Dying For a Cruise by Joyce Cato Page B

then stood back and looked around. The room was much smaller than she’d thought, but it had a large, wrap-around window, giving the captain a splendid 180 degree view of his surroundings. Which could only be a good thing, she guessed. She supposed a lot of the smaller river craft and narrow boats that also used the river would find the Swan somewhat intimidating – especially if the owners thought the man steering the big paddle steamer couldn’t even see them! But as far as she could tell, there were no side mirrors like in a car to give him a view of what was behind him, and wondered if that ever worried him.
    It would certainly worry her !
    In the centre of the small wooden room was a small ship’s wheel. It was entirely made of wood, and was beautifully carved, with the typical large wooden handles that could spin it all the way around. And into her mind flashed all the seafaring pictures she had ever seen, where gallant ships’ captains spun the wheel helplessly as their ship battled the storm. She had to resist the infantile urge to mutter ‘hard to starboard mate’ or ‘splice the mizzen mast’.
    Not that she had the faintest idea what a mizzen mast was, or how to splice it.
    ‘Hmm, lovely,’ Tobias said appreciatively, dunking a sausage into the yolk of an egg. He had the tray balanced on his lap with all the ease of someone used to eating this way. ‘They all aboard then?’ he asked, looking amiably to the back of the boat, and the cook nodded.
    ‘Yes. All present and correct.’
    Tobias smiled at the phrase, and then sighed. ‘Mind you, I don’t expect it will be all that jolly a jaunt,’ he muttered, more or less to himself, although he didn’t sound particularly concerned.
    Jenny looked at him quickly. ‘Oh? No. I must say I thought they seemed a rather unlikely group.’
    Tobias smiled but rather annoyingly merely shook his head, refusing to be drawn further.
    But Jenny was not about to be put off so easily. ‘Mrs Olney in particular seemed rather out of place,’ she probed as delicately as she could, and Tobias gave her another quick, assessing look.
    ‘You don’t miss much, do you, Miss Starling?’ he said, but it was more of a statement than an accusation. ‘I noticed it about you yesterday. I said to Brian this morning, I did, that this new cook knew her onions in more ways than one.’
    Jenny obligingly smiled at the weak joke, but said nothing.
    Tobias picked up a piece of fried bread, bit into it, caught the cook’s patiently waiting eye, and sighed.
    ‘Thing is, Mrs Olney’s a bit of a … well … a bit of … Anyway. The word is that she keeps a chap down in London,’ he finally coughed up.
    Jenny delicately raised an eyebrow. ‘I imagine she goes there to shop,’ she said, determined to be fair. First impressions could be so misleading sometimes.
    Tobias smiled, and resigned himself happily to a good gossip. ‘When I say that she keeps a chap down in London, I mean, she actually keeps a man down there. Pays the rent on a little flat, apparently. It seems that one of her bitchy friends from up Oxford way actually heard from another friend who was looking for a flat of her own, that Jasmine had, on the sly, rented out a bedsit in the West End. And, of course, she simply had to call in to look it over, and ask Jasmine for advice on getting her own flat set up.’
    ‘Of course she did,’ Jenny acknowledged drolly.
    ‘And who should answer the bell but this big dark Adonis – the friend’s choice of word, that, not mine. Well, of course, the word got round.’
    Jenny smiled wryly. ‘I bet it did! But surely, her husband…?’
    Tobias Lester suddenly became very reticent about ‘the husband’. He shrugged, muttered something about a man’s married life being his own affair, and set about attacking his bacon.
    Jenny promptly took the hint and left.
    But afterwards, back in the galley, as she set about creating a mountain of toast and testing Mrs Jessop’s homemade