There was really no end to Percy’s calculated unkindnesses. They made Sybil very sad and dejected, and this prompted her to eat more, so that she became even fatter than before. But if she’d been disillusioned about the reason for her marriage, and left in no doubt about why it survived at all (the house being in her name, Percy had nowhere else to live), Sybil’s love for her husband still miraculously endured. If she was miserable in herself, in charity she was also deeply sorry for Percy, whose values she now realized had always been horribly distorted. She prayed over that.
Sybil had never let on that she risked a modest stake on the football pools each week. So it came as nothing less than a miracle to Percy when she quietly announced one day that she had won a first dividend — a fraction over £300,000. The sum far exceeded what Percy had expected Sybil might have inherited from her father. He was overjoyed, magnanimously allowing that her past failure to meet his financial goals could now be overlooked. He also made arrangements to quit his latest job as a local government clerk — too early, as it proved.
If Percy’s attitude to Sybil had altered, so had hers toward him. Now that she was in the ascendant position, she determined to stay there, while striving to put some goodness, unselfishness, and a right balance into his nature. To begin with, instead of depositing her winnings in their joint bank account, she opened a new account with it in her sole name at a quite different bank. She refused also to consider moving to a larger house, to relinquish her job, or to fund any drastic change in their style of living. She did give Percy a small weekly allowance — but only so long as he stayed in work. The regular donations she started making to deserving charities, she explained, were uplifting thank offerings on behalf of both of them.
Far from being uplifted, Percy came to feel even more cheated than before, though this time he hesitated to say as much. And no amount of gentle persuasion on his part would alter Sybil’s attitudes. He even started to accompany her to church, something he had never done before and which he only did now to show how his values had changed.
Certainly this did impress Sybil, and increased her trust in him, but she continued to insist that the new money would be needed to protect them in their old age. She remained oblivious to Percy’s plea that there was enough to cover middle-age as well, starting immediately. Sybil had her own reasons for cautioning him that someday one of them would be left to survive alone — possibly to a very great age. There she had made a mistake, for it was thinking about that very thing that put homicide into Percy’s mind.
Sybil’s other mistake was her one significant concession. She determined to indulge a lifelong aspiration by taking a cruise. After a great deal of searching through brochures, she settled on a two-week, late-spring voyage in the Bay of Bengal — it was cheaper than most others, and she had always wanted to see India and Burma. Percy was welcome to go with her if he wished, although since he distrusted foreigners and loathed foreign countries she offered as an alternative to pay for him to spend the same period at a three-star hotel in Torquay, a resort he had always favored.
Percy chose the cruise with an avidity he had difficulty in disguising, but disguise it he did to avoid giving rise to suspicion. Although he detested “abroad,” at the first suggestion of the trip the possibility of arranging an accidental death at sea positively leapt into the forefront of his mind. Torquay could wait.
They flew from London to Sri Lanka to join the cruise ship in Colombo. It was Polish-owned, middle-sized, and middle-aged. Its four-week total itinerary took in ports around the Bay of Bengal, then Malaysia, Singapore, Borneo, and Java before it returned via the western coast of Sumatra. Passengers could engage for half the cruise, as Percy and Sybil were doing, joining or leaving the ship in Sri Lanka or Malaysia.
The two were given an outside cabin on the second deck near the center, close to the stairs to the upper deck, where the restaurant and bar were located. Above the upper deck was the boat deck, for open-air promenading, with a swimming pool aft. Although their cabin had a porthole, Percy early determined with reluctance that it was too small to squeeze fat Sybil through, kicking or otherwise.
In the restaurant, they were obliged permanently to share a table for four. The limited number of smaller tables was reserved for passengers taking the whole cruise. Their two female table companions were also the occupants of one of the cabins next door to their own: this was one of the earliest disclosures during the polite exchanges at the first meal.
The women, Kirsty Redley, a widow, and her unmarried younger sister, Rita Stork, were a vivacious pair of slim and attractive, if somewhat brassy, blondes. They both looked to be under thirty and were altogether a contrast to the other passengers, who in the main were much older and decidedly staider. Indeed, people wondered what two such youthful, glamorous spirits were doing on such a predictably unexciting cruise. If they were there in the hope of making new men friends, the girls must have been disappointed — the few disengaged males aboard were very old indeed.
In consequence, the more perceptive wives kept watchful eyes on their husbands when Mrs. Redley and Miss Stork were close. This applied especially in the case of Rita Stork, a competent and seemingly ever-present amateur photographer, whose obsession with taking candid shots was not always appreciated by her subjects. She snapped the Crickles more often than others, perhaps because Sybil seemed to enjoy the experience.
Tolerant Sybil did not regard the girls as predators. As for Percy, while accepting that his late mother would unquestionably have described Kirsty and Rita as common, he was delighted at being thrown with them so regularly, even if their frank conversation and sometimes their behavior struck him as daring. If he had not had a more burning issue on his mind, he would certainly have responded to what he took to be Rita’s occasional explorative advances under the table.
As it was, though, Percy was applying himself wholly to creating the perfect opportunity for pushing Sybil overboard — an exercise that was proving more difficult than he had expected. The deed could certainly not be done in daylight, nor from a place where her fall was likely to be seen or her cries heard. It also needed to be at a time when Sybil’s absence wouldn’t cause immediate alarm. Above all, the circumstances had to be such that no blame or suspicion could be leveled at Percy.
Their time aboard was over half completed before Percy was satisfied that he had a usable plan. Even then, he was to depend on the right weather conditions, and fearful that they might never occur.
Encouraged by her husband, every night after dinner Sybil took a turn around the boat deck in his company. Since the nights were often quite cool, most of the few passengers who liked to walk at this time did so on the closed main deck, which also saved them from having to climb another flight of steps. After their exercise, Percy would escort Sybil to their cabin, then he would ring for a pot of tea to be sent along to her before he returned to the main-deck lounge to play bridge with a group of regulars. Sybil didn’t care for card games, and in any case she liked to go to bed early with a book.
The duty steward usually brought the tea promptly. If over-modest Sybil was still undressing when he knocked, she would call to him to leave the tray outside. Percy knew this because on one night that it happened he was in the bathroom, and on a subsequent night when it happened he had purposely locked himself in there, to check if she would do so again as well as to make an important preparation.
It was in the Adaman Sea that Percy pushed Sybil over. The ship was just out of Rangoon on the three-day run to Port Kelang in Malaysia, where the Crickles were due to disembark. As they finished dinner, a bout of heavy rain had just eased off. The night was uninviting — not cold, but dank and overcast. Altogether, the conditions were perfect for Percy’s plan.