She pulled her jacket around her and stayed in a crouch for a while, listening keenly for any shouts or sounds of a Good Samaritan raising the alarm. There was nothing, and eventually she stood up and made her way back inside.

‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’

Propped up against the pillows in the bed, Paula put her head in her hands.

His words had turned into a mantra. I don’t know what you want me to say. Over and over and over again. Had he always been like this? So… dismissive.

Yes, thought Paula. And she wondered about the other women she knew, whose husbands were possessive and willing to raise their voices and fists in support of their wives, sometimes against their wives. Tommy was too laid-back for that. This was a different sort of control.

The sun had risen now, after a night of no sleep for either of them. Paula had been too frightened to drop off, and Tommy was… well, Tommy was simply mystified at her behaviour.

‘I want to get off this ship,’ she said now. ‘I don’t know what I’ve done for someone to target me so intensely. I just need to leave.’ She waited a beat and then said pitifully, ‘Please.’

He had been pacing for a while, up and down, back and forth, pausing every so often to look out across the patio. Paula followed his gaze. The sea looked calm, blue and glacial, an almost perfect colour match to the winter sky.

‘We don’t stop now until Iceland.’ He came over to the bed and sat down next to her. The mattress dipped with his weight as he leaned across and took her hand in his own. ‘We get off for a whole day before we set sail for home.’ He squeezed her fingers. ‘You’ve just got cabin fever.’

She was sure that wasn’t it. What even was cabin fever – a form of claustrophobia? If so, that wasn’t her problem at all. She would have been quite happy spending more time in the sauna, or even in her plush suite, but she had been forcibly locked in.

‘What did you do last night, when I was in here?’ she asked suddenly.

He shrugged. ‘Had dinner, some drinks with the boys.’

‘Anna was here,’ she said. She narrowed her eyes. ‘Actually, she was the last one who went out of the door. As soon as she did, I couldn’t open it.’ She raised her hands, palms up, an unspoken question, and stared hard at him.

‘She was in the restaurant, she had dinner with us,’ he said.

‘Oh. So, it wasn’t just dinner and drinks with the boys after all?’ Even as she spoke the words, she wanted to take them back. They were too combative, she shouldn’t confront him like that.

He sighed and let go of her hand.