Scoop was angry. An hour after hurrying off to retake Pedroza's picture Claire had still not returned. The paper was all ready to print but for the space left for her picture of the Portuguese chef. Jimmy knew it was only a dummy edition of the newspaper, a practice run that would only be seen by the Captain and a few crew members, but he still felt oddly excited about it: his article was inside. Scoop had read it over, removed a couple of paragraphs, moved several others around, but then pronounced himself more than happy with it. 'Jim lad,' he said, 'I think you've a talent for this.'
Jimmy shrugged and said, 'Yeah, right.' In two years at East Belfast High nobody had ever suggested that he had a talent for anything. Apart from causing trouble.
'Now where is that girl?'
'Off doing her nails,' suggested Jimmy. 'Or counting her money.'
Scoop ignored him. 'Do me a favour, will you, Jimmy? Take a run down to the kitchens and see if she's still down there. Maybe she's trying to do something arty with her camera — just tell her I haven't time for any of that nonsense, I've a paper to produce. Get her back up here pronto.'
At home, if anyone had asked him for a favour he would have told them where to go, or demanded payment in advance and then probably not done it anyway, but this felt different. He wanted to see his work in print. And his name. He wanted to read by Jimmy Armstrong. But it wasn't going to happen unless Claire showed up with her photos.
***
There was no sign of her in the kitchens. Pedroza snapped that she'd been and gone, and ordered Jimmy out because he was busy. Jimmy then travelled up to her family's penthouse suite on the tenth floor. The cabin door was open. Jimmy could see Claire's mother standing on the balcony. He knocked anyway, but when he got no response he stepped into the cabin. Her mum had an easel set up and was painting the setting sun, but the rush of the wind prevented her hearing him approach, so that when he did say hello she nearly jumped out of her skin.
'Sorry,' said Jimmy. 'I was looking for Claire.'
'Have you never heard of knocking?' said Mrs Stanford.
'I did knock.'
She looked him up and down, rather suspiciously. 'You're the stowaway, aren't you?' Jimmy shrugged. 'Tell me, what are you running away from?'
'Nothing.'
'You must be running away from something. If not, why stow away?'
'It was an accident.'
'I think I can admire a boy who ran away for a reason. I'm not sure I can admire one who ran away by mistake.'
Jimmy blinked at her. 'Have you seen Claire?'
'Oh, she was here a few minutes ago — stormed in and stormed out.'
'Do you know where she went?'
'How would I know that? I'm the last person she tells anything to. And a word of warning, young man. She's bad enough as she is — don't you be leading her any further astray. I know your sort.'
Jimmy just stood there. He was pretty sure that she didn't know his 'sort' at all, and she certainly didn't know him. He nodded at her painting. 'Have you been painting for long?'
'All of my life, child, all of my life.'
'Well, you'd think with all that practice you'd be a bit better at it.'
Jimmy hurriedly removed himself from the cabin.
***
He found Claire twenty minutes later, standing on the very top deck, staring out to sea. Her camera sat on a sunbed beside her. He came up behind her and snapped: 'What are you playing at, you lazy cow?'
Just like her mother, she hadn't heard him approach — but instead of looking mildly annoyed Claire looked absolutely terrified. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. There was obviously something going on with her. But it was none of his business. She pointed at the camera. 'There it is, take it.'
'You took the photos, right?'
'Yes, I took your stupid photos.'
'Then you have to come down and put them on to the computer and help pick out the right one.'
'I don't have to do anything. You take it if you want. It's only a silly pretend newspaper.'
'Right.' Jimmy lifted the camera and was about to walk off. But then he decided he wasn't going to let her off so easily. He stood with his hands on his hips. 'Can't stick with anything for more than five minutes before you go crying to Daddy, can you? You're a complete waste of space.'
He turned away — but he hadn't gone more than a few steps before she let out a cry, threw herself down on to one of the sunbeds and buried her face in her hands. This only made Jimmy angrier. He stomped back to the sunbed. 'What's wrong? Did your gold credit card fall overboard? Did you chip your nail polish?'
'Go away!'
'OK.' He turned again.
'No, wait!'
Jimmy sighed loudly. 'What?'
Claire's face was still pressed against the sunbed's wooden slats. 'Why do you hate me?' she asked weakly.
Jimmy didn't even have to think about that one. 'It's a mix of your appearance and personality.'
She was quiet for a moment, then slowly turned and wiped at her eyes. 'I hate you too,' she said, 'but I'm scared and I have to tell someone.'
'Scared of what?'
'Do you swear to God you won't tell anyone?'
'No.'
'Please! She said it with so much feeling that Jimmy was forced to deliver one of his better shrugs. Then he sat down on a sunbed. Not beside her, but three removed.
'What, then?'
Claire took a deep breath and held her hand against her chest while she tried to settle herself. When she spoke she didn't look at Jimmy but at the deck, and her voice was kind of vague, as if she was describing a dream she only half remembered.
'I . . . went down to take the photos . . . to the kitchens . . . but there was no one about so I walked straight through to the freezers. Have you seen them? They're huge and there's about a dozen of them . . . and I heard voices coming from inside one of them . . . and the door was open just a fraction . . . All I wanted was the stupid photo, you know? Anyway, I looked in and there were . . . like . . . these people in there . . . and they weren't crew they were like a family, men and women and children . . . just sitting there talking . . . The fridge wasn't even switched on so it wasn't cold, there were sunbeds on the floor and clothes scattered all over the place and it smelled terrible . . . and one of them looked up and saw me and I just froze . . . then he shouted something and I moved backwards . . . but straight into Pedroza, and he started screaming at me . . . but not even in Portuguese or English — in some . . . I don't know, African tongue or something. I told him I just wanted to take his picture again, and he calmed down and smiled and . . . that was even scarier. He led me back to the kitchen and he took out this huge knife and stood holding it up and I took my picture and just as I took it he said: "If you tell anyone what you saw in there I will use this knife to cut your head off. And after that I will cut your mother's head off. And then your father's. Do you understand?" And then he just smiled and walked away.'
