The Woman in Cabin 10: Chapter 15 Summary & Analysis

Thinking back on her childhood, Lo reflects that there’s no concrete reason for her to be dependent on antidepressants; she’d had “nothing but love and support, but that wasn’t enough somehow.” The depression she’d fallen into as a young adult seemed to have a chemical basis that no counseling could cure.

Lo sees taking pills as something similar to wearing makeup—“not a disguise, but a way of making myself more how I really am, less raw.” She reflects that Ben saw her “without makeup” when they were dating, and she doesn’t blame him for breaking up with her. However, she’s furious about what he’s done now.

Lo bangs on Ben’s cabin door and angrily asks him how he could have told Nilsson these things about her. Ben, distressed, tells her he’d been hungover and didn’t understand why Nilsson was questioning him about her. He asks Lo if something happened last night. Lo finally takes a deep breath and tells Ben the whole story. Ben says he believes her, having never known her to make up anything.

Lo agrees with Ben that Nilsson’s reluctance to believe her makes sense, since crime taking place in international waters is a gray area—there’s no clear police jurisdiction, so onboard security has an incentive to brush things under the rug. They speculate together about who could have swiped the mascara, and Ben encourages Lo to speak to Bullmer himself. He says he can vouch for Bullmer’s whereabouts all night, since they were playing poker along with Archer, Lars, and Chloe. Besides, Bullmer “seems like a decent bloke.”

Lo and Ben agree to meet after the scheduled morning activities so that they can question other passengers. Lo tells Ben she can’t stop dwelling on the horrible details about what the girl from Cabin 10 must have felt. Ben tells her not to let her imagination run away with her. Lo replies that she knows what it’s like when someone comes for you in the middle of the night.