Death On A Cruise: Neil McKenzie Mysteries, #5

By Chris Grayling

When Rocky and Gere land a contract to assess the security on the Queen Charlotte it means they will be away from CISC for several weeks. In order not to be left on his own in Tunbridge Wells at the arse end of winter, Neil decides to go on the cruise from San Francisco to Auckland as a paying guest. However, any hopes that he had of enjoying a relaxing couple of weeks voyaging across the Pacific are soon dashed. First of all the equilibrium of his private life is disturbed and then there is a shooting on board. Who said nothing ever happens on a cruise?

• Language: English
• Publisher: APS Books
• Release date: Feb 9, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224244621

Book preview

1

San Francisco

We touched down at San Francisco International Airport at about four in the afternoon. It had been a long flight, admittedly softened by the comfort of business class, but after negotiating passport control and customs the excitement of landing at a new destination was winning out over the urge to lie down somewhere in a darkened room. Following the signs, we made our way outside to find a taxi. The blue skies and warmer air that were waiting for us didn’t come as much of a surprise – like all Brits we expect foreign weather to be better than our own. Especially in February.

Unusually, I wasn't in California to see Rachel nor had I arrived on her private jet. This was work, at least for the two friends I was with. Gere had somehow managed to wangle a gig as a security consultant for a well-known cruise line and Rocky was the other half of his ‘team’. I was just along for the ride, or whatever the correct nautical expression is.

In case you don’t know who we are I’d better come clean now. I’m an ex-teacher who somehow managed to marry the world famous movie star Rachel Wallis. I suppose that it just goes to show that real life can occasionally be stranger than fiction. My business partners are Gere and Rocky, who founded Calverley Investigations and Security Consultants with me about five years ago. CISC has its offices in Tunbridge Wells on, believe it or not, Calverley Road. Rocky and Gere are nicknames, the origins of which are lost in the mists of time. They’re single, thirty-something bachelors with whom I bicker interminably. Rocky is stocky and cheerful and makes me laugh. Gere is tall, prematurely grey and easy to wind up. The pair of them have a chequered history with women – Gere collects (and loses) girlfriends like most men do stamps on coffee chain loyalty cards while, where the opposite sex are concerned, Rocky has an unfortunate ability of always choosing a wrong ‘un.

I’d decided that I wanted to escape the English winter. A cruise across the Pacific had seemed like a more attractive proposition than spending three weeks on my own in Tunbridge Wells. It wasn’t Gere’s fault that the job was a two-hander and he needed Rocky’s technical knowledge rather than my own limited skill-set. And, to give them their due, when I suggested that I come along as a paying passenger, they’d both had the good grace to agree, almost enthusiastically.

‘You, or at least Rachel can afford it,’ Rocky had pointed out. ‘And Tunbridge Wells will survive with CISC being closed for a few weeks. Julie can field any enquires and keep us in the loop.’

‘Yeah, she’ll be glad of the peace and quiet,’ drawled Gere.

Julie was our latest receptionist slash office manager slash long-suffering employee. She was early forties and only worked to get out of the house. Apart from organising the three of us she was writing a book when there was nothing else to do. She was brutally efficient so none of us had any problem with her using her free time creatively. CISC was doing well and it was as much down to her to as any of us.

‘How far are we from the hotel?’ Rocky said out loud as we approached a waiting line of taxis. We were all towing suitcases of varying sizes behind us. Mine was the largest because I hadn’t had any idea how much gear I’d need for a three week holiday where one is required to dress for dinner. I’d erred on the side of caution although my friends’ bags were almost as big.  Rocky’s had history: when he’d come out of their flat, heaving his old familiar black suitcase down the steps I’d glanced at Gere knowingly. One of its wheels squeaked and it was like being accompanied by an asthmatic mouse. It had been with us on trips to Barcelona and Alicante to name but two embarrassing episodes.

‘About fifteen minutes,’ said Gere. ‘Don’t worry though mate, we’ll soon have you and your squeaky hip on a comfy back seat.’

‘My hip - very funny. Leave my bag alone will you? It’s done sterling service over the years. I’ll have you know that I’ve had it since my honeymoon.’

‘Well in that respect it’s done better than you,’ I said. ‘The wheels came off your marriage years ago.’

‘Bugger off Slick,’ grinned Rocky. ‘Come on – yes mate, can you take all three of us? The Hilton.’

