When Anouk Lamar unexpectedly reappeared some months ago, Yegor really did believe they were scuppered. A missing Passenger 23 wasn’t a problem. It was a regular occurrence, and so nobody searched a cruise ship in its entirety. But a Passenger 23 who came back from the dead? That was something else altogether. As soon as news of the girl had become public, all hell would have been let loose and their business would have been finished. Worst-case scenario. The FBI would have seized the ship and forensically searched it with an army of agents. Which mustn’t happen under any circumstances. Suicide? Fine! A serial killer on board? So what! Somehow the PR department would be able to iron all that out. But if a search of the ship uncovered the place where the cruise line actually earned its millions – the in-between deck – they’d spend the rest of their lives in prison. Him, the surgeon and everyone else who made a mint from the private witness and victim protection programme. A programme used by the rich and desperate of this world who wanted to vanish from the face of the earth forever, mostly for illegal reasons. Whether to escape imprisonment, taxation or – as in Tayo’s case – the Nigerian gambling mafia. Where better could you do this than on a luxury liner of these dimensions? A police-free zone, with countless opportunities to hide. A world in itself where entire families could easily be prepared for the new life they were literally heading for.

The in-between deck wasn’t actually a real deck. It consisted of lots of intricate and winding spaces distributed across several levels, cleverly designed so that the recesses weren’t apparent from the outside to those who didn’t know.

Yegor and Konradin were sitting beside the transport airlock, a secret door through which the container with Sandy was going to be wheeled. Just as soon as old Dobkowitz, only a few steps away on the other side of the wall, finally vanished.

‘By the way, how is our patient on his big day?’ Yegor mumbled without taking his eyes off the monitor. Gerlinde was just manoeuvring her wheelchair a metre backwards, as if a little distance would afford her a better view of things.

‘Excellent. He’s healing well. As so often with clients with well-trained bodies,’ Konradin replied.