Dying For a Cruise (11 page)

David quickly took her by the arm and helped her upstairs.

After that, the darts match was naturally abandoned.

Having no wish to stay in the same room as Gabriel Olney, Tobias quickly excused himself to go to the bridge. He went smartly along the port deck and shut the door firmly behind him. There he looked at his watch. He was sweating now. He would be glad when it all was over.

Blast that cook! Where was she? Suddenly he had the intense desire to be on the move again.

Upstairs, Jasmine Olney stiffened as she heard footsteps and voices but, opening the bedroom door a crack and peeking out, she saw only the Leighs.

Dorothy paused outside the bathroom. ‘David, why don’t you go to our room and finish up those papers you brought with you? I know you wanted to get them done before we docked,’ she urged him, with typical patience and understanding.

David shook his head stubbornly. ‘They can wait.’

Dorothy put a hand to her stomach and swallowed hard. Her eyes became very wide and appealing. ‘Please, David, I’d rather you didn’t hang around out here. It’s … well … so
embarrassing
, being sick and everything. I’d rather you didn’t, well, have to hear me, and so on. Besides, I think I’ll be here for quite some time. And it’s nice and cool inside. There’s no point in you hanging around out here – it’s not as if there’s anything you can do, you know, darling,’ she added, cupping his face in her palm. ‘I’ll be all right, you’ll see. And I’ll come straight to our room as soon as I’m sure this bout of sickness has passed.’

She gave his hand a squeeze.

David nodded at once, sympathetic and anxious to please, and gave her a quick peck on the forehead. He turned, still obviously rather reluctant to leave her, but after a moment’s hesitation, walked on into their room.

Jasmine, afraid of being spotted, quickly pulled the door shut. She heard the bathroom door open and close, and breathed easier. It wouldn’t have done for the sickeningly cooing couple to notice when the engineer came to her bedroom door!

Downstairs, Gabriel wandered out onto the starboard deck. It was the first time he’d been on that side of the ship for quite some time. He stood watching the view of the deserted riverbank with a pleased smile on his face.

All was peaceful and quiet on the
Stillwater Swan
.

Jenny looked a little guiltily at her watch, and knew she must have held the boat up a little. It was nearly three o’clock. She stepped on board, made her way to the bridge, told the somewhat disgruntled Tobias Lester that she was back, and made for her galley.

There she found the parrot raiding her bag of raisins.

She eyed the bird, which had been caught red-handed. Or rather, red-clawed, with one bit of fruit already in his beak, and the split bag open at his feet.

Jenny walked forward, left the spilled raisins on the side – after all, she could hardly use
those
now – and folded the bag back into some semblance of order.

The parrot watched her, head cocked to one side. ‘’Ere, what’s your game then?’ he demanded, in Lucas’s wide, cockney drawl.

Jenny paused, looked at the bird, and fed it another raisin.

Really, it was extraordinarily uncanny the way the bird could come out with apt phrases at just the right time. You could almost be fooled into thinking you could hold a normal conversation with it.

She removed the various meats from the fridge and set them, in various sauces, to cook in the oven. She took a veritable mountain of vegetables from the tiny cold cupboard next to the fridge and set about chopping, peeling, dicing, mincing and shelling. It was a task that would have daunted many a lesser person but only served to fill the cook with a sense of peace.

Upstairs, Jasmine Olney still waited in vain for Brian O’Keefe. She was beginning to get right royally angry. When she heard the engines turn over, and she knew it would be impossible for the engineer to leave the engine room now, she left her post by the door, yanked the handle open, and marched out onto the landing. Although she could hardly go straight to the engine room and tell the oaf off, she would certainly think of a way to make her displeasure felt.

When she thought of him, sniggering away in his cubbyhole, imagining her waiting for him up here, all hot and bothered under the collar, she felt like she could literally kill him.

She was just in the mood for it.

As she passed the bathroom, the door opened and Dorothy Leigh emerged. She looked, even to Jasmine’s unsympathetic eye, a little pale and tremulous. It must be horrible feeling sick all the time, she acknowledged vaguely. It was one of the many reasons why she herself had always refused to have children.

Hearing the two women exchange greetings, David opened the door to his bedroom, spotted his wife, and stepped out.

‘What you need is a nice cup of tea, darling,’ he said soothingly. ‘Let’s find Francis and get you one.’

Somewhat reluctantly, Jasmine thought, Dorothy allowed herself to be led back downstairs.

