Getting Away With Murder
She was getting such good ideas for her next killing…
Sylvia stood at the rail as the ship eased away from the dock, and worried that she might have made a terrible mistake.
What if she got seasick? Or her nerves got the better of her, and there was no way of jumping ship?
Should she even have come at all? Leaving George at home, laid out on the floor like that, with all those pills beside him?
As she wandered the decks, she couldn’t help but notice how many couples there were. They were all laughing, taking photos, pulling sunbeds closer together so they could hold hands, before retiring to their big posh cabins.
Her own was comfortable enough, but undeniably small.
It wasn’t that she minded being alone. She was used to it.
While George pottered at the allotment, bringing home handfuls of tiny potatoes or clumps of droopy rhubarb, she would often visit a café or sit in the front garden, surreptitiously watching the world go by, listening to the voices clamouring in her head, and planning who to murder next.
“Good afternoon.” An elderly man, sitting in the corner of the lounge, smiled at her as she took her gin and tonic from the bar.
She nodded politely.
“You look familiar. Do I know you?” he asked.
She peered at him over her glasses.
“I don’t think so, no.”
Was he trying to chat her up? It was a rather corny line if he was, and she was not looking for a shipboard romance.
Although he did look quite an interesting character, in his jaunty yellow blazer and red paisley cravat.
Sylvia knew she looked dowdy in her plain beige sundress and sandals.
But fading into the shadows without drawing attention to herself came in very handy at times.
She turned her back to him to prevent any further intrusion and sat a distance away, gazing at the sparkling waters rolling gently by outside the window.
Or was it a porthole? She really should learn the correct terminology. She liked to get things right.
The devil’s in the detail, as they say.
The young man who’d served her drink, for instance. A barman, or a steward?
As she watched him, in his spotless white jacket, preparing a cocktail, she couldn’t stop herself imagining how he might look if that little ice pick he was holding were to find itself embedded in his neck, the white jacket splattered with blood. What fun!
She missed having George with her at dinner.
Everything felt strange and empty without him, but there was nothing to be done about that now. He would definitely not be joining her.
Still, looking on the bright side, there should be a pay-out from the insurance company, all being well.
The couple she sat beside as she ate were too wrapped up in each other to make conversation. Honeymooners, probably, but she didn’t like to ask.
In her head, she gave them names. Hermione and Gerald. What they were really called she didn’t know, although she did hear them say they were staying in Cabin 532.
Useful little snippets like that always seemed to stick in her mind.
What if something were to happen? Hermione falling over the side, Gerald the only suspect, a stranger walking away, unseen, undetected? How exciting that would be!
Those were the thoughts running through her head the next morning as she put on a smart dress she hardly recognised herself in and made her way slowly down the corridor… Or should that be gangway? Gangplank?
No, not that, although as the usual feeling of dread rose up inside her, it might as well have been.
She was a surprisingly shy and private woman, and this was never easy.
If it wasn’t for the fact that it paid so well…
She stopped at the door, took a breath and peered into the darkened room. At least she couldn’t see their faces.
If only poor George hadn’t hurt his back digging just three days before they were due to sail, he would have been here now, steadying her hand. Instead he was dosed up with painkillers and lying flat on a hard surface, hoping for some relief.
She wondered how he was getting on with the travel insurance claim.
“And for this morning’s lecture, we are very pleased to have with us the author of twelve bestselling crime novels. Please welcome to the stage, Sylvia Dunne…”
Sylvia gripped her latest book, her own photo smiling up at her from the back cover, and stepped into the spotlight, applause ringing in her ears.
Cravat man was in the front row, a look on his face that seemed to say, See, I knew I recognised you. And then her talk Murder, and how to get away with it began.
She’d ring George later and tell him all about it – along with her ideas for novel number thirteen, a gripping murder mystery set on a luxury liner…
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