Sebastian de Souza and his partner Kurt had a stateroom, no less, up on the top deck, with a fine view out over the bow of the ship and a sunny balcony from which to enjoy it. Carmen had called them up, via their butler, so she and Francis were expected. Sebastian was looking particularly fine this morning, in a baggy yellow shirt, crimson jodphurs and a pair of slippers that would have done justice to some prince from the Arabian Nights: maroon velvet with long, upward-curling toes.
‘Come in, come in!’ he said. ‘We’re just having morning coffee on the balcony. Will you join us? Please excuse the mess.’
There were colourful African fabrics draped over every available surface. Carvings too: tall, bare-breasted ebony women; men with spears and drums; couples embracing, lips pressed together; a little boat load, two men paddling forward while two women in hats sat looking back.
‘We love buying these things,’ said Sebastian, looking proudly round. ‘It’s such an opportunity in these remote places. When I get back to Bombay I am going to start on an African-inspired collection.’ He took one of the brighter cloths between finger and thumb and held it up. ‘Look at these colours. Even in India, we would never put these purples and yellows and greens together in quite this way. And yet it works entirely, don’t you think?’
He showed them out on to the balcony, where Kurt was sitting in the sunshine reading the Wall Street Journal; he was more simply dressed than when he’d appeared in the public spaces, in an untucked white shirt and baggy khaki shorts.
‘You have met my partner, Kurt.’
The portly one nodded silently, his thin lips an expressionless line within the neat white beard.
Sebastian sat down next to him and gestured to his guests to follow suit. ‘Now tell me, what is this all about? We took breakfast as usual in our room this morning, and then we skipped the briefing. We really can’t be bothered trotting down every time they change their minds about something.’
‘I’m afraid it was more significant than that,’ said Francis. ‘There was a man overboard last night.’
‘You’re not serious!’ Sebastian’s eyes bulged. ‘You are serious,’ he said, as he registered their expressions. ‘Who? Do we know him?’
‘It was a her,’ said Carmen. ‘And you do know her, yes. Lauren, Don’s partner. Who you were drinking with in the bar earlier.’
‘Lauren! No … How absolutely appalling. What happened?’
‘Nobody quite knows. But she somehow managed to fall off deck seven.’
‘Fall off!’ said Sebastian. ‘How on earth?’
‘She was quite drunk, by all accounts.’
‘But still … you’d have to be pie-eyed to go over those railings.’
‘It was very early in the morning,’ Carmen continued. ‘It was quite by chance that one of the night shift engineers spotted her.’
‘So that explains that strange shuddering,’ Sebastian said, turning towards Kurt. ‘We did think the captain was changing course rather dramatically.’
‘He was. One hundred and eighty degrees. They turned and went back to the exact point she’d gone over.’
‘But they didn’t find her? This is terrible. Have you spoken to Don?’
‘Yes,’ said Carmen. ‘We’ve just been with him.’
‘He must be distraught.’
‘He’s in shock.’
‘We should go and see him, Kurt.’ Sebastian looked over at his partner, whose features remained impassive; then back at Francis and Carmen with a look that was gracious bordering on grand. ‘Thank you for letting us know. Why didn’t they tell us what the briefing was about? We’d have been there. Obviously.’
‘That was kind of the point of it,’ said Carmen. ‘To break the news in a controlled way.’
‘I understand, yes,’ Sebastian said. ‘I had no idea,’ he muttered.
‘Before we leave you,’ Francis asked, ‘may I just ask you how you found them last night?’
‘Found them?’
‘Don and Lauren. How they seemed to you. In the bar. When you were all drinking together …’
‘Oh, I see. You’ve already said it, haven’t you? She was drunk. Drunker last night than I’ve seen her all week. And whereas before she was happy drunk, dancing, laughing, being funny, last night she had tipped over, as she does sometimes. Into something sadder. And darker. They had an argument, you probably knew that. It was pretty public.’
‘Did you understand what it was about?’
‘She has … ongoing … issues with him, shall we put it like that?’
‘She wanted to marry him and he wasn’t interested,’ said Francis. ‘Wasn’t that it in a nutshell?’
‘No,’ said Sebastian. ‘Not that way around. He wanted to marry her.’
Carmen looked as surprised as Francis.
