As Bonhoeffer’s nose refused to stop bleeding, his attempts to wash his face were futile. He grabbed another paper towel and turned to Martin.

‘Yegor Kalinin isn’t aboard the ship for fun. He’s planning to sell a large share of his fleet to Vincente Rojas, a large-scale investor from Chile. As we speak they’re in the sauna finalising the details. Sixteen lawyers are standing by, eight shysters on either side. They’ve been clogging up the large conference room on deck 4 for weeks, but I’ve heard they’re just twiddling their thumbs for a thousand dollars an hour, because all the documents are ready to be signed. Apparently they want to wait until we sail into New York, so they have the emblematic view of the Statue of Liberty as they sign the contracts.’

He threw the blood-soaked paper towel into a hole for rubbish in the basin unit and pulled out another one.

‘Look, you’ve got to understand that I’m not a child abuser.’ Bonhoeffer sounded more confident than desperate now, and secretly Martin had to agree with him. During the trial he’d made a comprehensive study of the captain’s criminal profile. Nothing hinted at such tendencies.

‘I want to find that bastard who abused Anouk too,’ the captain said. ‘But you’re right: yes, I am a henchman. The ship owner’s got me in his pocket. What can I do?’

‘Stop behaving like a whore, for starters!’ Martin shouted.

‘You self-righteous arsehole!’ Daniel screamed back. ‘Off you go, then. Deck 13. The Admiral Suite, that’s where you’ll meet Yegor and Vincente. Why don’t you go and clear things up? Tell the investor about our Passenger 23. But don’t expect the girl still to be in Hell’s Kitchen when you go down there with the Chilean.’

‘And you’ll make sure of that?’

Bonhoeffer opened his mouth, sniffed and now looked disappointed rather than angry.

‘I swear I’d never do anything to Anouk. I’m afraid to say that Yegor has friends of a completely different calibre on board, employees he’s saved from destitution by offering them a job. They’d hold a lighter to their own eyes if he ordered them to.’

They stared at each other until Bonhoeffer turned back to the mirror. ‘Please help me. We’ve got five days. In that time we can find out what happened to Anouk. And if we don’t succeed, we can work out a plan for how to get her off the ship alive.’

Martin shook his head. ‘Either you’re nutty, or so desperate that you can’t see the obvious solution. I’m going to go straight to Anouk, take a video of her as evidence and put it on the net.’

‘Don’t do that.’

‘Why ever not? What’s stopping me?’

‘Because Yegor would have you exactly where he wants you.’

Martin frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’