He’d turned away from me and was addressing a taxi driver of what looked like Indian extraction – from the sub-continent rather than a Clint Eastwood film. The driver nodded and gave Rocky a broad smile, showing us a perfect set of white teeth. He was already standing by his car, a medium-sized, gold coloured Prius and he strode around to the back and opened the hatchback for our cases. Five minutes later and we were speeding along a busy freeway towards the city. Gere was in the front seat while Rocky and I were in the back staring out at our new surroundings.

Since marrying Rachel, I’d spent a lot of time in the States but had never actually made it to San Francisco. I liked California – the weather in L.A. where Rachel lived was uniformly pleasant and the people there as laid back as their reputation. It wasn’t public knowledge that we’d tied the knot three years ago at the Registry Office in Tunbridge Wells – only her PA, my two daughters, another Rachel, and Alex, plus Gere and Rocky knew – and in retrospect that had seemed to work. It saved embarrassing questions and I quite liked the paparazzi mistaking me for a bodyguard.

On first glance San Francisco looked to me to like an upmarket Liverpool with better weather. LA had always struck me as a little pretentious and soulless, and inwardly I felt myself warming to this new destination. Of course I was jumping to conclusions – SF was probably no different, but I was in the positive mindset that the prospect of three weeks doing little except please myself instils in a man. Even so, my making conversation skills remained trapped in a British stereotype.

‘I didn’t think it would be so warm at this time of the year,’ I said loudly to the driver.

‘You’re lucky,’ he said, looking at me in his rear view mirror. ‘It is usually a lot colder but we’re having good weather right now.’

It was strange hearing an American accent coming out of an Asian’s mouth, but no more I supposed than Amdad from our badminton club talking broad cockney. How we speak is always a better indicator of our origins than, say, skin colour.

‘Splendid.’ Rocky announced cheerfully from beside me. ‘Just what the doctor ordered. Everybody back home is going to be gutted.’

‘Yeah,’ chuckled Gere, half turning to grin at the pair of us. ‘Knowing they’re all freezing their bollocks off back in Kent is a definite bonus.’

‘What a nice couple you two are,’ I sighed. ‘I wouldn’t speak too soon though – maybe the ship will hit a typhoon or something and we’ll all drown or get eaten by sharks.’

‘Yeah,’ Gere agreed, a wicked glint appearing in his eye. ‘Chunks here will basically just be a floating buffet in the eyes of any marine life that he comes across.’

‘Very funny,’ Rocky grinned. ‘Anyway, how about we check out the night life later? A pleasant meal, a few beers - .’

‘And an early night? I’m fucked,’ said Gere. ‘That was a long flight – I managed to watch four movies while you were snoring like a beached whale.’

‘I’m with Gere,’ I cut in hastily. ‘We’ve got two days here so there’ll be plenty of time to experience a night on the town.’

‘That’s average, you two,’ complained our friend. ‘That’ll teach me for going away with my dad and grandad.’

I laughed. ‘I’m not even forty-two yet mate. I know that biologically you’ve got six or seven years on me but look at the state of you?!’

‘Less of the six or seven years,’ grinned back Rocky. ‘I was only thirty-three last November. You and Penelope are well into your dotages while I’m still in my prime.’

Gere rolled his eyes and turned back towards the front. We lapsed into silence and I returned to watching the buildings go by as the taxi entered the city centre.

We'd decided to spend a couple of days in San Francisco before boarding our ship which was going cruising across to New Zealand. It had seemed like a good idea to take in famous sights like Alcatraz and the streets from that Steve McQueen film before we set sail. Although we already spent a lot of time together –  working at CISC as well as being in the same badminton team - most of the time we still got on well and enjoyed each other’s company.

We usually made it away on a foreign jaunt at least once a year anyway.  Normally those trips were football related - watching that is, not playing. In 2010, for example, we watched Spain win the World Cup. God knows where the tournament was, but we saw all of the games in various bars on the Costa del Sol. 

Rocky and Gere were single. The former had had one failed marriage to his name which was completely his own fault. There’d been other women too, but his unerring ability to back losers meant he’d always ended up, sooner or later, back with Gere in his flat in Broadwater, a posh part of Tunbridge Wells. On the other hand, Gere himself had an infallible ability to pick good women. Unfortunately, they all eventually discovered that he wasn’t the marrying or trustworthy sort so he’d never even come close to tying the knot.

I was a combination of the two of them. My first wife was blameless and mother to my two daughters. I’d messed up the marriage and had a few years running from responsibility with some other women until they found me out as well. Then Rachel had come along – world famous and adorable. There seemed no point in looking around anymore after I met her. We got married secretly and we fitted in being together around her filming schedules.

