Cold Grave (10 page)

Anya stiffened. ‘The date-rape drug.’

‘It’s also a recreational drug used by people to increase their libido. Silly girl was drinking under-age, so she’s already done something illegal. It’s not a big stretch to think she either brought it on board or voluntarily took GHB when it was offered.’

Karen sounded as if she was trying to convince herself.

From what Jasmine had said, Lilly was rebellious but not reckless.

‘It would also have been easy for someone to spike her drink.’ Despite common misconceptions, a girl who drank alcohol wasn’t necessarily out for sex. ‘If her blood alcohol was low, but GHB levels were high, it could have been added to her drink. She may not have been capable of consenting to anything.’ The bruise on her neck still bothered Anya. It was highly suggestive of her being held down or choked.

Martin looked around. ‘Seems like a fair few women are looking for holiday hook-ups. I’ve been hit on a few times already. Not that I’m interested,’ he stressed. ‘It’s pretty scary to think that any of these guys could drug a woman that easily.’

A chorus went up on the dance floor. A number of men were hooting and hollering. One lifted a woman up and over his head. Her dress had flipped up, revealing skimpy underwear beneath, which led to more cheers. Another man stripped off his shirt, then trousers.

Bystanders clicked photos on their phones, as if it was part of the entertainment. To Anya, the women appeared uncomfortable. Another tried to get her friend down, but was lifted up and passed around in the process.

A female security officer approached the centre of the group. The two women were lowered to the ground, and quickly retreated to a table near where Anya and Martin were sitting. It looked as if the men were telling the guard to lighten up.

‘Does she need backup?’ Martin asked Karen.

‘This happens all the time. There’s not much she can do apart from ask him to put his clothes back on.’ Karen rubbed her eyes. ‘Company policy is to let people have fun on their holiday. If a fight breaks out, all security can do is let it play out. And we’ll patch them up in the infirmary later.’ She shrugged. ‘I’d better go relieve Rachel. Thanks again for all your help. We couldn’t have got through today without you.’

Martin watched the floor show. Anya knew he would step in if the men harassed the guard. She turned to the two women the group had treated like human parcels. They looked shaken, so she approached them.

‘Are you two okay?’

‘Bloody pricks. They’ve been hassling us from the moment we got on board. Guess their mums never told them “No”.’

The young woman was trembling as she reached for the compact in her purse.
Emma
was engraved on the lid.

Anya knelt down beside one of the chairs. ‘Did they hurt you?’

‘It was just a bit scary when the big one threatened to throw me over the side if I didn’t show him if I was wearing underwear. I mean, I know he was joking . . . I guess I overreacted.’

‘One of them offered me a hundred bucks to take my underwear off and dance with him.’

The dispute with the security officer continued on the dance floor, albeit more quietly now.

Emma added, ‘After what happened to that girl, Bec and I are too scared to piss anyone off.’

Anya felt her pulse quicken. ‘What do you mean?’

The two women exchanged quick glances. ‘You don’t know?’ They moved closer. ‘A woman died last night. We heard some guys were talking about a “chinger” who choked on her vomit. The woman who told us said they thought it was hilarious.’

Anya felt bile rise in her gullet. ‘Do you know who those men were?’

It was possible a group of men had been with Lilly. Finding them and proving they had drugs on board was one thing. Proving they gave them to an unwilling Lilly, raped her and left her for dead was something else.

Anya had to find FitzHarris straightaway.

8

After giving Martin the pass key to her cabin so he could put Ben to bed, Anya went to the customer relations desk and paged FitzHarris. She felt queasy, and wondered whether it was exhaustion or the movement of the ship. The massive chandelier in the centre of the atrium seemed to swing a little.

FitzHarris lumbered along with a strained expression. ‘I was about to find you,’ he said. ‘I know it’s a big ask, but would you mind looking at the scene where Carlos was shot? At the moment I have over a thousand suspects and not much to go on. Blood spatter may give us a better idea as to what happened.’

Her earlier irritation with the security head had subsided. He was merely doing his job, in difficult circumstances. She would have preferred to have been tucked up in bed, but she wanted to find out what had happened to Lilly, and Carlos could have known something. ‘Sure, but there’s something else you need to know.’ She filled him in on the GHB in Lilly’s blood and the men bragging about an Asian woman choking on her own vomit.

FitzHarris ran his large hand over his face. He offered Anya a seat near the porthole windows, and dragged another chair close.

‘Men are bragging about a girl who wasn’t even the legal age to drink?’ He shook his head. ‘Most people think the police are clever. Truth is, crims are just dumber.’ He pulled a pen and notebook from his top pocket. ‘Can the women identify them? Do you know who they are?’

‘I’m not sure. I’ve seen a fair number of people out for a good time.’

FitzHarris chewed his bottom lip. ‘Any in particular flying above the radar?’

Anya thought of the corridor above the crew’s bar. ‘Martin complained this morning because a group on his corridor had spent the first night messing with fire-extinguishers and being incredibly loud and obnoxious to anyone trying to sleep. One couple were having sex on the floor outside his room.’

‘I haven’t seen any complaints.’

‘It seems the issue of the fire-extinguisher was the purser’s only concern.’

FitzHarris looked up to the ceiling and shook his head again. ‘Sometimes in this business, we forget what’s normal behaviour. It’s not just the passengers who leave their brains and sense of decency on shore. It’s what you get for promoting all fun and no responsibility. I’ll look into it.’

