‘Wow,’ Sara breathed. Her eyes shone. ‘I still can’t get over how amazing it is. How on earth did it survive down there for so long?’

I couldn’t answer. The true circumstances of the dress’s miraculous survival were part of a tale that could not be illuminated by Liam’s science or my investigations into the dress’s provenance. Those who believed in luck or destiny might have had a better appreciation of how the dress came to be lying there for over three centuries and how its unique position, sandwiched between layers of oxygen-free mud, had prevented the material fibres from rotting, protecting it from ravenous shipworms and hungry currents. Was it just coincidence that Bram and his friends happened to be diving the day after the storm washed the sand away from the wreckage? Or was there something else at work that day, something that could not and would never be explained?

I didn’t want to be late for my meeting with Jeanette so, after taking down some observations in my notebook, I sealed the dress back in its box and followed Sara out of the lab and back up the stairs into the exhibition space.

‘Is he always like that?’ she said, as the doors swung shut behind us.

‘You mean Liam?’ I felt my phone vibrate with a message. An email from Jeanette’s secretary, confirming our appointment. Please don’t be late, she’d written at the bottom. Ms Hall’s schedule is extremely busy this afternoon and I’ve only managed to allocate you half an hour. If you aren’t on time, I’m afraid it won’t be possible for her to see you until the exhibition is launched.

‘Yes,’ Sara was saying. ‘Doctor Pinney seems quite old-fashioned. He asked me to get his lunch for him a few times and call this hire-car place to see if there were any better vehicles. I laughed it off, but I’m not a hundred per cent sure he was joking. When I told my boyfriend, he said I must have misheard.’

‘Liam can be difficult,’ I said. ‘He’ll sulk now. I know what he’s like. Just avoid him for the next few hours, if you can.’

Sara grinned. ‘Noted.’

We crossed the room, heading back towards the lobby. As we passed an open doorway, Sara stopped abruptly.

‘You never got to see Maja’s reconstruction,’ she said. ‘You have to meet her. She’s like our patron saint here in Castricum, a warrior for women’s courage.’

She seemed so earnest, I found it impossible to refuse. Although aware of the mounting time pressure, I pushed through the beaded curtain and entered the small antechamber I’d seen earlier from the other side of the room where Maja’s skeletal remains were housed in the oblong box. The lighting was different here. The clinical glare of white-tinted halogen globes showed up every pore and freckle on the face of the figure positioned at the centre of the room. If it weren’t for the uncanny stillness, the mannequin could have been a real person. Crinkled blonde hair plaited into two braids hung either side of her face and her cheeks and nose were florid, as if burned by the wind or sun. Her blue gaze held me captive, burning with a fiery intensity. There was a certain wisdom in those eyes that seemed to be at odds with her extreme youth and reminded me strongly of Anneke.