‘I’ll have to look,’ Bonhoeffer said, hurriedly checking his watch. Apparently he was expected back at any moment.

‘Lisa doesn’t have a credit card,’ Julia said, before slapping both hands over her mouth.

‘Oh, Christ, the video!’ she gasped.

‘Which video?’ Martin asked.

The captain put his raincoat down on a chest of drawers and came into the sitting room, shaking his head.

‘That’s nonsense, Julia, and you know it.’ He tried to put his arm around her, but she moved away.

‘I don’t know anything any more.’ she screamed at him. ‘Would I recognise my daughter if she were here with me now and not somewhere…’ Her voice cracked.

‘What video are we talking about?’ Martin tried again.

‘It supposedly shows her daughter prostituting herself,’ Bonhoeffer explained. Then, turning to Julia, he added, ‘It’s a nasty fake, like everything on isharerumours. Lisa’s the victim of cyberbullying, not a whore selling her body to pay for a cruise.’

There was a crackling in the ceiling and Martin heard a whisper that grew louder when the captain turned a knob on the cabin wall.

‘… we request you to switch to channel 5. Lisa Stiller was last seen yesterday at dinner in the Georgica Room. We apologise for disturbing you in the middle of the night, but we hope that with your help…’

Bonhoeffer turned down the volume of the cabin speaker again. Having found the remote control on the glass coffee table, Martin switched on the plasma-screen television. Channel 5 was showing a close-up of a portrait taken for a biometric passport. Because you weren’t allowed to smile for these photos, the young, sleep-deprived girl with her chalk-white skin and jet-black hair looked rather grumpy. At the sight of her, Julia Stiller burst into tears. And Martin’s heart did a double beat.

‘I know that girl,’ he said, his gaze fixed on the screen. ‘I saw her yesterday.’

45

‘What?’ Bonhoeffer and the girl’s mother asked as if one person.

‘You know Lisa?’

Martin nodded to Julia. ‘Yes, I’ve seen her. Here on the ship.’

‘Where?’

‘Down below.’

‘What do you mean below?’ Julia shouted.

Below. Deck A. The staff area.

Martin slapped his head. A dull pain was throbbing beneath his right temple once more.

Lisa Stiller had got out of his way in the corridor yesterday morning, when Elena took him to see Anouk for the first time.

‘I’m such an idiot. I ought to have twigged immediately.’ No chambermaid would be allowed to wear a piercing on this conservative ship. She didn’t belong down there.

What the hell was she looking for? And how had she gained entry to that area in the first place?

The pain spread across his forehead to the bridge of his nose. His eyes watered as he tried to figure out how everything fitted together.