The Stranger in the Lifeboat(38)

“Why go to the docks?” LeFleur asked.

“This manager of Fashion X was supposed to be there. I wanted to say hello. To be honest, I was hoping he’d hire me for their next tour. That’s all. I swear.”

“So you saw the Galaxy?”

“I saw it. It was a beast, just like he wrote. A monument to greed and excess.”

“Now you sound like the man in the notebook.”

“I’m just telling the truth. The upper deck was like an outdoor theater, a stage, dozens of chairs, a massive sound system. And every guest on that yacht had a staff member assigned to take care of them. Whatever they wanted, the staff person had to provide. Drinks. Towels. An iPad in the middle of the night. That’s how that whole trip worked. At least that’s what Benji told me. He had four people to look after from start to finish. I was standing next to him when they signed in.”

“You remember who they were?”

Dobby scratched his chin and looked down. “Yeah,” he said. “Now I do.”

“Who?”

He sighed. “One was Geri, the swimmer. One was the Greek guy, Yannis. One was the Indian woman, Mrs. Laghari—I remember her, because she looked at my clothes like they were offensive, and she asked Benji to hold a pair of earrings for her—and the last was the tall British guy, I forget his name.”

“Nevin Campbell?” LeFleur said.

“Yeah. Those were Benji’s people. He was assigned to those four.”

LeFleur shook his head. “Come on. You just named four people who happened to wind up in the lifeboat?”

“I know,” Dobby replied. “And I might as well tell you the rest. I met Jean Philippe and Bernadette, too. Benji introduced me. They were nice. Funny.”

“What about Nina, the Ethiopian woman?”

“We never met. But I saw her.”

“How did you know it was Nina?”

“Trust me, you don’t forget a woman like that. She looked like Iman, that model? She waved at Benji, and I said, ‘Who’s that?’ He said, ‘Nina. She gave me this haircut.’ ”

LeFleur exhaled. This was crazy. Dobby had just rattled off nearly all the passengers in the story. It was too simple. He could easily be reciting their names, making up his own tale as he went along.

“The little girl?” LeFleur asked. “Alice?”

“Never saw her.”

“What about Jason Lambert?”

Dobby bit his lip and looked away.

“What?” LeFleur said.

“Put down the gun, Inspector. And I’ll tell you a story.”

LeFleur held steady.

“Come on,” Dobby said. “You know, in your heart, you don’t believe that notebook. Put down the gun, and I’ll explain everything.”

LeFleur rubbed his eyes with his left hand. “Why do I need a whole story? What’s the big deal about Jason Lambert?”

Dobby lifted his gaze.

“Benji thought Lambert was his father.”



As the sun split its rays through the church’s broken ceiling, Dobby told LeFleur the story of Benji’s childhood.

“Benji’s mother’s name was Claire. My mother was Emilia. They were sisters. Very close sisters. When my father died, we came to America, just like Benji wrote. But he didn’t explain why we came.

“Benji’s father was supposedly an American, that’s true. And his mother did meet him in Scotland, the week of that golf tournament. And like a lot of women in our poor little town, she found herself pregnant too young. She never breathed a word to anyone except my mom. But once she started showing, Claire’s parents were ashamed. It was one thing in our community when people knew who the father was. They had someone to blame. But keeping the father secret made it harder for Claire. People acted like it was her fault. It was terrible, the way they treated her. She was smart. A good athlete. But once she gave birth, she was on her own. And Carndonagh was not an easy place to be on your own.

“She raised Benji by herself, working in a butcher shop during the day, living in a flat above it at night. They barely had a penny. The town looked at them as potlickers. Claire wouldn’t take any help from her folks. She was proud, even a bit headstrong, to be honest.

“One night, according to my ma, Claire came by, all worked up. She said she’d read a story in a magazine about Benji’s birth father. He was hugely successful now and lived in Boston. Claire said she was going to find him, tell him about their son. She believed he would take responsibility. Of course my ma told her, ‘Don’t be daft. He’ll cast you off like a beggar.’ But Claire was convinced. She and Benji moved in with us for almost a year, so she could save what she earned and use it for plane tickets. That’s when Benji and I got really close. We shared the same bed, ate our breakfasts together. We thought of each other as brothers, because we didn’t have brothers of our own.

“Anyhow. You read what happened. They went all the way to the States, and my mother was right. The guy rejected her. Claire was broken. My mother sensed it from her letters and phone calls. That’s why we moved to Boston, to be near her. They had a strong sister thing, those two, stronger than work, stronger than country. Funny, ’cause Benji and I kind of developed the same bond.

“Anyhow, by the time we got there, Benji was a changed kid. He knew he’d been rejected. He saw what it did to his mother. He started to hate anyone with money, or anyone who acted superior to him. I guess he associated them with the father he wasn’t good enough for. But that father was always in his head. As teenagers, we used to sneak into the bleachers at Fenway Park, the baseball stadium, and he’d look down at the people in the expensive seats and say, ‘Any one of those guys might be my deadbeat dad.’ Or we’d take the T line after school and ride out to Beacon Hill, the fancy neighborhood, and we’d smoke cigarettes and watch men coming home from work in their nice suits, and he’d say the same thing. ‘Might be that guy, Dobby. Or maybe that guy …’