by Meg Mundell
Dim lights lined the walkway of the sleeping dorm. Cleary trod the centre of the aisle, balancing against the sway, playing with the motion of the ship. In the gloomy corridor he paused to read the signs, orient himself within the maze, then set off in what he hoped was the right direction.
A tall figure was heading towards him down the corridor: a uniformed crewman wrapped up against the cold, face framed by the hood of his windcheater. As he drew close, the man locked eyes with Cleary. His black beard was damp with rain, and there were dark spatters of muck on his coat. A deep-set gaze, mouth a hard line, slight stoop about the shoulders. Across one chalk-white cheek, from nostril to temple, ran a lurid streak of red, like the aftermath of a nosebleed. The man seemed mildly stunned, as if he’d just woken up.
Cleary hugged the wall to let him pass, but the bearded man shot him a sharp look and ducked into a doorway. Passing the entrance Cleary caught a waft of feral air, dank with the smell of sleeping men – Men’s Dorm B, Male Passengers Only. Maybe sailors got seasick too; the man looked like he’d just had a puke.
The passageway all his again, Cleary cruised the swells hands-free, an indoor surfer joyriding in pyjamas. Past the women’s dorm, a ripe whiff of sweat and perfume, then the smell of baking bread floating from the kitchen. He climbed the companionway and threw his weight against the door.
No rain out here, to his surprise, but the fresh air never lost its shock, biting cold and clean, nipping his lungs awake. Still dark, but a pale hint of dawn leaking in at the horizon, while overhead the stars flickered in a bottomless stretch of remnant night. Near the front of the ship crewmen were backlit against the wheelhouse, and he saw glimpses of other night workers: a torch clicked absent-mindedly on and off; the glow of a cigarette swung out in some explanatory arc. A whole other life out here, a secret society that came alive when the rest of the world was lost to sleep.
He headed for the kiosk, a bright beacon on the foredeck. Walking like a sailor, feet wide for balance, joints loose to absorb the passing swells. He directed a seamanlike nod at the darkly rolling landscape out beyond the rail.
The kiosk was ablaze with light, but the serving hatch was locked. Through the window he saw shelved supplies, a swipe-pad and a fire hydrant. Against the wall sat squat tanks of drinking water, the contents sloshing in perfect unison. One tank was open at the top, its cap jouncing on a little leash, gushes of water shooting up like a whale’s spout.
Where was the shopman? Now he really was thirsty. Cleary rapped his knuckles on the window, waited. Banged again, harder.
No-one in sight, no way to fill his bottle. How stupid to be half dying of thirst in the middle of a big wet ocean full of stuff you couldn’t drink.
He stood on tiptoe, peering into the tiny room. On the floor was a slab of navy blue material, the same colour as the crew’s uniform. Face pressed to the glass, he could just make out a black boot, flopped over at the ankle. Then realised what he was seeing: a leg, a person’s leg. Someone was lying flat out on the floor.
Cleary hammered on the window, but the leg’s owner did not stir. Skiver, he thought, sneaking a kip on the job. Or maybe the man was drunk, passed out from pouring whiskey down his neck. He dragged a crate over to the window and climbed up for a better view.
That’s when he saw it: a bright red mess, streaked across the floor in sticky rivulets. A puddle had gathered in one corner, beneath the water tanks. The liquid made a long black stain where it had soaked into the fabric of the uniform.
Cleary’s heart lurched as he realised what he was seeing: a man’s body, lying in a pool of blood.
He fled down the gangway, making for the wheelhouse, the crewmen now visible in the dawn light spilling across the sky, bathing the world in a sickly amber glow.
Men spun around, startled, as Cleary flailed towards them, vaguely aware that his mouth was stretched wide open and some strange inhuman noise was pouring out.
BILLIE
Waking to the wail of a Hoover centimetres from her head, Billie scowled up at the crewman wielding the machine.
‘Godsake,’ she said over the racket. ‘Do you have to do this bit now?’
The man hitched up his backpack and vroomed away, disrupting another dozer nearby.
She was curled up on a settee in the fore saloon. Since the disturbing news, sleep had proven elusive, her bunk taking on an increasingly coffin-like aspect with every hour spent in its dim confines. Earplugs helped to block the noise, but lately there were smells to deal with too, intimate and horribly mingled, wafting through the dorm whenever someone emptied their bowels, peeled off their socks or spilt their stomach into a sickbag – or, as she had once witnessed, into a sleeping neighbour’s shoes.