Actually, I wasn’t joining the Queen Charlotte until the day after Gere and Rocky. Their contract stipulated that they go on board the day it docked so that they had time to meet the security team and prepare to observe the guests’ boarding procedures.

‘You’d better not give the game away to the crew on the ship,’ I’d advised when we were sitting waiting for our flight at Heathrow.

‘Whadder-ya-mean?’ Rocky said, looking confused.

‘That you know sod all about security on a liner? For you, combination locks are cutting edge technology, so God knows what you’ll say when they ask you about face recognition software.’

Rocky laughed. ‘Face recognition what – only kidding mate. We’ll be fine. They sent us all the protocols and a rundown of the software they use a couple of weeks ago. Me and Glenda have been going through it at the flat when we’re not out carrying the rest of the Men’s A.’

Gere was sitting on the other side of him, long legs stretched out, engrossed in a laptop screen.

‘He’s working on it now,’ Rocky nodded at me. ‘He doesn’t want to make a pig’s ear of it after he convinced that woman on his Copenhagen jaunt he was an expert in maritime security.’

‘He kept that quiet,’ I grinned. ‘I thought he was taking that blonde on a dirty weekend.’

‘Nah, she backed out at the last minute. He still went though and met this other one on the plane over.’

‘Bloody hell – you mean he found some female company even before he landed and also blagged a job out of it?’

‘That’s right. She was high up in this Fiesta Lines apparently and pulled a few strings and got us the gig. She’s meeting him after the cruise so it won’t harm his chances of getting his leg over again if we don’t mess this up.’

‘Whose leg?’ Gere cut in, looking up from his laptop.

‘Trust you to join in when sex is mentioned,’ chuckled Rocky. ‘I was just telling Slick about how you wangled us this job.’

‘Oh that?’ Gere grinned. ‘Yeah, I hope I haven’t got us in too deep.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ I said reassuringly. ‘How hard can it be?’

Rocky rolled his eyes. ‘Exactly,’ he said.

2

The weather stayed pleasantly warm for the next couple of days. We’d booked a ferry and a visit to Alcatraz for the day after our arrival. We sauntered around the island in the sunshine with the other tourists making jokes and taking in the history of the place. We got back to the city by mid-afternoon and found a diner where we had a late lunch followed by a wander around some of the city’s department stores.

‘This is the life,’ grinned Rocky as we made our way back to the hotel. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been on holiday in February.’

‘Me too,’ I agreed. ‘Let’s hope none of us find out we’re susceptible to sea sickness in a few days. That would take the shine off the whole experience.’

‘I never thought of that,’ admitted my friend. ‘I bet it’ll be just my luck to have a dicky stomach.’

‘Be positive,’ grinned Gere. ‘At least it’ll be a chance to get rid of three stone of unwanted fat.’

‘At the very least,’ I agreed. ‘I read somewhere that on average a person puts on about half a stone during a cruise. If you do that we’ll have to get a stair lift installed at CISC.’

‘Very unfunny,’ moaned the target of my leg-pulling. ‘Anyway,’ he said, regaining his composure. ‘I bet I’ll be fine.’

We had dinner in the hotel that evening and spent the rest of the evening in the bar drinking. It might have been a night out in Tunbridge Wells except Rocky couldn’t get a Fosters.

The next morning we did a bit of a mini-tour on hired bikes. Rocky and Gere were good tourists and liked exploring. We cycled around with Google maps to guide us, even getting as far as the Golden Gate Bridge to have a butcher’s and take a few photos. At lunchtime I spoke briefly to Rachel on the phone to let her know I’d survived the flight. She was in Sydney and in a rush because she was due on set when I called. I’m not a great phone conversationalist at the best of times and she sounded tired and distracted. I said I’d leave my next call to when I was somewhere on the Pacific en route to Hawaii.

The boys had to embark on the Queen Charlotte at three in the afternoon.  I went down to the port with them in a taxi because I didn’t have anything else on and thought it would be a good idea if I knew where I was going the following morning. The ship was visible from a good way off, looking impressively grand and reassuringly familiar with its navy blue hull, red funnel and white superstructure. I’d never actually seen a liner before in the flesh so I don’t know why I felt that way.

‘Blimey, it’s big,’ I exclaimed as we got out of our taxi at the entrance to the terminal.

‘Over a hundred thousand tons,’ grinned Gere. ‘A thousand feet long and twelve decks. It would dwarf the Titanic – that was only just over fifty thousand tons.’

