‘Wim said “it” killed Sanna, not “he”.’

‘He was panicking. People say the wrong words when they panic.’

‘But he said it several times. “It” killed her, “it” was coming after him. And there was something else. He called it “de demon” . . . the demon.’

The temperature on the bridge seemed to drop as its occupants exchanged worried looks. Havman was the first to speak, standing straight and resolute. ‘It doesn’t matter. All that does matter is that we rescue him.’ He eased the Dionysius into the gap.

Bekker tensed, but Havman guided the ship cleanly through the cave mouth. The change in lighting from the stark whites and blues outside to sapphire-tinted gloom rendered him momentarily blind; he blinked, trying to take in his new surroundings as the four-hundred-tonne survey vessel slipped into the mysterious cave.

Shadows swallowed it.

‘There! I see something, five degrees to port!’

Ulus Cansel, captain of the freighter Fortune Mist, stared intently through his binoculars. The ship had been halfway through its voyage between New Zealand and Cape Town with a cargo of frozen lamb when it received a weak distress call. A nine-hour diversion at full speed had brought it to the source, but now the signal, from the RV Dionysius, had fallen silent. Cansel had been a mariner for almost thirty years; he knew all too well that that was a bad sign. The Dionysius had almost certainly sunk.

But that didn’t mean there weren’t survivors. A spot of colour against the grey sea had caught his eye: a man in a red coat, huddled on a chunk of floating ice. ‘Man overboard! Mr Figueroa, Mr Krämer, launch a lifeboat.’ The crewmen hurried from the bridge.

The Cypriot surveyed the surrounding waters. There was a large iceberg a few kilometres distant. The glossy sheen of raw, snow-free ice over much of its surface told him it had recently rolled; had the Dionysius been crushed by it?

He wouldn’t know until they completed a wider search, but the priority was recovering the survivor. An order, and the Fortune Mist’s horn sounded. At first the figure didn’t move, leading Cansel to fear he was dead, but then he shifted slightly. ‘He’s still alive!’ the captain called out. ‘Get him aboard, quick!’

The lifeboat reached the floating ice.

Jakob Krämer regarded the stranded man warily. The floe was only small, and the lean German was sure it would pitch over if he climbed onto it. ‘Hey! Can you hear me?’ he shouted in English.

No response. He asked the same in his native language, but the man remained still. ‘Hold us steady,’ he told Figueroa. ‘I’ll pull him closer.’