Read The Woman in Cabin 10 for Free Online Page B

isolated, and unreal—and of myself, shrinking down to match it with every step I took towards the boat. It was a strange feeling, as if I were looking down the wrong end of a telescope, and it gave me a dizzying sensation almost like vertigo.
    The gangway shifted beneath my feet, the oily, inky waters of the harbor swirling and sucking beneath, and I had a momentary illusion that I was falling, the steel beneath my feet giving way. I shut my eyes and gripped the cold metal rail.
    Then I heard a woman’s voice from up ahead.
    “It’s a wonderful smell, isn’t it!”
    I blinked. A stewardess was standing in the entrance to the ship. She was bright, almost white blond, with tanned walnut-brown skin, and beaming as if I were her rich, long-lost relative from Australia. I took a breath, trying to steady myself, and then made my way across the rest of the gangway and onto the Aurora Borealis .
    “Welcome, Miss Blacklock,” the stewardess said as I entered. Her accent was slightly clipped in a way I couldn’t place, and her words somehow managed to convey the impression that encountering me was a life experience on a par winning the lottery. “I am so very pleased to welcome you on board. Can one of our porters take your case?”
    I looked around me, trying to work out how she knew who I was. My bag was gone before I could protest.
    “Can I offer you a glass of champagne?”
    “Um,” I said, distinguishing myself with witty repartee. The stewardess took that for yes and I found myself accepting the dewy flute she put into my hand. “Uh, thanks.”
    The interior of the Aurora was gobsmacking. The boat might be small, but they had crammed in enough bling for a vessel ten times the size. The gangway doors opened up onto the landing of a long, curving staircase and literally every surface that could be French polished, encased in marble, or draped with raw silk had been so. The whole flight was illuminated by an eye-watering chandelier, suffusing the place with tiny splashes of light that reminded me of nothing so much as the sun glinting off the sea on a summer’s day. It was slightly nauseating—not in a social-conscience sort of way, although if you thought about it too hard, that too. But more the disorientation—the way the crystals acted like a prism on every drop of light, dazzling you, throwing you off-balance with a sensation like peering into a child’s kaleidoscope. The effect, combined with lack of sleep, was not completely pleasant.
    The stewardess must have seen me gawping, because she gave a proud smile.
    “The Great Stairway is really something, isn’t it?” she said. “That one chandelier has more than two thousand Swarovski crystals.”
    “Gosh,” I said faintly. My head throbbed and I tried to remember if I’d packed the ibuprofen. It was hard not to blink.
    “We are very proud of the Aurora ,” the stewardess continued warmly. “My name is Camilla Lidman and I am in charge of hospitality on the vessel. My office is on the lower deck, and if there is anything I can do to make your stay with us more enjoyable please do not hesitate to ask. My colleague Josef”—she indicated a smiling blond man to her right—“will show you to your cabin and give you a tour of the facilities. Dinner is at eight, but we would invite you to join us at seven p.m. in the Lindgren Lounge for a presentation on the boat’s facilities and the wonders you can expect to enjoy on this cruise of the famous Norwegian fjords and the Swedish archipelago islands. Ah! Mr. Lederer.”
    A tall dark man in his forties was coming up the gangway behind us, followed by a porter struggling with a huge suitcase.
    “Please be careful,” he said, wincing visibly as the porter bumped the trolley over a joint in the gangway. “That case has some very delicate equipment in it.”
    “Mr. Lederer,” Camilla Lidman said, with the exact same amount of near-delirious enthusiasm she had injected into her welcome to me. I had to hand