‘I see you’ve done your homework,’ I acknowledged. ‘On the subject of doomed voyages, where are you two rooming? In a lifeboat or are they slinging you up a couple of hammocks in a storeroom somewhere?’

‘Nah,’ he grinned. ‘We’re sharing a proper cabin. They keep a few for the big name entertainers and people like that. Looking at the deck layout we’re near the spa and the buffet restaurant – it’s open twenty-four hours a day.’

‘Bloody hell, the mind boggles. If you don’t get seasick you’ll have to be disciplined mate,’ I said, looking at Rocky.

Rocky opened his mouth to say something but Gere beat him to it.

‘Don’t worry about him – he’ll be too busy working. Jenny said that Fiesta will want their money’s worth.’

‘Blimey, steady there mate. Telling me and Slick about your pillow talk is confirming our worst fears about what a boring bastard you are between the sheets,’ Rocky retaliated. ‘Showing a woman your spreadsheets during some rumpy-pumpy is nothing to show off about.’

‘Depends on the length of the spreadsheet,’ grinned Gere.

‘Okay you two,’ I said. ‘I’ll probably see you tomorrow. If they get you to fill in on the bar remember I like my cocktails shaken not stirred.’

They both grinned. ‘Okay, get lost then Slick. Don’t miss us too much tonight,’ said Rocky, pulling out the handle of his ancient case.

‘I’ll try,’ I promised and got back into the taxi. ‘Can you take me up to The Museum of Modern Art?’ I asked the driver as I refastened my seat belt.

‘No problem,’ drawled another middle-aged guy of Indian extraction.

It only took about ten minutes for the taxi to deposit me at the foot of the steps up to the museum. I needed to kill a few hours before dinner and the SFMOMA seemed like a venue that would fit the bill. I’m not really an art buff but visiting a gallery is something all civilised men should do now and again. Obviously, I hadn’t suggested it to my two friends who, to be fair to them, would have come along in a spirit of comradeship, but would have also turned the jaunt from the relaxing couple of hours I wanted into a clock watching joke fest.

Anyway, I enjoyed myself strolling around the minimalist displays admiring some, if not all, of the exhibits. It was open until eight, so I wasn’t under any pressure to rush through my tour. By the time I’d seen all I wanted to it was still only just before five. I found the coffee shop and got myself an Americano and a pastry and took it outside to a table bathed in the rays of a soon to be setting sun. Incredibly, it was still warm enough to enjoy my purchases and I looked around contentedly. Life felt good and when I’d finished the cake I found my cigarettes in a jacket pocket and lit one contentedly.

There weren’t many of my fellow visitors sitting outside. A few tables away was a couple in their thirties and a few other people were dotted around about, but that was all. Most of them looked to me like tourists ticking off one of Frisco’s places of interest before heading back to their hotels. Mostly from more northerly latitudes I reckoned – the temperature was fine by me but probably felt chilly to anyone born south of Bordeaux. I took in a lungful of smoke and blew it out, idly wondering if I could ask anyone to take a snap of me standing in front of the iconic bright red ‘LOVE’ sculpture that was standing at one end of the courtyard. Dismissing the thought I returned my attention to my cigarette and coffee and then reached out and whisked up a newspaper that was lying abandoned on one of the other two chairs that went with my table.

It was folded in half and when I opened it out to look at the headline I saw it was a copy of The San Francisco Chronicle. I wondered what kind of journalism the San Franciscans had to endure and whether it was the same as in the UK where the printed press had largely been taken over by billionaires with agendas that celebrated everything that was crass and rotten in the world. Before I could come to a judgement about that, however, I was interrupted by the couple who were only a few metres away. The woman had raised her voice and said something like, ‘But you promised,’ in a voice that was somewhere between desperate and angry.

I was the only one close enough to hear her outburst and as soon as she’d made it the man glanced in my direction to see how I was taking her show of emotion. Using the newspaper as a prop I pretended to focus on the front page as if there was a photograph of a topless woman on it. This seemed to work because in my peripheral vision I could see that he had resumed looking in her direction. I continued to stare at the paper but my ears were straining towards the pair. Their voices had returned to an inaudible level as far as I was concerned, however, so I took a peek in the direction of their table.