‘That’s not what he told us,’ he said. ‘He said she was after his money and he didn’t want to lose control of his businesses.’
Sebastian laughed. ‘But he has no money! She’s the one with the money. She’s an heiress, didn’t you know that? Her daddy wrote that song, you know, “Chumba Chumba Cha-Cha”. From the seventies.’
‘Chumba chumba cha-cha,’ sang Carmen, ‘I knew it was gonna be you-ou.’
‘That’s the one. Think how many millions of times that piece of nonsense has been played over the years. Every time you hear it on the radio, in a plane, in an orchestral version in a lift, God knows, kerching, it’s another royalty payment for Lauren. She’s an only child. Her papa died when she was a teenager. Flipped out on his success and drugs. She’d already lost her mother. So it’s all hers.’
‘I thought Don had a magazine empire,’ Francis said, realizing as he did so that he hadn’t checked Sadie’s information, not even with the man himself.
‘At some point I think he did,’ Sebastian said. ‘But there’s not much left now. She pretty much supports the couple of rags he’s still got going. There was a disastrous foray into local TV, I do know that.’
‘He’s told you all this?’
‘Yes. We know them quite well. We were on a cruise with them last Christmas.’
‘In Antarctica?’ Francis asked.
‘It was, yes. Along with quite a few of the others here, as it happens.’
‘Such as?’
Sebastian looked over at his partner. ‘Can you remember, Kurt? Daphne and Henry, for sure. Eve, the English widow. That boring old American colonel who’s never seen action – what’s his name?’
‘Joe,’ said Kurt. It was the first word Francis had heard him speak. His voice was deep and resonant, like the lower notes of a church organ.
‘They were all on that trip, weren’t they?’ Sebastian added and Kurt nodded.
Francis turned to Carmen. ‘Is that normal?’
‘What?’
‘To get a cluster of guests like that? Going from one cruise to another.’
‘Yes … no … I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I’d have to check the records.’
‘I don’t think there’s any great mystery,’ Sebastian said. ‘We all love Goldencruise. Both the Antarctic and this are exciting itineraries. More so than the normal paddle around the Mediterranean bath tub.’
‘But this ship did several Antarctic cruises last winter,’ Francis said. ‘Yet you were all on the same one …’
‘The Christmas one. Maybe it’s as simple as that. For us folk without families. And I know the colonel wanted to see the Falklands. Like Kurt here. Not all the itineraries include that. Port Stanley and South Georgia, those war places.’
‘I see,’ said Francis. ‘So on that cruise Don told you his life story?’
‘In dribs and drabs. As you do. We’re bar flies, us two. We needed to have something to talk about as the glaciers were drifting past. But yes, if you want to know, he was upset. About the way things are. He wants – wanted, I should say – to support Lauren. Or at least to be her equal financially. And things have just gone from bad to worse for him. He’s quite desperate about it, in fact.’
‘So she paid for the cruises?’
‘I hadn’t thought about it, but I suppose she does – did.’ Sadness flickered over the designer’s handsome features.
‘Why, exactly, did she stick around?’ Francis asked.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, he is that much older, isn’t he? So if she had the money … I mean, no offence to him, but when you see them together you do rather assume, don’t you?’
‘Just goes to show that you should never make assumptions,’ said Sebastian.
‘Yes, but still …’
‘As I said, her father died young. Maybe Don is the classic father figure. And there is of course another possibility.’
‘Which is?’
‘Perhaps she loved him. Did that thought occur to you?’
His sudden scorn made Francis feel almost ashamed. Maybe his take on all this was too cynical. Rich people had feelings too. ‘I think we need to talk to him again,’ he said to Carmen.
‘I think we do.’
She got to her feet and Francis followed.
‘I don’t think he’s got anything to do with her going overboard, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ said Sebastian. ‘For all their arguing, he doted on her. You only had to see the way he looked at her, or watched her dancing.’
‘With the hotel director, Gregoire, for example.’
‘Him, yes. Or me. Or Brad and Damian. She loved boogying with them too.’
‘The gay …’ Francis said and immediately felt stupid.
‘Couple, yes. The other gay couple,’ Sebastian replied tartly. ‘There are actually three on board. You might not have identified the third.’
