“No, I mean, yes, I am, but I need the fresh air.”
“Are you still feeling unwell?”
“Not out here. But my head’s aching.”
I stood, holding on to the cold painted iron of the railing, and leaned out, looking down, past the glass-walled balconies of the cabins aft, down at the creaming waves at the ship’s wake, and the great dark expanse farther out, unimaginably deep and cold. I thought of the fathoms and fathoms of swirling blackness beneath us, of the darkness and silence below, and how something—someone—might fall for days through those black depths, to rest at last on a lightless seabed.
I thought of the girl the night before, how easy it would be for someone—Nilsson, Eva, anyone—to just walk up behind me, give me a gentle push . . .
I shuddered.
What had happened? I couldn’t have imagined it. The scream, and the splash maybe. But not the blood. I couldn’t have imagined that.
I took a huge lungful of the clean North Sea air, turned around, and smiled determinedly at Nilsson, shaking my hair back, where the wind had whipped it across my face.
“So whereabouts are we?”
“International waters,” Nilsson said. “On our way to Trondheim, I believe.”
“Trondheim?” I tried to think back to the bits of the press pack I’d actually read. “I thought we were going to Bergen first.”
“A change of plan, perhaps. I know that Lord Bullmer is very much hoping that you will all get a glimpse of the northern lights. Perhaps there are particularly good conditions tonight so he wanted to hasten north. Or it might have been a suggestion of the captain; there may be climatic reasons why it’s better to do the trip that way round. We have no fixed itinerary. We are very much able to cater to the whims of our passengers. It may be that someone at dinner last night was particularly anxious to see Trondheim.”
“What’s in Trondheim?”
“Trondheim itself? Well, there is a famous cathedral. And parts of the city are very attractive. But it’s mainly the fjords. That and the fact that the city is of course much farther north than Bergen, so there’s a better chance of seeing the aurora. But it might be that we have to go farther north still, to Bodø or even Tromsø. At this time of year, it’s still uncertain.”
“I see.” For some reason his words unsettled me. It was one thing to feel yourself part of an organized, itinerized trip. It was quite another to realize you were a helpless passenger with someone else at the wheel.
“Miss Blacklock—”
“Call me Lo,” I interrupted. “Please.”
“Lo, then.” Nilsson’s broad, comfortable face looked pained, something troubled in his teddy-bear expression. “I don’t want you to think that I don’t believe you, Lo, but in the cold light of day—”
“Am I still sure?” I finished. He nodded. I sighed, a little unhappily, thinking back to my doubts of the night before and the way Nilsson’s unspoken question echoed the unpleasant little nagging voice at the back of my skull. I twisted my fingers in the cloth of my top before I spoke. “The truth is, I don’t know. It was late, and you’re right, I had been drinking—I could have been mistaken about the scream and the splash. Even the blood—I guess it could have been a trick of the light, although I’m pretty sure of what I saw. But the woman in the cabin—there’s no way I could have imagined her. I just couldn’t. I saw her, I spoke to her. If she’s not here—not on the ship, I mean—then where is she?”
There was a long silence.
“Well, we haven’t spoken to Ulla,” he said at last. “From your description, I’m not sure it’s her, but we should rule it out at least.” He drew out his staff radio and began tapping at the buttons. “I don’t know about you, but I could do with a coffee, so perhaps we could ask her to meet us in the passenger dining room.”
The breakfast room was the same room we had eaten dinner in last night, but the two large tables had been broken up into half a dozen smaller ones, and when Nilsson pushed open the door, no one was there apart from a young waiter with corn-colored hair swept into a side parting. He came forward to greet me with a smile.
“Miss Blacklock? Are you ready for breakfast?”
“Yes, please,” I said vaguely, looking around the room. “Where should I sit?”