Day Four (25 page)

‘I know. I can’t explain it.’

‘Where’s Bin?’

‘Sent him for a couple of hours’ rest. He was on duty all night, poor soul. You know what he’s like, you have to drag him away from his post.’ She pulled at her lip again. ‘And that’s not all, Jesse.’

A sinking feeling in his gut. ‘Go on.’

‘Alfonso is also AWOL.’

‘Seriously? Where the hell has he gone?’

‘I don’t know. I checked his cabin and went down to the generator and control rooms, but no one’s seen him.’

‘So we’ve lost two patients now?’

‘Looks that way. Sorry, Jesse.’

‘It’s not your fault. How in the fuck do they expect us to deal with all of this?’ They weren’t set up for it. Strictly speaking there should be two doctors on board, but Martha said that the shorter cruises tended to ignore this stipulation.

‘You look desperate, Jesse. Are you sure you’re not getting ill?’

He shook his head. He was tired, that was all. Sure, he felt sick to his stomach, but he’d been living on Coke Lite and Pringles for the last three days. And he should be grateful that the whole ship wasn’t overrun with the virus. It tended to spread fast, and considering the conditions it was a miracle they weren’t all down with it. He’d used a red bag, furtively in his cabin last night. Not wanting to leave it for Paulo to clean up, he’d carried it down to the incinerator room. Why he should be so embarrassed about something like that, he had no clue.
You’re a doctor.
‘I’m worried about the elderly patient. Elise Mayberry,’ he said. ‘Her pulse is erratic. Does she have a history of heart disease?’

‘Not that I know of.’

He should have asked her friend, the woman he’d cruelly dubbed Aunt Spiker, but the patient he’d seen just before Elise – a middle-aged man on the same floor – had been abusive and abrasive, which had rattled him more than he liked to admit.

‘You wanting to get her down here now?’ Martha asked.

‘Maybe. There are three other cases on that deck alone. How many crew have it?’

‘Seven in total. Maybe more. Problem is that most of them don’t want to stay in their cabins.’

‘It’ll spread like wildfire if they don’t.’

They were interrupted by a message from Damien, informing them that Celine del Ray would be holding yet another performance (or whatever the hell it was that she did) in the Dare to Dream Theatre.

Madness. Encouraging people to clump together in large gatherings while noro raged through the ship was unbelievably short-sighted. He sighed. ‘That’s it. I’m going to insist we go to red alert. You heard anything else about when we might expect the cavalry to fucking arrive?’

‘No, Jesse. Still no Wi-Fi. They sent out a tender boat this morning, but that’s all I know.’ Jesse couldn’t understand why anyone would think that sending out a tender boat was a good sign. The whole thing made no sense. At the very least, Foveros should have sent one of
The Beautiful Dreamer
’s sister ships to check up on them. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he breathed.

‘We could use him now all right.’

‘Fuck this. I’m going to see the captain. I’m not taking no for an answer.’

‘What do you need me to do?’

‘You’d better stay here. I’ll be back now-now.’

‘Good luck.’

Jesse sprayed his shirt with a liberal dousing of deodorant – shower in a can, the best he could do for now – and got moving. He momentarily lost his way – he wasn’t thinking about where he was going – and had to double back, cutting past the crew bar. It was full, he could smell the beer and hear the rowdy voices. Another one-way ticket to spreading infection all over the ship. The bar would have to be shut. The food stations would need to be disinfected from top to bottom, and anyone showing symptoms would need to be isolated. Jesse had heard about what a nightmare the extra duties were for the crew and staff, but fact was, they didn’t have a choice.

Ram was standing outside the door that led to the bridge, his implacable mask in place. ‘Can I help you, doctor?’

‘I need to see the captain immediately.’ There was only a slight wobble in his voice. Good.

Nothing showed on Ram’s face. ‘He is in a meeting.’

‘It’s an emergency.’

Ram stared at him for several seconds, then gave a minuscule nod. ‘Wait here.’

‘Okay, but I—’

Ram was already gone, slamming the heavy bridge door in Jesse’s face before he could slip through it. Jesse wiped his sweating palms on his trousers.

