Murder on Board Read online

  “Oh, yes,” said Frank, “once the knife is removed from its scabbard blood must flow, or so the story goes.”

  "Enough now!” Margaret shook her head. “Really, Luke, you are putting me off my dinner.”

  “What about you, Jill?” I ventured, turning to the slim white-haired lady on my right. “Will tales of blood and body parts upset your appetite?”

  “Not in the slightest, Luke. I was a Wren myself for thirty years and worked in the Royal Naval Hospital in Portsmouth for a while. It would take more than a severed limb or two to put me off my food.”

  The table erupted with laughter at the image she portrayed.

  “Is that where you and Frank met then? I asked.

  “While you were both in the navy?” Margaret added.

  Jill nodded. “Mr Romance over there took my best friend to a dance and came home with me. His ship was just back from action in the Falklands and a lot of steam was let off that night, a lot of beer drunk and a lot of partying had, if you follow my drift. I ended up helping his best friend carry him home and the rest is history. He can’t really drink, never could.”

  Frank grinned sheepishly and gestured to the glass of water in front of him on the table.

  “Hey, Frank, he could be your brother,” said Margaret, pointing in my direction. “He’s great for the lowering of the first pint but you’ll find him asleep halfway through the second. He’s the cheapest date I ever had.”

  Frank switched topics and the table conversation continued as we got to know each other. The arrival of wine loosened some tongues, but I noticed Frank and Jill still stuck to drinking water. The small talk was interrupted by the arrival of tonight’s starter—bowls of steaming hot Scotch broth which was delivered to our table by Ali and Hamoud. The two smiling, uniformed stewards had to that moment earned plenty of points on my scorecards. Well, that was all about to change. Hamoud stretched an arm across my face to pour coffee into Margaret’s cup and my stomach turned at his strong pungent body odour. I could almost taste the sweat rising like steam from his armpit.

  Hastily burying my nose in my open shirt, I tried to inhale some aftershave to shake off the foul aroma.

  As we ate, I had a chance to gather my thoughts on our table companions. My initial conclusions were favourable and I think we will enjoy their company over the coming weeks.

  There are two more passengers yet to join us, but tonight, their seats at the other end of the oval table sat empty. I believed they were already onboard but having arrived late this evening, they had decided to skip the meal.

  I wondered what they would be like and who they were? Would they prove as good company as the other two couples?

  While we were eating the ship had let go of the mooring lines and had proceeded down the Southampton Waters, passing Hamble, Fawley and Calshot. It transited the Thom Channel and rounded Brambles Bank. Having disembarked the local pilot, the bell was rung for full away on passage, and this cruise truly got underway.

  The meal over, we savoured a few moments on deck before walking to the other end of the ship, towards the Gaiety Theatre where Laura Drum the Entertainments Manager, was presenting a Welcome onboard show. I saw Margaret safely into her seat and feigned a need to visit the toilet. The confiscated wine played on my mind and I knew I wouldn’t relax completely until I righted the wrong. I skipped down a deck or two and swiped my way into our cabin.

  I grabbed a plastic bag and travelled again upstairs stuffing it in my jacket pocket. This time I headed for mid-ships and the shops which had opened, now that we were at sea. They were milling with passengers who excitedly wandered between the jewellery, watches, clothing, art, sportswear and of course alcohol on display.

  I glanced around and couldn’t see any security guards and the CCTV camera had lost some of its coverage with a tall cardboard mannequin of Captain Morgan holding a bottle of rum, obscuring the area to the left of the cash desk. I headed there and knelt down picking up two bottles of wine. I turned towards the cash desk, as though I intended to pay for them but instead I left with the bottles now hidden in my bag. I strolled away, along the shopping aisle, not daring to look back and felt like a naughty school kid, which I probably was, the last time I pulled this sort of stunt. Once I’d offloaded the bag in the cabin, I rejoined Margaret in the theatre.

