips met and, as they did so, Edmund closed his eyes, losing himself in the moment. The champagne ran through his system, exciting his nerves, stimulating his senses, and they continued to kiss, their mouths opening wider as their tongues explored each other’s mouths.

  They continued like this for the best part of a minute, before Edmund’s eyes opened and he realized what he was doing. Surprised and startled, as if he had not even been part of the moment but a mere spectator, he leapt back, scrambling along the deck slightly, staring at Victoria in amazement.

  ‘Edmund,’ she said, her lip curling a little now in pleasure, having finally succeeded in gaining the upper hand. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he spluttered. ‘I . . . I shouldn’t be doing this.’

  ‘Why not? There’s nothing wrong with it.’

  ‘There’s everything wrong with it,’ he said, standing up and brushing his trousers down, then putting a hand to his forehead in amazement. ‘You don’t understand. I shouldn’t be . . . I can’t explain it, it’s—’