Her dorm-mates rummaged, or snored, or dropped things, or discussed the whereabouts of missing toothpaste at unnecessary volumes. And now, after lights-out, they formed anxious clusters, the whispers taking on a newly fearful sibilance. There was no peace to be had down there. Nobody could sleep.
She’d wait a few more nights before resorting to pills. Instead she tried to walk herself to sleep, pacing her circuits of the ship, passing other insomniacs: bleary night owls hunched over backgammon screens, fidgety loners twitching from stream withdrawal, solitary smokers on the foredeck. And the guards, now posted in doorways and corners, alert and quick-eyed, missing nothing. The scrutiny was palpable, but for once she didn’t resent it.
A fog of anxiety hung over the ship. People watched each other, alert for any hint of threat – a careless word or false smile. Reverting to their clans, gathering like moths in well-lit areas. Parents kept their kids within reach, spoke in bright tones to hide their fears.
Billie tried not to catch the floating paranoia, but insomnia had sunk its hooks into her all the same. Around four this morning she’d succumbed, and her stomach now told her she’d missed breakfast. The kiosk was still shut, but water, rocklike biscuits and weak coffee were now laid out in the mess-room at all hours.
The mess was empty, but a kitchenhand waved a knife over his shoulder. ‘Juliette and them are out back,’ he said. ‘Go through if you want.’
Billie poured a slow coffee. Thanks to Robbie’s introductions she’d spent several evenings in the galley storeroom with the cook and her gang. With forty-odd crew making this regular run, they got sick of the same old faces. On every trip, it transpired, they’d pick out a couple of passengers – or ‘parasites’, as the crew called their human cargo – to invite into their circle, fresh blood to beat the boredom. This time she and Robbie fit the bill. The music helped, no doubt, but Robbie also had some deal going with the cook, the details of which were vague and likely illegal.
Billie had enjoyed their company, but overdoing it might be unwise. Weeks of sea-bound limbo lay ahead, and privacy was scarce in this floating rabbit warren. Dodging an unwelcome acquaintance would be awkward. She’d never been a huge joiner, and those years at the hospital had dimmed her talent for chitchat. Once people found out you worked the death wards, they didn’t ask you round for dinner.
Still, solitude turned sour in big doses, and their company had its benefits: fresh bread hot from the oven; fly booze, poured free or sold dirt cheap, shared with people who swore you sang like an angel. No, that never hurt.
She ducked down the passage and knocked on the hatch. It flung open to frame Robbie’s whiskered face, clearly the worse for wear.
‘Songbird!’ he cried, exhaling a gust of flammable air. ‘Climb in, hen. We’re swapping some theories.’
In a cramped corner of the storeroom, perched on upturned buckets, were three others: the plump cook, Juliette, a fellow Weegie; Scoot, a handsome young deckhand from Aberdeen, who rarely spoke but had trounced them all at cards last time; and the chief steward, a tall, sallow-faced man called Marshall, who knew all the verses of ‘Skye Boat Song’ by heart.
Billie was welcomed, a drink poured, a seat f
ound. As fellow Scots, and musos, she and Robbie had been deemed honorary members of this group – the Stocktakers, Marshall called them. ‘Not because we pinch the stock, mind,’ he’d said. ‘Just ’cause we like to keep an eye on things.’
‘Management’s on panic stations,’ said Juliette. ‘Mind we don’t flash that around.’ She pointed at Scoot, who was sloshing liquid from unmarked bottle to mug, revealing a rope tattoo etched into the white skin of his wrist.
‘Still say it was a revenge thing,’ said Marshall. ‘That Davy fella was sleekit. Maybe he had it coming?’
Juliette spoke sharply: ‘That’s pure shady, Marshall. The man got his throat cut the other night. Chibbed in the neck. Who deserves that?’
Marshall raised his hands. ‘Just saying he wasn’t a saint. Lazy, too. Got caught sleeping on the job more than once.’
‘Never heard a bad word about Davy Whelan,’ said Juliette. ‘Bought me a pint more than once. Wasn’t he a pal of yours, Scoot?’
