“Well . . .” I said, and then stopped, unsure what to do. I really didn’t want to speak in front of the others. The “someone gets there before you” part certainly wasn’t reassuring.
“Have a glass of something,” Bullmer said. He pressed a button on the rim of the Jacuzzi and a girl appeared silently out of nowhere. It was Ulla.
“Yes, sir?” she said politely.
“Champagne, for Miss Blacklock.”
“Certainly, sir.” She melted away.
I took a deep breath. There was no alternative. No one could divert the boat except Bullmer, and if I didn’t do this now, I might never get the chance. Better to speak up, even with an audience, than risk . . . I pushed that thought away.
I opened my mouth. Stop digging hissed the voice inside my head, but I forced myself to speak.
“Lord Bullmer—”
“Richard.”
“Richard, I don’t know if you’ve spoken to your head of security, Johann Nilsson. Have you seen him today?”
“Nilsson? No.” Richard Bullmer frowned. “He reports to the captain, not to me. Why do you ask?”
“Well . . .” I began. But I was interrupted by Ulla appearing at my elbow with a tray, on which was a champagne glass and a bottle in a holder full of ice.
“Um, thanks,” I said uncertainly. I wasn’t sure I wanted to drink right now—not after Nilsson’s biting comments earlier, and on top of the hangover from last night—and it seemed an incongruous accompaniment to what I was about to say. But I felt again the impossibility of my position—I was Bullmer’s guest, and Velocity’s representative, and I was supposed to be impressing all these people with my professionalism and dazzling them with my charm, and instead I was about to hurl the very worst of all possible accusations at his staff and guests. The least I could do was to accept his champagne with good grace.
I took the glass, sipping tentatively at it as I tried to get my thoughts in order. It was sour and made me shiver, and I almost pulled a face before realizing how rude that would appear to Bullmer.
“I— This is difficult.”
“Nilsson,” Bullmer prompted. “You were asking if I’d spoken to him.”
“Yes. Well, last night I had to phone him. I . . . I heard noises, coming from the cabin next to mine. Number ten,” I said, and then stopped.
Richard was listening, but so were the other three, rather avidly in Lars’s case. Well, since I didn’t have a choice, maybe I could turn that to my advantage. I cast a quick look round the circle of faces, trying to gauge their reactions, check for any trace of guilt or anxiety. Out of the three, Lars’s moist red lips were curled in a disbelieving skepticism, and Chloe’s green eyes were wide with frank curiosity. Only Cole was looking worried.
“Palmgren, yes,” Bullmer said. He was frowning, puzzled as to where this was leading. “I thought that one was empty. Solberg canceled, didn’t he?”
“I went to the veranda,” I said, gaining momentum. I glanced around the listeners again. “And when I looked out there was no one there, but there was blood on the glass safety barrier.”
“Good Lord,” Lars said. He was openly grinning now, not even trying to hide his disbelief. “It’s like something out of a novel.” Was he deliberately trying to undermine my account, throw me off-balance? Or was this just his normal manner? I couldn’t tell. “Go on,” he said, with something close to sarcasm. “I’m on tenterhooks to find how this turns out.”
“Your security guard let me in,” I said, my voice harder now, and speaking fast. “But the cabin was empty. And the blood on the glass had been—”
There was a chink and a splash, and I stopped.
We all turned and looked at Cole, who was holding something over the side of the Jacuzzi. His hand was dripping blood, running down his fingers onto the pale wooden decking.
“I’m okay, I think,” he said unsteadily. “I’m sorry, Richard, I don’t know how, but I knocked my champagne over and I broke it, trying to save the glass. I don’t think there’s any glass in the water.”
He held out a palmful of bloodstained shards, and Chloe gulped and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Ugh!” Her face was greenish white. “Oh God, Lars . . .”
Richard put down his glass, heaved himself out of the Jacuzzi, his near-naked body steaming in the cold air, and grabbed a white robe from a pile left on the bench. For a moment he said nothing, just looked dispassionately at Cole’s hand, streaming blood onto the deck, and glanced at Chloe, who appeared close to fainting. Then he issued a series of orders like a surgeon barking out commands in an operating theater.
“Cole, for God’s sake put down that pile of glass. I’ll ring for Ulla to get you cleaned up. Lars, take Chloe off to lie down, she’s gone white as chalk. Give her a Valium if that’s what it takes. Eva has access to the medical supplies. And Miss Blacklock . . .” He turned to me and then paused, seeming to weigh his words very carefully as he belted the robe around himself. “Miss Blacklock, please take a seat in the restaurant, and when I’ve sorted this mess out, we’ll run through what you actually saw and heard.”