Stolen (4 page)

In an attempt to appease Marisa, for she really didn’t want to lose her job, Dale volunteered to stay on until eight that evening. By the time she’d had some supper and got back to the bungalow, all she wanted was her bed. But sleep evaded her, for like the previous night, images of Lotte kept flashing into her mind.

But those images had mainly been of the good times, the crew’s parties and days ashore. Now, after learning that her friend didn’t have loving parents as she’d always supposed, the images were all of that day when Lotte was raped.

Everything was so vivid still. She could recall waking that morning and sleepily pulling back the curtain without remembering that she was stark naked, or that the ship had docked late on the previous evening in Ushuaia. There, just feet away from her porthole, were men waiting to unload waste and bring on supplies and they all saw her.

She screamed involuntarily and hastily tugged the curtain back over the porthole. But she was too late – the men were all grinning and a couple of them made rude gestures with their fists.

Lotte was lying awake in her bunk and laughed at Dale’s predicament.

‘You’ve done it now,’ she said. ‘They’ll be waiting for you when you go ashore.’

Dale could only giggle in embarrassment. She didn’t know why she hadn’t noticed the ship’s engines were quiet, or the noise from the port. If she had, she would’ve kept the curtains closed as all the staff cabins were so low in the ship they were always on the level with the dock when they went into port.

‘I can’t wait to go ashore,’ Lotte said, bounding out of bed and grabbing her towel to go and have a shower. ‘Shame I’ve got a lot of blowdries to do before I can go. I won’t be able to leave until around one. What about you? Any treatments booked?’

‘One massage in an hour, that’s all, everyone’s going off on trips. But I can’t face going ashore with you, Lotte. I saw Ushuaia the last time round, and it wasn’t very exciting then. Anyway, I’m so tired I just want to go back to bed and stay there all day.’

‘That’s OK,’ Lotte said cheerfully. ‘I only want to go and see the old prison and walk about a bit. I don’t need anyone with me.’

The girls had a quick breakfast together and then parted, Lotte for the hairdressing salon, Dale to put some washing in a machine before it was time for the massage booked in at the salon.

Dale was sleeping when Lotte came back to the cabin at lunchtime. She was so quiet changing her clothes that Dale only woke when she was about to leave, and sleepily asked her to buy a couple of postcards for her. Lotte was wearing jeans tucked into cowboy boots and a thin pink sweater and she had a light waterproof jacket slung over the top of her shoulder bag. As usual when she wasn’t working, her hair was loose. Dale remembered thinking as she went out of the door that it looked like a curtain of shiny molten gold.

Everyone on the ship had to work very long hours, whether they were officers, stewards, cabin maids, barmen, waitresses, entertainers or crew. The passengers were probably completely unaware that the staff numbered the population of a village and that they lived in very cramped conditions in two decks below their cabins.

Furthermore, this huge number of people came from dozens of different countries and cultures, some not even speaking very good English. It was impressed on all of them when they joined the ship that they had to get along with one another, or it would become a nightmare scenario.

Because of this, people tended to party more than they should. Whatever time they finished work, they would want to drink and socialize and it often went on till the early hours. As a result, after a few weeks many of them were so tired they had no alternative but to take to their bunks when they had a few spare hours. Going ashore became less attractive the second time around anyway; the ports down the Chilean coast were small and dull, and although the passengers took coaches further afield to see ranches, whales, penguins and other sights, the staff and crew stayed behind.

So that afternoon, while almost all the passengers were going on boat trips to see the sea lions and sea birds of the Beagle Channel, the remains of the old Ushuaia penal colony and the train the convicts used to haul the wood they chopped, Dale and a good proportion of the staff and crew were sleeping.

Dale was woken by a rapping on her cabin door. When she glanced at her watch she was shocked to see that it was gone seven in the evening.

‘Coming!’ she yelled as she clambered down from the top bunk. She assumed Lotte had forgotten her key, or else it was Scott wanting some company for dinner.

Opening the door just a crack, she saw it was Atkins, one of the ship’s officers, so she hastily snatched up a robe to cover her bra and pants.

‘What can I do for you, sir?’ she asked as she opened the door properly.

