And after Martin had thrown up for the third time, the hoarse voice didn’t have to bellow so loudly to convince him that there was no reason why Shahla, who could never have anticipated that her diary would fall into his hands, should have lied when writing it. Particularly as these lines shed light on the mystery as to why Nadja had fallen overboard first.

And then Timmy!

Shahla had written:

When I saw the mother with her son I flipped out. In a blind fury I grabbed the nearest object, a heavy desk lamp, and hit the woman over the head. She lost consciousness immediately; perhaps she was dead. Her son ran into the bathroom and locked himself in. What was I to do? It was a messy situation. If I hadn’t lost it, I’d have been able to deliver the punishment much more cleanly on another occasion. But now I was forced to dispose of the mother’s body at once. Luckily the weather was bad that night and there was a large sea swell. Besides, it wouldn’t be in the cruise line’s interest to try to prove an act of violence by video analysis. Suicide is better for a shipping company’s image than having a serial killer on board, which is why I didn’t hesitate for long before throwing Mrs Schwartz overboard. Unfortunately her son had by now left the bathroom and was watching me. When he saw his mother fall over the railings he ran to the balcony, right past me, climbed the parapet… and leaped after her.

First the large shadow.

Then the small one.

Here in the interrogation room, Martin had great difficulty not bursting out into a crying fit, similar to the one he’d had when he read the diary extract and understood for the first time the full implication of Shahla’s account.

Timmy loved his mother. In spite of everything.

Just as the battered wife stops the police from arresting the husband who beats her, Timmy’s love for his mother and fear of losing her was much greater and stronger than his fear of further abuse.

Tears shot into Martin’s eyes, which did not go unnoticed by Dr Klein.

‘Don’t you want to talk about it?’ she asked.

Talk about what? he thought.

That there are mothers who abuse their children? And children who love their parents in spite of everything?

Until death.

‘Let me guess,’ the interrogator said. ‘The truth you now know is so horrendous that you don’t care about your own life.’

‘I felt like that before.’

‘Was that the reason?’

‘The reason for what?’

‘That you jumped in after Lisa?’

Martin closed his eyes.

He briefly felt the impact again, twenty metres down, as a result of which he’d broken his foot. Elena had splinted it with an elastic bandage, which was why he was now limping.