Head Count Read online

  Head Count

  By Glenn McGoldrick

  Text Copyright @2018

  Glenn McGoldrick

  All Rights Reserved

  Thinking of you always, mother…

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  Head Count

  “Bloody hell!” Mark said, putting his hands flat on the table.

  I felt the familiar pressure in my stomach – the ship was listing. I watched my orange juice shaking, and I grabbed the glass to prevent it from tipping over.

  “That’s pretty bad,” I said. “I wonder why we’re turning.”

  I looked around the Windjammer Café, seeing worried expressions on most passengers’ faces. Mark was staring at his plate, watching his knife and fork vibrate gently. The whole deck seemed to be humming.

  I felt the pressure ease in my stomach, and watched Mark let out his breath. Then we heard the Oscar announcement on the public address system.

  “Oscar?” Mark said. “Somebody’s jumped?”

  “Let’s go have a look.”

  We went outside. The night was black, and a healthy breeze buffeted the open deck. There were few people – most passengers would have been at dinner or a show.

  We rested our elbows on the chest-high safety rail, and looked at the rolling sea fourteen stories below.

  “Have we stopped moving?” Mark said.

  “I can’t really tell. Maybe.”

  “Oscar?” he said, shaking his head. “Nobody in their right mind would jump into that.”

  “Probably a false alarm,” I said. “We’d better get back to work.”

  I watched a boring game of Roulette and chatted with Daniela, one of the casino supervisors.

  “What was the nine o’clock check?” I asked her.

  “Tables are winning two thousand,” she said. “The slots about eight.”

  “Only two on the tables?”

  “It’s been quiet, Ben. Very quiet.”

  One of the croupiers, Vicky, returned from a break and started to tell us about the drama upstairs.

  “Really?” I asked Vicky. “I was just up there fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “There’s a helicopter and everything.”

  “Well,” I said, glancing around the almost-empty casino, “I think I’ll go take another look. Give me a call if it gets busy, Daniela.”

  I heard the helicopter as soon as I stepped out of the elevator, passing through the sliding doors that led onto open deck.

  The scene had changed from earlier; there were about one hundred people, passengers and crew alike. They stood at the rails on either side of the ship, watching events unfold. The helicopter hovered two hundred metres above the water, away from the ship, its powerful searchlight scanning the waves below.

  Holding my suit jacket closed against the wind, I found a spot at the safety rail. Strong spotlights beamed from both sides of the ship, roaming the water’s surface. The sea was very choppy, and a small rescue boat rode the waves, ready to respond if any movement was caught in the lights.

  We’d sailed from Barcelona only two hours before, but it felt as though we were a long way from the city; there was no land in sight, just a dark sky and a black sea below.

  I returned to work fifteen minutes later, thinking that it was hopeless - how could you find anybody in that?

  Daniela assigned a croupier to a Blackjack table, then turned to me.

  “So it’s for real?”

  “It looks like it,” I said.

  “And there’s a helicopter up there?”

  “Yeah. Spanish coast guard, I think.”

  “What a way to go,” she said.

  Before I could answer, the chimes of the public address system sounded, and another announcement began.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentleman. This is your Cruise Director speaking. Could I have your attention for this very important announcement? At this time we would like to ask all passengers to return to their cabins immediately, allowing our trained personnel to conduct a mandatory head count.”

  We looked at each other, puzzled, as the message was repeated. The casino manager, Darren, came out of his office and hurried to join us.

  “OK, guys,” he said, “we need to get the passengers out now. Finish whatever hand they’re playing, then they need to get to their cabins.”

  “OK,” I said. “I’ll sort it.”

  “And, Ben?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We need to get this done quickly, but let’s not start a stampede.”

  “No worries,” I said. “Time to demonstrate my Crowd Management skills.”

  It took a few minutes for Daniela and me to empty the casino.

  A couple of players made some noise, as they were on a lucky streak at the time; I soothed them with assurances that the casino would reopen when the head count was concluded.

  I went to the manager’s office, where I found Darren typing away at his computer.

  “What’s going on with this head count?” I said, taking a seat next to him.

  “One second,” he said. He tapped at the keyboard a few times, then turned to me. “I just talked to Amit. Chief Security.”

  “Right,” I said. “What did he have to say?”

  “They’ve got cameras. Up on deck fourteen?”

  “Yeah. Most of the ship, pretty much.”

  “He told me they’ve got footage of the woman who jumped.”

  “Really? Who is it?”

  “They can’t tell. The cameras are old,” he said. “And it’s dark out there. He said she looked Asian.”

  “So, that’s why they’re doing the head count?”

  “Yeah. Everybody goes back to their cabin, and we see who’s missing.”

  “I wonder if it’s one of the Japanese group.”

  “What?”

  “You know,” I said. “They’re always on the craps table.”

  “Right, yeah. But aren’t they mostly guys?”

  “True,” I said. “Could be one of their wives.”

  “Well,” he said, “we’ll find out soon enough.”

