The Woman in Cabin 10(58)

The September night air felt suddenly cold, very cold, reminding me how far north we were—almost to the Arctic Circle now. I shivered convulsively and, drawing my phone out of my pocket, I checked the reception one more time, holding it up high as if that would somehow magically improve the signal, but there were no bars.

Tomorrow, though. Tomorrow we would be in Trondheim, and no matter what, I was going to get myself off this boat and straight to the nearest police station.





- CHAPTER 21 -

Making myself up for dinner that night, I felt like I was applying war paint—lacquering on, layer by layer, the calm, professional mask that would enable me to get through this.

Part of me, a big part, wanted to go and huddle beneath my duvet—the idea of making small talk with a group of people containing a potential murderer, eating food served by someone who might have killed a woman last night—that thought was terrifying, and utterly surreal.

But another, more stubborn part refused to give in. As I applied mascara borrowed from Chloe in the bathroom mirror, I found myself searching in my reflection for the angry, idealistic girl who’d started her journalism course at uni fifteen years ago, thinking of the dreams I’d had of becoming an investigative reporter and changing the world. Instead, I had fallen into travel writing at Velocity to pay the bills and, almost in spite of myself, I’d begun to enjoy it—had even started to relish the perks, and to dream of a role like Rowan’s, running my own magazine. And that was fine—I wasn’t ashamed of the writer I’d become; like most people, I’d taken work where I could find it and tried to do the best I could in that job. But how could I look that girl in the mirror in the eye, if I didn’t have the courage to get out there and investigate a story that was staring me in the face?

I thought of all the women I’d admired reporting from war zones around the world, of people who’d exposed corrupt regimes, gone to prison to protect their sources, risked their lives to get at the truth. I couldn’t imagine Martha Gellhorn obeying an instruction to Stop digging, or Kate Adie hiding in her hotel room because she was scared of what she might find.

STOP DIGGING. The letters on the mirror were etched in my memory. Now, as I finished my makeup with a swipe of lip gloss, I huffed on the mirror, and wrote in the steam obscuring my reflection one word: NO.

Besides, as I shut the bathroom door behind me and put on my evening shoes, a smaller, more selfish part of me was whispering that I was safest in company. No one could harm me in front of a room full of witnesses.

I was just straightening my gown when there was a knock on the door.

“Who is it?” I called.

“It’s Karla, Miss Blacklock.”

I opened the door. Karla was outside, smiling with that permanent air of slightly anxious surprise.

“Good evening, Miss Blacklock. I just wanted to remind you that dinner is in ten minutes, and drinks are being served in the Lindgren Lounge, whenever you wish to join us.”

“Thank you,” I said, and then, on impulse as she turned to go, “Karla?”

“Yes?” She turned back, her eyebrows raised so that her round face looked almost alarmed. “Is there something else with which I can help?”

“I—I don’t know. It’s just . . .” I took a deep breath, trying to think how to phrase it. “When I came and talked to you earlier today in the staff quarters, I felt like . . . I felt like maybe there was something else you could have told me. That perhaps you didn’t want to speak in front of Miss Lidman. And I just wanted to say—I’m going into Trondheim tomorrow, to talk to the police about what I saw, and if there’s anything—anything at all—that you wanted to say, now would be a really good time to tell me. I could make sure it was anonymous.” I thought again of Martha Gellhorn and Kate Adie, of the kind of reporter I’d once wanted to be. “I’m a journalist,” I said as convincingly as I could. “You know that. We protect our sources—it’s part of the deal.”

Karla said nothing, only twisted her fingers together.

“Karla?” I prompted. For a moment I thought that there might be tears in her blue eyes, but she blinked them away.

“I don’t . . .” she said, and then muttered something under her breath in her own language.

“It’s okay,” I said. “You can tell me. I promise it won’t go any further. Are you frightened of someone?”

“It is not that,” she said miserably. “I am sad because I am sorry for you. Johann is saying that you make it up, that you are . . . what’s the word? Paranoid, and that you . . . you seek the attention by making up stories. And I don’t believe this. I believe you are a good person and that you believe what you say is true. But, Miss Blacklock, we need our jobs. If the police say that something bad happened on this boat, no one will want to travel with us, and it may not be so easy to find another job. I need this money, I have a little boy, Erik, at home with my mother; she needs the money that I send back. And just because perhaps someone let a friend use an empty cabin, that doesn’t mean she was killed, you know?”

She turned away.

“Hang on.” I put out a hand towards her arm, trying to stop her going. “What are you saying? There was a girl in there? Did someone smuggle her in?”

“I am saying nothing.” She pulled her arm out of my grip. “I am saying, please, Miss Blacklock, don’t make trouble if nothing happened.”