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I DON’T KNOW HOW I managed to get Ashanta to our hideaway on C deck, but when we arrived, she was sweating heavily, her eyelids were droopy and she was breathing through her mouth. I helped her out of her clothes, got her into bed then set off to find a gun and Dr Tomlinson. Launching a lifeboat would have to wait.
I reached the crew deck without meeting anyone, though at no stage did I advance without identifying somewhere to duck into in the event of the unexpected. I estimated the ship’s current population to be so tiny as to be almost negligible, meaning there were probably more hiding places than people to expose them. In such a situation, you’d have to be very clumsy indeed to get nabbed.
On the other hand, it never pays to be complacent. I’d reached the crew deck, but this was where the difficulty lay. C&B probably didn’t issue pistols as standard so I had a difficult few hours ahead of me. I only knew they existed because I’d heard them. I’d never seen one.
The first cabin I entered was full of stuffed animals. I’ve no idea who lived there – I found no identifying documents – but whoever it was, they were so heavily into taxidermy that I wondered how they ever had time to serve cocktails or dole out advice about what sun-lotion to apply. All the time I was rifling through the cupboards, I felt the marmoset and the fruit bat watching me. And the annoying thing is, I didn’t find so much as a sharp instrument, which you’d think would have been a dead cert there.
The next cabin along was another dud. A collection of magazines about antique fireplaces, a Bridget Jones DVD and an iPod. A passport in the top drawer of a chest showed a young woman with a fringe called Anna Cumberland. She didn’t look the kind to carry a .45.
It was then that I had an idea. Mason’s cabin. If anyone had a gun, it’d be him. And given how invulnerable he probably felt right now, it could well be unlocked.
When I got there, I half expected to find Duty Officer Gould on patrol, as if nothing had changed. I suppose mentally, I was still adjusting. But he was nowhere to be seen. Probably jumping up and down and gnashing his teeth in Port Stanley, it suddenly struck me, like just about everyone else. I mounted the steps two at a time and knocked lightly like I was expected. Hearing no reply, I tried the handle and pushed. It was unlocked. I looked around and let myself in.
More fishy smell. But this obviously wasn’t his cabin. It was an office with a desk, a waste paper bin and filing cabinets. A computer played a Mr & Mrs Smith screensaver, with the lead couple leaping off a skyscraper. A door in the opposite wall was the one I’d come for. I tried it. It opened.
I scanned the room for a person before I noticed anything whatever of its fixtures and fittings. Finding it vacant, I realigned my focus.
If you’d asked me what I thought Mason’s cabin might look like beforehand, I’m not sure how I’d have answered. Pastel shades, maybe a photo of himself on graduation day, a rugby/ cricket trophy or two, an oar from his time in the boat-race, a sherry decanter with crystal-cut glasses, a foldaway exercise bike. I hadn’t expected two floor-to-ceiling bookcases, nor that the carpet would be strewn with books wedged open with paperweights, astronomical charts, notepads full of jottings, manuscripts in sheaves, torn scraps of paper with diagrams on. In places, they formed large acclivities covering what were presumably items of furniture. There was hardly space to move.
Finding out what his obsession was would have to wait. I went straight to the writing bureau and tried the drawers. The first contained a book called ‘SOLAS Amendments’ – obviously something to do with his job – the second a collection of fossils, and the third an assortment of pharmaceutics – aspirins, Benylin, Tixylix, Vicks, Eurax – and sticking plasters. The fourth almost knocked me down. It contained six or seven Paperblanks notebooks including one entitled, ‘Hugo and Ashanta’.
Suddenly, I forgot all about finding a gun. Each book was antique-looking and identified with a sticky label. I flicked through the others for some kind of context. ‘Derek Goulding’, ‘Paul Endersby’, ‘Rita Patel’ ... each was dedicated to a different dinner-guest. I undid the magnetic flap latch and opened ours.
I begin this journal on the obvious grounds that one or both of our new arrivals, Hugo Ellis and Ashanta Jones, may have become infected ...
It went on to detail when we’d boarded, which bits of the ship we frequented, even snippets of our private conversations. There were about ten pages in all. I guessed I didn’t have time to read the whole thing and it was too big to fit in my pocket. I turned to the end.
They married yesterday so my love for her may or may not have a bearing. The next few days should tell.
