Sail Away

by Celia Imrie

  ‘You have to believe me,’ she howled, backing away from him along the corridor. ‘There is something very wrong going on here.’

  The Junior Third Officer had hold of her again now, and however hard she struggled she could not free herself.

  20

  Amanda kept shaking Jason, prodding him, pinching and slapping him, in the hope that he would wake up.

  She herself was feeling much less frail and powerless. This meant that the drugs must be wearing off, but she feared that would also mean the imminent return of Karl to come and give her more.

  She had an idea. She threw herself back on to the floor, crawled to the fridge, and rooted about for cold things, which she tossed back on to the bed with her conjoined hands. She felt like a performing seal. She then pulled off Jason’s shoes and socks and rubbed the soles of his feet with the icy cans and bottles.

  She felt him stir. He also let out a stifled groan.

  She crawled back to the other end of the bed and shook his shoulders. He blinked a few times, then his eyes opened wide, shocked.

  He made a burbling noise, which she realised was him attempting to speak.

  She moved closer to him and clawed at the end of the tape with her fingernails. At first, she couldn’t get a grip, but eventually a small corner came loose. She tugged with all her might and managed to get it half off.

  She made out his words: ‘Where are we?’

  All she managed to say by return was ‘Karl’.

  Jason nodded, his head flat against the pillow. He had understood her.

  He summoned her to sit back up on the bed.

  Then, using his teeth, he tore at the pair of tights which bound her wrists.

  As he gnawed she got more and more purchase and was able to press hard enough to slip one hand out.

  Once freed she tore at the tape on Jason’s mouth.

  ‘He’ll be back soon,’ slurred Jason. ‘He’ll know exactly how long those drugs work.’

  While Amanda tugged at her own gag, Jason lifted his head, then immediately flopped back on to the pillow.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘In his cabin.’

  ‘We have to get out.’

  ‘The phone’s gone,’ said Amanda. ‘And there is no handle on the door.’

  Jason looked at her intensely.

  ‘I know why he has me locked in here, Amanda, but what did you ever do to upset him?’

  ‘It’s something to do with the row I had with you, last night. My son, Mark, who’s staying in my new flat in Pimlico, was picked up for embezzling money with you.’ As Amanda spoke a vague memory gnawed at her. Something to do with the flat. She couldn’t grasp it.

  Jason nodded his head towards the balcony. ‘Let’s try that as a way out.’

  Amanda rolled off the bed and crawled over towards the sliding glass doors. She pulled with all her might, but realised she first needed to release the latch. Using a nearby chair, she hauled herself up, and sat on it, then reached forwards and pulled the handle out. She heard it click.

  Leaning against the frame, Amanda pushed the edge of the front window, then yanked it.

  She turned back to Jason for help.

  ‘It won’t budge,’ she said. Flopping like a fish, Jason rolled himself across the bed on to the floor. Amanda now ripped at the tape binding his wrists and ankles.

  ‘It’s hard to move, isn’t it, even without the tape? I feel as though I’m made of lead,’ he said. ‘Sorry if I’m not being very effective.’

  He tugged and shoved at the glass door.

  He stopped and shook his head. ‘He’s blocked it somehow.’ Stretching out his fingers, he felt along the guiderail.

  ‘There we are,’ he said, his fingers pinching at something. ‘He’s used the curtain rod to stop it. Help me get it out. Your nails are longer.’

  On their knees, the pair of them worked together, using their nails to gouge around the white shiny rod, until they had a grip. First time they got it up a quarter of an inch then lost purchase and it dropped straight back into the gap. Second time they fumbled more but still lost hold. Third time, Jason jammed his thumb under the rod as it came up and they lifted it out.

  Using the chair again, they helped one another to stand upright, then heaved the door half open.

  They both staggered over the raised bottom step, a protection against incoming water, and found themselves outside on the balcony. Leaning against the rail, they looked down at the row of orange lifeboats hanging below, and beneath them the open deck.

  They could see people jogging, running, taking an evening stroll.

  Both tried shouting, but the fog, the ship’s movement and their own feebleness meant that no one below heard anything at all.

