The driver is saying something, lifting the hand that was dangling over the wheel a moment ago to gesture in the direction of the bay.

“There is some problem,” he says and then clucks his tongue at the rearview mirror as the lane fills with more cars behind us.

“Stay here,” Luka says, getting out. I watch him walk twenty yards down the road to get a good look at the dock.

The driver is becoming impatient, sighing and gesturing to the meter.

“Don’t worry about that,” I say, not sure if he understands me. This is the only place you need to be. A moment later, he turns off the engine and steps out of the cab for a smoke as a few cars farther down negotiate tight turns and begin to move back up the road.

I lose sight of Luka a few minutes later and find myself staring out the window, drumming my fingers against my knee. At last I can sit still no longer and get out of the cab, start walking down the road.

When I reach the bend, the scene opens below me: white police vans blocking the landing, blue lights flickering in the early evening. I hurry several steps, trying to see what’s happening. There are people in front of the dock craning to see around the police blockade.

A hand on my shoulder. Luka.

“We need to go,” he says.

“What’s going on?” I say, eyes glued to the growing crowd. The police don’t seem to be breaking up a fight or arresting anyone. Just a few officers keeping the passengers back while others talk to what look like the captain and some ferry workers. And one lone car in the gaping hull of the ferry itself.

Luka pulls me by the elbow. I yank my arm away.

“This is the last ferry. We have to get to—”

“There’s been a murder. We have to get you out of here. Now.”

Just then a murmur passes through a group of people standing ten feet away from us. I turn back in time to see a covered stretcher emerge from the hull, two uniformed men wheeling it toward the back of a van.

The tremor, when it starts, begins in my knees. Luka seizes me by the arm and walks me swiftly toward the cab. He spots the driver, who has wandered down to get a look for himself, and says something to him, gesturing to the car.

Back at the cab, Luka climbs into the backseat after me.

“You don’t think that—” I can’t get the words out.

“The police were waiting when the ferry got back. Someone with a car never got off on the island.”

The 7:30 ferry. The same one Ivan was taking back to Cres.