Sophia Holmes and the Tilly Briggs Cruise of Terror *Completed*

Chapter Three

When dad gets back from the shops, we lay out our purchases on the bed whilst I explain again to dad why I had to leave so early. He does't raise an eyebrow once I explain what I did, and I get the feeling that it's exactly what he would have done, if he was in my situation.

Looking down at dad's bed, I see the three suitcases layed down. One is a glossy black and obviously dad's, John's is clearly the dark green one beside it, and then lastly is my deep blue one. Inside each case, dad has packed each of our respective outfits inside to keep them ordered.

Peering inside of mine, I find some bright and colourful clothes which I assume I am to wear on my days off, including accessories such as a thin blue scarf and a pair of aviator sunglasses. I'm, in general, satisfied with these outfits as he hadn't included anything which I would feel uncomfortable in.

Next, I decide to look inside John's case. Inside are several pairs of tight, blue jeans and not a single of his wollen jumpers are in sight, instead being replaced by checked tops. I do believe John would feel a little more uncomfortable in these.

After expressing my appreciation to dad and packing the case with some of the bare neccessities, we store the cases under the bed and go into the living room to research more about what we need to do. I delve into the recent records of the Tilly Briggs and draw up a list of the full crew and passengers on the ship to begin with, then after, highlight the names of those which went missing during the cruise. Not to my surprise, the victims are all entirely passengers - not a single crew member involved, apparently. As dad gets to ringing Mycroft for background checks on the staff, I load several social media sites on several different tabs and then start typing in the names of the victims. Naturally, I get several hundred back for each name I type in, but then I cross-reference each of them. First I check them for their sexuality, and then for recent holidays. Surprisingly, I get one result for each name after checking these two things, which doesn't normally happen that easily. All the same, I open up each of the pages and look at their status' up until the night of their disappearance. It is apparent that the ship has wifi, as most cruise ships have nowadays, as aside from a couple of passengers, the rest updated their respective status each night, detailing where they went and what they saw and the general babble of human behaviour. Joy for social media!

I print out the profile pictures of each of the victims, ones clearly showing their face in case I need them for later use, and then along with the list, pin them to the wall, writing below, their names. Once I've finished, I stand in front of the wall and on bits of paper, write down some of the most important status' and some of each persons hobby in an attempt to find a connection. As dad comes off of the phone I turn around but stay quiet as I see dad's annoyance. The crew must have checked out as being okay.

"They're all okay," dad begins, seeing me looking, "apart from their new cleaner. A crimimal record for kidnapping and murder."

"But either you're angry because it's too simple or because he left before the disappearances happened."

"Correct," dad says, spinning around as he thinks. "Quit before the last ship left Plymouth."

"He still could have done it," I point out. "We've seen it happen."

"And here you arrive at the 'too simple' part of my annoyance." I sigh and rock my head back to look at the ceiling.

"Which means we still have to get on the ship."

"I'm afraid so." I sigh and begin to go into my mind palace to file away the information I've found out so far today.