  Amanda could see that Jason was barely conscious. After every effort, he slumped back into a semi-sleep, his body going floppy and limp. He seemed to need tremendous force to open his eyes. He rocked forward, a rag doll pressing against her.

  ‘We don’t have much time, Amanda. If you help me to climb up these rails, I could get myself around that partition and jump down on to the next balcony. We must just hope someone’s in there, and they can help us.’

  He tried pulling himself up the guardrails, but each time his grip would go and he slithered back to the floor.

  Amanda realised in his present state it would be highly dangerous to let Jason go ahead. If he lost his hold for a second he would hurtle down thirty feet and smash on to the hard deck below.

  ‘Jason. You must help me get up,’ she said. ‘I’ve been alert longer than you. I’m less likely to fall.’

  ‘But …’ Jason shook his head. ‘You can’t, Amanda. It’s too dangerous for you.’

  Amanda raised her foot on to the lower rung and hauled herself up, grabbing hold of the edge of the white metal partition, shielding them from the next cabin’s balcony. She found herself hanging back into the empty space. Jason lolloped forward and caught her. ‘Careful!’ he cried. ‘Swing your leg round. I’ve got you.’

  Amanda managed to sit astride the balcony rail, a leg either side of the partition. She held on to the freezing-cold metal panel. It was slippery with dew and very hard to keep a grip.

  ‘One last thrust,’ said Jason. ‘Remember to put all your balance forward in the direction of the other balcony’s floor. Hold on. Now, on the count of three.’

  Amanda’s heart was thumping, her fingers were numb. Her flimsy nightgown was sodden with damp.

  She seized Jason’s hand and took a deep breath.

  ‘One …

  ‘Two …

  ‘Three!’

  Amanda lurched forward. As she twisted around the side of the partition she scraped her thigh against a rusty joint. She felt the warmth of blood as her leg caught against the edges of the round metal screws. Disregarding the pain, she used all her strength to fling herself down on to the other balcony.

  She landed with a thump. Winded and shivering with fright, Amanda lay still for a moment or two, feeling like a beached whale. She took deep breaths. When her heart calmed a bit, she felt strong enough to start getting to her feet. She raised her knees.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she heard Jason hiss under the partition.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied. Her voice came out as a feeble croak. She slid her hands to her side, pressing down with all her strength, trying to sit up. A memory flashed. Hadn’t Karl said to her, just as she was slipping under, that he was the previous owner of her new flat? Karl was the Swiss banker, the man who had messed her about. He’d even said her address out loud. How else would he know it?

  Amanda rolled over and hauled herself up on to her knees, using the wooden deck lounger as a prop to steady herself.

  She looked up.

  Although the curtains were drawn, Amanda could see that there was a light on inside. A yellowish glow seeped through the gaps at the top and sides of the curtains. She hoped that it meant somebody was in the cabin, getting dressed perhaps for dinner.

&nbs
p; Amanda tried to stand tall and appear decent. She looked down at herself. She was wearing nothing but a ripped, bloodstained nightie.

  It would not look good.

  When she felt composed, she raised her fist and knocked against the glass.

  She heard movement in the cabin.

  Someone was coming.

  What a relief.

  She heard the clack of the handle.

  She did her best to smile.

  She so needed help.

  The curtain drew back and the glass door slid open.

  ‘Amanda!’ said Karl, otherwise known as Appenzell. ‘I wondered what all the noise was about. I watched you come round the great divide. Thought I’d let you have a moment to contain yourself. In you come.’

  Amanda tried to stagger back out on to the balcony again, but Karl had hold of her, grappling her waist with his strong arms.

  ‘I really must have miscalculated the time on those drugs. Next time I’ll double the dose.’

  He dragged her inside, then slammed the balcony door shut behind her.

  21

  Suzy had been marched down to the Medical Centre.

  Once the Junior Third Officer had gone and she was alone with the doctor, Suzy had deliberately curbed her behaviour, telling him that everything was a terrible misunderstanding. She talked lucidly about simply trying to look for a friend who seemed to have disappeared, and excused the disappearance by talking about it being a silly temper tantrum. It was after all such a very big ship, with so many places to go and so many decks, etcetera, and she had got so frustrated she had reached the end of her tether. Eventually the doctor relented and said she could go. He nodded sagely and told her that if she felt any more panic attacks or semi-psychotic episodes coming on she should return to see him at once.

