The Woman in Cabin 10(85)

I shook my head and pushed on, up the next flight, past doors marked MAINTENANCE and STAFF ONLY.

I kept climbing, until I reached a huge steel door with a bar on the inside, like a fire escape. I stood for a moment, panting from the long climb, feeling the cold sweat pooling at the base of my spine. What was on the other side?

Behind me lay Carrie, curled on the bunk in that airless coffin of a room. My stomach turned, and I forced myself to put that picture out of my mind and focus, coldly and deliberately, on the steps that lay ahead. I had to get out—and then as soon as I was safe I could . . . but what? Call the police, in defiance of Carrie’s request?

As I stood there, my hand on the door, I had a searing flashback to that night in my flat—to cowering inside my own bedroom, too scared to open the door and confront whatever—whoever—was on the other side. Perhaps it would have been better if I’d kicked down the locked door, burst out and confronted him, even if it meant being beaten bloody. I could be in the hospital right now, recovering, Judah at my side, not trapped in this waking nightmare.

Well, the door wasn’t locked now.

I shoved my hand against the release and pushed it open.





- CHAPTER 32 -

The light. It hit me like a slap, leaving me blinking and dizzy, gaping at the rainbow prisms of a thousand Swarovski crystals. The service door led directly out onto the Great Staircase, where the chandelier blazed, day and night, a giant “f*ck you!” to economy and restraint and global warming, not to mention good taste.

I steadied myself on the polished wooden handrail and looked left and right. There was a mirror at the turning point of the stairs, throwing back the reflected glare of the chandelier, multiplying the dancing light again and again, and as I turned I caught sight of myself in it and for a moment I did a double take, my heart leaping into my throat—for there in the glass was Anne, her head swathed in gold and green, her eyes hunted and bruised.

I looked like what I was—a fugitive. I forced myself to stand up straighter, and walk slowly, in spite of wanting to scurry like a terrified rat.

Hurry, hurry, hurry, snarled the voice in the back of my head. Bullmer’s coming. Get a move on! But I kept my pace slow and steady, remembering Anne’s—Carrie’s—stately walk, the way she measured each pace like someone conserving their strength. I was heading towards the front of the ship, where cabin 1 was, and in my pocket my fingers closed over the cabin key, feeling its reassuring hardness under my sweaty fingers.

And then I came to a dead end, stairs leading up to the restaurant, no way through into the prow. Fuck. I had taken a wrong turn.

I turned back, trying to remember the route I had taken when I went to see Anne—Carrie—that night before Trondheim. God, was it really only last week? It felt like an age, a different life. Wait—it was supposed to be right at the library, not left. Wasn’t it?

Hurry, for God’s sake, hurry!

But I kept my pace steady, kept my head up, trying not to look back, not to imagine the hands snatching at my flowing silk robes, dragging me back down below. I turned right, then left, then past a storeroom. This looked right. I was sure I remembered the photograph of the glacier.

Another turn—and another dead end, with stairs leading up to the sundeck. I wanted to sob. Where were the f*cking signs? Were people supposed to find cabins by telepathy? Or was the Nobel Suite deliberately hidden away so that the hoi polloi couldn’t bother the VIPs?

I bent over, my hands on my knees, feeling my muscles trembling beneath the silk, and I breathed slowly, trying to make myself believe I could do this. I would not be still wandering the halls, sobbing, when Richard came up the gangplank.

Breathe in. . . . One. . . . Two. . . . Barry’s soothing voice in my head gave me a surge of anger, enough to propel me upright, set me walking again. Stick it, Barry. Stick your positive thinking somewhere painful.

I was back at the library, and I tried again, this time turning left at the storeroom. And suddenly I was there. The door to the cabin was ahead of me.

I felt in my pocket for the key, feeling the adrenaline zipping up and down every neuron in my body. What if Richard was already back?

Don’t be the loser cowering behind the door again, Lo. You can do this.

I shoved the key in the door and opened it, faster than fast, ready to drop and run if there was someone in the room.

But there was not. It was empty, the doors to the bathroom and adjoining bedroom standing wide.

My legs gave way, and I sank to my knees on the thick carpet, something very close to sobs rising in my throat. But I wasn’t home and dry. I wasn’t even halfway there. Purse. Purse, money, coat, and then off this horrible boat forever.

I closed the door behind me, stripped the kimono off, hurrying now that there was no one to see my feverish movements, and in my bra and knickers searched through Anne’s drawers. The first trousers I tried were jeans, and impossibly tight, I couldn’t get them halfway up my thighs, but I found a pair of Lycra sports leggings I could get into, and an anonymous black top. Then I put the kimono back on over the top, belted it tight, and adjusted the headscarf in the mirror where it had slipped.

I wished I could wear dark glasses, but glancing out the window I saw it was pitch-black—and the clock on Anne’s bedside table said quarter past eleven. Oh God, Richard would be back any minute.

I pushed my feet back into Carrie’s espadrilles, and then looked around for the purse she had described. There was nothing on the immaculately polished dressing table, but I opened a couple of the drawers at random, wondering if the maid might have put it away for safekeeping. The first drawer was empty. The second I tried had a clump of patterned headscarves, and I was about to close it again, when I noticed there seemed to be something beneath the pile of soft silks, a hard, flat shape among the gossamer-thin wraps. I pushed them aside—and my breath caught in my throat.