She looked up for the first time, straight at Jimmy.
Jimmy nodded to himself for several moments. 'So how did the photo turn out?'
'Jimmy! Please! I'm serious.'
'Well, they're stowaways, aren't they? And Pedroza threatened to kill you because your record with stowaways isn't very good, is it?'
'That's not fair!'
'Isn't it?'
'No. You're . . . different. There's a whole family living in a freezer! They could be anything. What if they're terrorists?'
'Did they look like terrorists?'
'What do terrorists look like?'
'I've no idea.'
'Jimmy — please! They shouldn't be there! But Pedroza's going to kill me if I tell anyone!'
Jimmy nodded. Then he raised a finger, as if he'd had a sudden brainwave. 'I know what's going on . . .'
'What?'
'It's all a figment of your imagination.'
'My . . .?'
'You made all this up just to add a bit of excitement to your life, or to get a lot of people panicked or worried because . . . well, because that's what you're like. You like being the centre of attention.'
'You . . . you!' Claire suddenly reached across and snapped her camera out of his hands. 'Right! I'll prove it to you! I'm going down now to get a picture of them. And if you were any sort of a journalist at all, you'd want to come as well, to get the story, but you're obviously not. You can't even spell!'
She snorted dismissively and stomped off towards the elevators.
'Let me know if he cuts your head off!' Jimmy shouted after her.
***
If you mix anger with fear, you quite often get adrenaline. Now it buzzed through Claire like electricity. She was determined to prove that Pedroza's mysterious family existed. She only needed a second to take a photo and then she would make Jimmy Armstrong eat his words.
The first person she saw when she reached the kitchens was Pedroza himself. She almost turned back right there and then. But he was too busy overseeing dinner preparation to notice her and she was able to duck in low behind a counter and run, half doubled-over towards the freezers.
OK, so far so good.
Six massive doors lined either side of the freezer room. Five were closed, but the sixth, where she'd seen the family earlier, was still tantalizingly open. Claire swung the camera off her shoulder, set it the way Scoop had shown her, then cautiously ventured forward. There was no light on inside the freezer, so she would have to use flash. It would immediately alert those hiding inside, but she had no choice.
Hit and run. Hit and run!
Claire stood to one side of the door. All she could hear was a dull hum from the other freezers, the buzz of the fluorescent lights above and the thundering of her own heart. She checked her camera once more. She would only have one chance. She wasn't going to get them to say cheese.
Deep breath!
She counted to three, then she stepped into the gap, raised the camera and took her shot. She was already turning away as it flashed, but she stopped immediately. There was no need to flee. The freezer was completely empty.
Claire stared into it. Not only were the people gone, so were all of their belongings. The shabby suitcases, the rubbish on the floor, even the sunbed. She glanced to her left and right, trying to decide if somehow she'd targeted the wrong freezer.
No. I'm certain.
It was only an hour since her frightening encounter with Pedroza — long enough to move them elsewhere. As Jimmy had shown, it was easy enough to hide yourself on a ship as big as the Titanic. But she couldn't go back and tell him that. He would be doubly convinced she'd made it all up. There had to be some evidence.
Claire stepped into the freezer.
Although it wasn't switched on it was still cool inside. And clean. It was just a freezer.
Claire jumped at a sudden knock on the freezer door. Her heart threatened to burst out of her chest as she turned, fully expecting to see Pedroza with a carving knife. But it was Jimmy, grinning in.
'Why don't you introduce me to the family?' he asked smugly.
'Jimmy,' Claire hissed, 'what are you doing here?'
'Writing a story. At first it was going to be about a mysterious group of stowaways, now it's going to be about a little rich kid who makes up all kinds of crap.'
'They were here, I swear . . .' Jimmy stepped into the freezer. The metallic floor, walls and ceiling were spotless. 'Come out and show yourselves!' Jimmy cried.
'Shhhh! Don't. . .'
And then she saw it.
Jimmy had moved to her left, blocking the light from outside for just a moment, but as the light bounced off the wall in front of her again she saw . . . she wasn't certain . . . she moved closer — it was . . .
'Look, Jimmy!'
Jimmy moved up to her shoulder. At first he saw nothing.
'I don't. . .'
'You're blocking the light again.'
Jimmy moved and looked again.
'I still don't. . .'
Then he saw it. A tiny hand-print on the wall. A child's hand.
Claire smiled triumphantly. 'They must have been here, how else could—'
It wasn't a sound that made them both turn together, it was a change in the light. Not sudden and swift, like a light being switched off, but just a gradual dimming.
The freezer door was closing!
They had the briefest glimpse of Pedroza's laughing face before they were plunged into utter darkness.
'No!' Claire yelled.
They charged blindly across the room together, but only in time to hear a lock being turned.
They hammered on the door. They demanded to be let out, they screamed and threatened and, after a while, begged. Yet, already, somewhere within themselves, they knew it was useless; that the doors were too thick; that all their banging and shouting could not be heard outside.
'Claire . . .'
'Please! Let us out! Please!'
'Claire!'
'What?'
'Listen.'
A loud hum.
'Oh no,' said Claire. 'Oh no!'
The freezer had been switched on.
They started their hammering on the door again.
'Please . . . let us out! Please!'