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?”