When Louisa woke in the Fowlers’ cabin it took a second or two to remember where she was. She had fallen fast into a deep sleep and coming out of it made her briefly dizzy. Someone had turned off the overhead light, but the large lamp on the console table was on and she winced at its brightness. Slowly, Louisa wiped her face with her hands, catching a small gathering of spit at the corner of her mouth, smoothed her hair down and pulled out her dress, which had wrinkled and bunched around her thighs. There was the heavy silence in the cabin that had almost become familiar, the weight of noiseless air and dense water that surrounded the ship. She looked at her watch: it was almost five o’clock in the morning. The sun had not risen yet, but it wouldn’t be long. Where had Guy gone to?
She wondered if she ought to tell Iain somehow about what had happened last night. It wasn’t connected to Diana or Unity as far as she knew, but she felt confused as to whether she was supposed to tell him only about them or anything that could potentially be of significance. She ought to tell him about Unity and Wolfgang, though. He was an SS officer, wasn’t he? Louisa exhaled loudly and sat up straighter, as if she had been startled by the sound. Oh, where was Guy? She had a vague feeling that she shouldn’t leave the cabin, but remain as a sort of guard. On the other hand, she didn’t want to stay.
A tiny sound came from beyond the wall behind her and reminded Louisa that Ella Fowler was in the bedroom. This was her opportunity to look closely. She might see something that Guy had missed. There had been a lot of people in here, he’d said – they may not have realised that it was a crime scene that needed to be protected. Things might have been unwittingly moved or brushed aside. At the thought of this task, all of Louisa’s senses simultaneously sharpened. She tasted the bitter dryness of her mouth, absorbed the light and shade of the room, smelled the vase of lilies in the corner and heard the thick silence. She ran her hand over the stiff linen covering on the sofa and pushed herself up to standing. As quietly and efficiently as she could, she scanned every inch of the room, then went down on her knees to look underneath the sofa, revealing only an abandoned cocktail stick and a used tissue. The paintings on the wall did not conceal secret cupboards and the mirror definitely only worked one way. She started to feel foolish, as if she had thought herself in real life and realised it was only a set with props. Even the books on the shelves were artfully placed, with titles that didn’t go together and that no one would ever read: Great Golf Courses of Germany and The Flora and Fauna of Mallorca. One cupboard didn’t open and only after a minute or two did she realise it wasn’t locked but had a fake door – there were no hinges.
She tried to take note of the things that were real. The impressions on the armchair that showed where Mr Fowler had been sitting when he was attacked. The damp, dark red patch on the carpet, looking more like paintwork in a farmyard. There were fashion magazines on a low table that had been scattered and an upset glass.
All the while, the dawn slowly started to crack on the horizon, the light gradually fading up through the gap in the curtains that shielded the French windows to the balcony. Why was there a gap in the curtains? Louisa knew they would have been closed for the night by the maid who came to prepare the room for the evening. If either Ella or Joseph had wanted to go onto the balcony to take in the sea air, they would have opened them wide, then closed them when they came back in. The narrow open strip puzzled Louisa and she stared at it as the sun’s cool morning rays turned the sky from dark violet to pink and orange. The handle for the door was visible in the gap and Louisa knew the French windows opened from the middle, but they slid to the side rather than opening out. There were shutters on the outside but Louisa had registered that the maid never closed the ones for either Lady Redesdale or Mrs Guinness. Perhaps they were only intended for use during storms.
Louisa stepped towards the glass and looked through it to the narrow balcony outside, but it was empty bar a small table and two chairs. She jumped, startled, when the door behind her opened abruptly and she heard someone walking in. She turned around and knew she looked guilty, as if she had seen something she shouldn’t have, but the young man before her did not seem to notice.
‘Miss,’ he said, ‘I’ve been sent to fetch you and send you down to the sick bay. It’s your husband.’
Fear tipped over her like a bucket of cold water. ‘What do you mean? What’s happened?’
The cabin steward, innocent in his pressed white uniform, looked afraid. ‘I don’t know, miss, sorry. I’ve been told to find you and tell you to get there quickly. It’s on deck E, next to the engineers’ mess. If you take the crew staircase, you’ll reach it quicker. I’ve been told to stay here, to guard the room.’ He looked at her again. ‘Sorry, miss.’
He didn’t need to say any more, or if he did, Louisa didn’t hear it. She had fled the room and was running towards the crew staircase, deck E and her husband as if his life depended upon it.