‘But then,’ came the answer from the bed, ‘where are the people? Would no one survive? Bodies, there would be bodies…’

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Or indeed, what if some of them were able to get away and they have launched a boat? Where would they finish up? We must ask the master about the currents, the winds. Perhaps you could say yes, here, or here—this is where the floating wreckage or the survivors would cast ashore. I think we are preoccupied with this idea of a malign force in these islands. It distorts our thinking. If such a person exists, it isn’t Munro.’

Something else occurred to me. ‘And if Munro has that cabin, why must we go on? Have we not found enough now to report back to Srinivas?’

I waited for a response and received one: a gentle snore. I sat awhile, feeling the secret stirrings of the boat. My hand rested on the rail of my father’s bed, a perfectly rounded edge that felt firm and accommodating, like every other surface below decks. She made no odd creaks or bangs, the Moonbird; nothing rotted or broke. I had never seen the slightest evidence of a rat down here, despite the doctor’s morbid menagerie. She watched over us, she shared all this, and she was somehow incorruptible.

With a gentle pat on his prickly stubble, I left my father sleeping.

On deck I found the doctor sitting alone.

He was on the cabin roof, making notes by the light of a small lamp. The decks, the rigging, everything seemed cleaner after the rainfall, and he sat straight and square-shouldered as he worked in the notebook on his lap, his back to me. I called his name gently so as not to shock him by my approach, and he turned and smiled.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked.

‘Er, etymology.’ He proffered the notebook, in which there were pencilled lists of Latin, Greek; his handwriting was a mystery. Lines and arrows linked the terms; circles marked firmly around some, others crossed out. ‘I am supposed to be on watch, but as you can see, there’s not a lot going on.’

‘I’m replacing you at two.’

He smiled. ‘Everyone may be replaced.’

I sat down, not so close as to appear forward. His comment sounded mumbled, and as I studied his features in the faint light, I had a sense his mouth was not the same as I had known it to be. Then I looked beside his hip on the boards, and there was a saucer with a set of dentures in water. I immediately diverted my eyes, but he was too quick.

‘The price of an eventful life, I’m afraid.’

‘Forgive me,’ I said to him. ‘They’re extremely lifelike. I have never noticed…’

He smiled at this, without opening his mouth. ‘They’re realistic,’ he said, ‘because they’re real.’