Tiago was lying on his bed, sweating. In his new cabin the air conditioning wasn’t working, in itself a good reason why number 4337 was empty. The fact that water dripped from the shower with the velocity of honey and that the bedroom stank of cat’s pee definitively made the cabin uninhabitable.
If he’d had the choice he’d have looked around for a better bolthole, but the computer at reception, which Stacy had allowed him a brief glimpse of, hadn’t shown a suitable alternative. A total of 2,892 passengers. The Sultan’s cabins were totally booked out apart from this one renovation case where he’d been hiding for twenty hours.
What a shitty trip!
Tiago sat in bed, his back leaning against the padding of the cabin wall, using the remote control to surf the channels of the television which he’d set at whisper volume. The light was dimmed, the door joints covered with towels so that no one passing would notice the cabin was being used.
What a nightmare.
He hadn’t even stolen enough to cover the fare and he was buggered if he was going to spend the rest of the passage in this sweatbox.
Tiago’s stomach grumbled. He’d long since finished the pack of nuts from the minibar, but his hunger wasn’t so great that he’d dared leave the room.
Outside. To the thugs, who must know who he was by now and were just lying in wait for him to show his face again.
‘Were you listening in on us?’
He’d barely slept and spent most of the time in his new abode mulling over the mess he was in. He kept imagining he could hear the voice of the officer:
‘You’re dead.’
As dead as channel 5 of the on-board television programme, which he had alighted on, and which showed images from a selection of outside cameras. From the bridge looking forwards and to the stern. At this time they were all black. The only variety was provided by a banner running along the bottom of the screen, letting Tiago know that they were sailing at 19.4 knots with moderate swell and heading westwards.
How did I get into this mess?
This much was certain: he’d been witness to a violent episode of blackmail. Apparently a young girl was on board, a stowaway perhaps, and the cleaning lady knew of this secret which, according to the officer, was worth a lot of money. So much money that it was worth feeding chambermaids with broken glass.
Or am I just paranoid?
Quite possibly the two madmen were no longer interested in him. The more time that passed without someone who’d been witness to a violent attack showing their face, the safer they might feel.
Might. Perhaps. Possibly.
The most uncertain words in the world.
Tiago would never have made it so far if they’d been part of his lexicon. Here, in this windowless cat loo, he was safer than anywhere else on the ship. Cabin 4337 wasn’t on any cleaning plan. Nobody knew that he was here.
Hopefully.
He thought about getting another drink from the minibar and stood up. The few supplies that clearly had been forgotten in the small fridge would not last for long. There were two juices left, past their best-before date, a diet cola and then spirits.
Tiago left the minibar door open and brought his small travel case into its light. An old-fashioned box with a brown snakeskin design that he’d inherited from his father. It dated from a time when suitcases with extendable handles and wheels were derided as women’s gear.
Real men carry their load, was his father’s view. A view that he’d passed on to him together with the suitcase. Tiago opened it. The side compartment was full of drinks. Before switching cabins he took the wise precaution of emptying the minibar in the old one. To avoid anyone noticing his disappearance and possibly reporting him missing he’d have to return to it occasionally – at least once a day – to rumple the bedclothes, chuck a few towels in the shower and leave the usual tip on the pillow.
But the question was: when?
Now, in the middle of the night, when the corridors were empty? Or perhaps in a few hours, around nine, during peak breakfast time, when he’d be protected by the bustle and when someone could come to his assistance in case of an attack?
At a loss, he stared at a can of tonic water as if this might be able to make the decision for him. Then his gaze fell on the envelope which he’d taken by mistake from Lisa Stiller’s cabin. It was lying on top of his clothes.
Tiago picked it up.
Until now he’d held himself back. He might be a thief, but he wasn’t a voyeur. He didn’t stick his nose into other people’s private business for fun, and as the envelope didn’t have any money in it (a quick glance had established that) he wasn’t interested in the contents of the letter.
On the other hand…
Might it be an important document? The envelope, after all, looked classy and highly official. What if Lisa needed the letter? If it was a doctor’s certificate, for example, detailing the dosage of essential medicines?
Tiago couldn’t help smiling at himself. It was more likely that the envelope contained a lottery ticket with a guaranteed win in the next draw. He searched for an excuse to satisfy his curiosity, which reminded him of one of his father’s sayings: When a woman strokes a head, sometimes she just wants to know its secrets.
Tiago stroked the seal of the envelope, unable to resist any longer.
He pulled out the two-page letter. A whiff of lavender tickled his nostrils as he unfolded the first page.
Probably a letter to her first boyfriend, he thought, amazed by the almost artistic-looking handwriting.
The ‘P’ bulging out at the top, the ‘l’ with an elegant sweep, leading into a razor-sharp ‘a’, which like the ‘n’ almost had living features.
The letters were beautiful. Unlike the words they formed. And the dreadful text they comprised.
‘Plan,’ Tiago read, and after the first sentence his eyes flew from line to line, jumped from paragraph to paragraph. When he’d reached the horrendous conclusion and glanced at the second page which listed the position of all the security cameras onboard the Sultan, he knew he mustn’t stay one second longer in this cabin.