  Suzy was appalled that, before he let her go, she had to swipe her keycard and allow him to charge her for a consultation.

  But anything to get herself back upstairs and on to the trail of Jason.

  She returned immediately to her cabin to have a think. She shared her thoughts by email with Barbara, telling her everything she knew about Jason, Stan and the erstwhile producer of their show, Herr Appenzell, who was now passing himself off as Stanley K. Arbuthnot. Only for Appenzell the K stood for Karl, not Keith. ‘No one believes me about any of this,’ she wrote. ‘Jason challenged the man and has now gone missing. We’re about a hundred miles off Long Island, coming into New York Harbour before dawn, docking tomorrow at seven.’

  She left the cabin and made her way back up to the purser’s office. Perhaps she could attract someone else’s attention. With any luck, there would have been a change of staff by now and she could start afresh.

  Once she reached the front of the queue, she came up with a new idea.

  ‘I think that a man has gone overboard,’ she said firmly.

  ‘I see.’ The girl gave her a piercing look. ‘Did you witness this episode?’

  ‘I can see no other reason why he would not have turned up for the show or apologised afterwards. It is now a matter of hours since anyone saw him.’ Suzy decided to take the risk of continuing. ‘I also believe that there is someone onboard, a known criminal, who had a very good reason to get rid of him. His name is Karl Appenzell but he is passing himself off as a dead man – Stanley Arbuthnot.’

  Behind her she heard a scoffing laugh. She turned to see a man, who said out of the corner of his mouth to the woman standing beside him, ‘Didn’t I tell you these Pommie actresses are all as mad as March hares, Jennie?’

  ‘I think you had better go back down to the Medical Centre,’ said the girl at the purser’s desk in a steady, threatening tone.

  Suzy looked round and saw two members of staff heading in her direction, but at this moment the elegant Frenchwoman, Liliane, stepped forward and grabbed Suzy’s hand.

  ‘It’s all right, everyone. Suzy is coming with me. She’s preparing for a dramatic role. We theatre folk, “mad as March hares” as our Australian friends back zere in the queue say.’

  Liliane marched Suzy along.

  Suzy tried to shake her off. ‘You don’t understand. We don’t have much time. For all we know, Jason went overboard this afternoon or is lying dead somewhere.’

  ‘Hush,’ said Liliane, stabbing at the lift button. ‘Come with me.’

  They went up and got out at the same floor as Suzy’s cabin but at the lifts took a right rather than a left.

  Suzy realised she was being frogmarched into the starboard side of the entertainment quarters.

  Liliane used her keycard and ushered Suzy into a large cabin, where Arturo the Luminoso sat reading.

  He pulled his spectacles down his nose and said briskly, ‘Ah, Suzy Marshall, I wondered how long it would take you to find us out.’

  ‘Find you out?’

  ‘We are an item, Arturo and I,’ said Liliane rapidly. ‘Professionally and personally, but, for theatrical reasons, obviously whilst onboard we have to keep a distance and pretend to be strangers.’ She turned to Arturo. ‘Suzy has had a desperate encounter with Karl, or as you call him, the Devil, and needs our help.’

  ‘My God! I knew he could not last the whole voyage without breaking out of his diabolic shell.’ Arturo rose instantly from his chair and rolled up his sleeves. ‘What can we do? I can sense your anxiety, Suzy.’ He ran his fingers through his hair, and squeezed his temples with the palms of his hands. ‘I know we don’t have much time.’ He pulled a rabbit’s foot from his pocket, kissed it and put it back. ‘You realise, I am sure, that this soi-disant Karl is a very dangerous man? I felt his wicked vibrations even before we boarded. He sat in the departure lounge holding himself with such tranquil authority that it had to be a lie. I could feel that behind that suave, urbane façade he was exceedingly nervous, and therefore I knew that he must recently have done something very wicked.’

