I bit my lip. I hadn’t told him the real reason I’d stopped diving. The event had been so traumatic, I didn’t like to be reminded of it.

‘That’s not the point,’ I argued. But the fight had gone out of me.

‘I can’t wait to get that dress into the lab,’ he said. ‘I’ve started calling around, sounding out who’s got a free schedule coming up. Subtly, of course. Once we get a proper team of experts on board, we’ll have the dress to ourselves for a few weeks before the hordes descend. Hopefully we can get a head start on any breakthroughs.’

We had agreed that the other artefacts – the book cover, the lice comb and the velvet purse – would need to be analysed separately by specialists in their respective fields. The day after Liam’s arrival, we’d called the provincial government of Noord-Holland to let them know what the divers had found. Nobody in the public-facing office seemed to know the best person to ask so the conversation had been challenging, at first. After a series of transfers, a deep voice appeared on the line. The man had identified himself as Rob Disijk, the local member of parliament for the province of Noord-Holland. Rob was surprised to hear about the find but eager to offer his department’s help. He requested a video call with the divers, which Liam and I had facilitated, gathering the group together at the clubhouse.

Rob was an older, handsome man, white-haired with bright blue eyes that held your gaze, penetrating the laptop screen despite the shaky internet connection. After asking the divers to relate the story of the dress’s discovery again, he explained the delicate nature of the situation. According to Dutch law, the dress and anything else of value found inside the wreck belonged to the Noord-Holland provincial government. There was no real question of ownership. The dress couldn’t stay on Texel. Rob planned to send a group of divers over to the island during the coming week. Unlike Bram and his friends, the State Defence divers were employed by the Navy and they were qualified professionals who dived for a living, trained in extreme conditions and had extensive experience retrieving valuable artefacts while leaving underwater sites undisturbed. If Bram and the other members of the club agreed to provide the exact location of the wreck and provide assistance, Rob promised to smooth over any legal difficulties that might arise from their illegal scavenging.