  After the show had finished we met Laura and her team of seven redcoats, as well as the resident dance/singing troupe, Topstars. As an added bonus, Lucy Miller, an ex-West End lead singer was brought forth to entertain us. It was a good show and I appreciated the energy and skill of the dancers as by now our energy was beginning to flag.

  It was back to the cabin at to unpack and store away our stuff, which took the best part of an hour. We sipped on our illicit wine, which had been chilling in the cabins fridge. Margaret would have had a fit if she knew where it had come from.

  Day 2

  Wednesday 4th January.

  Heading for the Azores.

  The day started at 07:00, a tad too early for a holiday, I felt. The night had passed with fitful sleep. It wasn’t my conscience nagging me or my inner self questioning my plans to approach this cruise in quite a different manner to the past. It wasn't the throbbing of the engines or the vibration of the same that had caused any grief. It was the lack of air conditioning in the cabin. We were by change too hot and then too cold throughout the night. We suffered from the Goldilocks syndrome. We couldn’t get the temperature just right.

  Margaret had taken a shower last night and discovered a leak in the chrome shower cable which meant more water sprayed wildly about the shower cubicle than fell on her head. The bed was also too hard on her arthritic hips and damaged back. We reported the shower problems and sought a mattress topper from Persel, my new best buddy. By the end of the day, any issues had been swiftly addressed, leaving me more than a little impressed, which isn’t an easy feat to achieve.

  We dressed and made our way to the Palace restaurant for breakfast and met a somewhat odd Scottish woman in her eighties called Laragh. She appeared to be lost. With her shock of white hair standing on end, she reminded me of Dr Emmett Brown from the Back to the Future movies.

  Wearing only what appeared to be her cotton white nightdress and a light shawl, she strode along the open deck chatting away to Margaret. Having been on this ship before, we knew our way around, so we took her with us to the restaurant.

  “Are you travelling alone, Laragh?” asked Margaret.

  “Nae, love, ma sister is in the cabin, but she canna be bothered getting up this morning and has ordered breakfast in bed. Aye, no extra charge either but I’m ravenous and decided to get fed now. She could be sitting there another hour before the food arrives and I canna wait. I’ll eat my own arm if I don’t get food in the next five minutes.”

  We left her free-ranging in the buffet area and got our own breakfast. As is usual, people race about from station to station grabbing food as if the food may run out. They eventually return to their seats, plates piled high with food which they can’t physically eat. Smartly dressed waiters silently move between tables taking unfinished meals back to the bins for disposal, probably to be dumped in the sea.

  After breakfast, we took off on a walk around the promenade deck and got a blast of fresh air. A full circuit of the deck is half a kilometre, so we did a few laps before returning to the cabin. Getting around the deck today is like trying to run a marathon while surrounded by hundreds of slow-moving spectators who have stumbled onto the track. Some of them travel in large groups and frequently stop, without warning. Others walk against the flow, going anticlockwise around the deck so in traversing round blind corners you run the risk of colliding with them. God save us! There should be fast and slow lanes painted on the deck and everyone should be forced to walk clockwise. It’s not rocket science. I feel my blood beginning to boil.

  10:00. Beginners Bridge Class

  The class was held in Lawton’s room on deck 5, a long bright room near the library. The r
oom’s floor was carpeted and laid out with rows of small tables, each with a cluster of four chairs. A whiteboard had been erected halfway up the room and a middle-aged couple stood nearby sorting out boxes of paper and unpacking sets of cards, extracted from the wooden presses that ran the length of the room.

  Neither of us has ever played bridge but it’s popular in our village so we decided to learn, if only to challenge our brains. We found ourselves a table and were joined by Jimmy and Jennifer, two fellow passengers who arrived separately and asked if they could join our table.

