Dead Calm Read Free Page B

again. Or spending years living with the C-word. At least she died happy, eh?”
    “I suppose so,” Bev said.
    Bill proceeded to give them a blow-by-blow account of how each of his family members had met their end. They were on Great-Aunt Ethel (crippling arthritis and two strokes) when Freya, bless her, took a breath and lunged into her banshee impression. Her timing couldn’t have been better and they made their escape, with Freya still screaming, to the ship.
    “What a dreadful thing to happen, Dylan. And in the cabin next door too.” Bev had no idea why that made it worse, but it did.
    “Hmm.”
    She looked up at him. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean? I know you didn’t like her, but it wouldn’t hurt you to be a little more sympathetic. That could be someone’s mother.”
    “I know.”
    “It’s all very well Bill Carr saying she died happy, but that’s not the point, is it?”
    “Hardly. And I’d be surprised if she died happy. Hanna Larsen didn’t strike me as the type to waste much time on happiness.”
    “Dylan!”
    “I’d be surprised if she had a heart attack too.”
    “And what makes you say that, Doctor Scott?” she asked.
    “Last night—well, at twenty past three this morning, to be precise—I heard noises. I’m fairly sure I heard someone leaving her cabin.”
    “So?” she said. “She was a breath away from dying so I expect she went to get a drink or something. Maybe she needed some fresh air. Or perhaps she went to see the ship’s doctor.”
    “No. Whoever it was, was bigger and heavier than her. I heard another noise too.”
    “What sort of noise?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Did she have this straight? “You’re not saying—”
    “I’m saying I don’t believe she had a heart attack, that’s all. There will be nothing but gossip circulating the ship. She was travelling alone so no one could claim to know her and yet they’re saying she’d had a heart condition for years. How would they know that?”
    “I don’t know, but what business is it of yours?”
    “Probably none. All the same, I’m going to see what I can find out—”
    “Dylan, there are a thousand passengers on this ship—”
    “Minus one.”
    “Okay, so there are nine hundred and ninety-nine passengers on this ship. And every single one is enjoying the trip. That’s what people do, you know. They save up all year for their holiday, they look forward to it and, come hell or high water, they enjoy themselves. Why do you have to be so different? Let it rest. You’re on holiday. Besides, you can only go poking your nose into other people’s business when you’re asked to.”
    “Who could ask me? Hanna Larsen? She’s dead. Possibly murdered in her bed.”
    Bev shuddered. It really was worse knowing she’d died on the other side of the wall. “Of course she wasn’t murdered.”
    Dylan merely shrugged in his infuriating have-it-your-way manner. She might still fancy him like mad, but he could annoy the hell out of her without even trying.
    “That’s a ridiculous thing to say, Dylan. Completely ridiculous. Why would anyone murder an old woman? It’s crazy. And it would mean—”
    “That there’s a killer on board.” Dylan nodded. “It would indeed.”

Chapter Four
    Hanna fucking Larsen.
    He threw cold water on his face, leaned against cool tiles of the toilet wall and dragged in some deep breaths. The ship had left Ålesund an hour ago and the sea was calm, but his head and stomach couldn’t have felt worse if they’d been thrashing around in the roughest ocean. With a groan, he pushed open the door and threw up in the toilet bowl again.
    He flushed it and moved back to the basin to splash more cold water on his face.
    “Shit!”
    It was the smell making him sick. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly—old people, death or decay—but he couldn’t rid it from his nostrils and throat. He could still feel her fingers, crowlike, clawing into his arm.
    Christ, she’d struggled.