Atkins was a tall, skinny man, around forty-five, with dark hair and a rather stern look about him. Dale had never had an occasion to exchange more than a few pleasantries with him for he dealt with the guests rather than the staff or crew. She couldn’t imagine what he wanted with her now.

‘There has been an incident in the port,’ he began haltingly. ‘Lotte Wainwright, your cabin mate, was involved.’

An ‘incident’ usually meant a fight or something, but she couldn’t imagine Lotte becoming involved; she was the kind to run a mile from such things.

‘Is Lotte hurt?’ she asked.

‘She was attacked,’ he said baldly.

It was the man’s obvious embarrassment that suggested Lotte’s injuries were of a delicate nature, and suddenly Dale was frightened. She caught hold of his arm.

‘Please, sir, tell me exactly what happened. Was this some kind of sexual attack?’

He hung his head. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. She was raped.’

For a second Dale could only stare open-mouthed at the man. She had a reputation among her friends for being hard and unsympathetic, something she was the first to admit to. But Lotte had an air of fragility about her and a kind of childish innocence that made Dale, and most other people, want to protect her.

‘Raped?’ she repeated, tears filling her eyes and her legs buckling under her. ‘Oh, my God!’ she gasped, covering her face with her hands in horror. ‘Where is she now?’

‘Two of our guests, Mr and Mrs Ramsden, brought her back to the ship. It appears they rescued Lotte from her assailant. Mrs Ramsden hit him over the head with a bottle of wine. They insisted on taking her to their suite. Dr Bailey is with her now and we are awaiting more information from the Ushuaia police. I understand they have apprehended the man.’

Dale tried to pull herself together although she felt dizzy with shock. ‘Can I see her?’ she asked.

Atkins shook his head. ‘She did ask for you to be informed, but Dr Bailey feels she has enough to cope with for now without visitors.’

‘But I know her a great deal better than the Ramsdens. We’ve been best friends and cabin mates for the best part of a year.’

Atkins’ face softened. ‘I know, but as they rescued her I’m sure she feels secure with them, and Dr Bailey must think so too, otherwise he’d have sent her to the staff sick bay. Now, if you would just get a few of her things together. Nightwear, a change of clothing and toiletries. She’s going to stay with the Ramsdens overnight.’

Dale went back into the cabin, leaving Atkins standing at the door.

Lotte was exceptionally tidy-minded. She kept her pyjamas under her pillow, dressing gown behind the door, and everything else neatly folded in the chest of drawers or hanging in the wardrobe. Dale, who was an extremely untidy person herself, had often teased Lotte about it, calling her obsessive, but now, as she effortlessly picked out the things her friend needed, she saw the sense in it and felt guilty about her jibes. She also felt very guilty that she’d let Lotte go ashore alone today.

Dale handed the small packed bag to the officer. ‘Will you give her my love and say how sorry I am?’ she said, her voice shaking with emotion. ‘If there’s anything I can do…’ She broke off as tears overtook her.

‘I’ll pass on your message,’ he said. ‘Please be discreet about this, Miss Moore, we don’t want the guests to feel threatened or uncomfortable.’

Dale was the kind who would normally rage against such a request, for she was fiery, opinionated and outspoken. She wanted to retort that Lotte must be feeling far more than threatened and uncomfortable, but this one time she kept quiet. Atkins was after all only doing his job.

Dale knew who Fern Ramsden was because she’d given her a facial the day after she and her husband boarded the ship in Santiago, just over a week earlier. Dale hadn’t liked the glamorous, statuesque red-headed American much because she seemed terribly full of herself.

But Lotte had done her hair almost daily, either putting it up for a formal evening, or washing and blowdrying it. It seemed to Dale the woman was exceptionally vain to spend so much time on her hair, but then, many of the rich women on the cruise were the same. Whatever Fern Ramsden was or wasn’t, however, Dale was impressed she could crack a bottle of wine over a rapist’s head, and she was very touched the woman wanted to care for Lotte.

As it was, it was mid-afternoon the following day before Dale got to see her friend. She had passed a sleepless night worrying about her, and in the early hours of the morning when the engines started up to sail away from Ushuaia, she went up on deck to walk around and try to clear her head.

Lotte was not Dale’s usual kind of friend. In fact, when they first met and found they were expected to share a cabin, Dale had been dismayed.

