Ross had not been delighted by her prolonged absence.

‘Where are you?’

‘Several thousand miles from the coast of Kenya, by all accounts.’

‘Can’t you fucking swim for it?’

‘They’ve mentioned sharks. And the pirates I’ve just filed about. Why? You missing me?’

‘Fuck’s sake.’

‘Turns out these things don’t have to go back to land for ages,’ said Casey, admiring her suntanned arm.

Both oddly shy, Casey and Ed avoided conversation for the first ten days.

She noticed him, of course. Dark hair cut close, and a smile that flickered for a second. Rainbow eyes turned down at the corners, and when she looked closely she saw his eyes had flecks of grey and green, blue and brown. He moved with a careless grace, swinging down the ship’s ladders.

In the evenings, she watched him playing cards. He was so good that they accused him of cheating, and he would laugh, and smack away the hands that reached for his chips.

Later she watched from the bridge, high above the ocean, as the Marines stormed a little pirate ship, knifing through the water in splinters of spray. She only realised the danger when an officer holding binoculars relaxed. ‘They’ve got her. Surrendered. All safe. Nice job.’

That evening she went to what she called the back of the boat and the Marines called aft. The Somali pirates were being held there, in a huge black cage. Fifteen of them, all silent. They were dressed, incongruously, in padded black nylon jackets, crouching on the desk, feet flat to the floor. They had separated into groups, even then divided by the Somali fight-to-the-death clan system.

Ed was keeping watch there, reading a book. He was always reading. A habit picked up in one of those bases in the wilds of Afghanistan, with no television and no fun.

Casey tried to speak to one of the pirates, who had a few words of French. This man seemed to have a brother in Manchester, a cousin in Glasgow, an uncle in Marseille.

He was friendly; they all were, trying to bridge the language gap.

Eventually, having exhausted her French and her sign language, Casey flopped onto a pile of rope to write up her notes.

‘We found a beacon on their ship,’ said Ed.

‘What?’ She looked up, surprised that he was speaking to her.

‘A solar-powered beacon in their dhow. The trawlers round here dump the huge dragnets overboard, and attach a solar-powered beacon. Then they keep going, drop more nets, keep going. A few days later, when all the fish are tangled in the nets, the trawlers go back to that first solar beacon, and bring the nets in. Everything gets caught in those nets. Dolphins, turtles, tiny fish no one will ever eat.’

‘Right,’ said Casey. She liked his voice, she decided.