The Woman in Cabin 10(86)

Nestled beneath was a handgun. I had never seen one in real life before, and I froze, half expecting it to go off without even being touched, questions clamoring at the back of my skull. Should I take it? Was it loaded? Was it real? Stupid question—I doubted anyone would bother to keep a replica handgun in their cabin.

As for whether I should take it . . . I tried to imagine myself pointing a gun at someone, and failed. No, I couldn’t take it. Not least because I had no idea how to use it and was more likely to shoot myself than anyone else, but more because I had to get the police to believe and trust me, and turning up to a station with a stolen, loaded gun in my pocket was the best way to ensure I was locked up, not listened to.

Half reluctantly, I pulled the scarves back over the gun, shut the drawer, and resumed looking for the purse.

I found it at last in the third drawer down, a brown leather wallet, rather worn, laid carefully on top of a file of papers. Inside were half a dozen credit cards and a wad of bills—I didn’t have time to count them, but they looked like easily the five thousand kroner Carrie had mentioned, maybe more. I slid it into the pocket of the leggings, beneath the kimono, and then took one last look round the room, ready to leave. Everything was as I’d found it, except for the purse. It was time to go.

I took a deep breath, readying myself, and then opened the door. And as I did so, I heard voices in the corridor. For a minute I wavered, wondering whether to brazen it out. But then one of the voices said, with a touch of flirtation, “Of course, sir, anything I can do to ensure your satisfaction. . . .”

I didn’t wait to hear any more. I shut the door with a stealthy click, dimmed the lights, and stood in the darkness with my back to the solid wood, my heart going a mile a minute. My fingers were cold and prickly, and my legs felt weak, but it was my heart—my heart, racing crazily out of control, a panicked stampede of a beat—that threatened to overwhelm me. Fuck f*ck f*ck, I couldn’t have a panic attack now!

Breathe, Laura. One. . . . Two. . . .

Shut the f*ck up! I had no idea whether the scream was inside my head, but somehow, with a huge effort, I managed to peel myself away from the door and stumble to the veranda. The door slid open, and I was outside, the cold of the September night shocking against skin that hadn’t felt fresh air for days.

I stood for a moment, my back to the glass, feeling my pulse in my temples and my throat, and my heart banging against my ribs, and then I took a deep breath and edged to one side, to where the veranda curved around the corner of the boat. I was out of sight of the window now, my back to the cold steel hull of the boat, but I saw the flash of light as the door to the corridor opened, and then the lamps in the cabin itself blazed on, illuminating the glass wall of the veranda. Don’t come out; don’t come out, I prayed, as I cowered in the corner of the veranda, waiting for the click and slide of the glass. But nothing happened.

I could see the reflection of the room in the glass barrier. The image was cut in half where the glass ended at rib height, and the reflection was jumbled with ghosts thrown up by the double and triple layers of glass. But I could see a man in the room, moving around. The dark silhouette of his shape moved off in the direction of the bathroom and I heard the noise of taps and the flush of a toilet, then the television came on, its blue-white flicker instantly recognizable in the glass. Above its sound, I heard the noise of a phone call, and Anne’s name, and I held my breath. Was he asking about Carrie’s whereabouts? How long before he went looking?

The phone call seemed to end, or at least he stopped talking, and I saw his shape move again as he threw himself onto the white expanse of the bed, a dark sprawl across its bright rectangle.

I waited, growing colder now, shifting from foot to foot to try to keep myself even a little warm, but not daring to move too much for fear he would see the movement reflected back at him from the same barrier I was using to spy on him. The night was unbelievably beautiful, and for the first time since I had come out here, I looked around.

We were deep inside one of the fjords, the rocky sides of the valley rising up all around us, the waters beneath black and still and unfathomably dark and deep. Far across the fjord I could see the lights of small settlements, and the lanterns of boats moored out on the still waters, but the overriding thing was the stars—clear and white and almost unbearably lovely. I thought of Carrie, down below, trapped and bleeding like an animal in a snare. . . . Please, dear God, let her be found. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to her. I would be responsible for locking her down there, leaving her to her crazy plan.

I waited, shivering helplessly now, for Richard to fall asleep. But he did not. At least he dimmed the lights slightly, but the television continued to blast away, the flickering images turning the room shades of blue and green, with sudden cuts to black. I shifted my weight again, pushing my chilly hands beneath my arms. What if he fell asleep in front of the TV? Would I know? But even if he did fall asleep, properly and deeply, I was not sure if I could summon up the courage to enter the room with a murderer, tiptoe through it while his sleeping form lay there just inches away.

What was the alternative, then? Wait until he went in search of Carrie?

And then I heard something, something that made my heart seem to stop, and then stutter back to life, twice as fast. The boat’s engine was starting up.

Panic washed over me like a cold sea wave and I tried to think—we weren’t moving yet. There was a chance the gangway was still down. I would have heard it being raised. I remembered from when we set out from Hull that the engine had hummed and thrummed for a good long time before we actually departed. But it was a ticking clock. How long did I have? Half an hour? A quarter? Perhaps less, given there were no passengers on board, no reason to hang about.