A Barbie Doll was what sprang to mind, for Lotte had the kind of wide blue eyes that usually spelled vacuous, a pixie face framed by pure blonde hair, and she was even wearing a pink fluffy angora jumper, denim mini skirt and pink cowboy boots. Dale imagined her arranging teddy bears on her bunk, constantly phoning home and giggling incessantly.

But it transpired Lotte wasn’t vacuous. She might have looked like some people’s idea of a stereotypical hairdresser, but she thought deeply, was a great listener, and had more understanding of people’s frailties than anyone else Dale had ever met. Her taste in books was quite highbrow; she liked to know what was going on in the world, and always tried to find an English newspaper while in port.

Lotte liked order, Dale was incapable of it, so Lotte elected to keep the cabin neat and tidy, and never once groused about it. She would wash, iron and mend both their clothes, yet there was nothing sanctimonious about her, for she loved drinking, dancing and flirting as much as Dale did.

Many a time they’d seen the early morning sun come up while they were still talking. They’d lied for each other when they couldn’t work because they had hangovers, stuck up for each other when they were accused of trying to pinch someone’s man, and Dale would never forget how when she had a bad stomach upset Lotte stayed and held the sick bowl for her.

*

Dale was at the door of the Ramsdens’ cabin before nine, desperate to see Lotte before she began her work. She needed the details of what had happened to her friend, and to know she was going to recover. But Fern Ramsden sent her packing, saying Lotte was still asleep.

Dale was probably being irrational in deciding then and there that Fern was a control freak who wanted to keep Lotte all to herself and believed Dale to be a bad influence on her. But the woman had an imperious way of looking at her, with no warmth in her duck egg-blue eyes. Surely any woman would understand how distraught all Lotte’s friends were, and particularly Dale who had spent almost a year doing everything with her?

It was OK that Lotte was sleeping, Dale didn’t expect the woman to wake her, but just a little information – whether she’d managed to sleep during the night, if she was physically hurt in any way – just woman-to-woman stuff, that was all she wanted.

Dale was back at ten-thirty between clients to be told Lotte was in the bath. At twelve-thirty she was having a nap. But at four, when Dale was getting angry enough to kick the door down, Fern finally let her in.

Dale had no idea what to expect, but it was an awful shock to see Lotte lying on the couch looking terribly battered and crushed. Not just the hideous black eye, the swollen lip and the stiff movements which spoke of other hidden injuries; it was as if all the joy in her had been snatched away, leaving a frightened, pale wraith in her place.

‘Just ten minutes, honey,’ Fern commanded.

Fern Ramsden was the kind of woman it would be impossible to overlook. She was around five foot eight, with a voluptuous figure and very good legs. That day she wore a jade-green low-necked sweater dress with a gold chain belt and gold sandals. The colour of the dress enhanced her red hair and her golden tan. While she was probably well over forty, she could easily pass for thirty. But Dale felt irritated by the older woman looking so stunningly attractive when poor Lotte looked so bad; that seemed cruel.

‘Oh my God, Lotte, what a terrible thing to happen to you! I can hardly believe it,’ Dale blurted out. ‘But how are you feeling now? Did you sleep OK? Are you in pain anywhere?’

‘She doesn’t want questions thrown at her,’ Fern interrupted. ‘If you want to stay, just sit quietly with her.’

Until then Dale was prepared to believe this woman was a saint because she’d rescued her friend. But now she was being treated like an irritating child, Dale’s gratitude to Fern and her husband faded, and she began to resent her.

She needed to tell Lotte how she felt about the terrible thing that had happened to her, but she couldn’t articulate it when the woman was standing close by, timing her visit. All she could do was hold her friend and sob out that she wished she hadn’t let her go ashore alone and that she wanted to take care of her.

‘That sure is impossible,’ Fern chimed in, and now her drawling American accent had a touch of steel to it. ‘You gotta work, Dale honey, and Lotte needs rest and quiet if she’s to recover.’

‘I’ll be fine in a day or two,’ Lotte said bravely, smoothing back Dale’s hair from her face, as if she were the victim who needed comforting. ‘I’m on the mend already. Now, don’t you worry about me, and give all the girls in the salon my love and apologize for letting all the clients down.’