Murder Ahoy!

by Fiona Leitch

  Will sighed. “So?”

  “I put it on the chair, but it slipped off and ended up on the floor as we were leaving. We were almost out of the door so I left it.”

  “Are you sure?” He looked around. “Is there anything else? Anything missing?”

  I looked around the room too, but my eyes kept being drawn back to Will standing naked and now somewhat at half mast next to me. “Put your pants back on babe, your knob’s distracting me.”

  He sighed again and put his boxers on, then ventured further into the room. I followed cautiously, peering around; I couldn’t see anything missing, but it just felt wrong. Will reached the bathroom and paused, his hand on the door. We looked at each other, both suddenly nervous. He took a deep breath and pushed it open.

  I shut my eyes; whatever was lurking in there, I didn’t want to see it.

  “Oh my god…” said Will, and a chill ran through me.

  “What is it?” I said, horrified, following him in.

  “There’s a bloody massive spider on the ceiling,” he said. I punched him. “What? I hate spiders. Pass me a shoe.”

  I went back into the bedroom and lobbed a shoe at him, then threw myself on the bed as he dealt with the eight-legged intruder.

  “Got it!” Will stood in the doorway looking pleased with himself. The whole thing was so ridiculous - him in just his pants and socks, clutching one shoe in triumph - that despite the feeling of mild unease that still lurked at the back of my mind, I giggled. Had someone really been in the cabin? I’d been so certain when we’d entered, but there didn’t appear to be anything missing. There were no dead bodies waiting for us, unless - I quickly peered under the bed, but it was a divan and there was only a gap of about an inch between it and the floor - there were no dead bodies, apart from the squashed arachnid in the bathroom. Maybe I’d been mistaken; maybe my bag hadn’t moved. Maybe…

  “Now, where were we?” Will lay down on the bed next to me, propped up on one elbow, one leg bent upwards at the knee and his tackle thrust out towards me, posing with an eyebrow raised and a ‘come hither’ look on his face. I rolled my eyes.

  “Who are you supposed to be, Mr November?” He grinned and flexed his muscles.

  “No, Mr August. Ask me why.”

  “Why are you Mr August?”

  “Because I’m hotter than July.”

  I burst out laughing, and it was such a genuine release of tension and stress that I threw my arms around him and hugged him tight.

  “I love you,” I whispered, and he hugged me back even more tightly.

  “I love you too,” he said, then pulled away to gaze into my eyes. “Does that mean…?”

  “Take your pants off,” I said. “But leave the socks…”

  Chapter 18

  We had breakfast the next day in yet another dining room, hoping to have a table to ourselves. New York was getting closer and closer, and if we didn’t come up with some answers soon I had visions of being carted off by the NYPD’s finest.

  But wouldn’t you know, it seemed that half of the murder mystery players had decided to try the Atlantic Diner for breakfast that morning, too. The Bauers were at a table in the corner and greeted us with a polite nod, while Michael and Harvey shared a table with Lauren Donaldson and Peter Maguire, who we still hadn’t had an opportunity to speak to properly. All four of them smiled at us but didn’t speak. I began to feel paranoid again. Not long after we sat down Heather and Sylvia entered and took the table next to us. Heather greeted us in a friendly way - she definitely seemed chirpier than at the beginning of the cruise, and I wondered if that was down to the attentions of young Karl - but Sylvia blanked us completely. No need to ask what she thought about my innocence or otherwise.

  We’d just ordered when Zoé came in. She spotted us and waved, then headed towards us.

  “Oh no…” muttered Will, and I had to agree with him.

  “I know,” I said, ‘but be nice. She’s an ally. She’s quite sweet, really…”

  But before she could join us, Karl appeared. He glanced over at Heather, who nodded slightly in my direction, and made his way over to our table. Zoé zig zagged and sat down next to Sylvia instead.

  Karl looked nervous, quite unlike the cocky Scouse lothario he normally was.

  “Can I have a word?” he said.

