Slowly, Anna pulled herself to a standing position. Paula cringed back against the cold white wall of the balcony. The exertion it must have taken, the strength… Beneath her coat, she felt her heart thumping. Now it was the end, because this woman’s strength was superhuman, ongoing. Nothing could destroy it, not a broken arm, not being blinded in one eye, not half starving herself to the point of collapse.

The tables had turned, suddenly, without warning. And Paula was weary now, so she closed her eyes and waited.

A clang of metal on metal. She opened her eyes. Anna was holding onto the railing to her left, her bracelet making contact with the frame. She stood in the gap, and she smiled now, and Paula saw what she was going to do.

She understood. Anna – Rebecca – couldn’t stand to have someone know that the front she had put up was just that. Pretence, a fake life.

Paula shrieked, some part of her still obsessed with the young girl she’d never actually known. Because she understood, she’d been there too.

She darted forward, hands out, fingers grasping at air, staring in horror at Anna’s pale bone-china face, her eyes closed, her expression no longer hard, no longer falsely friendly, no longer calculating or plotting or deceiving.

She was serene.

The splash was minuscule and the pale face remained, tilted upwards, just for a second or two, before it was swallowed by the black water.

Later, freshly showered and dry and warm, wearing her own coat now, Paula stood in the doorway where hours earlier, she had prepared to alight the ship for a day in Iceland.

How things can change in a few hours, she thought as she watched the staff and the police milling around.

Beyond them, torchlight bobbed on the edge of the forest. She heard her own name called, far in the distance, and smiled to herself.

This is it.

She pushed herself off the door frame and strode out onto the deck.

He was on his own. Clusters of people stood near him but kept a good distance away. Dermot was there, one hand on the rail, speaking into his mobile phone, casting anxious glances across the landscape, where the police and the public searched diligently.

Tommy looked lost, and she slowed her step. It was interesting, watching him like this. He must have been freezing cold, but he didn’t move like the others. They switched from one foot to the other, cuffs pulled over hands, arms wrapped around themselves. He didn’t move a muscle. He stood immobile, staring out, his face dragging seemingly with sadness.

She moved up behind him and put her hand on his arm.

‘What’s the hold-up?’ she asked, striving for impatience in her tone. ‘Shouldn’t we have set sail by now?’