The Woman in Cabin 10

“You’re being ridiculous,” I said, but her alarm had infected me. I shoved my feet into the espadrilles, and the passport into the pocket of the kimono. Carrie was zipping up my vintage leather boots. I felt a faint pang of regret—those boots were the single most expensive piece of clothing I owned. It had taken me weeks, and a fair amount of encouragement from Judah, to pluck up the courage to shell out for them. But the boots felt like a small sacrifice in exchange—potentially—for my life.

At last we were almost fully dressed—just the headscarf lay on the bunk between us.

“Sit,” Carrie said brusquely, and I sat on the edge of the bunk while she stood beside me and swathed the beautiful printed scarf around my head. It was green and gold, blazoned with a pattern of intertwined ropes and anchors, and I had a sudden, distracting flash of Anne—the real Anne—floating down into the blue-green depths, her white limbs tangling in the detritus of a thousand wrecks, caught forever.

“There you go,” Carrie said at last. She slid in a couple of pins, holding the edge of the scarf in place, and then looked at me critically, up and down. “It’s not perfect—you’re not thin enough—but you’ll pass in poor light. Thank God I’ve not met most of the sailing crew.”

She looked at her watch and then said, “Right. Last thing. Hit me.”

“What?” Her words made no sense. Hit her with what?

“Hit me. Hit my head against the bunk.”

“What?” I was starting to sound like an echo—but I couldn’t help it. “Are you crazy? I’m not going to hit you!”

“Hit me,” she said furiously. “Don’t you get it? This has to be convincing. This is my only chance of Richard believing I wasn’t in on it. It has to look like you attacked me, overpowered me. Hit me.”

I took a deep breath and slapped her on the cheek. Her head whipped back, but it wasn’t hard enough, I could tell it wasn’t, even as she looked sourly round at me, rubbing her cheek.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Do I have to do everything?”

She took a deep breath, and then, before I realized quite what she was about to do, she smacked her head into the side of the bunk.

I screamed. I couldn’t help it. Blood started welling from the shallow cut the metal edge had made, dripping down her—my—white T-shirt and puddling on the floor. She staggered back, gasping in pain and holding her hands to her skull.

“Jesus!” she whimpered. “Fucking hell, that hurt. Oh God.” She fell to her knees, her breath coming short and sharp, and for a second I thought she was about to faint.

“Carrie!” I said in panic, dropping to my knees beside her. “Carrie, are you—”

“Don’t kneel in it, you stupid bitch!” she screamed, pushing my hand away. “Do you want to ruin everything? You can’t have blood on your clothes! What the hell would the crew say? Oh Christ, oh God, why won’t it stop bleeding?”

I got awkwardly to my feet, half tripping on the trailing kimono, and for a moment I just stood there, trembling. Then I came to my senses and ran to the bathroom to get a thick wad of tissue.

“Here you go.” My voice shook. She looked up, ruefully, and then took the tissue and pressed it to the cut. Then she sank back onto the bunk, her face gray.

“Wh-what should I do?” I asked. “Can I help you?”

“No. The only thing that can help me is if Richard believes you beat me up so badly I couldn’t have stopped you. Hopefully this’ll do the job. Now get out,” she said hoarsely. “Before he comes back and this is all for nothing.”

“Carrie, I— What can I do?”

“Two things,” she said, her teeth gritted against the pain. “First, give me twenty-four hours before you go to the police. Okay?”

I nodded. It wasn’t what I’d meant, but I felt I couldn’t refuse her that, at least.

“Second, get the fuck out.” She groaned. Her face was now so white that I was frightened, but there was a fierce determination in her expression. “You tried to helped me, didn’t you? That’s what got you in this mess. Now this is the only thing I can do to help you. So don’t make it a waste of my time. Get the fuck out!”

“Thank you,” I croaked. She didn’t say anything, just waved a hand towards the corridor. As I got to the door, she spoke.

“The key to the suite’s in your pocket. You’ll find about five thousand kroner in a purse on the dressing table. It’s a mixture of Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish, but there’s nearly five hundred pounds’ worth, I think. Take the whole thing—it’s got credit cards and ID. I don’t know the PIN for the cards—they’re not mine, they’re Anne’s, but you might find somewhere that’ll let you sign. You’ll have to ask someone to lower the gangway so you can get off the boat—unless they’ve already got it out for Richard. Tell them that he just phoned and you’re going to meet him en route.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Change your clothes, and get away from the port as soon as you can. That’s it.” She shut her eyes and lay back. The chunk of paper pressed to her temple was already soaked with red. “Oh, and lock me in when you go.”

“Lock you in? Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. It has to be convincing.”

“But what if he doesn’t come and find you?”

“He will.” Her voice was flat. “It’s the first thing he’ll do if he finds me missing. He’ll come and check on you.”

“Okay . . .” I said reluctantly. “Wh-what’s the PIN for the door?”

“The door?” She opened tired eyes. “What door?”

“You said there was a second locked door outside this one. With a PIN panel.”

“I lied,” she said wearily. “There’s no door. I just said that so you wouldn’t jump me. Just keep climbing.”

“I— Thank you, Carrie.”

“Don’t thank me.” Her eyes were closed again. “Just pull this off—for both of us. And don’t look back.”

“Okay.” I moved towards her, I don’t know why—to hug her, maybe. But her chest was spattered with fresh blood, with more coming from the wound at her temple. And she was right—bloodstains on my gown wouldn’t help anyone, least of all her.

It was the hardest thing I’d ever done—turning my back on a woman who looked like she was bleeding to death, all because of me. But I knew what I had to do—for both of us.

“Good-bye, Carrie,” I said. She didn’t answer. I fled.

The corridor outside was narrow and hot as hell, even hotter than the stuffy little cabin I had left. There was a heavy clasp across the door, drilled roughly into the plastic, and a thick padlock with a key sticking out of it. I snapped it across, swallowing against the guilt that was constricting my throat, and then hesitated, my fingers over the key. Should I take it? I left it. I didn’t want Carrie to spend a moment longer in there than she had to.

The cabin door was at one end of the drab beige corridor. At the other was a door marked NO ENTRY—AUTHORIZED CREW ONLY and then, past that, a flight of stairs. I took one stricken look back at the locked cabin door, behind which Carrie lay bleeding, and then I ran for the stairs and began to climb.

Up and up I climbed, my heart beating in my chest, my legs shaky with disuse. Up the service stairs, drably carpeted and edged with metal. I felt my hand slip with sweat on the plastic banister, and in my mind’s eye I saw the dazzling glare of the Great Staircase, the glint of crystal, the feel of the polished mahogany rail beneath my fingers, smooth as silk. I felt a laugh bubble up inside me, as irrational as the time I giggled through my grandmother’s funeral, my fear and fright turning to a kind of hysteria.

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?