  “Of course.” I gestured to an empty seat. “Please, sit down. What’s troubling you?”

  He sat down next to Will and lowered his voice.

  “I heard you were looking for Rob - the steward who helped take Ms Meyers back to her cabin?” Will and I nodded. “I share a cabin with him.”

  “We just want to talk to him,” said Will. “Please tell him it’s nothing to worry about, we’re just trying to pin down what happened. If he wants to come to our cabin to talk - ”

  Karl shook his head. “That’s the problem, I haven’t seen him since the morning after the murder.”

  “You mean he’s disappeared?” I exchanged glances with Will. Was this Rob lying low - or had something happened to him?

  “I don’t know,” said Karl. “We’re not always on the same shifts, so I just assumed he was working - he’s normally on the pursers’ desk, so he does night shifts sometimes. He must’ve been back to the cabin because his clean uniform’s gone, but it’s weird that I haven’t seen him at all.”

  On the next table, Sylvia and Zoé were eavesdropping furiously, leaning as close to us as they could without it being too obvious, while Heather studiously kept her attention on the plate of French toast the waiter had just brought her. I could see Zoé open her mouth to speak, and jumped in quick before she could. Butt out!

  “It’s more than weird though, isn’t it?” I said. “Right after a murder. You’re worried.”

  “I am. You see…” Karl glanced over towards Heather again, then back at me. “I don’t know him very well. He hasn’t been working for the cruise line for very long and this is the first time I’ve shared with him. He’s a bit of a git.”

  Will and I waited for him to continue. He looked embarrassed.

  “The first night of the cruise, he asked me if I was in. I didn’t know what he meant, but… He said on his last two cruises he’d made a couple of grand by - ” Again, his gaze started towards Heather, but he quickly wrenched it away. “By targeting some of the passengers.”

  Will raised an eyebrow. I spoke to save Karl - who didn’t seem that bad a sort, never mind what was going on with Heather - from further embarrassment.

  “I’m assuming you mean some of the more mature, wealthy single ladies on board?”

  He nodded. “Yes. I said I wasn’t in. I mean, I have been known to - ”

  “Fraternise?” said Will. He nodded again, the redness in his face matched only by the colour of Heather’s cheeks at the next table.

  “I like sex, and I like money,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “If one of the passengers wants a nice time, and if they feel like treating me for it, then it’s a win win as far as I can see. But Rob was talking about stealing from them. He said he’d stolen this woman’s diamond necklace on the last passage, and although she must’ve realised it was him she would never have reported him because she’d be too embarrassed.”

  “Do you think that’s why he disappeared?” I asked, exchanging glances with Will. What if Louise’s murder had been a simple robbery gone wrong? What if the dishonest steward had seen the state of her when he’d carried her back to the cabin, and decided to return later to steal from her, only for her to wake up and see him?

  But then Joel had seen him behind the bar after the lights had come back up, during the murderer’s window of opportunity…

  Karl shook his head slowly. “Not exactly. He wasn’t supposed to be in the Pearl that night - I was behind the bar, helping out with the murder mystery, doing the lights and making sure the players spotted the murder weapon and everything, but he turned up and offered to take over.”

 
“You didn’t call him, so you could go off and - dally?” asked Will. Dally. It was such a Will word.

  “No, he just turned up. He told me he was on a promise. He said he’d got in with this passenger who was loaded, and a bit of a goer as well by all accounts, and she’d told him to meet her there. He couldn’t come along if he was off duty, so he offered to split the shift with me. That’s why I didn’t worry when he didn’t come back to the cabin that night. I thought he must be with her.”

  “So during the murder - the real one and the pretend one - you were off having a, um, dally with - ” I just stopped myself glancing over at Heather - “one of the passengers? And he stayed at the bar?”

  “Yes.” Karl looked relieved that I’d said it for him. “I left him the list of instructions the Chief Purser had given me, all the timings and everything - ”

  I frowned. “You told him when to turn the lights back on? So why didn’t he do it until the Purser had a go at him? We were stood in the dark for ages, even after the murder had happened.”