  Jennifer was tall, elegantly dressed and spoke with a crystal clear upper-class English accent. Her slim figure and lined face told of a life of challenges. She reached across the table and shook both our hands while introducing herself. A very English and formal introduction, I thought. She seemed quite shy, so I set to finding out more about her.

  The class had yet to formally start and a loud buzz of conversation filled the room. “Playing on your own, Jennifer?” I asked.

  She nodded her head in confirmation. “I was widowed seven years ago and have holidayed with girlfriends ever since. Gwen isn’t interested in bridge, so here I am, alone again.” She smiled weakly but sounded more than slightly depressed by the prospect.

  “And very welcome you are too.” I said loudly, in a warm and positive voice. “Are you a complete beginner?”

  She shook her head. “No, but as good as, I did attend classes on two earlier cruises, but they moved too fast for me and I failed to grasp the basics which led me to drop out. I’m hoping I’ll get further this time. And you three? Have you played before?”

  I turned around as Jimmy answered first. “I’ve never been to a bridge class as such, but I love card games and I learned quite a bit in a card school we had at work. My wife isn’t in the best of health, so won’t be joining us. How about you two?” he said looking at me and Margaret with a wry smile. “Can you play bridge?”

  All eyes had turned to Margaret who happily spelt out our experience or lack of it. “Yes, Jimmy, Luke here is not a card player and he won’t mind me saying so. I love card games although I haven’t played bridge. I’m looking forward to learning it. There’s a bridge club in our village, and on our return, I fully intend to pay them a visit.”

  Our conversation was halted when the teacher clapped his hands loudly and brought the class to order while introducing himself and his wife. On this cruise, Brendan and Shirley Flood would teach bridge to beginners, intermediate and advanced players. Classes would occur only on sea days as most passengers would go ashore on days when the ship was in port.

  The first class each morning was for beginners, followed an hour later by the intermediate class and finally, an hour later again by the advanced players who got the opportunity to hone their skills. In the evening a session would be organised by Brendan and Shirley where players of any standard could play together.

  Roughly the same approach was being adopted, I later found out, for the ballroom dancing classes which we joined an hour later.

  I found I knew a bit more than I thought. It was only in the last ten minutes of the class that an actual game was started and we gathered around the table to watch the four chosen beginners play. We were just about to deal a hand ourselves when time ran out and the next class members, the intermediate class, began to appear. I deemed our first lesson a success, giving us something to build on for tomorrow.

  11:00. Ballroom Dancing - Introduction to the Foxtrot

  I don't dance. It’s a pet phobia of mine. For years as a teenager and young adult, I attended events as the disc jockey, bringing along my equipment and hundreds of records to liven up many flat and house parties. My role as DJ afforded me the opportunity to avoid dancing, yet it was always a tug of war. I loved music and did long to have a secret bop in the corner when no one was looking. I was brutally self-conscious and couldn’t just get blitzed enough in the pubs or clubs to let myself go.

  But Margaret does dance and is very good at it. Having sat out our previous cruises, I sensed her longing to get out on the dance floor and I felt she should at least see me trying to make her happy, so there we stood, with about sixty others on the large shiny, wooden dance floor in the Pelican Ballroom.

  Russian ex-professional prize-winning dancers, Roxanne and Thomak stood in the centre of the floor and took on the mission of trying to teach me some steps. Three steps, as it turned out.

  Looking back on it, it was probably too much too soon.

  I nailed the first one but floundered thereafter. Then blind panic set in, and I couldn't put one foot in front of the other. It was a disaster. I spent the entire lesson apologising to those I’d bumped into, or to those that had been forced to take sudden evasive action to avoid my size nines.

  Even Margaret became frustrated with me.

  For the second part of the lesson the instructors used the watch-and-learn approach. The men were split from women and taught each of their steps separately, then both were united, to execute the step together. Once the basics were grasped, we danced to the music.

  It was all too much for an uncoordinated, stressed novice like me. I lasted another few minutes before giving up. We left saddened and met Brian and Anita, another Irish couple, who tried to comfort me, saying they’d had a similar start.

