Page 57 of Midnight
Olivia shook her head. ‘I don’t know what they were looking for.’ In the wardrobe, all her jackets and zip-up fleeces were crumpled on the floor. She picked up Aaron’s coat and placed it back on the hanger. Her eyes pricked with tears when she saw the sleeve was torn.
‘Honey, sit down. You’ve had a shock.’ Patty took Olivia’s hand and guided her to the bed.
‘Who would do this? I had nothing worth stealing.’
‘What about your camera? Your phone?’ asked Liam.
‘Accounted for,’ she said, gesturing to the side table, where her little digital camera sat. ‘My phone … hang on, that’s what I came for.’
‘It’s here,’ said Janine, picking up the phone from where it had slipped between the mattress and the bedside table, where it had been charging. She passed it over to Olivia. She turned it on, but of course there was no signal.
Liam picked up the camera and flipped open the cover for the memory stick.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked, frowning.
‘Just checking it’s properly intact. You never know, maybe they were looking for something on your stick.’
‘I think you’ve been reading too many spy novels,’ said Annalise.
‘OK, well, let me make sure Elisabet is on her way and she’ll liaise with you about what to do next.’
‘Thank you, Liam,’ said Patty, ushering him out of the door. She closed it behind him with a click. ‘Looks like it was just a lot of bad luck for you, my dear. Some opportunist thinking they’d stumbled on a rich woman with some jewellery or something.’
‘Next time we’ll direct them to Cutler and Ingrid’s cabin. I bet that woman brought diamonds galore with her,’ said Annalise.
‘It really sucks,’ said Janine, sitting down next to Olivia. ‘Do you think it could be –’ she lowered her voice – ‘that man you were talking about? You know, the one you thought had followed you from Ushuaia?’
‘Who’s that? Who is she talking about?’ asked Patty.
Olivia sucked in her bottom lip before replying. ‘I thought I was just being paranoid but I keep seeing this guy around the boat. He has a shaved head with a strange sort of hair tattoo design above his ear.’
‘That’s terrifying!’ said Patty. ‘And you think maybe he was trying to rob you?’
‘I guess it’s possible …’
The next knock on the door was Elisabet, along with a beefy-looking man who Olivia recognized as Pedro, the ship’s head of security. She didn’t hold out much hope that anything could be done. There was hardly a CSI team on board. ‘I am very sorry that this has happened,’ said Elisabet. ‘But I will go through our records to see who used their key card to enter your cabin last. And Pedro will change the lock code on your door and reset it.’
Instinctively Olivia felt in her pocket for her key card.But it wasn’t there. Was this all her fault? Had she dropped it somewhere, or left it in the gallery? She swallowed. ‘My key card. I don’t know where it is,’ she managed to say.
Pedro glanced at Elisabet. Olivia knew what they were thinking. How stupid could a person be?
‘What about CCTV?’ Olivia asked.
‘There are a few cameras in the hallways. We’ll check the footage for this time too,’ said Pedro. ‘During the auction you said?’
‘Yes.’ She looked around at her other cabinmates. ‘We all left together for the auction, and then I returned a bit early as I was hoping to grab my phone to take some photos. That’s when I discovered … all this.’
‘Don’t worry, we will get to the bottom of what happened,’ said Elisabet. ‘And, Olivia, Captain Enzo would like to invite you to his table to have dinner tonight. Hopefully it can take your mind off this unfortunate incident.’
Elisabet and Pedro left them to finish tidying up.
‘Unfortunate incident,’ Patty scoffed, ‘that’s putting it mildly. If you were one of my clients, I hope you’d be on the phone to me complaining straight away. I’d get you more than a captain’s dinner as recompense. You should get that jacket fixed on the house at least.’
Olivia went to the wardrobe to examine the damage and see if it could be fixed. As she ran her hand down the slice in the sleeve, she felt inside the pocket. But the note had gone.
27
‘I think we all deserve a strong drink, don’t you? At least tonight is the midnight sun party. Let’s put this unpleasantness behind us and focus on that. Crossing the Antarctic Circle – that’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Don’t you think?’