  Zoé gave a little start, and blushed as we all looked over at her. She got up and moved to the chair next to me.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I need to tell you something. I haven’t slept, thinking about it. I should have told you yesterday, but I just felt a bit embarrassed. And then when you said he might be involved - ”

  I felt my irritation at her rising, and could see from the set of Will’s shoulders that he was getting wound up too. I pushed it down and smiled.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” I said, although to be honest until I knew what she was going on about I didn’t know whether she should be or not. “What’s troubling you?” I could see Sylvia edging closer to listen, and even Heather gave up the pretence of eating her untouched breakfast.

  “This Robert - I didn’t say anything before, because - well, I felt a bit - you see, when the lights went off…”

  I felt like screaming at her and giving her a shake. Just bloody tell me! But I’ve learnt from Will that sometimes it’s best not to ask, it’s better to wait and let people volunteer the information themselves. So I just smiled patiently and waited.

  “We were chatting in the bar that night. He said he wasn’t really supposed to be working in the Pearl, but he was there meeting someone. He said she had asked him to swap shifts and come to the Pearl so he could help her with something.”

  “Help her with something?”

  She nodded. “He seemed nice, and when you needed some help with Louise, he was standing right near you so I waved him over to give me a hand. We talked when we took her back to her cabin and he…” She flushed. “It’s not the sort of thing I normally do, I’m not that kind of girl, but he said he’d like to meet up with me later on. You know about my husband - I just thought, why not? I didn’t realise he’d hooked up with this other woman as well. What a rat.”

  “So when the lights went out…?” Will prompted gently.

  “When the lights went out he grabbed me and pulled me behind the bar, and we had a kiss.” Zoé looked at us, as if daring us to be disgusted with her. I patted her on the hand.

  “That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” I said. “God, if you knew what I got up to in my youth… So what happened after that?”

  “We kissed for ages. We got a bit carried away. Then my phone went off and I was scrabbling around in the dark and dropped it, and he was helping me. And then he finally turned the lights on and the body was there. And I thought, if anyone turns round and sees me here they’ll wonder why I’m behind the bar, so I grabbed a drink and gave it to that lady who was acting.”

  Will and I exchanged looks. So this confirmed what we already knew - that Rob couldn’t be the murderer himself - but it was looking more and more likely that he was involved. Who was the mysterious woman he was supposed to be meeting and doing a job for? If it had been the Chief Purser, the steward would have said so - she was one of his superior officers, so there would hardly have been any mystery there. Did that mean it was one of the guests?

  Heather and Sylvia had given up any pretence of not-listening and had moved close enough to join in the conversation.

  “Do you have any idea who he was supposed to be meeting?” asked Heather. Zoé and Karl both shook their heads, but Sylvia snorted.

  “Oh come on! Listen to yourself. A mysterious woman who wanted him to do her a favour? One who was loaded?” She looked straight at me.

  “Bearing in mind how much the tickets for the murder mystery cruise were, there was no one in that room who didn’t have plenty of money,” Will pointed out.

  “And then when Zoé needed some help, he was right there next to Bella, who, by her own admission just now, was a ‘bit of a goer’ in her youth - ” Sylvia said.

  Heather interrupted her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I saw her, trying to save Louise!”

  “She didn’t save her though, did she?” Sylvia hissed. “You’re blinded by her celebrity!”

  “I’m not a celebrity…” I said, feebly.

  “You even said it yourself, Bella, or DCI Fletcher did anyway in one of your books. The most obvious explanation is usually the truth.” Sylvia leapt to her feet and pointed an accusing finger at me. “It seems to me that you’re the one who was with Louise before she was ‘taken ill’. You’re the one who wanted to - what was the word? - discreetly take her back to her cabin.” Zoé looked at me, guiltily. “Yes, Zoé told me she stopped you taking her. Where was this steward standing at the time? Right next to you. Waiting to help you carry her back to her cabin and do whatever you intended to do.”

