Mersey Murder Mysteries Collection - Books 4-6

Chapter 5-2

“Yes, I saw Gaspar at the Captain"s table on the first night at sea, but never actually got to speak with him properly. The man seemed rather anti-social if you ask me, though he did have something of a hunted look about him. I actually wondered if he was on the run from something or somebody, but it was just a passing thought, nothing more, based solely on his attitude that evening.”

Leaving the Second Officer, Robert Gray till later, Ross and Drake moved on to the ship"s doctor.

“How long have you been a doctor?” Ross asked Mason Hanning who seemed surprised by the question.

“Let"s see now,” Hanning thought for a few seconds before replying. “It"s almost thirty years since I qualified,” he at last responded. “Why do you ask?”

“It"s just that I"d have thought you could earn much more in general practice on shore, Doctor. What makes a man want to become a ship"s doctor in the first place?”

“Inspector, you obviously have no idea how much I earn, but it is considerably more than the average G.P. in the British National Health Service. Also, not that it is relevant or any of your business, but I had a successful practice of my own in Adelaide, a nice house, a beautiful wife and daughter too. One day, as my wife was driving my daughter home from a ballet lesson, a drunk driver swerved across a junction in front of the car and my wife tried to avoid it, but instead the car ploughed into an oncoming truck. They both died instantly. So, I hope that answers your question as to what made me become a ship"s doctor.”

“I"m sorry Doctor, for your loss, and for offending you. It wasn"t my intention.”

“Forget it,” said Hanning. “What can I tell you that you don"t already know?”

“You were the first person to examine the body, correct?”

“Correct, but you must understand something, Inspector. As the doctor on an old cargo liner like this, my medical services are generally limited to treating an occasional case of sea-sickness or tummy upset among the passengers, and the odd accident in the workplace among the crew. I try to keep up with the latest news from the medical world but forensic examinations of corpses are pretty low on my list. In fact, Mr. Gaspar is my first death at sea in sixteen years as a ship"s doctor.”

“But we"re told you did suspect poisoning at one point?” Drake asked.

“I may have mentioned it as a possibility, but I really had nothing on which to base that supposition, Detective Sergeant. I suppose I was floundering in the unknown a little. I was glad to hand the whole thing over to you and your Doctor Nugent when he arrived.”

“Okay, and you had no occasion to treat Mr. Gaspar at all during the voyage, is that right?”

“Correct. The first time I saw him was when he was lying dead in his bunk in cabin 6.”

“You weren"t at the Captain"s table the night of the dinner Gaspar attended?”

“I don"t sit at the Captain"s table,” Hanning explained. “As ship"s doctor, I have a table of my own and usually share it with some of the other officers, unless the captain is on the bridge, when I may have one or two passengers at my table.”

“Do you have any theories as to what killed him?” Ross asked point blank, in an effort to elicit an idea or two from the doctor.

“I really wouldn"t care to speculate,” Hanning replied. “I still believe he may have been poisoned, but how, and by whom I couldn"t say.”

That was all the detectives could get from Hanning, and Ross excused him, asking him to send the Third Officer in next.

Penelope Jenner wasn"t quite what Ross expected, though he couldn"t really say exactly what it was he had expected.

Aged around thirty, with blonde hair, fashionably cut in a bob that ended just above her shoulders, Jenner had a slim figure, and Ross could imagine more than one of the crew entertaining certain fantasies about the very pretty woman who now stood before him.

“Please sit down, Miss Jenner,” he invited her.

“Thank you, Inspector,” she replied as she complied, crossing her legs as she sat.

Like those before her, Jenner was unable to throw any light whatsoever on Gaspar"s death, admitting to having seen him once at dinner and again on deck one evening, taking a walk or just getting some fresh air she thought.

Ross was impressed with the young woman and before dismissing her he asked one final question.

“Tell me, Penelope,” he began, only to be interrupted.

“Please call me Penny. Penelope sounds so upmarket and snobbish. My Dad loved Thunderbirds when he was younger, and I ended up named after Lady b****y Penelope.”

ThunderbirdsRoss and Drake both suppressed a giggle.

“Right, Penny it is,” Ross smiled. “So, as I was about to say, how come you chose the sea as a career? It seems an unusual career choice for an attractive lady such as yourself.”

“Oh, Inspector. You do really need to catch up with the times. This is the 21st century. I"m only one of many women now working in the Merchant Navies of many countries. It"s quite a popular career and has absolutely nothing to do with my looks, I assure you.”

She sat back, smiling at Ross who again realised he"d opened his mouth only to put his foot right in it,

“That"s interesting, Penny. Thank you for the explanation and you"re right. I do need to get with the times. I"m not really an expert on anything to do with maritime issues so you"ll have to forgive me.”

“You"re forgiven,” she replied, flashing a very disarming smile in Ross"s direction, making him instantly blush.

“Thanks,” she said as she rose, smoothed her uniform skirt, turned around almost as a fashion model would and virtually floated out of the room. As soon as she"d gone, Izzie Drake burst out laughing.

“What?” was all Andy Ross could say as his sergeant tried her best to control her merriment.

“I don"t know,” Izzie grinned at her boss. “It must be the sea air or something, but you seem to be enjoying saying all the wrong things this morning.”

“I know,” Ross admitted, “I don"t know what"s come over me. Maybe it"s the fact that we"re on board a b****y ship again. Captain Gideon and his crew are obviously well-versed in acting in a certain manner towards their paying passengers, and I just wish we could get these people into the interview rooms at headquarters instead of having to make do with a b****y ships saloon, salon, whatever it"s called.”

