Paula said nothing, just turned so she was facing the open ocean. The sea was choppy; frothy white waves slammed against the side of the Ruby Spirit, throwing up a fine spray of salty seawater. Suddenly she felt very small indeed. The expanse of the ocean, the size of the ship and everything that had happened to her on it made her shrink inside the oversized coat she wore.

‘It wasn’t locked that night. It was open,’ she said.

He nodded. ‘I know. We reported it, Dermot and me. They apologised but couldn’t understand how it wasn’t locked in the first place.’

‘Doesn’t matter now,’ she said.

That wasn’t true. An open gate on the side of a cruise ship was bad; it did matter, because anyone – little kids or older people – could have wandered through it and been seriously injured or died, just like what had almost happened to Paula. But it was what was behind the incident that mattered most of all.

She inhaled deeply, steeling herself to say the words he didn’t believe. ‘Tommy, I’m certain there was someone else there that night.’

‘There were lots of people there that night. We were all there, looking for the Northern Lights. And we’d all been drinking.’ His tone was gentle now, placatory, protesting against her argument that she had been pushed, even though she hadn’t said the words here today.

And that was how the conversation would always go, she realised. She would protest that she’d been attacked, and he would say she or the person who had walked into her was drunk. Round and round in circles, just like their annual autumn conversation about babies and their lives moving forward together.

She swiped at her eyes, suddenly tired.

‘Let’s go back inside,’ she said quietly.

Using Mark’s master key, Anna let herself into Tommy and Paula’s suite. She had watched them go up to the top deck, Paula looking miserable, Tommy looking strained.

It was freezing cold today, she knew, having followed them up there at a distance and melted into the little pockets of people milling around. They might not stay outside for very long, Paula especially.

She sneered as she thought of the woman’s need for creature comforts and tried to imagine Paula having to deal with Mark’s body the way she herself had done last night. There would be no chance that she could steel herself to do anything like that. She didn’t have the backbone, living the easy, privileged life she’d led.

Anna had done it before, even before William; she had been in a corner and fought her way out each and every time, learning from a young age that you couldn’t rely on anyone apart from yourself. The only way to get out of a rut was money, and plenty of it, and not having to share it with anyone else.