The Aberdeen sailor shrugged, stared down into his drink.
Rumours were already gathering like blowflies as people traded scraps of information – overheard, gleaned or invented. Most theories pinned the violence on a crew member: who else could have entered the kiosk, unless the dead man swiped them in himself? But now Marshall was wondering if the culprit could be a passenger, some nutter who’d talked his way in. A robbery gone bad.
‘Nothing caught on camera,’ said Juliette. ‘Spoke to the fella on watch that night.’
‘Kiosk camera’s broken,’ said Marshall. ‘Half the cams on this ship are on the blink.’ The chief steward oversaw the stock flows, Billie recalled. His grasp of what could safely be skimmed relied on inside knowledge, familiarity with the security regime and its loopholes. This hideaway, where they now sat drinking stolen booze, had not been chosen by accident. A chalk-line on the floor marked the border of the blind spot.
Robbie leant forward. ‘A killer in our midst,’ he said in a theatrical whisper. ‘Someone quick and brutal, with a temper. A bajin.’
A heavy swell tipped the room, cans clanking and cooking oil slapping wetly in its barrels.
Marshall broke the hush. ‘Bad weather coming.’
‘I can’t get a wink,’ said Billie. ‘My whole dorm’s spooked.’
Scoot held out the bottle, but she declined, stomach too empty to tolerate the caustic bootleg.
‘Didn’t see you at breakfast,’ said Juliette. She produced a slab of spanakopita. ‘My mum’s recipe. Get some scran down you before you disappear.’
Billie listened as she chewed. They kept circling back to the murder, sifting the possibilities: a bad debt or swindle, some festering grudge. Drug deal gone sour, fight over a woman. Or – Robbie’s gleeful suggestion – a lovers’ tiff, one randy seaman jilted by another. That theory rubbished by Juliette, who’d seen the victim snogging a girl in port a while back.
‘Some of ’em swing both ways, those Scouser bastards,’ Robbie insisted.
Marshall snorted. ‘Stay up late picturing that scenario, did you?’
‘They say Davy had a kid back home,’ said Juliette. ‘Little boy. Lives down Bristol way, with his mum.’ A hush fell, the child a half-glimpsed presence.
Scoot stood, threw back his drink and nodded at the floor. ‘That’s me,’ he said, and was out the hatch and gone in three long steps, their farewells trailing after him.
‘Moody lad,’ said Juliette. ‘Got questioned yesterday. He was just coming off nightshift when that wean found the body.’
Senior brass were working through the crew, she said, interrogating anyone with a link to the dead man: cabinmates and friends, anyone who’d worked that shift, entered that room, gone near the crime scene after sundown.
‘Got the third degree myself,’ said Marshall, affronted. ‘Had to scare up a list of every swipe logged that shift, across all of Stores. All kiosk transactions. Took me bloody hours.’ Passengers would be next, he said. Cutler fancied himself a cop, swore he’d find the bastard who did it.
‘Cutler?’ said Juliette. ‘Fucking bawbag. Cannot stand the man.’
‘Those ex-navy bastards are the worst,’ Marshall agreed. ‘Half of them discharged for being wrong in the head. Sadists and sickos. Probably one of them who malkied that fella.’
‘Not a passenger, then?’ said Robbie, a bit tersely.
‘Top brass are mostly ex-navy,’ said Juliette. ‘Love their uniforms, that lot. Law unto themselves, and Cutler’s the worst of them.’
A face sprang to Billie’s mind: the first mate, her sour interrogator. That was Cutler alright, the others confirmed: flawless uniform, caustic tongue. Nasty piece of work.
‘I’ve got lunch to prep,’ said Juliette, rising to her feet. ‘See you tonight, at Limpet’s?’ The bar ran a happy hour, and Billie had peeked in once: the room heaving with people, the one place passengers and crew seemed to mingle relatively freely. The odd low-ranked uniform, but not an epaulette in sight.
Robbie pressed her to come, join him in a song or two. ‘Payment in tobacco and drinks,’ he promised. ‘Got a deal going with the bar manager.’
‘Don’t be a fearie,’ said Juliette. ‘We’ll all be there.’
