Neal and Madeline were confused, but they waited to see where this was going, unwilling to hurry the conversation to its potentially unpleasant conclusion.

The colonel got down to business, “You are Ms. Madeline Cavanagh of the United States?” he asked, acknowledging her nod with a note on a pad. “And you, sir, I am informed by my men that you are Ms. Cavanagh’s brother?”

“Well, no, not really, but we are old friends, and I wanted to make sure I was allowed to come with her.” Neal explained.

The colonel looked annoyed by this irregularity. “And you, Ms. Cavanagh. Are you as keen to have this man present as he clearly is to be here?”

“Yes, definitely, Colonel,” she said emphatically, “Neal is a good friend of mine, and I very much want him here.” Her candid desperation and vulnerability was obvious, and the colonel softened.

“Very well. You may stay at Ms. Cavanagh’s request. May I have your full name for my records, please?”

“Danielson, Neal Danielson.”

The colonel consulted his notes and, finding the name on the same passenger manifest that had linked Ms. Cavanagh with James Hawkson, relaxed his guard a little more.

He looked at them, summoning an air of professionalism, and proceeded, “I am afraid we may have some bad news for you.”

Madeline cracked, a sob flowing from her in a fit, like a held back cough. Madeline was unable to reply for herself, so Neal turned to the colonel even as his arms went around her. The soldier was clearly discomfited by her reaction: it was as though she had been expecting him to say the worst, so Neal prompted him from his silence, “Maybe you could elaborate a little, Colonel?”

“Yes, well, we do not have many details. Last night, or rather early this morning at around 4am, we picked up a distress signal known as an EPIRB from about fifty miles offshore, actually many signals were registered, often a sign of a ship in significant distress.

“A coast guard helicopter stationed about three hours away was immediately dispatched,” he continued, “though we were unable to get any response on any radio frequency. It is the coast guard’s policy to investigate any EPIRB signal, even if no mayday is reported. Better to be safe than sorry.”

He saw that Neal was clearly getting annoyed with his explanation, but he feared the man would not be happy when he heard what little more information the colonel actually had.

“When we arrived on the scene we found very little. Of the multiple signals detected at first, only one remained, and I am very sad to say it was not a survivor, but a single life jacket attached to a bag.”

Neal looked at him, even Madeline stopped crying for a moment, her desperate mind grasping at the lack of concrete evidence that something had actually happened.

“Wait,” said Neal, “where was the King’s Transom?”