‘Were you going to say you wouldn’t be surprised if we wished you’d never come back?’

I bite my lip. ‘Well, yeah.’

He removes his arm from around my shoulder and frowns.

‘Is that really what you think?’

I look at him. ‘I don’t know,’ I say softly. ‘I can see that it’s a big deal for Karen me being here, and I believe you when you say that you’re glad I’m back, but it’s all causing so much disruption. And now the journalists are outside and sometimes I wonder even if Dad did take me, which it looks like he must have done, we’d all have been better off if I’d stayed there with him and everything could have stayed the same. I don’t feel that me coming back has made anyone happier. It’s just made everything harder for everyone, plus now my dad is dead, and there’s nothing I can ever do to change that.’

I feel tears running down my face before I’d even properly realized they were coming.

‘Don’t cry,’ he whispers, leaning towards me and wiping away a tear as it falls. ‘I know you miss … your dad. It’s a lot to deal with. But you being here … it’s brought us all back together. You’ve nothing to worry about. It will get better, I promise. I’m going to look after you now.’

PART FIVE

35

Stuart

21 January 2022, 10:00

The Caribbean

‘Suffocated?’ Leo says. ‘They’re sure?’

Every few weeks the ship is allowed to return to shore for us to stock up – it’s called ‘bunkering’ and is one of the many new words I’ve learned since I’ve been on board. Our slot was brought forward, given the circumstances, and Rick’s body was offloaded for an autopsy with his family’s permission. Though it turns out he didn’t have much family, poor bloke, having been brought up by a grandmother who has since died. A few days later, we had the results.

‘I’ve got the report here,’ I say, gesturing with the paper. ‘In layman’s terms, it very much looks like Rick was suffocated with a pillow from his bed, judging by the fragments of fabric they found in his mouth.’

‘Right. So … it was definitely deliberate?’ Leo asks.

I sigh. It seems like a bit of a stupid question at first, but in actual fact, to be fair, there is a chance that he wasn’t deliberately killed.