A few minutes later, the door clunked open again, and Ram waved him inside. Jesse had only been on the bridge a couple of times since he’d joined the ship. A huge area sided with floor-to-ceiling windows, the air felt fresher in here, although Jesse was certain it was only his imagination. The captain – a tubby man in his late sixties with flamboyant white hair – was standing, his back to Jesse, over by the navigation console, gesticulating at a group of men in officer’s whites. Jesse recognised the hothead – the hotel director – a sniffy Greek who looked as if he was incapable of smiling, one of the IT guys (who was sporting a spectacular black eye and a cut on his right cheek that looked like it was festering), and Damien. A bolshy little man, Damien always entered the crew bar as if he expected everyone to cheer. Jesse hadn’t had much to do with him out of choice, and Martha described him as ‘a total gobshite’.

The rest of the bridge officers, including Baci, Alfonso’s visitor, who gave him a nod of recognition, were gathered discreetly over by the window. Jesse took a second to drink in the view. Nothing but wide, endless ocean. No ships. No oil rigs. Not even the wispy tail of a passing plane in the sky.

Finally, the captain acknowledged him. ‘How is Alfonso,
dottore
? Can he work now?’

Wrong-footed, Jesse blinked. ‘He left the treatment room this morning.’

The captain barked something in Italian at Baci, who shook his head.

The captain stared accusingly at Jesse. ‘He is not in the control room.’

Jesse breathed in. He couldn’t allow himself to be railroaded. Alfonso wasn’t why he was here. ‘I have been asking to see you since day one of this mess, captain. You must be aware of the situation. There are more cases of the virus daily.’

‘How many?’ This from the hothead.

‘As many as twenty, maybe more.’ Damien sucked his teeth. Jesse let a second pass before he spoke again: ‘I need you to put the ship on red alert.’

‘No. That is not possible,’ the captain said.

‘Sir, respectfully, if you don’t, we’re going to be looking at a major—’

‘The staff are stretched to the limit,’ the hothead said. ‘We cannot give them extra duties.’

‘So you want the whole of the ship to get infected? How will that look when we get back to port?’

‘Do not raise your voice to the captain,’ Damien dived in.

Jesse was aware that Ram was watching him carefully. Fuck. He hadn’t expected this reaction. ‘I am not raising my voice, I am saying that we need to—’

The hothead spoke over him again. ‘Morale is very bad. If we give my staff extra duties and restrict them to their cabins, they—’

It was Jesse’s turn to interject. ‘Just how long are you expecting this situation to continue?’

The captain sniffed. ‘Not long.’

‘A day? Two days? A week? What? Does anyone even know we’re stranded out here?’

‘The situation is under control,
dottore
.’

Bullshit
. The Coke Jesse had been living on was turning to acid in his gut. ‘Are we lost? Is that it?’

The captain’s eyes hardened. ‘We are not lost.’

‘So why hasn’t anyone come to see where the hell we are?’ There must be some way they could track the ship even if the power and communication systems failed.
The Beautiful Dreamer
wasn’t a state-of-the-art vessel in anyone’s book, but it must be equipped with transponders and beacons.

‘There is bad weather in the home port. They will come soon.’

‘So you’ve been in contact with Ground Support?’

‘It will not be long before help will be here.’

Jesus. Jesse swallowed a lump in his throat. He couldn’t tell if the captain was spinning him a line or not. ‘Look, all I am asking is that the passengers be informed about the virus and encouraged to dispose of the hazardous-waste bags in a hygienic manner, and food preparations be monitored and restricted. And anyone showing early signs of the virus should be confined to their cabins. That’s vital.’

‘Where do you suggest we put them, doctor?’ the hothead sniped. ‘The lower cabins are uninhabitable.’

The IT guy snorted. ‘Yeah, and most of the crew are seeing ghosts all over the goddamned ship.’

Ram shot the man a warning glance.

‘Many of the crew are superstitious. It is to be expected,’ the captain said. ‘There is no basis for this . . . unusual phenomenon.’

Like dead girls banging on the inside of the morgue? Or maybe stroke patients who can read minds.

