Ignoring the small voice of doubt, Dougie told Finn to wait, then grabbed for the ladder, hitching himself up and onto it.

He’d sent his drone out a few times, assuring himself that what Erling had said was true. The coastguard visited the surrounding waters or flew over intermittently. To all intents and purposes the Orlova had become a graveyard, without the resident dead.

Halfway up, he lost his nerve. What the hell was he doing, leaving Finn alone down there? And would he manage to pull him up even if he did get to the deck himself?

Concentrate on how you’re going to get Finn up and put one hand after the other. That’s all you have to do.

He’d been sheltered from the wind during the climb, but as he finally pitched himself over the railing and onto the deck, he realized the wind had dropped and a haar was rolling in.

Which was even better, he told himself, as the thick fog closed around him.

Dougie secured the rope and began to pull Finn up. Orkney wasn’t known for its mountains, but there were plenty of cliffs and stacks he’d climbed with the dog. Many caves they’d lowered themselves into.

Finn, he knew, would likely be less fazed than him by this latest adventure.

Safely now on deck, Dougie freed the collie, who immediately sniffed the air.

‘So where to, Finn?’

As though in answer to his question, Finn set off, Dougie following, his head torch focused on the waving white tail.

Dougie still wasn’t sure what he was looking for, except perhaps that he wanted to see if what he’d learned from the online gamers about the ghost ship was true.

Inside now, he stood for a moment, trying to get his bearings. According to the material he’d collected about the ship, the virtual games area was on a lower deck, so he needed to find the nearest stairs.

The emergency lights might be working, but the heating definitely wasn’t. He could see his breath condensing, the further he descended into the bowels of the ship.

Glancing into the staterooms and sleeping quarters, his headlamp picked out the black dusted surfaces where SOCOs had taken prints, the crime scene tape still strung across entrances or broken and trailing over the floor.

The lower he went, the more the cold smell of the upper decks began to change, subtly at first, then more swiftly and strongly as he descended. There had been talk about a fire death, as well as two deaths during a game.

Was that what he could smell?

Finn had caught the scent too and had taken off down the next set of steps, to halt on a landing outside an open door, his hair standing straight up.

Dougie joined him there.