The ship’s confines made Billie cautious, reluctant to stand out in such a finite mix of people. But her voice had opened doors over the years. Singing was a liberating act, one that somehow bought her grace. A way to piece the world together, if only for an hour or two. Turning down an audience seemed a waste.
‘Aye, alright,’ she said. ‘But there better not be any hecklers.’
Robbie gave a sodden cheer. ‘Anyone heckles, we’ll chib ’em!’ A silence fell. Juliette swiped the moonshine from his hand.
‘You’re half plastered already,’ she said. ‘Sober up and eat a decent lunch, or you’ll never last the distance.’ Chastened, Robbie surrendered his mug.
They exited the hatchway into the smell of frying onions. Billie said her farewells, then struck off alone. She had thoughts to think, fresh air to breathe, information to walk off. She headed out into the rising wind, already planning her route.
TOM
Two days after Davy Whelan bled to death, management summoned me from lunch. I’d heard the gossip, but wasn’t sure what to believe. We’d struck a patch of foul weather – huge seas, tearing winds, a miserable lashing rain – and the whole ship felt queasy, on edge. Abandoning my plate, I followed a lackey down the wildly lurching passageways to meet with the deputy kingpin, a sour man called Cutler, and his officious sidekick.
At first I thought – or was led to believe – that I’d be briefed on what had befallen that poor crewman. To start with, Cutler certainly gave that impression. He conveyed the awful facts, advised that an investigation was underway. My own role, he said – casually citing a clause from my contract – was to support management’s efforts: help contain the situation, protect the wellbeing of the minors in our charge. Translation: relay the official version of events.
An accident, I was to tell the kids. The sailor had been using a dangerous piece of machinery. He’d cut himself on a sharp blade, and there’d been nobody nearby to help. Very sad, but just a freak accident. The poor man had been careless.
‘What kind of machine?’ I asked, aiming to be helpful. Seeing the heat rise in Cutler’s face, I quickly added: ‘These kids are smart, they’ll ask questions. What should I tell them?’
Placated, he considered. ‘Some kind of slicing machine. For opening boxes.’
Something with a big sharp blade. Perhaps the safety cover was left off. A cautionary tale. My task was to disseminate this story to the kids and parents, if they asked (and they did). Quash all other versions, assure them all was well, then move on to less distressing topics.
‘Absolutely,’ I gabbled. ‘Excellent proactive strategy, I’m completely on board.’ (Another maritime clan
ger: I winced, but they didn’t seem to notice.)
Then our chat abruptly changed direction. Where was I in the early hours of Wednesday morning, between three a.m. and dawn?
‘Asleep,’ I said without hesitation.
Cutler was observing me closely now.
‘Asleep where?’ asked the other officer.
‘After dinner I usually head to the classroom to prepare the next day’s lesson. Sometimes I’ll nod off and sleep the night there.’ Tuesday night being a case in point. ‘It’s quiet, the sofa’s comfy, nobody’s snoring. Unlike the dorm. Which, to be honest, doesn’t smell great.’ I was rambling, but they seemed satisfied. As if this just confirmed what they already knew: I hadn’t slept in my bunk that night.
Stewart, from Aberdeen. At first, my handsome sailor had been reluctant to tell me his name. Had tried to fob me off with a nickname, but I’d coaxed the real one out of him. Told him I liked privacy as much as the next man, but anonymity did nothing for me. Not up close.
How did these officers know my bed was empty that night? Cameras? Some temp-sensing system that registers an absent body after lights-out, or human monitors – info gleaned from my fellow passengers? But who might have noticed my absence? I’d ziplocked my bunk, so it wouldn’t have been obvious.
I had nothing to hide, not really – I had slept in the schoolroom that night. But scrutiny has an insidious effect: forces you to scroll back anxiously, replay all those unguarded moments, alert for anything you’ve said or done or thought that could be held against you. Thought crimes! Old Orwell in action. Enough to drive a man to medication. Which wasn’t ideal, given my own dwindling supplies.
Released from Cutler’s clutches, I staggered back to the schoolroom for the afternoon lesson, trying not to dwell on our predicament: a stick of driftwood battered by a hostile ocean, the elements against us, land nowhere in sight. The floor tilting at crazy angles, I turned my dazed Calmex smile on the children, concealing my nerves, pretending this was some kind of fun-ride. Avoided certain words: Overboard. Wreck. Sink.
