Although she hadn’t written it explicitly, everything suggested that Shahla had wanted to free Anouk from her mother rather than abduct her. They would probably find a den in the lower deck, not far from the blue shelf, a place where Anouk had been more or less able to move around freely during the last couple of months. He still didn’t understand what Anouk and Shahla were doing that night when the captain saw them in the corridor near the ‘nest’, where Gerlinde had taken the photograph. But now it was perfectly clear why Anouk had refused to speak a word the whole time, even though she knew exactly who’d taken her away and where her mother was. Why she needed the UV light, so that she could find her way to Naomi without the chambermaid by means of invisible marks. To torture her, observe her, or just to take pleasure in her suffering. Or to kill her, as she had done in the end.

‘We have to let Daniel know,’ Elena said, grabbing Martin’s mobile on the table.

It started to vibrate.

67

Martin took the call by pressing the touch screen of his smartphone and the picture of Stalin vanished from the screen.

‘Diesel?’ he asked.

‘Call me Edward Snowden if you like.’

Martin’s finger was already hovering over the icon to disconnect the conversation.

‘Listen, I can’t talk now. All hell has been let loose here and…’

‘I’ve hacked Lisa’s Facebook profile,’ Diesel interrupted him impassively.

Martin didn’t waste time asking how he’d done that. He knew that the editor-in-chief could count not just tattoo artists and pyromaniacs amongst his friends, but numerous technology freaks as well, who provided him with the newest versions of cracked computer games.

‘And?’

‘Well, I stumbled on an interesting exchange with a chap called Tom Schiwy.’

‘Who’s that?’ Martin asked. He’d put it on loudspeaker so Elena could hear.

‘Her liaison teacher. She obviously had a relationship with him.’

The doctor frowned, but the disfigured half of her face remained unmoved.

‘Isn’t this Lisa still only fifteen?’ Martin asked.

‘Precisely. But there’s more! This teacher had something going with the mother too.’

Martin and Elena exchanged glances of amazement.

‘With Julia Stiller?’ Martin asked.

‘How many other mothers has she got?’ Diesel must have been chewing gum because his words were accompanied by disagreeable lip-smacking noises. ‘And now, here’s the hammer blow. Are you belted up?’

‘What?’

‘The video you wanted me to search for on isharerumours.com…’

‘Is it genuine?’ Martin stared at the phone, as if he could press the answer out of him just with his eyes.

‘Yes, looks like it. And I’ll give you three guesses who the bloke is.’

Martin paused. He hardly dared voice his suspicions. ‘This Schiwy guy?’