The Woman in Cabin 10(56)

“What will the next step be?” I asked. “I understand we’re heading to Trondheim—but is there anywhere closer we could stop? I feel like I should report this to the police as soon as possible.”

“It’s possible there might be somewhere closer than Trondheim, yes,” Bullmer said, getting to his feet. “But we’ll be in Trondheim early tomorrow morning, so it might be that it’s still the best place to head for. If we stop somewhere in the middle of the night I think our chances of finding an on-duty police station might be slim. But I’ll have to speak to the captain to find out what the most appropriate course of action would be. The Norwegian police may not be able to act if the incident took place in British or international waters—it’s a question of legal jurisdiction, you understand, not their willingness to investigate. It will all depend.”

“And if it did? What if we were in international waters?”

“I believe the boat is registered in the Cayman Islands. I’ll have to speak to the captain about how that might affect the situation.”

I felt a sinking in my stomach. I’d read accounts of investigations on boats registered to the Bahamas and so on—one solitary policeman dispatched from the island to do a cursory report and get the issue off his desk as quickly as possible—and that, only where there was a clear sign of someone gone missing. What would happen in this case, where the only evidence that the girl had even existed was long gone?

Still, I felt better for having spoken to Richard Bullmer. At least he seemed to believe me, to take my story seriously, unlike Nilsson.

He held out his hand, taking his leave, and as his piercing blue eyes met mine, he smiled, almost for the first time. It was a curiously asymmetric smile that pulled up one side of his face more than the other, but it suited him, and there was something wryly sympathetic about it.

“There’s one other thing you should know,” I said abruptly. Bullmer’s eyebrows went up, and he dropped his hand.

“Yes?”

“I . . .” I swallowed. I didn’t want to say this, but if he was going to speak to Nilsson, it would come out anyway. It would be better coming from me. “I was drinking, the night before . . . before it happened. And I also take antidepressants. I have done so for several years, since I was about twenty-five. I—I had a breakdown. And Nilsson—I think he felt . . .” I swallowed again. Bullmer’s eyebrows rose even higher.

“Are you saying that Nilsson threw doubt on your story because you take medication for depression?”

The bluntness of his words made me cringe, but I nodded.

“Not in so many words—but yes. He made a comment about medication not mixing well with alcohol and I think he thought . . .”

Bullmer said nothing, he just regarded me impassively, and I found my words tumbling out, almost as if I were trying to defend Nilsson.

“It’s just that I was burgled, before I came on board the ship. There was a man—he came into my flat and attacked me. Nilsson found out about it and I think that he felt, well, not that I’d made it up, but that I . . . might have overreacted.”

“I’m deeply ashamed that a member of this boat’s staff made you feel that way,” Bullmer said. He took my hand, holding it in a viselike grip. “Please believe me, Miss Blacklock, I take your account with the utmost seriousness.”

“Thanks,” I said, but that one small word didn’t do justice to the relief that someone, someone finally believed me. And not just someone—Richard Bullmer, the Aurora’s owner. If anyone had the power to get this sorted, it was him.


As I walked back to my cabin, I pressed my hands to my eyes, feeling them sting with tiredness, and then I felt in my pocket for my mobile to check the time. Almost five. Where had the time gone?

Automatically I opened up my e-mails and forced a refresh—but there was still no connection and I felt a pang of unease. Surely, surely this outage had gone on too long? I should have mentioned it to Bullmer, but it was too late now. He had gone—slipping into one of those unsettling concealed exits behind a screen, presumably to talk to the captain or radio land.

What if Jude had e-mailed? Rung, even, though I doubted we’d be close enough to land yet for a signal. Was he still ignoring me? For a minute I had a sharp flash of his hands on my back, my face against his chest, the feel of his warm T-shirt beneath my cheek, and it hit me with such force that I almost staggered beneath the weight of longing for his presence.

We would be in Trondheim tomorrow, at least. No one could prevent me from accessing the Internet then.

“Lo!” said a voice from behind me, and I turned to see Ben walking along the narrow corridor. He wasn’t a big man, but he seemed to fill it entirely, an Alice in Wonderland trick of the perspective that made the corridor seem to shrink down to nothing and Ben grow bigger and bigger as he came nearer.

“Ben,” I said, trying to make my voice convincingly cheerful.

“How did it go?” He began to walk alongside me towards our cabins. “Did you see Bullmer?”

“Yes . . . I think it went okay. He seemed to believe me, anyway.” I didn’t say what I had started thinking after Richard left, which was that he had not got as far as he had by showing all the cards in his hand. I’d come out of the meeting feeling confident and appeased, but as I ran back through his words, I realized he hadn’t promised anything; in fact, he hadn’t really said anything that could be quoted out of context as unqualified support for my story. There had been a lot of if this is true . . . and if what you say . . . nothing very concrete, when you came down to it.