“Not to mention your faux pas with Officer Jenner, don"t forget.”

“Oh give it a rest, Izzie. I can"t help it if I find women as ship"s officers a little disconcerting.”

“Especially when they"re young and pretty with great legs, eh?”

“Cheeky bugger,” Ross grinned at Drake. “As if I"d notice such things.”

“Oh, sorry, you were probably too busy staring at her rear as she walked out of the room.”

Andy Ross picked up his notebook and threw it playfully at Drake, who, irritatingly, caught it and threw it back at him.

“You"re impossible sometimes, Sergeant Drake,” he laughed. “Getting married has given you some new airs and graces I think. Maybe I"d better have a word with that husband of yours; see if he can rein you in a bit.”

“There you go, male chauvinism strikes again,” she replied, and Ross threw his hands up in despair and capitulation.

“Okay, okay, I submit,” he joked. “Now, Mrs. Foster, please can we get back to work?”

Izzie"s husband, Peter Foster, senior receptionist at the city mortuary, where he worked on William Nugent"s staff, had agreed that Izzie should retain her maiden name for work purposes after their marriage. She"d spent years building a reputation within the force and didn"t want to have to spend even more years re-establishing that reputation by giving the impression that a new sergeant had replaced the previous Detective Sergeant Drake.

“Okay, I"m suitably chastised, boss. Who"s next on the list?”

* * *

The remaining interviews were, for the most part, only suitable for the purposes of elimination as far as the two detectives were concerned. As Gideon had previously explained, very few of the crew actually had reason to interact with the passengers apart from the three stewards who attended to them on the accommodation deck, and the additional four stewards who manned the bar and waited on the tables in the dining room. The chefs had no contact with them, their time being spent in the kitchens, creating their superb cordon bleu quality meals, the small band that played in the main salon in the evenings and those who worked the ship itself, two radio operators, engine room staff and the other ancillary crew had never met any of the passengers.

The steward responsible for cabin 6, Salvatore, (Sal) Romero was the only one who seemed to have had more than a passing acquaintance with the dead man.

“I am so sorry for the death of Senhor Gaspar,” were his first words when asked to sit down by Andy Ross.

“You were his personal steward, I believe, Mr. Romero. Is that correct?”

“Si, I had the responsibility for the two single berth cabins on the voyage, Senhor Gaspar and Mr. Erikson.”

“And did you get on well with both men?” Ross asked the little Italian. Romero was tanned, no more than five feet six inches in height, slightly built, with dark wavy hair. His uniform was immaculately pressed, with creases in his trousers that would have done a sergeant major proud, and his crisp white shirt and black bow tie, together with highly polished black shoes showed him to be clean and fastidious about his appearance. Ross thought to himself that if he"d met Romero on the street his first impression of the man would have marked him as….an Italian waiter! Talk about stereotypes, he thought.

Talk about stereotypesRomero answered clearly and immediately.

“Senhor Gaspar, he was a nice man, Mr. Erikson, he okay, but maybe like to drink a little too much, capisce? You understand?”

capisceIgnoring the comment about Erikson for the moment, Ross was interested in Romero"s impressions of Gaspar.

“Everyone we"ve spoken to so far seems to think Senhor Gaspar was a pretty anti-social kind of person, and yet you saw him as a nice man. Can you explain that, Mr. Romero?”

“Si, he was, I think, nervous, maybe a little afraid of something.”

“But what could he have been afraid of here on the ship?” Drake asked the steward.

“Maybe it was something not on the ship,” said Romero. “You know, perhaps something he left behind in Brazil, I do not know. All I can tell you is he was always polite to me and always gave me very good tips, first of all for bringing him meals in his cabin and then for bringing him hot cocoa at night, just before bedtime, always at 11 p.m. same time every night.”

“And did you notice anything different about him last night when you took his cocoa?” Ross asked.

“No, nothing. He was same as always. He say “Thank you Sal,” gave me a tip as always and I heard him lock his door as I walked away. I never saw him again.”

“Thank you Sal,”“You didn"t serve his breakfast in his cabin?”

“No, Senhor Gaspar never ate breakfast. He would make coffee on the machine in his room and I would take him a light lunch on a tray around noon each day.”

“Anything else you can tell us, Mr. Romero?”

“No, I am afraid not. But he was nice to me and like I say, I am sorry he is dead.”

“Well, it looks like our friend Sal might be the only person on board this ship who will miss our victim,” Izzie Drake observed after the Italian had been sent on his way.

“You could be right Izzie. I wonder if it"s Gaspar he"ll miss or all those generous tips the man gave him.”

“Getting cynical in your old age, sir?”

“Less of the old, Sergeant, thank you, and yes, maybe I am getting too cynical. It goes with the job after seeing all I"ve seen over the years, I"m sad to say.”

Izzie looked at her boss, and for once, she thought he looked tired, a little worn out. She wondered if something was on his mind, but decided if there was, he"d tell her in his own good time.

Angela Connelly was the next to be interviewed. A steward on the ship for two years, she did little but confirm Ross"s opinion of Gigi Colbert as a garrulous, rather frivolous busybody, and went on to say how much she like the young Mexican couple and hoped they lived happy ever after. Angela, from London originally, said she was twenty-eight, and had previously worked on cruise liners until a broken leg resulted in a long lay-off. When she"d recovered, the only job on offer was the post she now occupied on the Alexandra Rose.

Alexandra RoseLike previous crew members, she spoke of the ship and Captain Gideon with some affection, and Ross decided he"d been correct in his judgement of the skipper and that ships seemed to have rather weird effects on those who sailed in them.