Second Sitting

by Stella Whitelaw

  ‘Don’t you ever answer your phone, Miss Jones?’ asked a chilling voice. ‘That’s not very wise, is it?’

  I slammed down the phone fast. He was still on-board.

  Twenty-Nine - At Sea

  ‘Miss Jones, may I speak with you?’

  It was one of the young waiters from the Windsor Dining Room. I knew the face but not the name. He looked worried and apprehensive.

  ‘Of course. What’s the matter?’

  He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. I had a feeling that this was going to be a long rigmarole and he was going to spill out a lifetime of personal problems. But he was young and far away from home.

  ‘You remember Mr Foster? The gentleman who died of a heart attack on table two, early in the cruise?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Foster. Very sad.’

  ‘I was serving on the table that evening, as assistant waiter, vegetables and rolls, horseradish sauce, you know, and clearing plates.’

  All along I’d known there was something that I had missed that evening. I could still visualize the scene round the table and the spurt of cherry-red blood. This young man might be able to jog my memory. I nodded, not wanting to break his train of thought.

  ‘I was part of the team that cleared the table afterwards, double-quick. You understand? Everything has to be cleared away and re-laid. Cannot upset the other passengers. Very important.’

  I nodded again. He was getting to the point of his story.

  ‘It was all properly cleared, Miss Jones, I swear. But I forgot one thing. There was a jar of tablets beside Mr Foster’s place, opened. I screwed the top on and put it in my pocket, without thinking. I forgot to hand it to the dining-room manager as I should have done. It is a rule. Anything found on a table must be handed in. I could lose my job. I cannot sleep because of the worry.’

  I knew it was a strict rule. He could lose his job. Then his family would suffer. No money being sent home. But I was not going to report him.

  ‘An easy mistake, really,’ I reassured him. ‘You were in shock. It was a dreadful thing to happen right in front of you, a death at your table, especially if you were serving Mr Foster. Where are the tablets now?’

  ‘They are here. I kept them safe.’ He handed over a small screw-top jar. They were multi-vitamin tablets. A well-known brand.

  ‘Don’t worry any more,’ I said. ‘I’ll return them to Mrs Foster. There will be no need to explain how I got them. After all, I don’t even know your name.’

  His face broke out into a big smile, perfect teeth gleaming. ‘I would be so grateful to you. Thank you, thank you, Miss Jones. Ahmed said you would help me. He said you were a very kind lady.’

  ‘Very kind,’ I echoed.

  There was time to take the tablets to Samuel. He ought to look at them, check them out. I remembered the scene quite clearly now. I had seen Mr Foster pop a couple of tablets into his mouth and down them with a drink of water. I looked at the directions on the label. Take with food. He’d taken them with food.

  Samuel hurried out of his surgery, white jacket, immaculately pressed white trousers, stethoscope round his neck.

  ‘Yes, Casey? Is this urgent? I’m busy.’

  ‘These are Mr Foster’s vitamin tablets. He took a couple almost immediately before he died. I saw him take them. Maybe they were doctored. Sorry, that’s not meant to be a joke.’

  ‘Multi-vitamins. So how do you think they could be doctored? Like injected with a syringe?’

  It wasn’t easy telling him. Part of me was wondering if I would ever know him better, if we would ever be closer and not simply friends who bantered and teased and argued. Those grey eyes often seemed to be saying something different to me, but I couldn’t read them. I didn’t know the code.

  ‘They’re gelatine shell capsules. You could carefully prise them apart and tip out the genuine contents. Replace with a different substance, then put the two halves of the capsule together again.’

  ‘You do have one heck of an imagination.’

  ‘But it is possible. I’ve tried it. The assassin’s alibi would then be perfect. No one could have any idea when Mr Foster would take the doctored capsule. It could be any time, any day, anywhere.’

  ‘I suppose you won’t give me any peace till I’ve looked at this lot,’ Dr Mallory groaned. ‘I’ve enough to do.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You owe me a drink.’

  ‘I’ll buy you two.’

