‘Good God, that’s…’ Behind him Bonhoeffer was staring at the corpse, his eyes as wide as saucers. Clearly the shock at what they’d found was preventing him from uttering the dead man’s name.

‘Who?’ Martin asked harshly. Bonhoeffer swallowed.

‘His name is Veith Jesper,’ he said, pointing at the man in the blood-soaked uniform. ‘One of my security officers.’

50

‘Will you ever interrupt my work with a piece of good news, Bonnie?’

Yegor briefly put his phone down, threw Ikarus off the bed and got up. In truth he hadn’t been working, but enjoying a snooze after some disappointing sex with his wife. But he’d rather run up and down the promenade deck naked with a flag sicking out of his arse than let his captain in on the fact that he took the occasional siesta.

‘Shot in the head?’ he asked, the mobile back to his ear.

Sleepily, his wife turned over in the bed and farted. Bloody hell, that was even more disgusting than the mess his captain was describing.

On his way to the bathroom, Yegor wondered whether there was any way of sweeping the matter under the carpet, but realised it was doubtful. So he said, ‘Leave everything as it is.’ While only half listening to Bonhoeffer he breathed into his hand and pulled a face.

Half an hour’s siesta and I’ve got breath like an Albanian sewage works.

‘Of course we’re going to continue,’ he interrupted the captain’s nervous torrent of words.

Are there only idiots working for me?

‘We’re almost halfway; what point would there be in turning around now? Don’t touch anything in that room, and notify the authorities.’

Yegor flipped open the loo seat and undid the button fly on his pyjamas. ‘And muster all those PR luvvies on my payroll. The losers can finally work for their money. I don’t want to read reports like “Horror cruise on the Sultan – one dead and one missing” or anything similar.’

Although it would be almost impossible to avoid the headlines, of course. And that was partly his fault, as Yegor knew.

It took a while for the first drops to come. In the past his urethra had burned when he’d been with the wrong sort of women. The feeling he had now reminded him that his check-up was long overdue.

Getting old is a whore, Yegor thought, peering through the open bathroom door into the semi-darkness of the bedroom. His wife’s feet were sticking out from under the duvet. Even from this distance he could see her crushed stiletto toes. Revolting.

Wait. What did this bird-brain of a captain just suggest?

‘Stop? Again?’ In his anger the ship owner found it difficult to avoid peeing on the floor. Ikarus, startled by his master’s outburst, padded into the bathroom with his ears pricked up.