Chapter 7: What Thomas Told Claire
They held Gerald in the security office for two hours.
I sat in a separate room with a cup of tea I didn't drink while Richard gave his account to a senior officer named Vasquez — a compact, careful woman who wrote everything down by hand and asked her questions twice.
When it was my turn, I told her everything.
The photographs.
The suitcase.
The balcony image taken at night.
Gerald at the dock.
Gerald boarding at Valletta.
Gerald in the corridor.
She listened without interrupting.
"Do you want to press a formal complaint?" she asked when I finished.
"Yes," I said.
"I do."
She nodded and wrote something down.
"We'll confine him to his cabin for the remainder of the voyage and notify port authorities at disembarkation.
What he's done constitutes harassment and unauthorized entry at minimum.
The photograph taken through your balcony window at night is a more serious matter."
"Good."
She closed her notebook.
"Is there anything else you want to tell me?"
I thought about Gerald's last words.
Ask Claire.
Ask her what Thomas told her before he died.
"Not yet," I said.
I found a quiet corner of the upper deck and called my daughter.
She answered on the second ring.
Which told me she'd been waiting.
"Mum."
Just that word.
The way she said it — tight, careful, like she'd been rehearsing — told me she already knew something had happened.
"Claire."
Silence.
"Richard told you," she said.
"Richard told me some of it.
I'd like you to tell me the rest."
A long pause.
I could hear her breathing.
"I was scared," she said.
"After your second collapse, I couldn't sleep.
I kept thinking about you on a ship in the middle of the ocean and nobody knowing if something happened to you and I—" Her voice broke slightly.
"I didn't know how to ask you to let me help.
You would have said no."
"You're probably right."
"I know I'm right." A short, wet sound.
She was crying.
"I'm sorry, Mum.
I know it was wrong.
I know I should have called you instead."
"Yes.
You should have."
"I know."
I looked out at the water.
The sun was low, turning everything copper.
"Claire.
Gerald is on this ship."
The silence that followed was different.
Longer.
Heavier.
"I know," she said.
My hand tightened on the phone.
"You knew he was here?"
"No.
Not that he was there.
But I knew he'd been in contact." She exhaled.
"He called me six weeks ago.
He said he had documents.
He said Dad had told him something before he died — something about money that was never reported.
He wanted me to help him approach you."
"And?"
"I told him I wouldn't.
I told him to leave you alone." Her voice dropped.
"But then I got scared he'd come to you anyway.
That's partly why I hired Richard.
I thought if someone was with you, Gerald wouldn't try anything."
"He tried quite a lot," I said.
"Mum—"
"What did he say Thomas told him?"
Another silence.
This one felt like a door she didn't want to open.
"He said Dad told him there was a second account.
Money set aside before the marriage.
He said it was never declared in the estate because you didn't know about it." She paused.
"He said he has a letter.
In Dad's handwriting."
The copper light on the water blurred slightly.
"Is it real?" I asked.
May you like
"I don't know," Claire said.
"But Mum — I think it might be."
