The Woman in Cabin 10

This room was larger at least, and I felt the growing sense of claustrophobia lift slightly. The ceiling was still low, and there were still no windows, but the room opened out into a small dining room, a lot like a miniature version of a hospital canteen. There were only three tables, each seating maybe half a dozen people, but the Formica surfaces, the steel grab rails, and the powerful smell of institutional cooking all combined to underline the difference between this deck and the one above.

Camilla Lidman was seated alone at one of the tables, drinking coffee and going through some kind of spreadsheet on a laptop, and across the room, five girls were sitting around another, eating breakfast pastries. They looked up as Nilsson entered.

“Hej, Johann,” one of them said, and followed with something in singsong Swedish, or maybe Danish, I wasn’t sure.

“Let’s speak in English, please,” Nilsson said, “as we have a guest present. Miss Blacklock is trying to trace a woman she saw in the next-door cabin—number ten, Palmgren. The woman she saw was white, with long dark hair, in her late twenties or early thirties, and she spoke good English.”

“Well, there’s me and Birgitta,” said one of the girls with a smile, nodding at her friend opposite. “My name is Hanni. But I don’t think I’ve been in Palmgren. I work behind the bar mainly. Birgitta?”

But I was shaking my head. Hanni and Birgitta both had pale skin and dark hair but neither was the girl from the cabin, and even though Hanni’s English was excellent, she had a noticeable Scandinavian accent.

“I’m Karla, Miss Blacklock,” said one of the two blond girls. “We met yesterday, if you recall. And we spoke on the phone last night.”

“Of course,” I said absently, but I was too busy scanning the faces of the other girls to pay proper attention. Karla and the fourth girl at the table were both blond, and the fifth had Mediterranean coloring and very short hair, almost a pixie cut. More important, none of them looked like my memory of that vivid, impatient face.

“It’s not any of you,” I said. “Is there anyone else who fits the description? What about the cleaners? Or the sailing crew?”

Birgitta frowned and said something to Hanni in Swedish. Hanni shook her head and spoke in English.

“The crew are mainly men. There’s one woman, but she’s redheaded and perhaps forty or fifty, I think. But Iwona, one of the cleaners, has dark hair. She’s Polish, I’m not sure how old she is.”

“I’ll get her,” Karla said. She got up with a smile and squeezed out from behind the table.

“There’s Eva,” Nilsson said thoughtfully, as Karla left the room in search of the absent Iwona. “She’s one of the spa therapists,” he added to me.

“She’s up in the spa, I think,” said Hanni. “Setting up for the day. But she’s in her late thirties at least, maybe forties.”

“We’ll go and speak to her after this,” Nilsson said.

“Don’t forget Ulla.” The pixie-haired girl spoke up for the first time.

“Ah, yes,” Nilsson said. “Is she on duty? Ulla is one of the stewardesses for the forward cabins and the Nobel Suite,” he added to me.

The girl nodded.

“Yes, but I think she’ll be coming off shortly.”

“Miss Blacklock,” said a voice from behind me, and I turned to see Karla presenting a colleague, a small, dumpy woman in her forties with dyed-black hair showing threads of gray at the roots. “This is Iwona.”

“I can to help?” Iwona said, in a heavy Polish accent. “There is a problem?”

I shook my head.

“I’m so sorry.” I wasn’t sure whether to address the answer to Iwona, Nilsson, or Karla. “She’s— You’re not the woman I saw. But I just want to say: there’s no question of this woman being in trouble. It’s not that she’s stolen anything or anything like that. I’m worried about her—I heard a scream.”

“A scream?” Hanni’s narrow eyebrows nearly disappeared into her fringe, and she exchanged a look with Karla, who opened her mouth to say something, but behind us, Camilla Lidman rose, and spoke for the first time.

“I am sure none of the crew is the woman you’re looking for, Miss Blacklock.” She came across the room to stand by the table, putting her hand on Hanni’s shoulder. “They would have said if they had any cause for alarm. We are a very—what’s the expression—very tightly knitted.”

“Very close,” Karla said. Her gaze flickered to Camilla Lidman and back to me, and she smiled, although her raised, overplucked brows gave the expression an oddly unconvincing, anxious air. “We are a very happy crew.”

“Never mind,” I said. I could see I wasn’t going to get anything out of these girls. The mention of the scream had been a mistake; they had closed ranks now. And maybe speaking to them with Camilla and Nilsson present had been an error, too. “Don’t worry. I’ll go and speak to . . . Eva, was it? And Ulla. Thank you for talking to me. But if you hear anything, anything at all—I’m in cabin nine, Linnaeus. Please do come and see me, anytime.”

“We heard nothing,” said Hanni firmly. “But of course we will let you know if that changes. Have a wonderful day, Miss Blacklock.”

“Thanks,” I said. As I turned, the ship lurched, making the girls at the table give little laughing shrieks of alarm, and clutch hold of their coffees. I stumbled, and would have fallen if Nilsson hadn’t grabbed my arm.

“Are you all right, Miss Blacklock?”

I nodded, but actually his grip had hurt, leaving my arm aching. The shock of the movement had sent a stabbing pain through my head and I wished I’d taken an aspirin before heading out.

“I enjoy that the Aurora is a smaller ship, not one of these Caribbean monsters, but it does mean that you can feel the impact of a big wave more than you might on a larger vessel. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said shortly, rubbing my arm. “Let’s go and speak to Eva.”

“First, let us take a detour via the kitchen,” Nilsson said. “Then we can head up to the spa to speak to Eva, and finally we can finish in the breakfast room.” He had a list of staff in his hand and was crossing off names. “That should be everyone apart perhaps from two members of the sailing crew, and a few cabin stewards we can find at the end.”

“Fine,” I said tersely. In truth I wanted to get out—out from the narrow, claustrophobic walls and the airless corridors, away from the gray lighting and the feeling of being hemmed in, trapped below the waterline. I had a brief, horrible image of the ship striking something, water flooding the confined space, mouths gasping for the fleeing scraps of air.

But I could not give up now. To do that would be to admit defeat, to admit that Nilsson was right. Instead, pushing the thoughts away, back into my subconscious, I followed him down a corridor towards the nose of the ship, feeling the floor shift and lurch beneath me, while the smell of cooking became stronger. There was bacon and hot fat, and the distinctive buttery tang of baking croissants, but also boiled fish, and gravy, and something sweet. The combination brought a rush of saliva to my mouth, not in a good way, and I gritted my teeth again and grabbed hold of the rail as the ship heaved up another wave and dropped into the trough, leaving my stomach behind.

I was just wondering whether it was too late to turn back and ask Nilsson if we could do this another time, when he stopped at a steel door with two small glass windows and pushed it open. White-hatted heads turned, their faces registering polite surprise as they saw me standing behind Nilsson.

“Hej, alla!” Nilsson said, followed by something else in Swedish. He turned to me. “I’m sorry, all of the deck and hospitality staff speak English but not all the cooks do. I’m just explaining why we’re here.”

There were smiles and nods from the staff, and one of the chefs came forward, his hand stuck out.

“Hello, Miss Blacklock,” he said, in excellent English. “My name is Otto Jansson. Any of my staff will be pleased to help, although they do not all speak good English. I can translate. What do you need to know?”