Poor Dotty, she thought, with a savage twist of her lips. No doubt if she started to feel sick again she’d have to make a dive for one of the side decks. Really, men could be such inconsiderate pigs at times. Why couldn’t her husband have just let her go back to their room and lie down, as she so obviously wanted to do?

Even as her husband led her away, Dorothy cast a forlorn and longing look over her shoulder at the door to their bedroom.

But Jasmine had no sympathy for women who couldn’t stick up for themselves. And with a shrug, she followed them down the stairs.

Jenny sluiced some cold water over her face and let her wrists run under the cold tap. It was hellishly hot in her cramped little galley.

She glanced at her watch. It was now nearly 4.15. Time for a breath of air in her favourite spot. To her surprise, the main salon was empty when she walked through it. In fact the whole boat, she noticed for the first time, seemed to have an almost deserted air.

It felt like being aboard the
Marie Celeste
.

But as she stepped out onto the starboard deck with a sigh of pleasure, she realized just how misleading this feeling was, and she stopped, just a little miffed to find that her ‘territory’ had been invaded.

David Leigh turned warily as he sensed another presence, but visibly relaxed on seeing who it was. Beside him, sitting in the cook’s favourite deckchair, Dorothy watched the passing scenery with apathetic eyes. She looked rather pale, Jenny thought, and guessed instantly that the curse of the dreaded morning sickness had hit. ‘I think some dry toast and tea might be in order, don’t you?’ she murmured.

Her husband looked at her gratefully. ‘Just what I thought, but I couldn’t find Francis to ask him.’

Jenny shrugged, retreated back to her galley, and emerged five minutes later with the unappetizing but tummy-settling food.

She nodded in satisfaction as Dorothy took a sip of weak, milky tea. She looked really washed out, poor thing, the cook noted in some concern; her hair seemed to have lost some of its lustre, and her cheeks were sallow and her neck was drooping. Even her pretty powder-blue dress looked less like a meadow blue butterfly in colour and more like a limp delphinium. She really shouldn’t wear that dress in a shady place, Jenny thought inconsequentially – it obviously needed the sun to bring out its best. Then Jenny glanced at Dorothy’s miserable face, and realized that being in the sunshine was probably the last thing on her mind.

Far better to leave her out here, where it was at least cool and a bit of breeze was to be had.

‘Well, I’d best get on.’ Jenny backed away, thinking somewhat glumly that it would have to be to the port deck or rear deck after all.

The games room, too, was oddly deserted when she passed through it.

Out on the port deck, only Lucas Finch stood at the railings, watching the passing riverbanks with a glum air. He looked odd, almost undressed, Jenny thought, and then suddenly understood why. He was without his ubiquitous bird. The perfidious parrot had momentarily deserted him for the lure of raisins.

Jenny walked slowly away from him, not wishing to interrupt his solitude, but noticing as she did so that the planking, just a few yards from his left foot, was wet.

Very wet indeed.

She felt a surge of alarm, and hoped that they weren’t sinking!

Then common sense quickly took over from a landlubber’s (and non-swimmer’s) natural momentary panic. Of course they weren’t sinking! The ship was as steady as a rock.

But
something
had made that big pool of water on the port deck. Perhaps the engineer had had to bring on some water for something or other. Her ignorance of the workings of the boat’s steam mechanism wasn’t something that concerned her.

She shrugged the thought aside and revelled in the cool river breeze as she took a slow turn on the rear deck. There she watched Brian O’Keefe stow away a rather vicious-looking axe, and then pondered the great paddles as they slowly and hypnotically turned, churning the clear water up into a wide, white, frothy path in the
Swan
’s wake.

Where was everybody?

Then she remembered her kidneys, which were soaking in red wine. Not her own kidneys, of course – Jenny seldom drank to excess – but the kidneys that were going to go into the little individual steak and kidney puddings, which were due to be served as a starter, and she rapidly headed back to her galley.

Too much red wine was bad for kidneys.

The parrot saw her enter and quickly scoffed the last of the raisins, just in case she felt inclined to pinch one or two for herself. The parrot obviously understood Jenny Starling far better than any of her fellow humans, and proceeded to whistle a fairly passable rendition of ‘Colonel Bogey’ as he watched her work.

She chopped some chives, checked the single cream was still fresh and usable, and then jumped a little as she felt a slight scratch on her shoulder.

By turning her head just a little to one side, she could see nothing but scarlet and blue.

She felt rather flattered that the bird, on such short acquaintance, should trust her enough to choose to sit on her shoulder, but she wasn’t any too happy about the possible hygienic repercussions.