I took a heap of air onto the roof of my mouth and scraped my hand through my hair. I was shaking with anger or mirth or disbelief – I didn’t know which - or all three. I replaced the books and opened the top drawer on the other side.
Thank God: a revolver.
I’d never used one before and I didn’t know how to check it was loaded. But there were six bullets lolling about on the bottom panel. I picked them up and thrust them into my pocket. Mission accomplished. Now to locate Tomlinson and find out what ‘infected’ meant, beyond the obvious bullshit about cancer.
Before I left, I thought I might as well have another look at the books and papers covering the floor, see if I could discern some pattern. I couldn’t.
But then I nearly jumped out of my flesh. One of them moved. Before I knew it, Captain Mason emerged from under a constellation map revealing the armchair in which he’d presumably been sitting all this time. His eyes were glazed and a hypodermic needle stuck out of his arm. It dropped on the floor.
He gave an awry smile. “Hello, Hugo. I saw you reading my notebook a moment ago. How does it make you feel that I love your wife?”
I hammered my thudding heart down into its usual position then grabbed the reins of my voice. Even then I had to take a breath. “So that’s why C&B wanted you removed,” I said airily. “You’re a drug addict.”
He laughed. “However little you may rate my chances, and however secure you may think your marriage is, the truth is, Ashanta will end up with me. And I’ll cherish her as you never can. Do you know why?”
“I’m going to stop this ship and signal for C&B to board her.”
“I don’t bear you any personal ill-will. But rest assured, she will forget you.”
I suppose we could have stood there all day, each tossing one half of two completely separate conversations at each other, but I didn’t have the patience.
“Well, not forget you exactly,” he said, as I left, slurring. “What I mean is, she’ll gradually cease to care for you and you’ll become like a - ”
I closed the office door and strode outside into a growing rainstorm. The sky had turned black without warning and the water fell in stinging pellets, like they were being hurled. No one was home when I reached Tomlinson’s surgery. As I cursed him, it occurred to me that he was the only one in a position to obtain Mason’s drugs for him, and if they were that thick, they were probably collaborating in the twisted plot to garner Ashanta. It was probably Tomlinson who’d infected her.
To what end? Maybe she’d been injected with some sort of mind-altering drug to make her receptive to repeated assertions of, ‘You love John, not Hugo’. Maybe the smelly skin-patch was simply a side-effect. He must have tried it on others, given that the fishy stink wasn’t confined to Ashanta. But then, given how craven he was, he would have. And it must have worked if he was still using it.
Suddenly everything fell into place, and I had the most horrible sinking feeling I’ve ever experienced in my life before. Of course! I’d fallen into their trap. They’d known we were heading for C deck and they’d worked out that if Ashanta fell sufficiently ill, I’d have to leave her. That’s why Tomlinson really came back, to re-infect her, not give her the ‘all-clear’.
I was trembling hard now. The clouds were descending and the rain was getting thicker. The ship was beginning to list. I sat down on one of the chairs in Tomlinson’s surgery and fiddled about with the revolver for a minute, trying to figure out how it worked. I guessed which was the safety catch and pulled it back, then I pressed a button that released the chamber. Five bullets. I went out onto the deck and pulled the trigger and fired one into the sea. ‘Nuff said. I was all ready now.
I have absolutely no doubt that if I’d met Tomlinson or Mason on my way back to C deck, I’d have killed them instantly, I was that worked up. Huge waves slapped over the sides, making it a miracle I wasn’t washed overboard. If it hadn’t been for my anxiety for Ashanta, I’d have been beyond caring.
I sped up as I closed in on our cabin and stopped outside the door. I could hear voices within. One was obviously hers, the other was male.
I undid the doorknob, kicked the door open and went in with the revolver in both hands, my arms extended like in The Wire. Ashanta started but she looked pleased to see me. She sat on the bed with her clothes on, as if she’d never been ill. Whoever she was with had obviously done a runner into the shower.
“I’ve got a gun!” I shouted. “Come out with your hands up!”
She ran and threw her arms round me almost throwing me off balance. Then a man about ten years my senior emerged from the bathroom, wearing jeans and a turtle-neck jumper. He held his hands limply in the air, smiling like there was nothing to worry about from someone like Hugo Ellis. I bristled.
“Relax,” he told me gently. “We’re on the same side. You probably remember me as Carl from the roulette table.”