‘Can we at least ask passengers not to congregate in large groups?’ Jesse turned to Damien. ‘The performance in the theatre should be cancelled immediately.’

Damien shook his head. ‘No no no. It’s keeping people busy and occupied. We can’t disrupt that.’

‘They’ll be busy enough when they’re puking their guts up.’

Damien shook his head again. A goat. A little goat.
Ja
, that was what Damien reminded him of. Cloven hooves and bulging wicked eyes. ‘Absolutely out of the question. We can’t cancel any of Celine del Ray’s shows. Or our other events. The passengers depend on them.’

The captain held up his hand. ‘Enough.
Dottore
, of course we are appreciating your concern. We will tell the kitchen staff to be vigilant. We will increase the chlorine levels in the, ah, fluid for cleaning. We will put out additional hand sanitisers.’

Jesse’s face was growing hot, and a trickle of sweat tickled the back of his ear. ‘Captain, I must insist that—’

‘That is all we can do for now. Thank you for your time.’

The captain turned away from him, and Jesse was left staring at his back. Ram took a step towards him, and not sure what else to do, he left the bridge, the door clanging behind him.

He’d barely made it to the entrance to the I-95, when there was a beep and Damien’s voice oozed through the speakers:

‘G’day, ladies and gentlemen, Damien your cruise director here. Just to let you know that we’re continuing to endeavour that you’re as safe and as comfortable as possible at the present time, and we really value your patience. A little reminder to please use the hand sanitisers that are placed at the entrance of all of the common areas whenever possible. And don’t forget that Celine del Ray will be appearing in the Dare to Dream Theatre in five minutes. That’s five minutes, folks.’

Bastard.
It was almost as if the fucker wanted people to get sick.

It wasn’t good enough. If they weren’t going to do anything, he would. At the very least he could have a word with Celine del Ray or whoever was in charge of the event, and try and make them see sense. Neither the captain nor Damien the Goat could stop him doing that.

Without stopping to fill Martha in on the meeting with the captain, he flew along the I-95 and up the stairs to the atrium, increasing his pace every time a passenger appeared and putting on his ‘medical emergency’ face. The lower doors to the theatre were locked, so he headed up to the next floor. Only one side door was open, several seniors milling about in front of it. Two women and a man dressed in a fantastic tweed suit and violet tie gave him a friendly greeting.

‘Hello, doctor,’ the dapper fellow grinned. ‘Are you coming for the show?’

‘No.’ Jesse explained his concerns about the virus spreading through the theatre.

‘Oh, you don’t need to worry about us, doctor,’ the man said. ‘None of Celine’s group are sick. We’re being very careful. The bathrooms we’re using are scrubbed twice a day with chlorine solution and we all use the hand sanitisers.’

‘We know what to do,’ a Hispanic woman in her fifties broke in. ‘I’ve been on a cruise before that was hit by a virus, doctor. We even have extra waste bins for the bags.’

He’d had patients like this woman. Know-it-alls. Convinced they knew his job better than he did.

‘That’s all wonderful, but I’d really like to speak with Mrs del Ray.’

‘She’s communing with Spirit right now.’

‘I’ll just go in and see, shall I?’ Jesse smiled and shoved past her.

It took a second to acclimatise to the theatre’s shadowy depths. The atmosphere was so heavy and sombre, it was like walking into a cathedral. He made his way slowly down the aisle. The place was almost full, passengers and several low-level members of staff filling the booths and chairs, whispering amongst themselves and staring expectantly at the stage. He could only imagine how fast the virus could incubate in here. Someone familiar caught his eye, and he paused. Alfonso was sitting slumped in a seat halfway along a row. The elderly woman next to him was clutching his wrist and whispering into his ear, but he stared straight ahead and made no response. Jesse thought about approaching him, but that wasn’t why he was here. He’d inform Baci where to find his missing father figure after he’d spoken to the del Ray woman. Alfonso wasn’t a prisoner: he couldn’t make him go back to work and fix the bloody ship, could he? Several people sitting on the edges of the rows gave him welcoming smiles, and Paulo, his steward, who was standing next to a crate of water bottles and a box of bananas, gave him a wave.