He addressed Sebastian by his surname, as was his custom, “Mr McKenzie, we never have a murder on a ship, you should know that. We have incidents, we have accidents; we never have killings. It’s a bit like an actor saying ‘Macbeth’; we don’t even think it.”
“What about a police investigation?” Sebastian asked.
“No police out here, sir; only police in five hundred miles are the ones in the Reunion Islands. On the high seas, the captain is the police. He says it is suicide, then suicide it surely is. He reports it to the police and to the company, and that’s the end of that. On to the next cruise.”
“Does this befall people often, Jock?”
“Aye, I have been on cruise ships some twenty-odd years now, transferred from an old cargo ship company. The first I ever witnessed was an eighteen-year-old, straight out of college he was. Whenever someone crosses the equator for the first time, we call it crossing the line; well, we threaten them with stuff, and mostly carry out the threats. Martha, the third engineer, whose real name was Marty, had scared him shitless. He had told the lad he was going to gang-fuck him with a couple of mates. The boy, believing this, hid in the freezer down at the rear of the galley; idiot didn’t know you couldn’t open it from the inside. Found him next day as solid as a leg of New Zealand lamb. Missing his mom, committed suicide, the captain said. Dropped him off at the nearest port, which was Aden, to be shipped home; never seen again. Lads reckon the locals turned him into dog food. Since then I have seen too many suicides and accidents to remember, but not one murder.” Jock took a breath.
“Not one murder, not one domestic squabble that leads to a fight and death?” Sebastian replied incredulously.
“You have to remember we have a fair amount of the walking dead that come on cruises. Generally old people, those who want the journey of a lifetime before the cancer, cirrhosis, or whatever ailment they suffer from gets them. We get the depressives, we get the drunks, we get the idiots; there're a thousand ways to die on the sea, and I’ve seen most of them,” Jock replied.
“Do you mean like once or twice a year?” Sebastian probed.
“No, I mean like once or twice a cruise. It’s just kept quiet so as not to disturb the guests. Disturb the guests and they don’t spend money, my old captain used to say.”
Sebastian’s modus operandi altered; the discussion had assisted in Sebastian’s evolution. In future, there was no need to go off the ship, no need to take risks and chances. The sea was a massive dumping ground, with little hope of the body’s discovery, and the captains and cruise line companies had a blind spot for murder.
Several years later, Jock was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, caused by his drinking. He took the coach to Callander in the Trossachs. On the outskirts of the town sat a medium-sized brewery. The brewery was fed water by the local stream, which cascaded down a small waterfall into the catchment area. The smell of hops was overwhelming from the large brass vessels. Jock had broken into the brewing area and the brewery manager, on investigating a blockage in the fermenter the following morning, found Jock dead, evidently drowned in the vat. The manager related to anyone who would listen that Jock had a smile on his face. Jock became immortal as the ghost of Callander Brewery, and the children of the area shivered when his name was mentioned.
The body of Jill Cooper was never found. She had thrown herself overboard in despair, mid-air she knew it was a mistake. The fall killed her instantly, like hitting a block of concrete. It had taken all of the thirty minutes before the sharks had ripped her limb from limb. The small remnants of body tissue after the shark fest fed the smaller fish and eels.
Chapter Eight
Cutler had one stop on the way into Tacoma International Airport in Seattle. The plane had a soft landing in Gander, Newfoundland, and would be on the ground for two hours. Gander airport had been a Canadian Air Force base that had many years previously allowed civilian aircraft to land to refuel. The highlight for most passengers was Gander’s famous ice cream. During short stopovers most passengers headed towards the small store within the steel-framed building that sold the treat.
Cutler did not register the frigid Newfoundland wind chill as he walked down the aircraft steps onto the aircraft staging area. Most of the long flight had been a blur since he had heard the news of his sister’s disappearance. Once inside the sparse building that passed for a terminal, he headed for a seat as far away from the humanity around him as possible.
A little girl approached him. She had blonde hair tied into two small ponytails sprouting from above each ear, her tiny frame in a floral printed dress displayed like a vase of summer flowers against the cold, hard interior.
“You look sad, mister,” she said innocently, in a tone that was sympathetic beyond her years.
“Macy, Macy, come away and leave that man alone!” boomed the voice of what Cutler assumed was the girl’s mother. He gave a little smile as the girl ran towards her mother with a quick backward glance.
Cutler could remember his sister in ponytails, wearing floral dresses that his mother would
