Easter Sunday came and, with it, the gathering of Kate’s family at her parents’ house in Virginia Water. Nick usually managed to throw himself into such events, entertaining Kate’s nephew and niece and doing a good impression of being amused by her father’s account of golf club politics. It was harder work than usual, however, and he suspected it showed. On more than one occasion he was accused, good-humouredly enough, of inattention – wool-gathering, as his mother-in-law called it. He did his best to laugh the accusations off and over-compensated by drinking more than he should have. He suspected Kate would be levelling a few complaints at him during the drive home.

All in all, he wasn’t finding normality an easy place to go back to.

Terse and sour-mannered though he was, Captain Jakobsen was an expert in what he was paid to do. As the MS Horisont entered the vast complex of wharves and basins that was Rotterdam docks, Wada began to wonder just how easy it was going to be to leave the ship. But Jakobsen had arrangements for her well in hand. Within half an hour of the Horisont docking, she was able to disembark in the company of several Somali crew members under the cover of a group shore pass. It was Easter Sunday and harbour staff were thin on the ground. Within another half an hour, Wada was in a taxi heading for Rotterdam Centraal station.

At the station she made enquiries about ferry services to the UK. There was good news and bad. A ferry ran from Hoek van Holland, less than an hour away, to Harwich, on the east coast of England. She reckoned getting from there to Cambridge couldn’t be too difficult. The snag was that it was an eight-hour crossing and the next ferry was at ten o’clock.

Wada was going to have the pleasure of another night at sea.

Nick slept badly that night, partly because of a hangover after the lunch in Virginia Water. Kate hadn’t reproached him for drinking too much. Perhaps she sensed the disappointment his trip to Iceland had left him with. He supposed that must have been clearer to her than he’d intended. He promised himself in the small hours of Easter Monday that he’d put the mystery of Peter Ellery/Evans/Driscoll out of his thoughts. The next move was his father’s to take. Whether he took it or not was up to him. There was nothing more Nick could do.

And he was going to live with that.

TWENTY-THREE

WADA WAS THE first passenger off the hook of holland to Harwich ferry on Monday morning. The seasickness had been even worse on the ferry than it had been on the Horisont. It was a relief to set foot on dry land.