on my hand dissolved into the water and I shut my eyes and felt the warmth pour through me, seeping into my muscles.
When I climbed out I felt better, more like myself, washed clean of some of the fear and violence that had marked the last few days. It was putting my clothes back on that made me really realize how far I’d sunk. They stank—not to put too fine a point on it—and were stained with blood and sweat.
I lay down on the bunk and shut my eyes, listening to the steady thrum of the engine and wondering where we were. It was Wednesday night—or maybe even Thursday morning now. From what I could remember we had only a little over twenty-four hours of this trip left. And then what? When the boat got into Bergen on Friday morning, the other passengers would leave and with them would go my last hope of someone realizing what had happened.
For twenty-four hours I was probably safe. But after that . . . Oh God, but I couldn’t think about that.
I pressed my hands into my eyes, listened to the blood roaring in my head. What should I do? What could I do?
If Anne was telling the truth, hurting her wouldn’t achieve anything. There was another locked door the other side of this one, and very likely other codes on the exits. For a minute I wondered if I got out into the corridor, could I find and smash a fire alarm before Anne caught up with me? But it seemed like too long a shot. From what I’d seen of Anne’s strength and quickness, I was unlikely to get that far.
No. My best chance was simple—I had to get Anne on my side.
But how? What did I actually know about her?
I tried to think about what I knew about Anne Bullmer—her fantastic wealth, her lonely upbringing, trailing around the boarding schools of Europe. It was no wonder it had taken me so long to make the connection. The rake-thin, sad-eyed woman in her gray silk wraps and designer headscarves—yes, somehow that fit with what I’d been told. But I could not make one word of what Ben had said connect with the girl in the Pink Floyd T-shirt, with her mocking dark eyes and cheap mascara. It was like there were two Annes. Same height, same weight, but that was where the similarity ended.
And then . . . something clicked.
Two Annes.
Two women.
The gray silk robe that matched her eyes . . .
I opened my eyes and swung my legs over the side of the bunk, groaning with my own stupidity. Of course—of course. If I hadn’t been half-dead with fear and panic and the pain in my head, I would have seen it. How could I not have thought of it?
Of course there were two Annes.
Anne Bullmer was dead—had been since the night we left England.
The girl in the Pink Floyd T-shirt was very much alive, and had been impersonating her ever since.
Same height, same weight, same broad cheekbones—it was only the eyes that didn’t match, and they had taken a calculated risk that no one would remember the features of a woman they’d barely met. No one on board knew Anne before the trip. Richard had even told Cole not to take any photographs of her, for Christ’s sake! Now I understood why. It wasn’t to protect a woman self-conscious about her appearance. It was so there would be no compromising photographs for his wife’s friends and family to puzzle over afterwards.
I shut my eyes, my fingers gripping my hair so hard that it hurt, tugging painfully on my scalp, trying to work out what must have happened.
Richard Bullmer—it must have been him—had smuggled the woman in cabin 10 on board somehow. She was in that cabin before the rest of us ever came on the ship.
The day we set sail she had been waiting for the word, for instruction from Richard, to clear her cabin and get ready. I thought back to what I’d seen over her shoulder—a silk robe strewn across the bed, makeup, Veet in the bathroom—waxing strips. Christ—how could I have been so stupid? She had been shaving and ripping off her body hair, ready to impersonate a woman with cancer. But instead of Richard with his prearranged knock, I had come along, inadvertently given the signal, and she’d seen me instead.
What the hell must she have thought? I replayed again the fright and irritation in