  “Oh shut up, you daft bat,” I said, far more calmly than I felt. The other diners were beginning to look round, listening to Sylvia’s accusations.

  “Yes, you’d like that wouldn’t you?” snarled Sylvia. “This is not one of your books, you know, where no one guesses the twist. This time the twist is Zoé stopped you, so you had to come up with another plan. You got the steward to get hold of Louise’s key card or better still, a master key - he worked at the pursers’ desk, her could easily get hold of one - so you could let yourself into her cabin later. That bit’s always bothered me, but it’s obvious really.”

  “But Louise called her!” said Zoé. “How would Bella have known that she would do that?”

  Sylvia shrugged. “She promised one steward money and sexual favours, what’s to stop her offering the other purser the same to say he got a message?”

  “How bloody ridiculous,” I said, laughing humourlessly. I didn’t feel like laughing at all, I was beginning to feel very frightened, because as untrue as this whole wild accusation of Sylvia’s was, I could see how some people might believe it.

  Will stood up and confronted Sylvia, who was the same height as him and almost as well built.

  “That’s enough, Sylvia,” he said, very calmly.

  “Oh I’ve only just got started,” she said, furiously. He shook his head.

  “I think you should shut up and go back to your cabin,” he said. He was so calm and unthreatening, which made him look all the more menacing. I couldn’t help feeling that he was actually making things worse. I stood up and took his arm.

  “No, I think we’ll go back to our cabin,” I said. He shook my hand off.

  “Why should you, Bella? You haven’t done anything. I won’t stand here and listen to this old crow badmouthing you.”

  “Well, I’m going back to the cabin, with or without you. I’d prefer with.” I pushed my chair out of the way and headed out of the diner. After a few seconds, I could feel Will behind me.

  “Oh yes, run away!” called Sylvia after me. “We’re on a boat, there’s nowhere for you to go…”

  Chapter 19

  Shaken, I headed down the corridor without looking where I was going. I stopped as I reached a dead end and Will caught up with me.

  “Bella! Calm down.” He took my arm and steered me back through a doorway, out onto
a narrow deck at the back of the ship, and then into a deck chair. He dropped into another one next to it.

  “Holy crap,” I said, fighting back tears. “I’m going to go down for this, aren’t I?”

  “What, because that miserable old bag suddenly thinks she’s Miss Marple?” Will shook his head. “Her theory may sound feasible at first, but it would hardly stand up to scrutiny. She’s putting two and two together and coming up with a load of rubbish.”

  “She’s going to turn people against me,” I said, remembering the looks on the other diners’ faces as I passed them. Even Michael and Harvey had been unable to meet my eyes.

  “What people?” said Will. “Only the ones who don’t know you.” He was right. Why the hell did it bother me that a group of people I’d only just met thought I’d killed someone? Those who really knew me - Will, and Susie, even Joel - knew I was innocent. Plus Heather still believed me, and Zoé as well. And the Chief Purser…

  The problem was, I felt guilty. I hadn’t killed Louise, but Sylvia was right; I hadn’t saved her, either. I really had tried. But now she was dead, and suddenly all the little digs I’d had at her over the last couple of years, all the times I’d hated her, the time at Harrogate when I’d wanted to hurt her as badly as she’d hurt me with her jibes and had made her look thoroughly ridiculous in front of the crowd - they all came back to haunt me. I was a bad person. No wonder they thought I’d killed her.

  “Unfortunately the police officers who investigate her murder aren’t going to know me, are they?” I said. “They’ll look at the evidence and they’ll get statements from the other passengers and at least half of them are going to say I did it, probably more than half now that Sylvia’s gone on the rampage.”

  “We need to find a way to shut Sylvia up,” said Will thoughtfully. I shook my head.

  “You can’t. The more you try and stop her talking, the guiltier I look. Like I’ve got something to hide.”

  We sat and watched the waves for a moment, the turbulent, seething froth and foam that followed in the ship’s wake. I knew how it felt.