Cold Grave (26 page)

‘I just see time slipping away, and I don’t want him to think I was an absent mother.’

Martin thought for a moment. ‘It’s not natural for kids to spend every minute with their parents. It’s our job to prepare them for the world. Right now, he’s exploring friendships at the kids’ club. He’s able to do his own thing, with a safety net, and us as backup. He’s secure and knows how much we both love him. We both had parents who may have been physically there, but not emotionally available. Which do you think is more damaging to a child?’

Anya appreciated the comments, and felt the wine warm her veins.

They watched the first part of the movie as if they were in a cinema. Anya had to admit to enjoying the sanctuary of the suite, and appreciated Martin’s ability to sit in comfortable silence. One thing she liked about him was that he didn’t feel compelled to talk for the sake of it. They were far removed from the other passengers, in particular Brian Peterson, Genny and their friends. She thought of Kandy and wondered if she had the strength to tell her parents about the assault, or if she was suffering alone right now. For the moment, there was nothing else anyone could do to help.

‘How’s Nita?’ Anya eventually broached.

‘I’m not sure.’ He traced the rim of his glass with a finger. ‘We’ve decided to have a break.’

The revelation took her by complete surprise. ‘I’m . . . um . . . sorry to hear that.’

‘Are you?’ Martin turned his gaze to her.

Anya struggled to come up with an honest answer. Since the cruise began, she was less sure about her feelings for Martin. In New York, she had a met a man, Ethan, and, while working together, thought they had a connection. They had only kissed, but the situation was complicated. So far he hadn’t texted or emailed. She was beginning to suspect her feelings were unrequited, which added to her confusion about Martin. For the first time in years, he resembled the man she had fallen in love with.

‘I—’

Banging on the door interrupted her thoughts. She hoped whoever it was would leave. The banging continued. ‘I’ll get it,’ she reluctantly said.

Outside, Rachel, the nurse, stood soaked and shivering, clutching a black satchel. ‘Please, help me.’

‘Come in,’ Anya urged. ‘What happened?’ Her first thought was of the bowling-shirt men.

Martin grabbed a fresh robe from the downstairs bathroom.

‘I need your help. I don’t know who else to trust.’

Anya took the robe and wrapped it around Rachel’s shoulders, steering her to the lounge, where she sat, still trembling. It wasn’t clear whether it was fear, shock, cold, or all three. She adjusted the thermostat on the wall.

‘I’ll get a hot drink.’ Martin quickly went to boil the kettle.

‘What were you doing outside in the storm?’ Anya sat next to her.

‘I’ve looked everywhere. My room mate hasn’t been back to the cabin since last night. Something’s wrong. I just know it.’

Martin and Anya exchanged glances.

‘Have you told security?’ Anya asked.

Rachel grabbed Anya’s wrists. Her hands were chilled and red with the cold.

‘I can’t. You can’t tell anyone. You have to promise me.’

Ben staggered to the railing, rubbing both eyes. ‘Is it morning?’

Martin headed for the stairs. ‘No, everything’s fine. You go back to bed, and have a good sleep.’ He sounded convincing enough.

Ben yawned and obliged.

‘If someone is missing, we have to notify security, the captain. In this storm . . .’ Anya stopped herself. There was no need to say out loud what she was thinking.

Rachel pulled her hands back and hugged herself with crossed arms, her chin and lower jaw vibrating with cold.

‘We can’t. Carlos was shot, then Lars Anderson and his family were killed. I’m scared. Really afraid something terrible’s happened.’

Carlos was probably shot because of drugs. The Anderson family was supposedly killed by extremists. Lilly Chan’s death was possibly an accidental overdose. There could be a simple explanation for Rachel’s cabin mate staying out. Earlier Rachel had accused Anya of being Fitz’s sidekick and now she seemed to trust her implicitly. The nurse was irrational and showing signs of paranoia. Anya thought back to the way she had reacted to the leg burns. She had been more upset than you would expect for a professional, although sleep deprivation and increased responsibilities were enough to make anyone more fragile than usual.

‘Sometimes bad things just go in runs. It doesn’t mean they’re all connected.’ Anya decided the best person to call was Karen. She may be able to help calm Rachel down. She may even know her medical history. If Martin could distract Rachel, she could call Karen on the upstairs phone.

‘You don’t understand. They are all linked. That’s why Nuala is missing.’

Anya’s attention snapped back to Rachel. ‘Nuala? The woman who came to my room that night?’

Rachel nodded.

‘I checked. There’s no officer on board with that name. She’s an imposter.’

‘You have to understand. Nuala just wanted to help. She took a risk seeing you – if anyone found out . . .’

Anya did not appreciate why anyone would impersonate an officer, and lie to gain trust. Obviously, Rachel was involved in the deception.

Martin stepped forward. ‘It sounds to me like you two are scammers. Whatever it is you’re up to, we don’t want any part of it.’

‘Look. I know how this must sound. We do want to help.’ She lowered her gaze. ‘Lilly isn’t the first woman to die.’

Anya thought back to William when he first saw Lilly not breathing. He made the comment, ‘not again’. When she asked him about it, he became evasive and suddenly had somewhere else to be. Rachel may be telling the truth.

‘Other women have died on board?’

‘The Chan girl is the only one since leaving Honolulu. But there were others before. They’re just covered up, written off as suicides.’

Anya sat back. Even to her, it sounded far-fetched. Genny and his friends weren’t serial killers, and Laura had said it was the men’s first cruise with the Anderson line.

‘The company’s doing everything to help the Chans. There’s a liaison officer boarding in Fiji and FitzHarris is investigating.’

