‘The cloud,’ he exclaimed, stepping closer to the screen and touching with a couple of fingers the outline of the shadow now hanging in the air about halfway down the ship. Gravity suspended by a simple press of a button on the remote control.

‘What?’ Bonhoeffer asked. From the lilt in the captain’s voice, Martin could tell he knew exactly what he’d noticed. He’d seen it immediately. Any fool could see it at first glance. It was hardly surprising that this film must never be made public.

‘It’s too small.’

‘Small?’

‘Yes. The first cloud was larger.’

And that was impossible. Impossible if Nadja had first doped Timmy and thrown him overboard. Logically she could only have jumped after him. Which means the first shadow would have to be smaller than the second.

But it was the other way around!

Furious, he turned to the captain.

‘I was right,’ he said, pointing his finger at Bonhoeffer. ‘It was all one big lie. Your cruise line…’ he said, taking a step closer to the captain, whose eyes flickered, ‘claimed it was suicide. You stigmatised her as a child murderer, just to…’

Yes, why in fact?

The obvious answer, which he could provide himself, drained Martin of any energy to continue his outburst.

Timmy and Nadja. Two grey clouds which had fallen overboard one shortly after another. There was no doubting this fact.

All that the sequence of their jumps proved was that someone else was responsible for their deaths.

Someone who’d stolen Nadja’s suitcase, gathered Timmy’s teddy as a trophy and passed it on to Anouk like a baton.

Someone who was probably still on the ship.

Someone who – if they’d left Anouk alive for so long – was probably still holding her mother prisoner too. He didn’t know anything about this person’s motives, nor who they were.

All he knew was that he’d find them.

He was dead certain about that.

26

Naomi

The computer had been there from the beginning.

Small, silver, angular. A laptop with a chunky battery and an American keyboard.

The glow of the screen was the first thing Naomi Lamar had seen when she awoke from her unconsciousness eight weeks ago.

‘What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?’ it said in smallish black letters on a white background. Naomi had read the question and collapsed inside the well, sobbing hysterically.

She’d named her prison the well because it had rounded walls that stank of mud, faeces, slime and filthy water. Not overpowering, but pervasive. The pong lingered in the rough metal walls like cigarette fumes in the wallpaper of a smoker’s apartment.

She’d never escape from here without outside help.

She’d realised this from the second she’d first opened her eyes and glimpsed her surroundings.