it almost impossible to make out the shape of anything in the swell, but I thought I saw something beneath the crest of a black wave—a swirling white shape that trailed beneath the surface as it sank, like a woman’s hand.
Then I turned to look at the balcony next to mine.
There was a privacy screen between the two cabins, so I couldn’t see very much, but as I peered over, I saw two things.
The first was that there was a smear on the glass safety barrier of the next-door veranda. A smear of something dark and oily. A smear that looked a lot like blood.
The second was a realization, and one that made my stomach clench and shift. Whoever had been standing there—whoever had thrown that body overboard—could not have missed my stupid, headlong dash to the balcony. In all likelihood they’d been standing on the next-door veranda as I dashed onto mine. They would have heard my door crash back. They would probably even have seen my face.
I darted back into the room, slamming the French windows behind me, and checked the cabin door was double-locked. Then I put the chain across. My heart was thumping in my chest, but I felt calm, calmer than I had in ages.
This was it. This was real danger, and I was coping.
With the cabin door secure, I ran back and checked the veranda windows. There was no deadlock on this—just the normal latch—but it was as secure as I could make it.
Then I picked up the bedside phone with fingers that shook only slightly and dialed 0 for the operator.
“Hello?” said a singsong voice. “How can I help you, Miss Blacklock?”
For a minute I was so disconcerted that she knew it was me that I completely lost my train of thought. Then I realized—my room number would probably come up on the desk phone. Of course it would be me. Who else would be phoning from my room in the middle of the night?
“H-hello!” I managed. In spite of the tremor, my voice sounded surprisingly calm. “Hello. Who is this, please?”
“It’s your cabin stewardess, Karla, Miss Blacklock. Can I help you?” Beneath her perky phone manner a touch of concern had crept in. “Are you all right?”
“No, no, I’m not all right. I—” I stopped, aware how ridiculous this might sound.
“Miss Blacklock?”
“I think—” I swallowed. “I think I’ve just seen a murder.”
“Oh my goodness.” Karla’s voice was shocked, and she said something in a language I didn’t understand—Swedish perhaps, or maybe Danish. Then she seemed to control herself and spoke in English again. “Are you safe, Miss Blacklock?”
Was I safe? I looked across at the cabin door. It was double-locked and with the chain across, I was as certain as I could be that no one could get in.
“Yes, yes, I think I am. It was in the next-door cabin—number ten. Palmgren. I—I think someone threw a body overboard.”
My voice cracked as I said it, and I suddenly felt like laughing—or maybe crying. I took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to get ahold of myself.
“I will send someone right away, Miss Blacklock. Don’t move. I will call you when they are at the door so you know who it is. Hold on, please, and I will call you right back.”
There was a click, and she hung up.
I was still holding the receiver, and I put it gently back on the cradle, feeling oddly dissociated, almost like I was having an out-of-body experience. My head was throbbing, and I realized I needed to get dressed before they arrived.
I picked up the bathrobe from where it hung on the back of the bathroom door—and did a double take. When I went down to dinner I had left it on the floor, along with the clothes I’d worn on the train. I remembered looking back over my shoulder at the bomb site I’d made in the bathroom—clothes on the floor, makeup scattered across the counter, lipstick-smeared tissues in the sink—and thinking, I’ll deal with that later.
It was all gone. The bathrobe had been hung up, my dirty clothes and underwear had disappeared, whisked off to God knows where.
On the vanity counter, my cosmetics had been neatly set out in rows, along with my toothbrush and toothpaste. Only my tampons and pills were left inside my toiletry bag, a weirdly coy touch that was somehow worse than everything being out in the open, and made me shudder. Someone had been