  *

  It was a busy morning and I was deep in speed-reading a rash of emails, when Dr Mallory phoned my mobile. I was trying to eat a shrimp and salad sandwich at the same time. Quite a feat.

  ‘Who’s a clever girl? I’ll buy you three drinks, Casey,’ said the good doctor. ‘Spot on, Sherlock. There are slight traces of cyanide on the outer casing of the other capsules, obviously rubbed off from the doctored capsule. There’ll have to be a PM now when we get back to Southampton. I’m going to inform the authorities but I doubt if they’ll fly anyone out. No point.’

  I sat back with a sense of relief but it was quickly replaced by fear. We had a murderer on-board. What if all the deaths were linked and I was still involved? It was not a pleasant thought.

  ‘But are they linked?’ I asked wearily. ‘Reg Hawkins and Nigel Garten? Is it the same murderer?’

  ‘How should I know? I’m only the doctor on board ship. I’m not a pathologist or detective. I only house the bodies till we reach Southampton. Ask your friend, Richard Norton.’

  He put the phone down. I was rooted to the spot. Never before had I witnessed the slightest ill humour or temper in Dr Mallory. But there had certainly been a snap to those last remarks. The snap had almost bitten my nose.

  ‘Thanks. I will.’ The smile on my face only lasted till I reached the lift on my way to Richard Norton’s office.

  Later I wandered the Promenade Deck, barely recognizing anyone. I suddenly felt that I didn’t have any friends on this ship. That was true. No one was exactly my friend. I knew dozens of people, several hundred by name, but none of them were actual friends. If I was murdered in my cabin tonight, Ahmed would be the chief mourner.

  ‘Miss Jones? You are deep in thought. Care to join me for a few moments?’ It was Madame de Leger, sitting in a deck lounger. She had a beautiful silvery-grey pashmina wrapped round her shoulders. There was occasionally a coolness in the air since we had left the Caribbean. She patted the empty chair beside her.

  I sat down gratefully. She was always good company. She looked a little pale today as if the long cruise was a week too long and she wanted to go home. Many passengers found the same company, day after day, somewhat tedious.

  ‘Are you ready to go home?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I should like to go home now. I’ve done what I came to achieve so for me the cruise is over. It has been very pleasant and I’m glad that I came, but this is my last cruise.’

  ‘Surely not? You’ll come on lots more cruises.’ It was the standard reply.

  ‘No, my dear. I know when I have reached safe harbour point. It’s not something I readily admit, but I am quite old. One should retire gracefully before the wheelchair phase sets in. I don’t want to be wheeled round with people feeling sorry for me.’

  ‘What will you do instead?’

  ‘Stay at home and continue writing my memoirs. You never know, I may even get them published. People like reading about wartime exploits. But enough about me. Tell me why you are looking so worried.’

  ‘It’s all the sad deaths on table two. I can’t get them out of my mind.’

  ‘Natural causes, my dear, and accidents. Mr Foster died of a heart attack, what could be more natural? And poor Mr Garten, that was an accident. He fell overboard. Perhaps he’d had a little too much to drink and slipped. He did enjoy a drink or two.’

  ‘It’s quite hard to slip over a rail that high.’ I indicated the height of the rail opposite us. Madame de Leger didn’t know about Reg Hawkins. Perhaps that w
as an accident too. Maybe he had been rehearsing a new trick that went wrong.

  She leaned towards me, a little frown adding to the fine lines on her skin. Her white hair was beautifully coiled round her head as usual, but a few strands had escaped in the breeze and they had a youthful look.

  ‘May I ask a favour?’

  ‘Yes, please do.’

  ‘If I should die on the cruise, of natural causes of course,’ she added with a faintly ironic smile. ‘I want to be tipped overboard into the sea, like they do in films. Perhaps the jazz band could play something appropriate on deck, Cole Porter perhaps or Gershwin. I don’t want to be taken back to England in a box and all those forms to fill in.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t have to fill in the forms,’ I said ridiculously. Her favour had taken me by surprise.

  She laughed. ‘You always make me laugh. I don’t want to be a trouble to anyone. Food for the fishes. Genuine recycling.’

