BY NIGHTFALL, Windermere was sure that somebody on the Ocean Constellation knew something about Irina Milosovici’s container. She just wasn’t sure how to get the crew to talk.
She and Stevens left LePlavy on the pier while they boarded the ship. The captain, a Dane named Pedersen, met them on the bridge, where he was supervising the loading of eight hundred more containers onto the ship. He was middle-aged, handsome, and clean-shaven, and he smiled apologetically as he shook their hands.
“I’m sorry,” he told them. “I’m not sure what you’re hoping to find here. This ship has a crew of twenty, and a capacity of almost twenty-five hundred forty-foot containers like the box you’re describing. It would be impossible for anyone to know what was inside each box.”
“Sure,” Stevens said. “We’re just wondering if anyone heard or saw anything out of the ordinary.”
“This box had forty women in it,” Windermere said. “Maybe somebody heard something they weren’t sure about. We can jog their memory.”
“I can say almost for certain that the officers wouldn’t have heard anything,” Pedersen told them. “We don’t spend much time on deck during a voyage. And the rest of the crew is from all over the world—mostly the poorer parts. In my experience, they don’t speak English very well at all.”
“Can’t hurt to try, though.”
Pedersen hesitated. “Very well,” he said finally, glancing out the bridge window to where a giant gantry crane was depositing another long container. “But hurry, please. This ship sails at slack tide. I have a schedule to keep.”
> > >
“SO HE DOESN’T KNOW ANYTHING,” Windermere said to Stevens, as they descended in the ship’s elevator toward the deck. “Does he?”
Stevens shook his head. “I don’t think he was lying,” he said. “That leaves us the crew.”
Captain Pedersen had his third officer gather the crew in the mess, a low, utilitarian room with the long cafeteria tables and flat beige walls of a hospital—or a prison. The crew hailed mostly from the Philippines, and they were entirely men. They spoke halting English, but they seemed to understand what Stevens and Windermere represented; they stiffened, avoided eye contact, answered in single syllables. Whether they knew anything or just feared the police, though, Windermere couldn’t tell.
One man, however, gave Windermere a funny feeling. He was a short, bearded man, nondescript, kept trying to edge his way to the back of the mess and out of sight. He froze when her gaze caught him, avoided her eyes when she called after him.
“You there,” she said. “What’s your story?”
The man didn’t look at her. Didn’t answer.
“This box with the women,” she said. “What do you know? Did you hear something, see something? What can you tell us?”
The man finally spoke. “I didn’t see anything,” he said, his accent heavy.
“A red shipping container. Forty women inside. Maybe you heard something. Come on.”
“I can’t help you,” the man said. “I’m sorry.”
“‘Sorry.’” Stevens stepped forward. “Why are you sorry?”
The whole room was quiet. Nobody looked at Stevens and Windermere. Nobody looked at the man they’d cornered.
These people know something, Windermere thought. They have to know something.
“Why are you sorry?” Windermere said. “What do you know that you’re not telling us?”
The man stayed silent. Kept his eyes downcast and seemed to be fighting a battle with himself. Attaboy, Windermere thought. You can do it.
Then the man slumped. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just—I cannot.”
“Sure you can,” Windermere said. “Just tell us what you know.” She started toward him, pushing between the rows of the sullen-faced crew. Not a man cleared a space for her to pass.
Before she could reach the man, though, she was interrupted by a knock at the door. The third officer, wearing the same apologetic smile as Captain Pedersen. “I’m afraid we must be preparing to sail,” he told Stevens and Windermere. “The company has a strict schedule to keep.”
“Just a couple more minutes,” Windermere told him. “We’re getting somewhere. Please.”
The third officer tapped his watch. “We really must be getting under way,” he said. “I’m very sorry.”