The Woman in Cabin 10(59)
And then she ran up the corridor, punched the code into the staff door, and was gone.
On the way up to the Lindgren Lounge, I found myself replaying the conversation in my head, trying to work out what it meant. Had she seen someone in the cabin, or suspected someone was there? Or was she just torn between her sympathy for me and her fear of what might happen if what I was saying was true?
Outside the lounge I checked my phone surreptitiously, hoping against hope that we might be close enough to land for a signal, but there was still nothing. As I was putting it away in my evening bag, Camilla Lidman glided up.
“May I take that for you, Miss Blacklock?” She indicated the bag. I shook my head.
“No, thank you.” My phone was set to beep when it connected to roaming networks. If a signal did come, I wanted it by my side so I could act immediately.
“Very well. May I offer you a glass of champagne?” She indicated a tray on a small table by the entrance, and I nodded and took a frosted flute. I knew I should keep a clear head for tomorrow, but one glass for Dutch courage couldn’t hurt.
“Just to let you know, Miss Blacklock,” she said, “that the talk on the northern lights has been canceled tonight.”
I looked at her blankly, realizing that I’d forgotten, yet again, to check the itinerary.
“There was to have been a presentation on the northern lights after dinner,” she explained, seeing my expression. “A talk from Lord Bullmer accompanied by photographs from Mr. Lederer, but unfortunately, Lord Bullmer has been called away to deal with an emergency and Mr. Lederer has hurt his hand, so it has been rescheduled for tomorrow, after the group returns from Trondheim.”
I nodded again and turned to the rest of the room to see who else was missing.
Bullmer and Cole were both absent, as Camilla had said. Chloe was not there, either, and when I asked Lars, he said she was feeling ill and lying down in her room. Anne was present, although she looked pale, and as she raised her glass to her lips, her robe slipped, showing a deep purple bruise on her collarbone. She saw me glance, and look hastily away, and gave a self-conscious laugh.
“I know, it looks terrible, doesn’t it? I tripped in the shower, but I bruise so easily now, it looks worse than it is. It’s a side effect of the chemotherapy, unfortunately.”
As we took our seats at dinner, I saw Ben motion invitingly at the seat next to his, opposite Archer, but I pretended not to see, and instead took the chair closest to where I was standing, next to Owen White. He was giving Tina a long talk on his financial interests and his role at the investment company he worked for.
As I listened, half an ear on their conversation, half an ear on the rest of the table, I realized that the talk had shifted, and he was speaking in a low voice, as if unwilling to be overheard.
“. . . quite honestly, no,” he was confiding to Tina. “I’m just not one hundred percent convinced that the setup is sustainable—it’s such a niche investment area. But I don’t imagine Bullmer will have trouble getting interest from elsewhere. And of course he has pretty deep pockets of his own, or rather Anne does, so he can afford to wait for the right person to come on board. It’s a shame Solberg wasn’t able to come, this is much more his bailiwick.”
Tina nodded wisely, and then the conversation passed on to other topics—holiday destinations they had in common, the identity of the neon green cube of jelly that had just appeared on a plate in front of us, flanked by a little pile of something I thought might be seaweed. I let my gaze pass over the room, Archer was saying something to Ben and laughing uproariously. He looked drunk, his bow tie already askew. Anne, at the same table, was talking to Lars. There was no trace of the tears I’d seen earlier that afternoon, but there was something haunted about her expression, and her smile, as she nodded at something Lars was saying, was strained.
“Pondering our hostess?” said a low voice from across the table, and I turned to see Alexander sipping at a glass. “She’s quite the enigma, isn’t she? Looks so fragile, and yet they say she’s the power behind Richard’s throne. The iron fist in the silk glove, you could say. I suppose that having that kind of money from the age when most children are still drooling into their cornflakes has a steeling effect on one’s character.”
“Do you know her well?” I asked. Alexander shook his head.
“Never met her. Richard spends half his life on a plane, but she almost never leaves Norway. It’s totally alien to me—as you know, I live for travel; I can’t imagine confining yourself to a petty little country like Norway when the restaurants and capitals of the world await. Never to taste sucking pig at elBulli, or sample the glorious fusion of cultures that is Gaggan in Bangkok! But I suppose it’s a reaction against her upbringing—I believe she lost her parents in a plane crash at the age of eight or nine, and spent the rest of her life being shuttled around the boarding schools of Europe by her grandparents. I imagine you might choose to go the other way as an adult.”
He picked up his fork, and we were just starting to eat when there was a noise at the door, and I looked up to see Cole walking unsteadily across to the table.
“Mr. Lederer!” A stewardess hurried to take an extra chair from the ones at the side of the room. “Miss Blacklock, might I ask you to just . . .”
I moved my plate and chair slightly and she put a seat at the head of the table for Cole, who slumped heavily down. His hand was bandaged, and he looked as if he’d been drinking.