‘By my boss, Yegor Kalinin. I’m supposed to find out where Anouk was and what happened to her. I’ve got six days. Until we get to New York.’

‘On your own?’

‘At least without the authorities, without official help.’

‘But why, for goodness’ sake?’

‘Because we can’t afford any publicity in this matter. It would be the end of us.’

Daniel stood up and went over to the desk with its polished mahogany top and two cabinets beneath, in which files or other documents could be stored behind lockable doors. In the right-hand cabinet was a hotel safe, bigger inside than it looked at first glance, for Daniel took from it a black lever arch file once he’d tapped in the code to open it.

‘Do you remember me saying that in most cases the cause of a Passenger 23 was suicide?’

‘Yes.’

‘That was a lie.’

Sitting back in the chair with armrests, he opened the file at random somewhere in the first third.

He tapped his finger on the page before him, which looked like the cover sheet for a police file. ‘This is just an example. 2011, the Princess Pride sailing down the Mexican Riviera. Marla Key, thirty-three, American. Vanishes on the night of 4 December. According to the crew, the young mother fell drunkenly over the railings. But why is her beaded purse damaged? And why was a cardboard box put over the one security camera that could have proved she fell?’

Daniel turned a few pages.

‘And here, a year later, again in December, this time on our sister ship, the Poseidon of the Seas. Cabin 5167. A twenty-five-year-old woman from Munich went to take a quick dip in the pool on the morning of her wedding anniversary. She was never seen again. After a rudimentary search the crew assumed it was suicide. Even though, just the day before, the woman had booked a hairdresser’s appointment for the day she vanished! Or just recently’ – Daniel had turned to the last page – ‘the case of the Italian Adriano Moretti, who disappeared near Malta from the Ultra Line 2, after telling his friend in the disco he was popping to the loo.’ Daniel crashed the file shut.

‘I could go on like this for hours. There are entire websites dedicated to the phenomenon of missing passengers: internationalcruisevictims.org, cruisejunkie.com or cruisebruise.com, just to mention the three best-known ones. And these aren’t conspiracy sites set up by nutters; they’re serious contact points for relatives and cruise victims, as those people who believe themselves to be victims of a crime at sea call themselves.’

Julia noticed a thin film of sweat on Daniel’s brow.