Paula’s face crumpled, and just for a second her emotions were there, plain as day. Then they were gone, and she sat up straight and gulped at her coffee.

‘I don’t know what happened,’ she said, her voice clear now, a bitter sound to it, ringing out into the room. ‘It was just a shock, is all.’

Anna nodded and set her cup, still full, down on the table between them.

Paula didn’t trust her.

It was an interesting development, and a potentially devastating one. She needed the woman to have faith in her, to confide in her, not to be suspicious or sceptical. If that wasn’t possible, she would just have to move her plan along at a quicker pace. She stood up.

‘Best get back, I’ve got some emails that I really must reply to.’ She smiled. ‘See you at dinner?’

Paula nodded and raised a hand. ‘See you later.’

When the door closed behind Anna, Paula reached over and picked up the other woman’s coffee. She’d hardly touched it. As she drank it, she noticed her hands were shaking slightly.

Tommy was telling everyone that she’d fallen.

She thought back to it again, that certainty that she hadn’t tripped, hadn’t lost her footing on what might have been a slippery deck. She had been assaulted, attacked, and yet nobody believed her.

She closed her eyes, reliving the night before. The surprise as she had been barged into, the shock in the sudden realisation that it wasn’t an accident, that her perpetrator wasn’t about to haul her to her feet and apologise. Then those terrible seconds as she was dragged to the gap that would take her into the crashing waves below.

The bottle of vodka still sat on the table, mocking her, it seemed.

You were drunk.

A noise sounded in the room, like a sheep bleating, and belatedly she realised it came from her.

She stood up, smoothing down her shirt, and reached for her bag.

Even if someone on this ship hadn’t tried to hurt her, a flaw in the ship’s design had almost killed her.

And if Tommy wasn’t going to report it, then she would.

They’ll ask if you’d been drinking.

The voice of caution whispered to her. Ignoring it, she slipped her feet back into her boots and stamped over to the door, yanking at the handle.

The door didn’t move.

She ran her hands over the tiny gap between the door and the frame, seeking locks, seeing nothing. She turned the handle once more, knowing even as she pulled at it that it wouldn’t open.

She was locked in a room again. Just like in the sauna on that first day.

Breathing heavily now, she moved away from the door and reached into her bag, her fingers searching for her phone to call Tommy to come and let her out.