  I sat at an empty Blackjack table, chatting with a few croupiers.

  “How long do you think this head count will take, Ben?” one of them asked.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” I said. “You’re hoping we don’t open back up, then you can all go to the crew bar and get drunk.”

  They laughed, and I couldn’t blame them; I’d thought the same when I was a croupier.

  We were still gossiping when we heard the announcement ten minutes later, the Cruise Director informing us that the head count was finished.

  “Right,” I said, “we’d better start opening up again.”

  They didn’t look too pleased.

  We reopened, but only a handful of players trickled in. When Daniela returned from her break just before midnight, I signed out for the evening.

  I chatted briefly with Darren in the office, but he had no further news on the jumper. I fancied a drink, but before I headed to the crew bar I decided to take another look outside.

  The helicopter and the rescue boat were still out there, and it was just as dark and windy as earlier. There were fewer people around, so I had plenty of room at the safety rail.

  I thought about the futility of it. She’d have been in the water for three hours at this point – if they hadn’t found her yet, they never would. I went downstairs to my cabin, got changed and headed to the crew b
ar.

  The music stopped at 2.00 a.m. in the bar; Mark and I sat at a corner table, drinking beer and talking about the jumper.

  “An Asian woman?”

  “Yeah”, I said, “that’s what security told Darren.”

  “They must know who it is by now?”

  “They probably do. And we’ll find out tomorrow.”

  He lit a cigarette, and said, “I wonder why she did it.”

  “Unhappy, I guess.”

  “Yeah, but why?”

  “Who knows? Money troubles?”

  “Maybe she had an affair,” he said.

  “Maybe her husband had an affair.”

  “Ha-ha. Yeah. Maybe.” He took a drag on his cigarette, and blew out the smoke slowly. “Maybe we’ll never find out why.”

  Before my shift started the following evening, I went to see Darren in his office.

  “That’s the woman who jumped,” he said, pointing at his computer screen.

  I looked at the face on the monitor. “Shit.”

  “Did you see her in the casino?”

  “I think I did, yeah. I don’t think she played,” I said, “she just chatted with her husband a few times.”

  He clicked on another screen, and said, “Him?”

  “Yeah, that’s him. He plays on craps quite a bit.”

  “Well, I don’t think he’ll be playing much more now.”

  The table games were very quiet; I left Daniela in charge of the floor, while I retired to the office and caught up on some paperwork.

  I made some progress, but not as much as I wanted to – my thoughts kept returning to the Japanese woman. When had I last seen her? Last night? The night before?

  I didn’t remember speaking to her, but maybe I’d made eye contact. Had she looked suicidal? Jesus. Does anybody look suicidal?

  I finished work just after midnight, and took the elevator up to deck fourteen. There were no helicopters or rescue boats, just the black night and a light breeze.

  I leaned against the railing, staring out to sea, wondering if she was still out there. Why did she jump? Was it money troubles? An unhappy marriage? Something else?

  And what goes through a person’s mind, right at the end? Maybe there would never be any real answers. You can look at all kinds of plausible explanations, and still never really understand why.

  And what a way to go. Jumping from that height, maybe breaking bones on impact. Then the cold, dark water. Held by the waves, watching the ship grow smaller as it sails away. Then, finally, slipping under.

  “Damn!” I said. “I’m glad it wasn’t me.”

  I headed straight to the crew bar, not even bothering to get changed out of my suit.

  About a week later, halfway through the next cruise, I went ashore with Mark to a restaurant in Naples for a late lunch. The home of the pizza, they called it. I wasn’t sure about that, but the Peroni beer was good.

  I told him what I’d been reading on the internet earlier.

  “And he’s getting ten years?” Mark asked.

  “That’s what they say. Ten to fifteen years.”

  “For what?”

  “Embezzling.”

  “Embezzling?”

  “Yeah,” I said, watching him pick black olives from his pizza. “He worked for some big software company in Tokyo. He’d been stealing cash for years.”

  “Really?” he said. “But, what’s that got to do with the wife?”

  “Her father’s the CEO of the software company. He got the husband the job.”

  “And the husband returns the favour by screwing his father-in-law?”

  “Yeah. Pretty much,” I said. “It looks like the story was about to hit the big newspapers, and it would be very embarrassing for her and her father.”

  “But that’s enough to make her suicidal?”

  “I guess so.”

  The waiter brought us two more cold beers. Mark took a long sip, then said, “Maybe she was ashamed.”

  “Maybe she was involved. Or maybe she knew what her husband was up to.”

  “Maybe,” he said. “Who knows?”

  “Well,” I said, raising my beer. “Let’s hope that bastard gets the full fifteen years.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” he said.

  Thanks for reading!

  I hope you enjoyed my story.

  Please feel free to review this book on Amazon, and let me know your thoughts.

  Until next time.

  Glenn McGoldrick.

  If you enjoyed reading this story, then you might like to try a collection in the Dark Teesside series:

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  Glenn McGoldrick, Head Count

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