Richard Bullmer and Carrie’s plot to eliminate Anne

Richard Bullmer and Carrie’s plot to eliminate Anne is a scheme that changes shape: an affair sustained through impersonation becomes the concealment of Anne’s death and the continued use of her identity. Revealed to Laura Blacklock while she is imprisoned aboard the Aurora Borealis, the plot exposes how Richard’s promises draw Carrie into a criminal role and how the appearance of Anne’s illness helps make the deception plausible.## From affair to impersonationRichard and Carrie meet at The Magellan, where Carrie works as a waitress while trying to become an actress. Richard presents himself as a wealthy man whose marriage to Anne is effectively over: he says that they live separate lives, with Anne in Norway and him in London, and portrays her as cold and controlling. Carrie accepts his account that divorce would be cruel because Anne is dying. Their relationship is secret, and Carrie says they cannot meet in public. Richard’s wealth and access offer Carrie a life she has not known, while the secrecy leaves her dependent on his version of events.Carrie describes an earlier experiment in passing as Anne. Richard gives her one of Anne’s kimonos and has her watch a film of Anne speaking so she can imitate her bearing. Carrie hides her hair under a swimming cap and scarf; together, they go to a theater and sit in a box, drinking champagne as a couple. The deception succeeds, and they repeat it once or twice when Anne is in London. What begins as a private game establishes the method later used aboard the ship: clothes, hair, manner, and controlled access to photographs can make one woman stand in for another.## The Aurora Borealis schemeFor the Aurora Borealis voyage, Richard proposes that Carrie impersonate Anne for a full week. He says Anne is due to board for the first night but will leave late that evening, and that he can smuggle Carrie aboard in her place. He assures her that nobody on the ship has met Anne and that he will prevent photographs, reducing the chance that the impersonation will be exposed afterward. The ship’s arrival in Bergen supplies a convenient explanation for Anne’s supposed continued absence: other guests could assume she stayed on for a few extra days before going home to Norway. Richard arranges for another guest not to travel, leaving an empty cabin for Carrie. In exchange, she agrees to cut her hair so that she will better resemble Anne.The plan depends on more than resemblance. On the voyage, Anne is presented as gravely ill: she wears a scarf over her scalp, has no eyebrows, and appears pale and gaunt. Carrie later explains that she has watched a film of Anne and learned how to carry herself. Together, disguise and the apparent effects of cancer treatment give the impersonation a convincing public face, while Richard’s control of who may photograph Anne limits the evidence that could contradict it. The plan also relies on other people accepting Richard’s account of his wife and on the practical difficulty of checking Anne’s movements during a voyage.## Anne’s death and the cover-upCarrie says that, on the first night, she was dressing as Anne when Richard arrived in distress. According to his account, Anne had discovered the affair and confronted him; he pushed her away, she struck her head on a coffee table, and he found that she was dead. Richard then told Carrie that an investigation would expose her presence on board and their impersonation scheme. He warned that he could be prosecuted for murder and she as an accessory to a premeditated plan, especially if a photograph of her dressed as Anne came to light. He persuaded her that they had to dispose of Anne’s body at sea and continue the original deception, so that Anne’s absence would appear to begin in Bergen.Carrie’s account describes a sudden change from a plan to impersonate a living woman into a cover-up after Anne’s death. Laura, however, sees reasons to doubt Richard’s explanation. Anne could not simply have left the ship on the first night as Carrie had been led to expect: the voyage was not due to reach Norway until the following day, and Anne could not have disembarked without her passport and without the crew noticing. Laura concludes that Richard may never have intended for Anne to leave the ship alive. The evidence therefore distinguishes what Carrie says Richard told her from Laura’s inference about his original intention; the confession reveals the cover-up, but does not make Richard’s version of the death trustworthy.Carrie’s deception also helps explain the cabin 10 mystery. Laura reconstructs that the real Anne was taken there after drinks on the first night, though she cannot determine whether Anne was alive when she arrived. While Richard was establishing an alibi in Lars Jenssen’s cabin during an uninterrupted poker game, the woman posing as Anne disposed of the real Anne’s body overboard. Laura’s frightened conclusion after hearing a splash was mistaken in its details but close to the underlying crime: a woman had gone into the sea, though the apparent Anne was not the victim.## Exposure and significanceBy the time Laura is held in a cramped hidden cabin, she understands that the woman presenting herself as Anne is an impostor and that the real Anne is dead. She recognizes the danger of what she knows: a kidnapping, imprisonment, and bodily assault could be reported, but Richard and Carrie cannot allow her to leave and tell the story. The impersonation has thus become more than a way to conceal an affair. It protects the lie about Anne’s whereabouts, conceals the disposal of her body, and gives the people involved a reason to keep a witness confined.When Laura challenges Carrie, she argues that Richard’s next move, once he has Anne’s money, may be to make himself safe by eliminating Carrie as well. Carrie rejects this prediction and insists that Richard loves her. Her refusal to accept the implications of the plot shows how the intimacy that drew her into it also limits her ability to judge its danger. She has been given a role, a promised future, and Richard’s account of Anne’s death; she has also helped remove Anne’s body and continue the impersonation. Laura’s reconstruction makes the central reversal plain: Carrie first agrees to become Anne for the sake of a public week with Richard, then becomes complicit in erasing the real woman whose identity she wears. The plot’s disguise is physical, but its success depends just as much on controlling information—and on Carrie’s willingness to believe the story that keeps her bound to Richard.