‘If Lilly had her drink spiked with GHB, someone had to bring it on board. It’s unlikely they only brought enough for one dose . . .’

‘Do you know the women’s names? I’ll need to talk to them.’

‘All I can tell you is Bec and Emma. They were up at the disco.’ Anya described their appearances.

FitzHarris pulled himself to his feet. ‘It’s happy hour in the crew club, so we should go over Carlos’s cabin now. This time it had better be still sealed off.’

‘Any word on his condition?’

‘In this business, no news is good news. Karen will let us know if there’s a change.’

A waiter holding a large cardboard box waited until they’d moved, then placed a pile of sick bags in their place.

‘We’re heading for rough conditions.’ FitzHarris commented.

Anya resisted the urge to grab one, just in case. Martin had always said seasickness was mind over matter. She followed FitzHarris down the corridor to an etched-glass partition. Behind it was a service lift. Inside, a man in a blue apron carried a skinned sheep carcass on his shoulder. A svelte woman dressed in a sequinned bikini and fish-net tights stood next to a man in a headless bear suit. Once the doors opened again, the decor altered dramatically. The patterned carpet, art prints and music were replaced with grey metal and a constant hum. As they stepped out, the heat hit Anya like a heavy cloth.

Metal floors were painted blue-grey, scratched and streaked black from traffic. Exposed studs were the only embellishment on white walls. Even so, nothing could temper the claustrophobic feel. Pipes ran along the already low ceilings. The whole area smelt of diesel and something else Anya couldn’t pinpoint.

FitzHarris led the way along a vast corridor.

‘Some call this the I-95. It’s the main route from one end of the ship to the other. Mind you, sometimes it’s more congested than the Jersey Turnpike.’

‘Where’s the I-95?’ Anya assumed it was a freeway.

FitzHarris was already beginning to perspire, moisture spreading from beneath his armpits. ‘It’s the immigration form crew members have to fill in before they can enter a US port.’

He led the way down a set of steep narrow stairs, the type men slid down in submarines – more ladder rungs than steps. Seeing the floor beneath her feet was unnerving, but Anya did her best not to make that known. The security officer seemed to have no problem engineering his way, despite his size.

A small forklift laden with toilet paper rumbled toward them. A blue-covered arm extended across her chest and yanked her out of its way. It belonged to an Hispanic man in overalls. Anya stepped back to the wall as the forklift forged on.

‘If that door closes, you get chopped in half.’

Anya stepped back into the corridor a little confused. What door? The Samaritan was already on his way.

She looked down and noticed a hydraulic system connected a red lever to the floor. She’d been standing in a doorway – red paint on the floor showed the area not to obstruct.

‘The metal’s a foot thick,’ FitzHarris explained. ‘Designed to waterproof this section in an emergency. Once it’s activated, nothing can stop it closing. Kind of like those screens in banks.’ He took her by the elbow as another forklift charged past. ‘Saw a guy crushed once trying to climb a bank counter. Wasn’t pretty.’

Anya decided to defer to the crew’s instructions without hesitation.

‘First I’ll show you where Carlos was shot. Get your opinion on the forensic side of things,’ FitzHarris said quietly. ‘We can talk upstairs later. You’ll find everything down here has ears.’

As they walked, the sound of Calypso music pulsed louder. They passed a room with a naked man spread out on the grey floor playing a video game. Four beds each had a curtain for ‘privacy’. She wondered what happened to people who worked nights and had to sleep in the day.

Outside a door in a nook off a side corridor stood one of the security men, a camera slung around his neck, arms folded. This time he did appear intimidating. A strip of hazard tape stretched the width of the door.

FitzHarris didn’t need to speak for the guard to move away. Discarding one end of the tape before opening the door with an electronic pass key, he reached inside to switch on the light. The release of incubated cigarette smoke stung Anya’s eyes and throat. The cabin had two bunk beds, vertical lockers on top of each other, and a computer-sized flatscreen TV attached to the wall. The entire floor area would not have been wide enough for two people to pass. She stepped over the metal lip of the door and covered her mouth and nose with one hand.

What immediately struck her was how hot the cabin was, as if even less air circulated here than in the already stifling corridor. The overwhelming scent of body odour made her take shallow breaths. The absence of a window or natural light gave the cabin the feel of solitary confinement, not worker accommodation.

She stepped forward toward the narrow space which was the back wall. Blood spatters fanned out at knee level. About two feet in front of the wall were blood smears on the floor with footprints through them.

‘What do you think?’ FitzHarris asked.

Judging by a vertical blood smear, Carlos had been standing facing the wall when the first shot was fired. She tried to step around the dried stains on the floor. ‘I think he was here to begin with.’ The central ceiling light was not bright enough to see detail.

‘Don’t suppose you have that torch with you?’

FitzHarris pulled a small LED torch from his trouser pocket and held it over her shoulder.

‘There are small fragments of bone embedded in the wall.’ Anya pointed to an area about ten centimetres square. ‘This is definitely where he was hit first. There’s the bullet. It’s embedded pretty deep by the looks of it. You’ll have to be careful when you get it out.’

‘Not a lot of point, to be honest.’

Anya turned and looked up. ‘Excuse me?’

‘My guess is our shooter tossed the gun overboard before Carlos even made it to help.’

‘Maybe he, or she, still needs it for their own protection?’

FitzHarris did not look convinced. ‘I’ve organised a cabin search of the crew anyway. So. If he was shot there . . .’