‘This is my research centre,’ Gerlinde explained succinctly. The room was dominated by a black filing cabinet that stood in the middle of the cabin like a modern kitchen island. Shelves stuffed with books and files filled three of the four walls. The external wall was coated with a green paint you could write on like a blackboard, interrupted only by a window. On it were photos, outlines of the ship, cabin floorplans, newspaper articles, Post-its and handwritten notes that Gerlinde had scribbled in white Sharpie between the documents.

Martin saw arrows and lines. ‘Killer’ was inside a fat circle, as was ‘Bermuda Deck’, which he read three times.

Opening one of the upper drawers, Gerlinde took out a thin hanging file, from which she plucked a newspaper article.

‘Missing at sea,’ read the headline from the Annapolis Sentinel, a local American paper.

‘One of the shareholders of this cruise line is a media mogul. He did all he could to prevent the story from being published everywhere. Apart from a few internet blogs, this is pretty much the only rag that reported on the case.’

Gerlinde tapped her index finger on the photo of a mother with her daughter just before embarkation, at the bottom of the gangway where all the Sultan’s passengers had their picture taken so that they could later acquire an expensive photograph of themselves.

‘Didn’t your wife and Timmy disappear on the Sultan’s transatlantic crossing five years ago?’ Gerlinde asked.

She tapped the photo in the article again. ‘Barely eight weeks ago Naomi and Anouk Lamar vanished into thin air, four days’ sail from the Australian coast.’

Martin grabbed the article from her hand.

‘It’s happened again?’

Another mother and child? On the Sultan again?

The eccentric old lady shook her head.

‘Not again. It’s happening still.’

10

Julia put down the cup without having taken a sip and looked askance at Daniel. ‘A passenger what?’

The captain gave a bleak laugh. ‘Of course. You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? But believe me, that’ll soon change. The phrase will be on everyone’s lips.’

Passenger 23?

‘I hope it’s not catching,’ she said, essaying a tired joke she didn’t even want to laugh at herself.

‘I need to fill in some detail for you to understand.’

Daniel reached for a pilot case that he’d put under the bench. Julia heard the catches snap open, and soon afterwards a thin, black paper file lay on the table before her.

He removed the rubber band that kept the cover shut and opened it up.