She’d have to shoo him off, she supposed, glumly.

But first she could gather all the jars, tins, cans and glass bottles she might need from the supply cupboard. There was no harm in that, after all, with everything being hermetically sealed.

So it was that when Jenny opened the door to the supply cupboard, she did so as Long John Silver might have done, with a smile on her face and a parrot on her shoulder.

She pulled the simple wooden door open, her mind on chutney and pickles. And Gabriel Olney stared back at her, his eyes wide open, his moustache rather droopy. Jenny, stunned to find an interloper amongst her comestibles, had just opened her mouth to ask him what the bloody hell he thought he was doing lurking about in her cupboard, when he began to fall forward.

More instinctively than anything else, she smartly stepped to one side and out of the way. And Gabriel Olney, with a rather squelchy ‘whoomp’, fell flat on his face at her feet.

He was, of course, exceedingly dead.

‘Well, bugger me,’ said the parrot.

F
OR SEVERAL SECONDS
Jenny stood rigid in surprise, staring down at the back of Gabriel Olney.

After a few more seconds, and very, very slowly, her brain began to function again, receiving messages from her eyes that she noted without really realizing that she was doing it.

Gabriel Olney was wet. His shirt was wrinkled and clinging to his skin, as only wet cotton can. There was no blood. At least, none as far as she could see, and she couldn’t remember seeing any on his chest either, for that scant second that he had been stood upright in the cupboard, facing her.

He was missing one elegant boot. Funny, she’d never noticed his boots before. They were just above ankle-high, made with fine black leather, and had rather thick, soft soles. For a moment she was puzzled by those soles, and then realized that they’d probably been made specifically for people who lived or worked on boats. It was typical of Olney’s personality that he had gone the whole hog and bought a complete new wardrobe to go with
Stillwater Swan
.

She seemed to stare at his left foot for a long while. It was completely bare. He hadn’t even a sock on.

His back was not moving. There was no reassuring rise and fall of a man who was breathing. But Jenny already knew that it would be pointless to check to see if he was still alive. In her heart of hearts she knew he was dead and probably had been for – well, who knew how long?

It was at that point that she herself took a long, deep, shuddering breath, unaware until she did so that she’d been holding it in all this time. She felt a dizzy wave hit her and quickly moved back, so as to avoid touching Gabriel. The parrot on her shoulder lurched a little, unused to her way of moving, and his long scarlet and blue tail flattened against her back for balance.

Jenny walked the short distance to the galley door, opened it, went through, and then firmly shut it behind her, all still in a state of blissfully numb shock. She couldn’t feel her legs beneath her. She had the distressing sensation of seeing and hearing things as if from a great distance.

But she couldn’t give in to that sort of thing. Dimly, she began to recall the routine from past, bitter experiences with sudden death.

No one must be allowed into the room. No one must disturb the body or any possible evidence. She had to call the police.

It was this last imperative that finally washed away the last vestiges of her numbness, forcing her to think. How
could
she phone the police? They were on a boat, in the middle of the River Thames, cruising sedately through the deserted Oxfordshire countryside. But surely someone on board had a mobile phone? She’d left hers behind in Oxford, not wanting to risk losing it on the river. But the others would have one. Or would they? Mobile phones were just the sort of thing you deliberately left behind on a getting-away-from-it-all river cruise.

‘I must see the captain,’ she thought, and the sound of her own voice surprised her. Talking to herself out loud simply would not do. She must pull herself together. But Tobias Lester represented, if nothing else, an authority figure, one who had always struck her as level-headed and competent beneath that avuncular exterior. And right now she felt in need of some friendly, human company that she could rely on.

Moreover, he was in charge of the boat, and they’d have to dock somewhere, wouldn’t they? She gave a quick, brisk shake of her head again, as if the movement could somehow physically kick-start her sluggish brain into working order again.

She checked the galley door but quickly discovered that it had no locking system. So she dragged one of the main salon’s ladder-back chairs to stand in front of it. It was hardly ideal. Anybody could remove it, of course, and go in, whilst she was informing Tobias Lester of their circumstances, but there was nothing else for it.

Besides, nobody but Francis, perhaps, would have any reason for wanting to go into the galley.

Except the murderer.

Jenny shook her head, angry at herself. She really must pull herself together.
Why
would the murderer
want
to go back there? He or she was safely away to some other point on the boat by now, and the last thing on their mind would be to come back and incriminate themselves by riffling through the scene of the crime. And that old chestnut about the criminal always returning to the scene of the crime had gone out with the ark!