  ‘You are not going to die on the cruise,’ I said firmly. ‘You are going to go home and finish writing your life story and get it published. I shall be the first to buy a copy.’

  ‘I shall send you one, complimentary, signed and all that. Now, I think it’s time for a little sleep before dinner, or I shall have no appetite for that wonderful food. Nice talking to you.’

  Madame de Leger got up and walked quite briskly inside.

  She didn’t walk like an old person. I shivered. It had turned cooler or was it my imagination?

  Then I saw a blue soft-covered notebook, tucked down the side of her chair. Her writing book. She’d left it behind. I got up to follow her but she had already disappeared and I didn’t know her cabin number. I’d have to hand it in at Reception and get them to forward it to her cabin.

  The pages flicked open in the breeze. It was full of small, neat handwriting. Some in English and some in French. Most of the entries were dated. I read a few lines. I didn’t feel guilty about reading them. After all, she did say she was going to give me a copy.

  June, 1940. Dunkirk. The shelling had been going on all night. We were hiding in an old farmhouse near the coast.

  They let us sleep in the barn but there was no sleep for us.

  The English officer wrapped me in his coat. It was covered in mud. Then later I slept in his arms. It was the only way we could find comfort in each other, très dommage.

  In the morning, the shelling was worse. They said there were ships on the beaches of Dunkirk to take off the troops. Would they take me? After all, I was on their side. I worked for them. I risked my life too. But when l went outside, my bicycle had gone. I’d hidden it under some old sacking.

  The English officer had taken it. He was the only one I had told. Mon Dieu. I would have to walk. My boots were wet and rotten.

  I put on his uniform coat and felt in the pockets in case there was any food. There was a letter addressed to him.

  I sat in a ditch and read it. His wife had given birth to a son. She was going to call him George. George Foster.

  I sat back, unable to read on. George Foster. So this was the proof of what I had begun to suspect from piecing together Maria de Leger’s story. This war-time child would be about the same age as our George Foster, deceased. The writing blurred as I made myself read on.

  The beaches were covered with the dead and dying. I did what I could to ease their deaths, held their hands, said prayers for their souls. The ships had all gone and so had the English officer. I found my bicycle, twisted and bent, thrown into a sand dune.

  So much was abandoned, guns, ammunition, vehicles. I tried to start a small jeep which was not too damaged. That’s when the Germans found me and dragged me out on to the road.

  I spent the next years doing hard labour in a German prison camp. They could not prove that I was a spy. After all, I was French. I will not write about those years now. Maybe one day I will.

  I closed the book. If the officer who stole the young Maria’s bicycle was George Foster’s father, then this gave weight to my previous suspicions that she had a motive. A motive which had stayed dormant in her heart for many years. It was an act of treachery to steal her bicycle after sleeping in each other’s arms. And Madame de Leger would have access to cyanide.

  Madame de Leger was returning on to the deck, looking a little anxious. She spotted me standing, holding her book. There was a sigh of relief.

  ‘Ah, thank goodness. You found my writing book! I couldn’t remember where I had left it. Such a nuisance, being forgetful.’

  I handed it over to her. ‘All that hard work, all your writing. You’ve been very busy.’

  ‘Still it has kept me occupied,’ she said, tucking it under her arm. ‘This cruise has been very productive, one way or another.’

  Then I remembered her other words. She had achieved what she had come on this cruise to do. Did that include making the innocent George Foster pay for his father’s selfishness?

  A crime of passion. After all, she was French.

  Thirty - At Sea

  I had deliberately put the unexpected phone call out of my mind. Nor did I tell anyone. There’d be an armed guard outside my door if Richard Norton got wind of it. But I left the phone off the hook. I didn’t want any more calls.

  This was becoming more confusing by the minute. There was Estelle to keep an eye on, also Rosanna, the Foster family group — including Joan and Helen and Amanda — the presence on board of a valuable painting under layers of thicker paint. And with Madame de Leger added to my list, I hardly had time to do my own work.

  ‘I have made a decision,’ said Susan, from her desk opposite me. ‘Oh, yes?’ This would be riveting. She was going to audition for the X Factor?

