He is still talking but I’m not listening, my mind whirring. What is he going to do now? Will he show the DNA results to Leo? Then the police? What will they do? Will they question me again? Can they find out that Lola is alive now that they have her DNA? Will they be able to tell it didn’t come from a jumper and that it’s more recent? Did Lola factor that into her plans? This is all going wrong. She’s going to get caught and go to prison and she won’t cope and she will kill herself because I have let her down again just like before and then I will surely die too.

‘OK,’ I squeak, not sure exactly what I’ve agreed to because I’m not listening.

‘Good. I’ll give you some pills to take, which will hopefully make you feel calmer and sleep better, and then a script for some more for when you’re back on land.’

Oh God. At this rate, as soon as I’m back on land, I’m going to prison. As is Lola. Unless I’m taken away before then and she’s left to starve to death in the crew area of the ship or has to give herself up because … oh God oh God oh God.

As he turns round to get the pills from his cupboard, in the throes of panic I pick up a bronze statuette of an elephant and smash him over the head with it. Then I grab the form he’s holding, my DNA results, along with the pile of papers on the desk, which I assume are the other results.

But I can’t leave him here! What if someone comes in and finds him? I haven’t been to the medical centre much since I joined the ship, so I don’t know my way around. I run out of the consulting room to see what else I can find – a waiting room, several other consulting rooms, loads of locked cupboards. I shove some of the pills from the medicine cupboard he’d opened into my pockets – I don’t know what they are but they might come in handy, you never know, and carry on looking.

Using my access-all-areas key which I have for the cleaning, I open an unmarked door at the end of the corridor. And there is exactly what I need; no one will come in here.

The mortuary. I go back to the consulting room and putting my hands under Stuart’s armpits, I pull him along the corridor and manage to manhandle him into one of the mortuary drawers.

I’m too agitated to tell if he’s even dead. I think he is, but I’m not sure. At least he’s out of the way. I need to find Lola and sort this out.