The Woman in Cabin 10(42)

I took a deep breath and then relayed the story I’d told Nilsson the night before, gabbling this time, desperate to make my case convincing.

“And the thing is she was there, Ben,” I finished. “You have to believe me!”

“Whoa, whoa,” Ben said. He blinked. “Of course I believe you.”

“You do?” I was so surprised, I put down the cup of coffee with a crack on the glass tabletop. “Really?”

“Of course I do. I’ve never known you to imagine anything.”

“Nilsson doesn’t.”

“I can see why Nilsson doesn’t want to believe you,” Ben said. “I mean, we all know that crime on cruise ships is a pretty murky area.”

I nodded. I knew as well as he did—as well as any travel journalist did—the rumors that abounded about cruise ships. It’s not that the owners are any more criminal than any other area of the travel industry, it’s just that there’s an inherent gray area surrounding crime committed at sea.

The Aurora wasn’t like some ships I’d written about, which were more like floating cities than boats, but it had the same contradictory legal status in international waters. Even in cases of well-documented disappearances, things get brushed under the carpet. Without a clear police jurisdiction to take control, the investigation is too often left to the onboard security services, who’re employed by the cruise liner and can’t afford to ruffle feathers, even if they wanted to.

I rubbed my arms, feeling suddenly cold, in spite of the fuggy warmth of the cabin. I’d gone in to Ben to bawl him out with the aim of making myself feel better. The last thing I expected was for him to back up my unease.

“The thing that worries me most . . .” I said slowly, then stopped.

“What?” Ben prompted.

“She . . . she lent me a mascara. That was how I met her—I didn’t know the cabin was empty, and I banged on the door to ask if I could borrow one.”

“Right . . .” Ben took another gulp of coffee. His face over the top of the cup was puzzled, clearly not seeing where this was leading. “And?”

“And . . . it’s gone.”

“What—the mascara? What d’you mean, gone?”

“It’s gone. It was taken out of my cabin while I was with Nilsson. Everything else I could almost write off—but if there’s nothing going on, why take the mascara? It was the only concrete thing I had to show that there was someone in that cabin, and now it’s gone.”

Ben got up and went to the veranda, pulling the gauze curtains shut, although it seemed an odd, unnecessary gesture. I had the strange, fleeting impression that he didn’t want to face me and was thinking about what to say.

Then he turned and sat back down on the end of the bed, his expression pure businesslike determination.

“Who else knew about it?”

“About the mascara?” It was a good question, and one, I realized with a touch of chagrin, that I had not thought to ask myself. “Um . . . I guess . . . no one apart from . . . Nilsson.”

It was not a reassuring thought. We looked at each other for a long time, Ben’s eyes reflecting the uncomfortable questions that were suddenly churning inside me.

“But he was with me,” I said at last. “When it was taken.”

“The whole time?”

“Well . . . more or less . . . No, wait, there was a gap. I ate breakfast. And I spoke to Tina.”

“So he could have taken it.”

“Yes,” I said slowly. “He could.” Had he been the one in my cabin? Was that how he had known about my medication, and the advice not to mix them with alcohol?

“Look,” Ben said at last. “I think you should go and see Richard Bullmer.”

“Lord Bullmer?”

“Yes. Like I said, I played poker with him last night and he seems like a decent bloke. And there’s no sense in messing around with Nilsson—Bullmer is where the buck stops. My dad always used to say, if you’ve got a complaint, go straight to the top.”

“This is hardly a customer services issue, Ben.”

“Regardless. But this Nilsson guy—it doesn’t look good for him, does it? And if there’s anyone on this boat who can hold Nilsson accountable, it’s Bullmer.”

“But will he? Hold him accountable, I mean? He’s got as much motive as Nilsson for hushing this up. More, in fact. Like you say, this has got the potential to play out very badly for him, Ben. If this gets out, the Aurora’s future will be very shaky. Who the hell wants to pay tens of thousands of pounds for a luxury trip on a boat where a girl died?”

“I bet there’s a niche market,” Ben said, with a slightly twisted smile. I shuddered. “Look, it can’t hurt to go and see him,” he persisted. “At least we know where he was all last night, which is more than we can say for Nilsson.”

“You’re sure none of the people you were with left the cabin?”

“Absolutely sure. We were in the Jenssens’ suite—there’s only one door and I was sat facing it all night. People got up and went to the loo and stuff, but they all used the bathroom in the cabin suite. Chloe sat and read for a while and then went into the bedroom next door—there’s no exit from that except through the main room of the suite. No one left until four at the earliest. You can rule out all four men, plus Chloe.”