  ‘I have decided to change my surname.’

  Now I did look interested. ‘Wow, Susan. Why?’

  ‘Brook is so ordinary.’

  ‘I think it’s rather nice. All rural sounding, willow trees and kingfishers, etc.’

  ‘I’m adding an e to the end of it. I’m Susan Brooke, with an e now.’

  The anti-climax was too much for me. I tried not to laugh. ‘You’d better tell Admin then,’ I mumbled between suppressed giggles. ‘So they get your pay cheque right. Don’t want it going to the wrong Brook.’

  I managed the weekly meeting of heads of departments without dropping any clangers. Most of the meeting was dealing with complaints. It always amazes me how many there are. People complain about the smallest thing. It did not seem necessary to inform them of Susan’s new surname. She could do it herself.

  Caution Casey. The beady Susan Brooke with an e might be making notes for all I knew. She still had both eyes on my job. My softening up had clearly not worked despite adding the delectable doctor as a bonus.

  So many days at sea sometimes blur together, especially when it was the fathomless Atlantic Ocean. In some areas, it’s over 30,000 feet deep. I had to remind myself of the daily programme of events, the show productions, the guest entertainers, the different lecturers. Check everything, Casey. The daily temperature was steadily dropping. Our last port of call would be Ponta Delgada, in the Azores. The passengers were itching to set foot ashore, anywhere. Blackpool would do. I couldn’t blame them. This was a long stretch at sea.

  I scribbled out a list of suspects:

  Darin Jack — vicious DJ intent on finding the valuable painting.

  Joan Foster — perhaps she hated her husband, George.

  Helen Banesto — perhaps she hated George for jilting her.

  Maria de Leger — she had reason to hate George’s father.

  Nigel Garten — also after the painting, now dead himself.

  Tamara Fitzgibbons — involved with the painting, now kidnapped?

  AOP — any other person?

  This was now becoming absurd. I told myself to forget the whole thing. It was none of my business. There was enough going on on-board without my getting involved. I should be worrying about which dress to wear, not trying to solve suspicious murders. Not thinking was eas
ier than thinking any day.

  An email arrived from Richard Norton. It was an official communication and began ‘Dear Miss Jones’. It warned me to stay away from his investigations and not to talk to anyone at all about the various circumstances involved. Yours sincerely, etc. etc.

  I was furious. I was the one who had acted as bait and nearly got knifed for her trouble. Now he was sending me some pompous letter telling me to keep my nose out of his business.

  I sent off a reply immediately. ‘Since when has my phone not worked? Since when have you forgotten where my office is? Since when have you stopped being a friend?’ I didn’t bother to sign it. He’d know who it was from.

  He was round in minutes, sweating profusely. ‘Look, Casey,’ he said immediately. ‘It’s not safe for me to be seen talking to you.’

  ‘Not safe for you or not safe for me?’ I said.

  He didn’t answer. ‘Look,’ he said again. ‘There’s more to this than we ever suspected.’

  ‘I’ve been telling you that since day one. No one ever listens to me.’

  ‘Reg Hawkin’s magic box has been broken into. It was being stored down in the stern hold. But someone took a crowbar to it.’

  ‘They were after the mobile scanning system which Reg was being blackmailed into smuggling aboard. It’s called a SEM — a scanning electron microscope. Ask Rosanna. She’ll tell you how he was scared to death.’

  ‘How do you know all this? So where is this SEM now, this microscope?’

  ‘Perhaps it went overboard with Nigel Garten? Now that would be fool’s justice, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘But someone has spotted the painting without the device.’

  ‘They knew in which direction the sun sets. It was either an artistic mistake or a very clever clue left by the artist. I prefer to think it was a clever clue. Spot the deliberate mistake, and bingo, underneath is a valuable Cézanne.’

  ‘How do you know it’s a Cézanne?’

  ‘I don’t. But it came up on the Internet. One of his paintings disappeared from sight, some years ago, called The Orange Sea or something like that. Or it could be another painter and another painting. How are we ever to know?’