Yegor couldn’t recall the name. And ultimately he didn’t care. As his eyes gradually closed, he merely wondered where that Argentinian Lothario was now, after probably – almost certainly – staring death in the face not long ago.

51

Daniel hung up, taken aback by the ship owner’s reaction. Kalinin had sounded really tired at first, as if he’d just been woken from sleep, even though it was still broad daylight outside. Then Yegor didn’t seem surprised in the slightest, as if he’d been waiting for the news that one of his officers had been shot dead. It was only during his angry outburst at the end of their conversation that he’d sounded normal again.

‘Who knows about this love nest here?’ Schwartz asked, shaking a locked fitted cupboard beside the bed by the handle. The presence of a corpse and the accompanying stench seemed to bother the investigator far less than it did the captain.

Daniel looked at the bolted cabin door. He just wanted to get away from this stinking, windowless hole as quickly as possible.

‘Almost two thousand people,’ he replied. ‘All the employees plus a handful of passengers who engage in a little holiday flirt with a member of staff.’

And don’t want to play out their adventure in their own cabin because there’s usually a cuckolded partner waiting for them there.

‘And do you have an idea of who uses this nest.’ There was a crack and Martin had the metal handle in his hand.

Bonhoeffer massaged his stiff neck. ‘No. As I said, this room doesn’t exist officially. Which means you can’t reserve the nest either. There’s no visitor rota or anything like that.’

‘But someone must have coordinated the allocation and handover of the key?’

‘Yes, and I’ll give you three guesses who the management suspect.’ Without looking at it, Bonhoeffer pointed to the corpse at their feet. The ship pitched heavily and he felt terribly sick. His stomach contracted like a bagpipe, squeezing its acidic contents back up his gullet.

He suggested they continue their conversation elsewhere, but the detective was using the metal handle as a lever to force open the cupboard.

There was a crack and the plywood door was left hanging from one hinge. Soon afterwards it had been ripped off altogether.

So much for Yegor’s order to leave everything as it was.

‘Well, well, what do we have here?’ Schwartz muttered as he took a little plastic case from the cupboard.

It was slightly larger than a piece of hand luggage, with lots of stickers on the front and back, some badly effaced. Most of them were flags, symbols or maps of places this case had probably journeyed to. The colour of the case (pink) and the palm-sized sticker of a boyband on one of the side pockets suggested that its owner was young and female.