  ‘He’s doing something right now,’ said Suzy, proffering the note she had received from Jason. Almost gabbling, she told how she had taken the Junior Third Officer up to Karl’s cabin, where she felt sure Jason was being held, only to find Appenzell sitting there, cool as a cucumber, in his silk dressing gown and velvet slippers, making her look like a hysteric.

  ‘You are sure this note was written by your friend?’ Arturo held it up. ‘Is it in his hand?’

  Suzy took a close look.

  ‘Would you recognise Jason’s hand?’

  Suzy peered at the neat row of script.

  ‘Oh, what a fool! I was so frightened I didn’t really look closely.’

  ‘It’s not Jason’s writing?’

  ‘His is similar, but not nearly so neat. Much more of a spidery scrawl.’ She felt like crying. She could see that she had been deliberately lured to Appenzell’s cabin to make a fool of herself in front of the crew.

  She had fallen into Appenzell’s trap.

  ‘I don’t know what I can do,’ she appealed to Arturo. ‘I have to find Jason. What if he’s been thrown overboard?’

  ‘It is very difficult to throw a person over,’ said Liliane. She paused before continuing. ‘Difficult, but not impossible, especially in this dense fog.’

  ‘No one could be found in the water on a day like this,’ said Arturo. ‘Especially if you say he’s been missing for …’ he glanced at his pocket watch ‘… over six hours.’

  ‘It’s seven already? Oh God!’ Suzy felt desolate. Outside she could see it was now both foggy and dark.

  ‘Tell us everything you know,’ said Liliane, sitting Suzy down on the sofa. ‘Let’s put it all together. Something may emerge.’

  ‘Lili is right,’ said Arturo. ‘For us to better understand you must tell us everything you know.’

  Suzy told the whole tale from Zurich right up to today. Liliane added what she and Arturo already knew of Karl Appenzell. ‘From the moment he came aboard zat man has been homing in on Amanda,’ she said. ‘I have even seen him following her, watching, when she was unaware. He has some unknown interest i
n zat woman. It’s as though he knew her from before.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with romance?’ asked Arturo.

  ‘No. No. He is targeting her.’ Liliane sighed. ‘Zere was a small diversion when he directed his attention towards Myriam, but we all know what zat is about …’

  ‘Her nephew, Tyger,’ said Suzy.

  ‘Exactly.’ Arturo clapped his hands together. ‘That is his weak spot.’

  ‘I worry about Amanda,’ said Liliane. ‘She is a decent woman. Ze reason she got so drunk last night was because her son had been arrested, something to do with an apartment in London which she had recently purchased. There was also talk of embezzlement. The name Jason Scott came up.’

  ‘Jason?’ Suzy looked up. ‘Could that be because Amanda danced with him?’

  ‘No.’ Liliane was emphatic. ‘Something to do with bank accounts and theft.’

  ‘Jason and I have been caught up in a similar thing,’ said Suzy. ‘To do with the Zurich theatre company we were both in.’

  ‘Really?’ Liliane exchanged a look with her husband.

  ‘We need to talk to Amanda.’ Arturo stood up. ‘We have to find her. She is the key. Find Amanda and we will discover Jason.’

  ‘I don’t know her cabin number,’ said Suzy.

  ‘I do.’ Liliane reached over to her dressing table and pulled up a piece of paper. ‘On the first night out of Southampton the ladies of our table swapped numbers. Here it is.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Suzy, taking Liliane by the hand.

  Arturo patted his pockets, grabbed a sturdy walking stick and followed them.

  They took the lift to Deck 8. As they came out they passed Myriam coming down the stairs from the upper decks.

  ‘I was just heading along to meet Tyger in the ping-pong room,’ she said. ‘Do you know what? Tyger says it’s really called whiff-whaff. I think he’s making it up. What do you think?’

  ‘We need you, Myriam. You can play ping-pong later.’ Liliane grabbed Myriam’s hand. ‘Ze more ze merrier,’ she said. ‘Come help us, Myriam.’

  The four ran along the odd-numbered corridor, counting cabins as they stumbled past suitcases and trunks waiting for collection.