questions clamoring at the back of my skull. Should I take it? Was it loaded? Was it real? Stupid question—I doubted anyone would bother to keep a replica handgun in their cabin.
As for whether I should take it . . . I tried to imagine myself pointing a gun at someone, and failed. No, I couldn’t take it. Not least because I had no idea how to use it and was more likely to shoot myself than anyone else, but more because I had to get the police to believe and trust me, and turning up to a station with a stolen, loaded gun in my pocket was the best way to ensure I was locked up, not listened to.
Half reluctantly, I pulled the scarves back over the gun, shut the drawer, and resumed looking for the purse.
I found it at last in the third drawer down, a brown leather wallet, rather worn, laid carefully on top of a file of papers. Inside were half a dozen credit cards and a wad of bills—I didn’t have time to count them, but they looked like easily the five thousand kroner Carrie had mentioned, maybe more. I slid it into the pocket of the leggings, beneath the kimono, and then took one last look round the room, ready to leave. Everything was as I’d found it, except for the purse. It was time to go.
I took a deep breath, readying myself, and then opened the door. And as I did so, I heard voices in the corridor. For a minute I wavered, wondering whether to brazen it out. But then one of the voices said, with a touch of flirtation, “Of course, sir, anything I can do to ensure your satisfaction. . . .”
I didn’t wait to hear any more. I shut the door with a stealthy click, dimmed the lights, and stood in the darkness with my back to the solid wood, my heart going a mile a minute. My fingers were cold and prickly, and my legs felt weak, but it was my heart—my heart, racing crazily out of control, a panicked stampede of a beat—that threatened to overwhelm me. Fuck fuck fuck, I couldn’t have a panic attack now!
Breathe, Laura. One. . . . Two. . . .
Shut the fuck up! I had no idea whether the scream was inside my head, but somehow, with a huge effort, I managed to peel myself away from the door and stumble to the veranda. The door slid open, and I was outside, the cold of the September night shocking against skin that hadn’t felt fresh air for days.
I stood for a moment, my back to the glass, feeling my pulse in my temples and my throat, and my heart banging against my ribs, and then I took a deep breath and edged to one side, to where the veranda curved around the corner of the boat. I was out of sight of the window now, my back to the cold steel hull of the boat, but I saw the flash of light as the door to the corridor opened, and then the lamps in the cabin itself blazed on, illuminating the glass wall of the veranda. Don’t come out; don’t come out, I prayed, as I cowered in the corner of the veranda, waiting for the click and slide of the glass. But nothing happened.
I could see the reflection of the room in the glass barrier. The image was cut in half where the glass ended at rib height, and the reflection was jumbled with ghosts thrown up by the double and triple layers of glass. But I could see a man in the room, moving around. The dark silhouette of his shape moved off in the direction of the bathroom and I heard the noise of taps and the flush of a toilet, then the television came on, its blue-white flicker instantly recognizable in the glass. Above its sound, I heard the noise of a phone call, and Anne’s name, and I held my breath. Was he asking about Carrie’s whereabouts? How long before he went looking?
The phone call seemed to end, or at least he stopped talking, and I saw his shape move again as he threw himself onto the white expanse of the bed, a dark sprawl across its bright rectangle.
I waited, growing colder now, shifting from foot to foot to try to keep myself even a little warm, but not daring to move too much for fear