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Sport 14: Autumn 1995

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The steward who brings Amanda her breakfast arranges the tray carefully on her bedside table before he leaves, shutting the door discreetly behind him.

As soon as he is gone, Amanda sits up and begins to pour herself coffee. It is not until she reaches for the cream jug that she notices the envelope that has been carefully propped against the toast rack.

The envelope is the colour of apricots, and is scented, faintly, with gardenia.

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There is a letter inside it, written in an elegant, sloping hand.

‘My dearest Amanda,’ it begins. ‘I have taken up my pen after a long silence to warn you that you may be in danger.’

Danger?

Warning?

Amanda passes her hand over her forehead, disturbing a few soft tendrils of uncombed hair. Surely she can feel a headache coming on! And is it possible, she wonders, that she may have caught the beginnings of a chill, the night of the shipboard dance? She forces herself to focus on the letter she is holding in her hand. How difficult it is to think clearly at all!

‘But first, my dear Amanda, do you think it is wise to type so long in the night air, in a thin ballgown and without a wrap?

‘Writers in my day did not do so, I am sure.

‘And now, some advice of a literary nature! Dear Amanda, I am greatly concerned about your minor characters! I fear that if they gain too great a prominence, your romance may go quite awry and you may end up with something quite different. A problem novel, perhaps. Who knows? But certainly not something that would find approval with the editors at ‘The Rose of Romance’!

‘But most of all Amanda, I feel that I must warn you—’

The letter is unsigned. It breaks off in the middle of a sentence. As if, Amanda thinks, its author had been suddenly interrupted …

Tossing her breakfast tray aside amongst the sheets with their repeated motifs of scattered rosebuds and fishermen in small boats casting nets after dreams, Amanda rushes to the door of her cabin and peers out into the corridor.

Is it her imagination? Or is she really in time to see an elderly woman in a grey suit, sensible but elegant court shoes, and silvery hair fastened in a neat chignon, disappear into the shadows at the end of the corridor?

Imagination or not, by the time Amanda reaches the place in the corridor where she thought she saw the silvery-haired woman, the woman has vanished. Puzzled and disappointed, Amanda tuns back towards her cabin.

But what is this?

An unexpected wave causes the ship to lurch, throwing Amanda sideways, against the wall of the passageway. A moment later the ship has righted itself, but not before Amanda has had time to glimpse, through the suddenly opened door of a nearby cabin, a woman kneeling in front of a small suitcase.

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It is Lucinda.

But why is she dressed so strangely? In stockings that resemble fishermen’s nets, and long boots of leather, as black and shiny as kelp freshly washed from the sea?

Her tight-fitting, beribboned corset is cut low in the bodice, while in one hand she grasps a small but flexible riding crop. The suitcase before her is filled with gleaming jewels.

Lucinda looks up. Startled, her eyes meet Amanda’s and fill with recognition. She opens her mouth as if to speak. But before she has time to utter a word, the door swings shut, hiding her from view.

Troubled, Amanda walks back to her cabin. The brief glimpse of Lucinda has caused her head to spin and her mind to travel in curious paths

So many mysteries.

She fumbles with her door key. And fails to see the attacker, hidden in the shadows behind the door, who steps forward and delivers a crushing blow to her head; a blow which causes her to fall unconscious to the ground.