The woman had a thin attractive face with that pale, almost translucent skin that’s gone out of fashion since having a tan became an indispensable fashion must-have. She was sitting side on to me but when she glanced in my direction I could see that her eyes were wide-set above a delicate nose. It may have only been me but I also thought they – her eyes that is – had a strangely melancholic expression in them. Her hair was shoulder length and she had on jeans, boots and a hipster leather jacket that somehow didn’t quite suit the rest of her pre-Raphaelite look.

The man was dark and swarthy and younger than her – early compared to mid-thirties. He had on a suit and an open necked shirt. I couldn’t quite place his ethnicity which is par for the course in the US, but his clothes and grooming screamed designer label chic. You can take all that with a pinch of salt because I’m not Sherlock Holmes and I was having a coffee at a museum rather than auditioning for clever bastard of the year. They obviously knew each other and yet I wasn’t sure if they were a couple: she didn’t look like his type in so far as she had class.

My distracting internal monologue on the pair sitting at the adjacent table was brought to a sudden end, however, when my eye caught one of the mini headlines in a column at the side of the front page of the Chronicle. It said, Has Rachel Wallis found Love in Australia?

I reread it a couple of times, hoping that by renewing my concentration levels the question would reform itself into something that had nothing to do with me. When it didn’t, I forgot about the rowing man and woman and opened the paper, flicking through until I came to what was the Chronicle’s equivalent of a showbusiness gossip column. Despite what many say, including my two partners, I’m not as stupid as I look, so I’m only too aware that finding a true story in a gossip column is harder than spotting a dropped contact lens during a snowball fight. That knowledge wasn’t helping me now though – my heart was pounding as I turned the pages of the newspaper. When I saw the photograph of Rachel holding hands with whoever Greg Manchette was as she walked up a beach in Australia, things went up a level - I did a sharp intake of breath and forgot to breath out until I was at the end of the article.

It was only a short piece and to avoid you thinking that my paraphrasing isn’t up to muster it read as follows:

It looks like love is in the air for Hollywood superstar Rachel Wallis. She was spotted at the exclusive Wangari Beach Club Hotel in Brisbane yesterday taking a break from filming The End of the World in which she is starring opposite new Aussie heartthrob Greg Manchette. The two were seen holding hands and enjoying the other’s company on the hotel’s private beach. The exclusive location has only half a dozen rooms and is usually the honeymoon destination choice for billionaires and A-lister royalty. It is not clear if the unmarried Ms Wallis and Greg are sharing a room but it does seem that love is blossoming.

When I’d finished reading I let out the breath I’d been unconsciously holding inside my lungs up until then and allowed the newspaper to drop on to the table top. My mind was racing like I’d surprisingly won an Oscar and hadn’t prepared the acceptance speech. I reviewed my last dealings with Rachel – the phone call earlier wasn’t top ten material but it wasn’t that unusual for her to be too busy to talk. When I’d spoken to her from the UK in previous weeks she’d seemed fine, the film was going well and the crew were great. I was going to fly from Auckland to Sydney and see her when the cruise was over.

I played the conversations over again in my mind and didn’t like the conclusions I was drawing: vagueness is often the precursor of affairs and I should know because in the past I’d been something of an expert myself. Filming was taking place over six weeks which made this week the fourth in the schedule. Her co-star’s name had come up in our conversations at the beginning but since then Rachel had hardly mentioned Greg. Phoning was also tougher when the time difference is awkward so instead of speaking to her almost every other day as we normally did, this time it had only been a couple of times a week.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the suspicious sort and I’d never had reason to doubt Rachel despite our apparent incompatibility. On the other hand, perhaps that’s what my ex had thought about me when I’d been playing around all those years ago? Maybe I’d been fooling myself? How could I compete with cute younger men with money and ripped abdominals?

My thoughts were interrupted by the couple at the next table again. Mrs Pre-Raphaelite had raised her voice again. I caught the tail end of a sentence. ‘...you bastard!’ and I couldn’t help taking my eyes off the article and glancing at them. The man noticed my interest and snapped loudly at me in an accented voice.

‘Do you mind? This is a private conversation.’

As you can imagine, I wasn’t in a mood to be messed with and I spoke without really thinking. ‘Not in a public place it isn’t,’ I snarled, looking him straight in the eye. ‘Why don’t you get lost yourself you prick?’

Everybody sitting outside was now aware of the confrontation that was unfolding in this most unlikely of locations. Heads were turned in our direction and I didn’t think it would be long before security showed up. He looked at me, considering his options. Then he stood up.

‘Come on,’ he said to the woman. ‘He’s not worth being arrested for.’

I thought that was a bit harsh but I took it on the chin and