Her father would never have bought this crap. Lawyers were more suspicious by nature, she thought.

Lisa was torn from her thoughts by a humming noise, but it was just the minibar, from which she took a cola. Like all soft drinks and food aboard the Sultan, it was free.

Back on her bed, she sat cross-legged again, took a sip from the tiny bottle and glanced briefly at the balcony door, which reflected the whole room. The ship trundled sideways as she typed into her notebook:

Moonshadow: i’ve read that drowning is gross. unbelievably painful. not like getting high as some people write.

Querky: you mustn’t think about that. those sorts of thoughts will just hamper you.

Easier said than done. She thought about pain all the time. It began when her parents separated. Although her father was the first person who’d left her, unfortunately he hadn’t been the only one. Curiously enough, emotional torment was far more intense than physical pain. On the contrary, whenever she cut herself, the pain was the only positive thing she felt.

Lisa was just about to ask Querky at what time she should go online tomorrow when the minibar hummed again. She stood up, confused.

The sound was too regular to be some sort of static noise. She was about to tell her chat partner she was going to be briefly offline to check something, but Querky got there first:

Querky: what’s that humming the whole time?

Lisa slapped her hand over her mouth in shock.

She checked the icons on her screen. The microphone and webcam were switched off.

How can Querky hear that?

The noises got louder when she opened the minibar in the cupboard below the television.

Inside were a dozen bottles of soft drinks and beer, while the side compartment was filled with spirit miniatures and peanuts. Nothing that could make a humming sound. And yet something was buzzing, rhythmically.

Lisa opened the freezer compartment and found something.

Beside the ice cube tray was a light-blue envelope with the cruise line’s logo. The bulging packet vibrated, making Lisa scream and leap back from the fridge in fright. To begin with she thought it was maggots crawling around inside the envelope, but that was impossible.

Not at minus eight degrees. And maggots don’t hum at regular intervals!

It was a while before Lisa thought of the obvious thing to do: she took out the envelope to open it.

Sure enough.

The packet was padded and well insulated, which is why the mobile phone she found inside didn’t feel especially cold.

‘Hello?’

‘Finally,’ said a voice she’d imagined would be quite different.

‘Querky?’ Lisa asked, forcing herself to speak softly so her mother couldn’t hear her in the adjoining cabin.

‘Who else?’

‘Bloody hell!’ Lisa laughed, relieved. Her heart was pounding as if she’d just raced a hundred metres. ‘You really gave me a fright.’