The evening air had a soft tang of salt and diesel. Laughter washed down from the upper balconies. In the distance she could hear pop music mingling with the swishing of the sea. The ship’s programme had announced a karaoke afternoon.

‘Why?’ Julia thought, shaking the railing she’d climbed over the night before. ‘Why did you have to hold onto me, Daniel?’

She leaned over the railings and looked down. The sea no longer looked menacing, but enticing. She heard a whispering in the gentle whooshing of the waves. It sounded like her name. Enticing.

People don’t die that quickly!

‘Lisa?’ she wanted to shout out, but her voice failed.

Why didn’t I insist?

Why didn’t I force Daniel to stop the ship and turn around so we could go overboard?

I knew about the video, didn’t I?

Full of fury and self-hatred, she kicked the screen between the balconies. Hammered on it with her first. And kicked again. Once. Twice.

On the third occasion her foot went right through the plastic wall.

Without destroying it.

It felt as if she were kicking into thin air. Julia had gone at it with such momentum that she almost slipped and fell, only staying on her feet because she was holding onto the railing.

What the devil…?

She stared at the door that her foot had kicked in the screen. It looked like the cat flap in a back door, except that large dog could have got through this. Or a human being.

Julia’s pulse started to race. She bent down and looked through the flap onto Lisa’s balcony. The hairs on her forearms stood on end. She felt electrified by an intuition.

The door was fastened shut. Normally you’d need a tool to open it, to make maintenance easier or speed up transporting things between cabins. But the lock seemed to have been unfastened.

By Lisa perhaps?

Julia took off her dressing gown and, dressed only in panties and a bra, slipped through the flap in the screen. She scraped a knee and shin, but she was no more aware of this than she was of the chilly wind that could now assail the entire surface of her body.

Is this what you did too, my love?

She tried to peer through the glass into her daughter’s cabin, but the doors were locked and the curtains closed. With both hands she shielded her head from external lights, but still couldn’t see anything.

Did you lock the connecting door from your side, Lisa? And put the chain on afterwards?

She turned back to the flap.

Did you creep through there to vanish through my cabin?

Julia felt her heart beating faster. Had it been the breath of wind when the balcony door was opened, or the sound of a door snapping shut that had woken her from her sleep?

The door by which you left my cabin, darling?