A flash of inspiration hit Fen as she thought back to finding the passenger lists in the captain’s office. And then, staring at the words in front of her, words that would float around and merge and mingle if she hadn’t anchored them to her grids, well they started to tell Fen a story.
The passenger list… Ernst Fischer had appeared on one and not the other, and one name had been its opposite number on the printed list they all received in every cabin; it had appeared there and not on the official one Fen had found in the filing cabinet. Wracker-Nayman… That had been the one. Not a common name at all.
She reached down into her bag and pulled out the small German-English dictionary that she’d found in cabin thirteen. Wracker… nothing. Wrack means wreck though… very apt for being on board ship, but it wasn’t the ship that had been targeted. She said it out loud again. ‘Like a homophone in my crosswords…’ she murmured. ‘Wrack, wreck… with an “r” perhaps… ah, rache.’ She looked at the word that when said out loud sounded like the more English pronunciation of ‘rack-er’. ‘Rache means revenge.’ She circled the word she’d already written on her grid. She’d known there was something about the way the flag and knife almost decorated the body of the German man; it was a message, of course, a vengeful one.
‘Now for Nayman…’ She flicked back through the dictionary to the Ns. ‘Nayman… sounds like naiven which means naive… not quite…’ She ran her finger down the NAs but couldn’t find anything that fit with the word revenge. On the next page, she found it though. ‘Oh dear. Nehman meaning to take. Take revenge, that’s the message in this passenger list. That’s why Ernst was so upset. I am foreign… no… why would he say Ich bin in German and foreign in English?’ She looked again through the dictionary for a word that could sound like the one she had heard.
Minutes later, as she was on the verge of giving up, she found it. ‘Ich bin verloren. That’s what he was saying. I am doomed… Oh dear,’ she whispered to herself, seeing now almost plainly what had been such a muddle before. ‘Of course, if he had… then… and thought she was…’ Fen ticked off words as she thought through them, and although it didn’t all make perfect sense, it was like a crossword clue that she knew the answer to, she just didn’t know why yet. Sleep would help and she pulled the chain for the light beside her bed and slipped down under the covers. Tomorrow they would be in America, but before that, she knew she had a murder, or two, to solve.
Morning came and Fen awoke early to the sound of the foghorn. Thoughts that had swum around her before she’d fallen asleep and manifested themselves as dreams of stockings and boas, mirrors and knives, came back to her and she sat bolt upright, suddenly realising that someone else’s life was quite possibly in danger and they needed to be warned.
Dressing quickly, Fen glanced at her watch. Eight o’clock, seven o’clock, she didn’t know what hour it was meant to be, but she knew Dodman would be up and on duty. She pulled her cabin door closed and went in search of him, finding him polishing the banisters of the grand staircase.
‘Dodman!’ Fen called and then waved to him.
Once up closer, she whispered her thoughts to him.
‘That’s very irregular, miss,’ he pulled his ear as he thought. ‘I could get into a lot of trouble if you’re wrong.’
‘And you could save a life if I’m right. If I’m wrong, I’ll take the rap, I promise. Please, Dodman, you’re one of the only people on this ship I think I can trust.’
The young steward blushed a deep pink at this and Fen knew, once again, that she was possibly wrong to use her womanly wiles on him like this. But she also knew, when she’d dashed out of her cabin only a few moments earlier, that it had been worth the delay of a second more to make sure her hair was just so and her lipstick applied.
‘I’m not sure that’s how the company policy works, miss, but as it’s for you…’ He saluted and hurried off.
Fen then turned to head back to her cabin.
‘What ho!’ James waved from the other side of the grand staircase. He walked around the galleried corridor and met her. ‘You’re up early this morning.’
‘Slept badly.’ Fen fidgeted. She wasn’t sure what she needed to do or how she should do it, but James might well be the chap to help. She explained her theory to him and watched as the dawn light seemed to reflect his expression.
‘I see,’ he said at the end.
‘I think we have to get Spencer out of the brig,’ Fen said matter-of-factly. ‘There’s something about his confession, the way it was written and how he looked when I saw him – it’s not right. And, James, if he’s sobered up now, he will be raging I bet, so take care.’
‘He won’t have any gripe with me, but it might be hard convincing the steward on watch that he should let him out.’ James rubbed his hand across his slightly stubbly chin.
‘If anyone can, you can. Go on, use that title of yours and give it some welly.’
‘How rude…’ James winked at her, but then squeezed her shoulder and headed off down the stairs to the lower decks.
Fen, happier now that safeguards were in place, decided that the only thing left to do was to confront the person she believed to be the murderer.
‘My grids though,’ she murmured as she quickly turned back towards her cabin. She didn’t want to start accusing someone, someone very important, without all her thoughts jotted down in front of her.
Walking swiftly down
