The vessel remained in peril. Although the emergency crews had managed to refloat and right her, the ship was being prevented from sailing away. The damage to the hull was being assessed by teams of divers. They reported that some repairs had already been carried out by internal patching, presumably by the crew. No more fuel oil was escaping into the sea. There was no information about the young conscripts still confined below decks.

The local news was also gripping, if for different reasons. The shortfall in the finances of RabaHome.com was now reckoned to be in the millions of thalers, the result of fraud. This had led to the consequent failure of their largest creditor, a major bank based in the financial sector of Raba City but with connections and influence all over the world. It happened to be the holding company of the small branch I had visited the day before, where I obtained cash.

Later in the afternoon, out of curiosity, I drove across to the area. There was a huge crowd of people outside the building, which was now closed and shuttered. Security guards were holding back the anxious throng. Although I often used that local bank for small transactions, my own main account was elsewhere.

In the distance, I could glimpse the silvery towers of the Raba financial district, rising above the trees, bathed in the sun, standing as if untouched by events, unexcited, unruffled.

As soon as I was back at my desk I checked online. My bank was unaffected by the collapse of RabaHome.com, and had issued a statement to the effect that it had adequate reserves to meet all its liabilities. To me, always a sceptic about utterances from large organizations, this sounded concerning. I noticed that the price of their shares had taken a slide, but to no greater extent than any of the other banks that day.

The next day came the news that the largest loan provider on Raba, which was mortgagee for more than two million homes on the island, had called in the administrators following a drastic reduction in their remaining loan capital.

Jo and I had managed to pay off our own mortgage two years earlier, so once again I was not directly affected by this disturbing news. However, house prices all over the island, as well as on the two Salayean islands closest to Raba, were predicted to fall sharply.

There was a distinctly silver lining to this cloud of gloom. I followed the news with a deep if guilty pleasure.