Jenny, very well aware that she had spent valuable minutes thinking all this through, and was consequently dithering like somebody’s idea of a dotty maiden aunt, firmly marched out through the games room and onto the port deck and from there made her way forwards to the bridge. She knocked firmly and opened the door, not waiting for a summons.

By the wheel, Tobias looked around in surprise. He looked disconcerted at her abrupt entrance, but nothing more than that, as far as Jenny could tell.

But the murderer must know that it was bound to be the
Swan
’s cook who discovered the body, and would therefore be prepared, when first spotting her, to act as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.

‘Cook, I don’t think Lucas would like—’

‘You have to dock at once,’ Jenny interrupted rudely, ‘and send someone, Brian O’Keefe, I suppose, to the nearest village to telephone for the police. Unless you know if there’s a phone on board?’

Tobias stared at her as if she’d suddenly acquired several bats in her belfry.

‘Dock? Here?’ He glanced automatically towards both banks, his trained eye instinctively looking for the best place to berth, even as he shook his head. ‘There’s no phone on board – Lucas insists on it. And we’re down in the valley here, in a bad reception area. Most mobiles wouldn’t work anyway. But—’

‘Gabriel Olney is dead,’ Jenny said shortly, and was very careful to state nothing more than the bare truth. She’d watched a lot of police activity around murder cases in her time, and one thing she’d noted was that they never gave information away. And it was, she had always thought, a very good policy to mimic.

Tobias’s leonine head abruptly swung her way. His eyes went wide. He went just a touch pale. ‘Dead?’ he echoed blankly.

Jenny nodded. ‘We must dock and send for the police. At once.’ She repeated it all patiently, knowing that – if genuine – shock could momentarily befuddle the clearest of brains.

It had befuddled hers. But never for long.

Tobias nodded, seeming to grasp the seriousness of the situation at last, and began to push and twiddle various levers and knobs, slowing the vessel down and heading her towards the right-hand bank. Satisfied that he was doing as he’d been told, Jenny nodded and left, determined to stand guard in front of the galley door.

Just in case.

In the main salon, Lucas Finch stepped in from the direction of the rear corridor. ‘Hello, love. The boat’s stopping, did you notice? I wonder what Toby’s up to.’

The parrot on her shoulder, spotting his master, gave a little wriggle and was quickly airborne, and flying back to Lucas. It settled on his shoulder and began, very gently, to gnaw on a claw.

Jenny walked steadily to the chair in front of her galley and very firmly sat down on it. It would take a better man than Lucas Finch to shift her now.

‘I told Captain Lester to dock,’ she admitted coolly. ‘Gabriel Olney is dead. Do you have a map of the immediate area?’

Lucas stared at her. His face seemed to shut down – only his eyes glittered. And in that moment, Jenny could clearly see the man who profited from war. The man who’d earned himself (by fair means or foul) a considerable fortune. He didn’t say anything for quite some time. When he did, it was to ask a question.

‘Why do you want a map?’

‘You must send Brian O’Keefe to the nearest village to ring for the police. To do that, we need to know where the nearest telephone is likely to be. I understand mobiles don’t work here, and that you don’t allow any on board anyway?’

Lucas looked at her levelly, perhaps a little surprised by her cool-headed logic, but nodded acquiescently. ‘I have a full-length map of the River Thames in the drawer somewhere.’

He turned to a large, all-purpose set of drawers set flush to one wall, and riffled through the top one for a map. Once it was found, he carefully unfolded it and spread it out on the dining table. ‘I’ll have to go and get Tobias. He’ll know best what our position is, exactly.’

Jenny nodded. By now, the boat was almost at a complete standstill.

Out on the starboard deck, although they must have noticed that they were docking, David and Dorothy Leigh never came to investigate. Outside, on the rear decking, Jenny heard rapid footsteps and saw the engineer heading quickly towards the bridge. No doubt he too wanted to know the reason behind the unscheduled delay.

As he passed the French windows that led to the games room, Jenny clearly saw, through the open inner door, Jasmine Olney suddenly rear up from her position on a deckchair and grab Brian’s arm. What she might have been about to say to him, however, was never uttered as Lucas and Tobias chose that moment to step out of the wheelhouse.

