Dead Calm by Shirley Wells

“Hanna Larsen wasn’t a wealthy heiress. Well, as far as we know. No, someone would have mentioned it. And, as yet, we don’t know of a single passenger who wanted her dead.” Except Jorstad’s sons perhaps.
    Maybe there was no crime to solve and Dylan’s overactive imagination was being fuelled by a ship filled with gossipmongers.
    “Dad, which do you think is longer? The equator or the Norwegian coastline?”
    “The coastline.”
    “Correct. And how many times do you think the coastline would stretch round the globe?”
    “Two and a half.” Dylan laughed at Luke’s wide-eyed expression. “I heard you telling your gran earlier.”
    “Cheat! That’s pretty impressive though, isn’t it? It’s longer than Russia’s coastline and Australia’s. The only country that can beat it is Canada. I’m not surprised really,” Luke said, “because I was looking at that map on the ship. The one with the flashing light that shows you where the ship is. It’s really jagged and some of the inlets are miles long.”
    “But what about the islands?” Dylan said. “It’s cheating if you count those.”
    “And that’s another thing. Who decides what’s a small rock and what’s an island?”
    “Who knows? We just have to accept that it’s very long.”
    Grinning, Luke nudged Dylan’s arm and pointed. “Look at this.”
    “Oh, for—” It was just possible to see Freya peering out of a buggy piled high with shopping bags. His mother was pushing the buggy and Bev was carrying yet more bags.
    “I hope they’ve bought me something,” Luke said.
    Dylan sincerely hoped they hadn’t bought him anything. He and Luke moved along the bench to make room for the two women.
    “My feet are killing me,” Bev said. “These boots are too tight.”
    “What have you bought?” Luke asked, rummaging inside bags.
    “We’ve got you a lovely jumper.” Not noticing his disappointed expression, she hunted through bags. “I’ll show it to you later, Luke. You’ll love it. And we got this for Freya. Isn’t it gorgeous? It’s for Christmas really.”
    She held up a thick red woollen cardigan with a reindeer on the back.
    “And we got her some little shoes. I’ll show you when we get back on board.”
    “The shoes are gorgeous,” Vicky said.
    There were still three big bags unaccounted for. “What else have you bought?” Dylan asked.
    “Oh, mainly cushions.”
    “Cushions? We live in London, probably the capital of the cushion world for all I know, and you come all this way to buy cushions?”
    “Ah, but these are beautiful. They’ll give our sitting room a quick makeover. Cushions make all the difference to a room, don’t they?”
    No, they didn’t. Painting a white room purple made a difference. Building a wall or putting in a window made a difference. Cushions were just minor irritations that got in the way when you wanted to sit and relax.
    “You do realise we’ve got to get this lot on the plane?”
    “It’ll be fine.”
    “That film we were trying to think of, Dylan?” Vicky said. “It wasn’t Murder on the Orient Express at all. It was—”
    “Death on the Nile.”
    “Oh. You knew. But I’m sure Lauren Bacall wasn’t in it.”
    Dylan had no idea. He didn’t much care either. Hanna Larsen’s death had nothing to do with any work of fiction. If Dylan were a gambling man, he’d bet his house on Hanna’s refusal to sell her valuable land ending her life.
    “We’d better head back to the ship.” He nodded at Bev’s shopping bags. “Have you hired a pack horse for this lot?”
    “Yes.” Laughing, she planted a kiss on his cheek. “His name’s Dylan and I love him dearly.”
    “Ha.”
    They trudged back to the harbour, the two women walking on ahead and pointing out the sights to a gurgling Freya, and him and Luke walking behind them carrying bags.
    A lot of passengers were returning to the ship at the same time but the congestion eased as they reached their deck and headed for the