Francis thought for a moment, but he was stumped. ‘I’m not sure I have,’ he said.
‘Carmen?’
The Australian shook her head. ‘I really have no idea. It’s not something I particularly notice.’
‘Then that will have to remain my secret,’ said Sebastian, turning archly from one of them to the other, raising an eyebrow.
‘I thought for a moment you were going to say Klaus,’ said Carmen. ‘And Colonel Joe.’
Sebastian laughed. ‘Colonel Joe is almost certainly as queer as a coot. Never married. Loves male-bonding activities. Goes to the gym every morning, religiously. Is pretty much glued to baseball and wrestling in the TV lounge. I’m not so sure about Klaus.’
Don was still in bed.
‘Now what d’you want?’ he said grumpily, turning his head away from the window.
‘Sorry to disturb you again,’ said Francis. ‘But there’s something we need to clear up.’
‘You two are the self-appointed ship’s detectives now, are you?’
‘The captain needs to find out what might have happened to Lauren,’ said Francis. ‘He’s obliged to report her disappearance, not just to the ship’s owners and the Bahamian Police Authority, but to the FBI. There was a law passed recently that means that if there’s an American citizen overboard, they have to look into it too. So I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there was someone to meet us when we get to Freetown the day after tomorrow.’
‘The FBI, huh. And what power do they have out here? Can they keep all these wealthy international citizens on board in the port of a foreign country until they’re satisfied they’ve got answers? Or is this just a box-ticking operation?’
‘I don’t know what authority they have,’ said Francis. ‘But for the moment we’re doing our best to find out what happened.’
‘How very public-spirited of you. So how can I help you now?’ His tone was disdainful, but Francis wasn’t to be deterred.
‘As we understand it,’ he said, ‘the story you had about Lauren wanting to marry you wasn’t true.’
‘Who said that?’
Francis repeated what Sebastian had told them, not mentioning his name.
‘So you’ve been speaking to my personal bankers, have you?’
‘No.’
‘I didn’t think so. This sounds rather like something I told Sebastian once, late one night when we were boozing together. There is some truth in it, but it’s not the whole truth.’
‘Then why did you tell him?’
‘Perhaps I have a penchant for exaggerating. You forget that I began life as a journalist. Before I was sensible enough to realize where the money was in the magazine world.’
‘But it’s true that Lauren had money? Her father was a songwriter, I believe.’
‘That piece of crap kept her afloat, yeah. Gave her a little independence. But if Sebastian told you it made her rich enough to sponsor both of us on regular luxury cruises he was sadly misinformed.’
‘And you? You still have—?’
‘I don’t see how my personal net worth is any of your damn business.’
‘Let’s be blunt, Don. If Lauren did have the money, and you were – are – the beneficiary of her will, marriage or no marriage, then there’s no way out of the conclusion that this terrible event would benefit you. Substantially. Maybe critically.’
Don looked back down at his hands, twisted together above the blue eiderdown. ‘As always in these cases, it’s the partner who’s in the frame. Regardless of any feelings they might themselves have …’
‘Don, I appreciate that this is all very shocking for you. I certainly don’t want to cast unwarranted suspicion. But we need to establish the facts, if only to help you.’
‘Perhaps you could explain exactly how this helps me?’
‘If you could tell us, for example, that there was no will in existence between Lauren and yourself. Or that we’ve got things wrong about your business. That obviously takes away a motive that anyone who is looking into this is otherwise going to see, whether it’s me and Carmen here or some FBI agent currently on his way to Freetown.’
‘You have knowledge of this FBI agent, do you?’
‘I’m afraid I’m not allowed to say.’ Francis looked over at Carmen, who held his gaze steadily.
‘And if he does turn up, this agent …’
‘When he turns up …’
‘He’s going to want to go through all this again? Or is he going to be happy to accept your view of things?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘I do. He’ll want to do his own investigation. So maybe I should just wait until I have to answer to the freakin’ professionals.’
Don’s gaze was now firmly focused on the ocean. His mouth was set.
‘And that’s all you’re going to say?’
Don turned. ‘Who exactly are you? As I understand it, some Brit who was invited on the ship to lecture about crime novels. It’s none of your business how Lauren and I were situated financially. Or anything else, for that matter.’