The Stone Wife

She didn’t fancy waiting where she was to explain the confusion. The top deck offered nowhere to hide except behind the funnel and the masts, so she made for the nearest companionway and down the stairs and then down another flight to the deck below. It was in darkness.

This would be where the steerage passengers had once been housed. She pressed her hands to the wall and edged sideways until she felt a door handle. One of the cabins? She would never know because it was locked.

Heart pounding, mouth dry, she groped her way further from the stairs, furious with herself for getting into this situation. Here she was, acting the fugitive, trapped in a dark corridor in the bowels of the ship. Stupid and demeaning. She should have stuck to her original plan and left immediately after meeting Nathan.

She still couldn’t decide what the real agenda was. There was clearly more to the relationship between this oddly matched couple than she had been led to believe. What was Lee’s game — to be discovered cowering somewhere and then dragged off the ship and bundled into the car, driven home and punished? Was she sexually aroused by Nathan’s anger? That strange gratified look when he’d blown his top and threatened to leave had had more than a hint of masochism about it. Or was she more assertive than she appeared and deliberately defying him?

A long interval passed and Ingeborg heard nothing. Looking at the situation coolly and sensibly, it’s unlikely they’ll come down here, she told herself. The vast ship was more than three men could search. They would be bound to give up before long. They might even have left already.

She allowed more minutes to go by. Then she retraced her way to the stairs and crept up them, alert at each step for the sound of anyone nearby.

It remained quiet.

At the top of the second flight she paused. Out on deck she would be conspicuous. There wasn’t much light, but the moon’s silver glow would make any movement obvious. If Nathan and his heavies were still about they’d surely expect her to head for the gangway. They could be waiting somewhere near. The smart way to avoid them was surely to come out on the starboard side. She might then outflank them, move a safe distance away and cross to the port side and discover if the car was still down there.

She held her breath and took the first heart-stopping steps out onto the stretch of deck where the filming had taken place. So far, so good. For a short distance she would have the great black funnel between herself and the gangway. After that only a series of skylights projected above deck level. Her movement was more like gliding than striding, a steady progress towards the aft end of the ship. Good thing she wasn’t wearing heels. The smallest sound would have been like drumming on the deck. She was prepared any second to be caught by the flashlight beam. You can’t escape the speed of light.

But her eyes were getting used to the conditions and her confidence was growing with each step. She kept as close as possible to the side at this stage and must have gone thirty yards when she spotted something lashed to one of the posts supporting the rail.

A rope ladder hanging over the side of the ship.

She leaned over the rail, but it was impossible to see how far down the ladder went.

Now she could make an informed guess as to what Lee Li had done. She’d made an escape bid. She wasn’t staying to face Nathan’s wrath. The stupid thug had been lulled into thinking the gangway was the only possible means of quitting the ship. Stupid — or merely guilty of failing to think outside the box? Ingeborg herself had fallen for it.

Maybe, after all, it was understandable.

She peered over the side again. The sturdy ladder of thick, coarse rope with wooden rungs looked reasonably new. Even so, using it for a descent must have called for strong nerve and agility. The curve of the enormous iron hull meant that she would have been dangling free of the side, further away with each step down. And she couldn’t possibly have seen what was below.

From the other end, near the gangway, came voices. Ingeborg froze. Then, as her heart beat faster, she felt a rush of blood from her head to the pit of her belly. Turning, she saw the flashlight beam being played over the funnel. Nathan and his heavies hadn’t given up. Worse, they were coming in her direction. It only needed a speculative sweep of the flashlight and she’d be caught in its glare.

If she wanted to avoid being caught, she had no option.

She grasped the rail, got her legs over and her feet on a rung of the rope ladder and started descending. Briefly she toyed with the idea of clinging on shortly below the rail where she would be screened from the light. But she guessed they’d soon spot the ladder and point the beam over the side. The only practical option was to keep going, rung by rung, right down.

It wasn’t easy. The ladder was swaying dangerously, and the movement increased the further she went. She didn’t know what she was lowering herself into. They called this a dry dock, so presumably she’d be going right down to where the hull was stabilised in a system of buttressing.