Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
I should probably have gone to the closest cabin, but I want to get far away from the terrible noise that is still ringing in my ears, so I race downstairs to lock myself away in my own room.
I’m just as fired up by adrenaline as Tom and Ade were, but I’m not prepared for the sight of Jake, lying face down in a pool of blood, with his legs sticking out of his room.
I let out a scream when I see him there, but I don’t want to end up like that, so I carefully slide the door open before ducking into my cabin.
I put my hand to the panel to lock it after me and then sit against the door.
I try to slow my breathing back down, but the violence of the last two days keeps flashing through my head.
I see Mick collapsed against the toilet and Sasha fighting against the waves as the yacht disappears off into the distance.
I imagine Bridget taking her last breath alone in her bedroom and Jake’s shock as he fell bleeding to the floor.
I see the neon glint of the blade that killed Ryan, and I want to be sick.
I try to steady myself. I stare down at the hideous camouflaged carpet that probably cost more than most people earn in a year. I’ve learnt this week that having an undepletable amount of money does not guarantee good taste, and the swirling beige and khaki design only makes me dizzier.
It reminds me of lying in my parents’ bed, looking up at the psychedelic 1970s wallpaper when I was a child.
I would stay there for ever, getting lost in the pattern, so that I would eventually feel seasick and have to close my eyes.
I was always a nervous little girl, and when I told my parents about this, they couldn’t understand how it was possible or why I would keep doing it.
Even if they never said it, I knew that they found me peculiar.
They were far too normal to have a daughter like me.
A daughter who wanted to be an artist and move up to London – which, whenever they visited me, they viewed with the detached curiosity of a pair of aliens at a zoo.
They are kind people, of course. They always did what they could to support and protect me, but I knew from an early age that we were very different. And so, as I sit in my cabin, with all my dead friends nearby, I think of Mum and Dad and how they would react if they could see me.
Oh, Clara-bear, my father would whisper in that kind but disapproving tone of his. What have you got yourself into now?
Mum would stand and shake her head. It was the same when they discovered I was pregnant.
I felt that I had let them down again. I don’t want to feel that way anymore.
I want to be proud of myself and everything I’ve achieved.
I don’t want to be a victim or a failure.
I don’t want the one defining event in my life to be a love affair with a famous singer who didn’t deserve me in the first place.
Eventually, I move to the bed and decide what has to happen next, just as I did when I received Ade’s invitation.
It makes me feel a little better about the world, though this confidence is erased when the lights suddenly turn off and darkness fills the room.
The numberless clock beside the bed tells me that the power has gone out.
Horror sets in again and I’m back in my house, looking up at the wallpaper that my parents quietly removed one day when I was at school.
I wait for the inevitable knock on the door, but it takes Ade longer to come down than I expected.
I hear his footsteps first. They are slow and heavy, and I imagine he pauses to look at Jake along the corridor, just as I did.
“It’s over,” he calls in a sad, slurred voice. “Clara, can you hear me?”
I don’t reply. I can’t. I run to push against the door, as if that will be enough to keep it shut with the electricity turned off. For a moment, I wonder if he is responsible for this. Is he about to burst in here now that the locks aren’t working?
“Clara?” He’s come closer. I can hear his shoes as they scuff against the floor outside my room. “Did you hear me? I’ve killed Tom.” He talks so matter-of-factly that it stuns me a little. “The danger is over. He’s dead.”
I consider staying quiet, but then he might try the door. “Why would I trust you, Ade?”
I hear a slight thud, as if he’s pressed his head against the hollow metal that separates us. I imagine viewing the impossible cross-section with me on one side and him on the other with his hands flat against it.
“I don’t know how to answer that.” His words come out in a rasp.
“Did you turn off the power?” My voice is small and weak compared to his, and I try to sound more confident. “Is that why the lights went out?”
“No, darling. No, of course not. It must be because the crew are locked away below deck. You can’t just leave a vessel like this to look after itself, especially in bad weather.