‘Ah, Brian, secure the boat then come into the salon will you?’ Tobias ordered, making Jenny blink a little in surprise, for he had assumed command with an ease and natural affinity that halfway stunned her. And yet she knew that it shouldn’t have done: Lester was a very competent man. Very competent indeed – hadn’t she herself instinctively gone to him when times had got tough? Somehow, she seemed to have forgotten that. He was such a modestly unassuming man, he made it very easy to forget how very capable he must be. It must be a trait that could come in very handy.

Had Gabriel Olney, too, forgotten that?

Jenny shook her head, telling herself it was useless to speculate. Besides, the police would be here soon. It would be up to them to find out who’d killed the ex-soldier.

Jasmine, perhaps sensing that now was not the time to pick a fight with the engineer, subsided reluctantly back onto her deckchair. Lucas paused, looked at her, seemed about to say something, then shook his head.

The two men quickly joined Jenny, Tobias Lester efficiently checking the map. He glanced at his watch, did his mental arithmetic, and put his finger firmly on one point.

‘I’d say we are here, give or take half a mile or so. That makes the nearest village Carswell Marsh, which is about three miles south of here. It’s all cross-fields so Brian should make good time.’

‘Good time for what?’ Brian asked, catching the last sentence as he came in. He nodded at Tobias. ‘I’ve got her well secured. What’s going on?’

‘Gabriel Olney’s dead. You have to go and get the rozzers.’ It was Lucas who answered, but Brian O’Keefe stared at Tobias Lester for a long, hard time. Then he finally nodded. ‘Right,’ he agreed curtly.

Jenny had the strong feeling that, whatever his immediate thoughts, Brian O’Keefe would never utter them now.

‘Once you’ve phoned them,’ Jenny spoke up, her voice quite steady and firm now, ‘you’ll have to wait for them and then lead them back here to the boat. Especially if there’s no road for them to follow.’

Brian glanced at her curiously, saw her strange seating arrangement for the first time, and cast a curious look at the closed galley door. Then he checked the map for himself, saw where he had to go, and shook his head. ‘There are no roads near here indicated on the map.’

‘Right, then you’d best set off fairish, like,’ Lucas said, and rubbed his nose. ‘Think you can find the village all right?’

Brian O’Keefe smiled wryly. ‘I can smell a pub from five miles away. I’ll find the nearest one to me, no trouble.’

The three of them watched him go in silence. He was young, fit and set off across the fields like a hare.

Lucas slowly swivelled his eyes through the open door of the games room and out towards the port deck. His eyes moved quickly away again from the beautiful dark-haired woman sat sunning herself, and moved apprehensively to those of his captain.

‘Someone should tell Jasmine,’ he said heavily.

Tobias looked appalled. ‘Not me.’

As one, both men turned towards Jenny.

Jenny said, very firmly, ‘I’m not leaving this room.’

Lucas opened his mouth to say something, then glanced at the door behind her. As if sensing the tension in the air, the parrot on his shoulder bobbed his head up and down uneasily.

‘He’s in there then, is he?’ Lucas finally asked. Rather pointlessly, she thought. Jenny nodded. ‘And you don’t want anyone going in there?’ Lucas carried on the theme, his suspicious, thoughtful tone of voice making Tobias suddenly jerk his head towards the cook, a questioning look on his face.

‘You said he was dead,’ Tobias said, almost accusingly. ‘You didn’t say how.’ He chose his words with an odd kind of care, almost as if he was afraid of the answer.

‘I’m not sure how he died,’ Jenny said, quite truthfully. ‘And it’s useless to speculate. We’ll just have to sit quietly until the police come. And I think it will be a good idea to tell Mrs Olney nothing, for the moment. Unless she asks, of course.’

Naturally, both men agreed, and sincerely hoped that she wouldn’t.

The police arrived in a surprisingly short time. Brian must have run all the way to the village, and the nearest police station must have been close by, for barely an hour had passed when O’Keefe returned to the
Stillwater Swan
with what looked like a herd of constables and plain clothes detectives.

Jasmine, who’d never left her seat in the sun, looked up with every apparent evidence of bewilderment as strange men began to file into the main salon, and she took off her sunglasses to follow their progress inside with her eyes.

Jenny slowly rose from her chair, trying to sort the men out. The tall, stoop-shouldered man with glasses and carrying a black bag was the easiest man to allot, since this had to be the police surgeon or medical examiner. Two other, rather cherubic-faced men carried what looked like briefcases. From past experience, she knew that these had to be the forensics experts. But they were both looking at the oddest little man Jenny Starling had ever seen. (And in her time, she’d seen very odd-looking men indeed.)