Claire examined her nails.
'Brain dead,' said Jimmy.
Claire's eyes snapped up. 'You—'
'Stop!' Scoop waved a warning finger at her. Claire held her tongue. 'All right, Claire, they're gone, it happens. It's not the end of the world. However, I want to put this paper together this afternoon, print up some copies, let the Captain take a look. But I can't run Jimmy's feature without a picture. If you race down to the kitchen now and smile nicely at him you might just persuade him to pose for you again.'
'All right. I'm really sorry.' Claire took her camera back and turned for the door. As she passed behind Jimmy she glanced at his screen. 'There's only one f in chef,' she hissed.
As she hurried through the door Jimmy shouted after her: 'And there's only one t in idiot!'
10
Life in the Freezer
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.'