Captain Andy has been doing what he can, but you saw what he had to deal with.
The man is as scared as the rest of us. I’ve told him that one of our friends had a breakdown and killed the others.
He says it won’t be too long until we’re rescued. ”
I open my mouth to reply, but all that emerges is a shallow breath.
“We’re all right now. Everything will be okay.”
I feel as if his words are invading the room. They creep under the doorframe to touch me like fingers, and I realise how dumb I was not to have found a weapon as soon as I came down here.
“How can I…” I begin, but my voice fails me, and I have to try again. “How can I trust you, Ade, after what I just saw?”
He bangs one hand against the door, which is unlikely to assuage my fears. “I didn’t want to hurt him, Clara. You must see that. I didn’t want to kill Tom, but I had to protect you.”
“That’s not how it looked to me.” I’ve found some confidence. I no longer sound like myself. “I think you enjoyed it. That’s why I ran down here. I couldn’t stand to see the pleasure on your face as you murdered him.”
“I didn’t murder… You must see…” He is shouting now, but he realises his mistake and tries to calm down.
“Listen. I’m not going to open the door and come in there.
Surely that proves you have nothing to fear.
If I wanted to hurt you, it would be the easiest thing in the world to slide this door open, but I’m not going to do that. ”
I try to make sense of his reasoning, but before I can, he speaks again.
“I’ll go and tell the crew that there’s nothing to worry about anymore.
I won’t let them out until the police get here.
I don’t want anyone to interfere with the evidence.
I doubt that Tom thought to wear gloves, so his fingerprints will be everywhere.
” The way he says this doesn’t ring true.
There’s no guarantee that any evidence remains to pin the murders on Tom.
“I’m going to find something to eat. I’ll be on the upper deck if you want to join me. ”
I put my ear to the door to hear whether he really is leaving, and it certainly sounds that way.
I can just about hear his boots on the metal stairs.
I slide down to the floor and close my eyes.
I would like to go to sleep, but it feels like I’ve spent the night downing one samovar of coffee after another.
The muscles in my arms and legs are jumping.
My thoughts bounce around like pinballs.
I am both flat-out exhausted and full to the brim with energy.
It’s a horrible combination, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
I sit where I am and listen long enough to be sure he’s gone.
I don’t know if it’s ten minutes or an hour.
After everything that I’ve experienced, time is a fairly insignificant concept, but I eventually decide that I can’t hide here any longer.
It may be the stupidest thing I ever do, but I grab the only weapon I can find, slide the door across and step out into the corridor.
I can’t say why, but I feel as if my senses are brighter than usual.
It’s dark here, without even the dim light from the night sky reaching me, but I can see perfectly well.
The noise of the engine and the cresting waves are perfectly clear in my ears too, and they almost sound like they are working in unison.
There’s another sense – one that doesn’t have a name – and I’m more aware of it than ever.
I suppose you might call it paranoia, but it’s more useful than that term implies.
It’s an awareness of danger that admittedly may not even be there.
I turn the corner, expecting to see Ade with a knife or a bow, but there’s no one and nothing.
I pause again and listen. The waves crash more softly than before, and there is no rain or sound of human life.
I continue on up the stairs, and though a constant sting of fear won’t leave me, it seems that Ade told the truth.
I don’t look into the lounge to see what he did with Tom’s body.
I press on to another set of stairs and go up to the table where we had dinner on our first night on board.
There are two chairs laid out, and he’s sitting facing me as I approach.
I won’t sit down yet. I stand some metres away, watching to see what he will do. The table has a selection of tempting foods arranged on it, and the briefest glimpse of them makes my stomach ache. I am suddenly so hungry that it pulls me a few steps closer.
Ade looks at me affectionately across the table. “I’m glad you’re here.” He sounds so sweet and understanding. “I’m glad we’re finally alone together.”