  “Yeah,” said Brian. “I’m twice your size and I’ve left more pensioners limping in one class than arthritis has managed to cripple in a year. If they didn’t move, I just bumped them on a bit, leading with our outstretched arms.”

  “It’s true,” chipped in Anita. “I just have to close my eyes at times and allow him to sweep me onwards, as he thinks he always knows best.” She raised her eyes to the heavens.

  We all laughed. “I saw you both in the Bridge class earlier. Fancy practising a few hands out of class? We could meet up in the afternoons and play for half an hour before dinner?” suggested Anita, as Brian led her away.

  Margaret nodded agreement. She clearly thought it was a great idea.

  I retreated to our cabin, settled my nerves and changed out of my soaking wet T-shirt before joining the choir in the Gaiety Theatre. I’m determined to stretch myself and take on new challenges. This may have unexpected consequences, but nothing tried means nothing gained and I’m determined to challenge myself on this cruise.

  12:15. Ships Choir

  We entered the Gaiety theatre and saw the choir had attracted a large number of passengers. The choirmaster stood on the stage next to a black piano with pianist already in position. We slid into the plush red velvet seats normally filled by the audience and received a copy of the lyric sheets for the five songs we were to tackle today.

  The plan is that we will put on a performance at the halfway mark of the cruise, then a different choirmaster will set off with new songs for the remainder of the cruise and a second performance will be delivered before we dock in Southampton.

  Lorcan Bond, who leads the ships jazz trio, had taken on the role of choirmaster and immediately split the choir into male-female, tenor, bass, alto and soprano. He had roughly sixty women and thirty men to work with.

  I sat with a friendly Welshman, whose name I failed to catch, and Arthur, an Aussie who'd only flown into England days earlier to join the cruise.

  Arthur, a chunky, bespectacled man in his early fifties, moved along the row to let me into a seat and then handed me the lyric sheet for Food Glorious Food.

  “Have you sung before, Luke?” he asked.

  “About six years ago I joined a local folk group that sang at church services a couple of times a year but that’s about it,” I said, “How about you?”

  “Oh, yes, almost all year round with the Sydney Male Choristers and then on any cruises we take where choirs are formed. I love the coming together of the music, the harmonies and best of all, the day of the performance. My wife also sings.” He pointed to a tall woman of a similar vintage seated near Margaret in the ladies group.

  She saw him and waved vigor
ously back.

  In the minutes that followed, I discovered Arthur and his wife would be staying on after we disembarked, for the Northern Lights cruise that followed. It seemed they worked six months of the year and cruised the other six. What a great way to live your life. Certainly, money was not an issue for this Australian couple or maybe they just managed it better than most of the rest of us.

  Before we could speak further Lorcan got the session going with some breathing exercises. “All together now,” he instructed. “Draw in deep breaths of air and sing with me. I can sing high, I can sing low.”

  We did as he asked, starting at the lower end of the scale and then gradually rising up the scales until the men’s singing became more like screeching. The limit had been reached.

  Then he launched into the first number and the sound of one hundred voices brought to life the music of George Gershwin and his infectious I’ve Got Rhythm echoed around the aft end of the ship, as the theatre's outer door had been left ajar. When we finished the song, a smattering of applause rose up from the back of the theatre where some masochistic passengers had decided to sit and listen in to our early efforts.

  I must say I enjoyed the session and Lorcan seemed impressed by our singing, but then, I’m sure he says that to every class. I felt rejuvenated by the experience and ate lunch a happier man.

  Margaret talks to everyone we meet, wherever we are on the ship. Part of the fun of a cruise is the meeting of complete strangers whose life stories are so different from our own. Meetings often occur in the ship’s restaurants where you share tables for half an hour and today was no exception. We sat with a blind woman in her eighties and her attentive young husband, a mere sixty-eight-years-old.