The Woman in Cabin 10

“Lo . . .”

“Don’t touch me,” I said through gritted teeth, and then the boat went up and over a particularly big wave and I felt my stomach clench and I threw up over the rail, my stomach heaving and heaving until my eyes watered and there was nothing left but acid. I saw, with a kind of vicious pleasure, that my vomit was spattered across the hull and porthole below. Paintwork not so perfect now, I thought as I wiped my mouth with my sleeve.

“Are you okay?” Ben said again from behind me, and I clenched my fists on the rail. Be nice, Lo . . .

I turned round and forced myself to nod.

“I actually feel a bit better. I’ve never been a great sailor.”

“Oh, Lo.” He put an arm around me and squeezed, and I let myself be pulled into his hug, suppressing the urge to pull away. I needed Ben on my side. I needed him to trust me, to think I trusted him. . . .

A whiff of cigarette smoke caught my nostrils and I heard the tap, tap of high heels coming along the port side of the boat.

“Oh God.” I stood up straighter, moving away from Ben almost as if it were accidental. “It’s Tina, can we go in? I can’t face her at the moment.”

Not now. Not with tears drying on my cheeks and vomit on my sleeve. It was hardly the professional, ambitious image I was trying to project.

“Sure,” Ben said solicitously, and he held open the door as we hurried inside, just as Tina rounded the corner of the deck.

After the roar of the wind the corridor was suddenly quiet, and stiflingly hot, and we watched in silence as Tina strolled to the rail and leaned over, just a few paces upwind of where I had vomited moments before.

“If you want to know the truth,” Ben said, looking out through the glass at Tina’s unconscious back, “my money would be on her. She’s a stone-cold bitch.”

I looked at him in shock. Ben had sometimes been hostile about the women he worked with, but I’d never heard such naked dislike in his voice.

“Excuse me? Because she’s an ambitious woman?”

“Not just that. You haven’t worked with her, I have. I’ve met a few careerists in my time, but she’s in another league. I swear she’d kill for a story or a promotion, and it’s women she seems to pick on. I can’t stand women like that. They’re their own worst enemy.”

I kept silent. There was something close to misogyny in his words and tone, but at the same time, it was so uncomfortably close to what Rowan had said that I wasn’t sure if I could dismiss it as just that.

But Tina had been downstairs in the spa with me when the message appeared. And then there was her defensiveness earlier this morning. . . .

“I asked her where she was last night,” I said, half reluctantly. “She was really odd. Very aggressive. She said I shouldn’t go about making enemies.”

“Oh that,” Ben said. He smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile, there was something rather unkind about it. “You won’t get her to admit it, but I happen to know she was with Josef.”

“Josef? As in, cabin attendant Josef? Are you kidding me?”

“Nope. I got it from Alexander during the tour. He saw Josef tiptoeing out of Tina’s cabin in the early hours in a state of—let’s just say déshabillé.”

“Blimey.”

“Blimey indeed. Who’d have thought Josef’s devotion to passenger comfort would extend so far. He’s not really my type, but I wonder if I could persuade Ulla to do the same. . . .”

I didn’t laugh. Not with the narrow, sunless rooms just a couple of decks beneath where we were standing right now.

How far might someone go to escape their confines?

But then Tina turned from where she was smoking at the rail and caught sight of me and Ben inside the boat. She flicked her cigarette over the rail and gave me a little wink before making her way back along the deck, and I felt suddenly vile at the thought of all the men chuckling about her little adventure behind her back.

“What about Alexander, then, if it comes to that?” I said accusingly. “His cabin’s aft, along with ours. And what was he doing spying on Tina in the middle of the night?”

Ben snorted.

“Are you kidding me? He must be three hundred and fifty pounds. I can’t see him lifting an adult woman over a rail.”

“He wasn’t playing poker, so we’ve no idea where he was, apart from the fact that he was prowling around in the early hours of the morning.” I remembered, too, with a sudden chill, that he had been in the photo on Cole’s camera.

“He’s the size of a walrus. Plus he’s got a heart condition. Have you ever seen him take the stairs? Or, more to the point, heard him? He sounds like a steam train, and you start to worry when he gets to the top that he’ll kark it and fall back on you. I can’t imagine him overcoming anyone in a struggle.”

“She could have been very drunk. Or drugged. I bet anyone could tip an unconscious woman overboard—it would be just a matter of leverage.”

“If she was unconscious, then what about the scream?” Ben said, and I felt a sudden pulse of fury run through me.

“God, do you know what, I’m so fed up with everyone picking at and questioning me as if I should have the answers to all this. I don’t know, Ben. I don’t know what to think anymore. All right?”

“All right,” he said mildly. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean it like that. I was just thinking aloud. Alexander—”

“Taking my name in vain?” came a voice from up the corridor, and we both swung around. I felt my cheeks go scarlet. How long had Alexander been there? Had he heard my speculations?

“Oh, hello, Belhomme,” Ben said smoothly. He didn’t seem at all put out. “We were just talking about you.”

“So I heard.” Alexander drew level with us, panting slightly. Ben was right, I realized. The smallest exertion set him gasping breathlessly. “All good, I hope?”

“Of course,” Ben said. “We were just discussing dinner tonight. Lo was saying how knowledgeable you were about food.”

For a minute I couldn’t think of anything to say, stunned by how good a liar Ben had become since we were together. Or had he always been such a slick deceiver and I’d just never noticed?

Then I realized both Ben and Alexander were waiting for me to speak, and I stammered, “Oh, yes, remember, Alexander? You were telling me about fugu.”

“Of course. Such a thrill. I do think it’s one’s responsibility to wring every ounce of sensation out of life, don’t you? Otherwise, without that, it’s just a short, nasty, and brutal interlude until death.”

He gave a broad, slightly crocodile-like smile, and hoisted something beneath his arm. It was a book; a volume of Patricia Highsmith, I saw.

“Where are you off to?” Ben asked casually. “We’ve got a few hours free until dinner now, I think.”

“Don’t tell anyone,” Alexander said confidentially. “But this color isn’t entirely natural.” He touched his—now that he mentioned it—rather walnut-colored cheek. “So I’m off to the spa for a little touch-up. My wife always says I look better with a color.”

“I didn’t know you were married,” I said, hoping my surprise wasn’t too evident in my voice. Alexander nodded.

“For my sins. Thirty-eight years this year. You get less for murder, I’m led to believe!”

He gave a slightly grating laugh, and I inwardly cringed. If he hadn’t heard what we were saying earlier, it was an odd remark. If he had heard, then it was in very poor taste indeed.

“Have a nice time in the spa,” I said at last, lamely. He smiled again.

“I will. See you at dinner!”

He was turning to go when I spoke, suddenly, compelled by an impetus I couldn’t quite dissect.

“Wait, Alexander—”

He turned, one eyebrow raised. I felt my courage falter, but I carried on.

“I—this is going to sound a little strange, but I heard some noises last night, coming from cabin ten, the one at the end of the ship. It’s supposed to be empty but there was a woman in it yesterday—only now we can’t track her down. Did you see or hear anything last night? A splash? Any other noise? Ben said you were up.”