‘The liaison officer doesn’t care about the Chans. It’s really a lawyer in damage control. They’ll offer them a free cruise, upgrade . . . anything to stop them from suing. If the family does go forward, they’ll try to bankrupt them by dragging it out for as long as possible and ruining the girl’s reputation. If that fails, they’ll silence them with a confidential settlement. The last thing the company wants is the media involved.’

Anya had suspected the woman boarding in Fiji who Mats Anderson had mentioned in the fax was really a lawyer. Rachel was lucid, and knew what she was talking about.

Martin made a steaming cup of tea, which he placed on the coffee table. ‘Sorry, I don’t know how you have it, so I put some milk and sugar in.’

It was what his mother always did if someone was upset or had had a shock.

‘Thanks.’ Rachel picked up the cup with both hands.

‘Why would they automatically sue? It’s a criminal, not civil case.’ Martin sat on the carpet, cross-legged.

Rachel was still shivering. Concerned more hot fluid could spill on the already burnt legs, Anya pulled a section of robe across the nurse’s lap.

‘FitzHarris may have told you he contacted the FBI and Interpol, but you can’t trust him. He was recruited by Anderson himself and one thing the family demands is loyalty. It isn’t in his own interest, or his bosses’, to get the FBI involved.’

Anya thought of the speed with which the deck had been cleaned after Lilly’s death. The power hoses had washed away any evidence, so passengers could continue having fun. Fitz seemed genuinely angry about it when he found out. Or, it could have been an act for her benefit. So could the impression he gave about trying to get on to Interpol. He said that foreign citizens were not protected by the same laws as US citizens so the FBI would not even be interested.

‘The papers Nuala gave me . . . I put them in a bag, but they weren’t in the luggage when we moved cabins.’

It had to have been an oversight. So many things were successfully packed up and moved to the new suite – passports, cash, credit cards. Junta would not have sacrificed her job to steal papers. It made no sense whatsoever that anyone was deliberately looking for them either. Fitz had organised the cabin move, but he could easily have saved himself the trouble and quietly searched the room when they were out. His master key meant he could access virtually anywhere on the ship.

‘See? No one wants you to find out what really happens.’

‘But what was in them was freely available on the net anyway.’

‘That doesn’t matter. Nuala started you thinking. It was only a matter of time before you checked things for yourself and found out more.’

‘Rachel has a point there,’ Martin offered.

Anya had to admit she had become more involved in Lilly’s investigation in part because of what had been in those papers. If Nuala had disappeared, it had to be reported. There would be a thorough search of the ship.

Martin looked perplexed. ‘What I don’t get is what Carlos has to do with it? He was shot gang-style. He had to be doing something dodgy on the side.’

‘Nuala was paying him – for information.’

This was beginning to sound more plausible. Carlos could have been an informant and Nuala an undercover police officer.

Martin sat up. ‘What sort of information?’

‘I don’t know, but he knew things about criminal activities.’

‘Carlos worked in the recycling department.’

Anya had visited the area with Fitz and seen the ship’s ‘cockroaches’ manually sorting the tons of rubbish into recyclable materials. She thought of how much information was present in Brian Peterson’s garbage.

Martin frowned. ‘How can you tell us about Nuala, but not say what she was paying Carlos for?’

Rachel clutched the robe more tightly. ‘We barely see each other. When I’m in the cabin, she’s out. And when I’m at work, she hides inside. She left me a cryptic note suggesting she had found out something big, but wanted to tell me in person.’

Martin stood. ‘You’re harbouring a stowaway?’

‘It isn’t like that,’ Rachel’s voice rose. ‘There’s no other way. She’s on a blacklist so can’t sail as a passenger.’

‘How did you get her on board? Everyone needs photo ID and an electronic key to come on and off.’

‘Lars Anderson organised it. And now he’s dead. Don’t you see? Someone blew him up, for God’s sake. Now Mishka is gone.’

Anya interrupted. ‘Wait. Who’s Mishka?’

Rachel took a deep breath. ‘Her name isn’t Nuala. She used that badge so you would listen to what she had to say. And in case you told anyone. Her real name is Mishka Valencia. She’s my cousin.’

Anya felt a shiver down her spine. First Jasmine lost Lilly, now Rachel’s cousin was missing. She had checked with FitzHarris. There was no staff member named Nuala on board. She felt her heart pound. Maybe she had alerted him to Mishka’s presence. ‘Where did she get the badge?’

‘Nuala was a room steward a couple of years ago. I met her and we became friends. One night she came into the medical centre, hysterical. She told me one of the security officers had raped her. She was asleep and her door was deadlocked, but he let himself into her room. She woke up with him on top of her and couldn’t fight him off.’ Rachel lowered her eyes. ‘I talked her into reporting it to our then head of security.’

Anya thought back to the day she met Junta. She was sure she had deadlocked the door. Clearly, cleaners and security could override the locks at any time. No one was really safe in their cabin.

‘What happened after that?’

‘I told her she could stay with me or that I’d sleep in one of the patient beds. Next morning, my bed was still made up. Nuala never got there.’

Rachel began to cry.

Martin passed a box of tissues to Rachel. ‘Do you think she was murdered?’

Rachel looked up. ‘There was no sign of her on board. There was a search but we were told she had jumped overboard. That she had made false allegations about the assault and felt guilty. The man who attacked her lied. He said they were having a relationship and he broke it off, so she wanted revenge. Her cabin was cleared out within hours.’ The nurse reached into her pocket and opened her hand. In it was the name badge. ‘She left it in the treatment room. It’s all that’s left of her. The family has nothing. They couldn’t even bury the body.’ She slipped the badge back into the pocket.