Taking my room key in my hand, I went out barefoot into the corridor.

The ash wood door to my right had a little plaque that read 10. PALMGREN, which made me think that the supply of eminent Scandinavian scientists must have worn a little thin by the time they finished fitting out this boat. I knocked, slightly hesitantly.

There was no answer. I waited. Maybe the occupant was in the shower.

I knocked again, three sharp knocks, and then, as an afterthought, a final loud whack in case they were hard of hearing.

The door flew open, as if the occupant had been standing on the other side.

“What?” she demanded, almost before the door had opened. “Is everything okay?” And then her face changed. “Shit. Who are you?”

“I’m your neighbor,” I said. She was young and pretty with long dark hair, and she was wearing a ratty Pink Floyd T-shirt with holes, which somehow made me like her quite a lot. “Laura Blacklock. Lo. Sorry, I know this sounds really weird, but I wondered if I could borrow some mascara?”

There was a scatter of tubes and creams visible on the dressing table behind her, and she was wearing quite a bit of it herself, which made me fairly sure I was on safe ground.

“Oh.” She looked flustered. “Right. Hang on.”

She disappeared, closing the door behind her, and then came back with a tube of Maybelline and stuck it into my hand.

“Hey, thanks,” I said. “I’ll bring it right back.”

“Keep it,” she said. I protested, automatically, but she waved my words away. “Seriously, I don’t want it back.”

“I’ll wash the brush,” I offered, but she shook her head impatiently.

“I told you, I don’t want it.”

“Okay,” I said, slightly puzzled. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” She shut the door in my face.

I went back to my cabin wondering about the odd little encounter. I felt out of place enough on this trip, but she looked even more of a fish out of water. Someone’s daughter, maybe? I wondered if I’d see her at dinner.

I’d just finished applying the borrowed mascara when there was a knock at the door. Maybe she’d changed her mind.

“Hey,” I said, opening the door, holding it out. But it was a different girl outside, one wearing a stewardess’s uniform. Her eyebrows had been rather savagely overplucked, giving her an expression of permanent surprise.

“Hello,” she said, with a singsong Scandinavian inflection. “My name is Karla and I’m your suite attendant along with Josef. This is just a courtesy call to remind you of the presentation at—”

“I remember,” I said, rather more brusquely than I’d intended. “Seven p.m. in the Pippi Longstocking Room or whatever it’s called.”

“Ah, I see you know your Scandinavian writers!” She beamed.

“I’m not so hot on the scientists,” I admitted. “I’ll be right up.”

“Wonderful. Lord Bullmer is looking forward to welcoming you all on board.”

After she’d gone I rummaged in my case for the wrap that had come with the dress—a sort of gray silk shawl that made me feel like a long-lost Brontë sister—and draped it round my shoulders.

I locked the door behind me and dropped the key inside my bra, and then I made my way along the corridor, up to the Lindgren Lounge.

- CHAPTER 7 -

White. White.

Everything was white. The pale wood floor. The white velvet sofas. The long raw-silk curtains. The flawless walls. It was spectacularly impractical for a public vessel—deliberately so, I had to assume.

Another Swarovski chandelier hung from the ceiling and I couldn’t help but pause in the doorway, more than a little dazed. It wasn’t just the light, the way it glinted and refracted from the crystals on the ceiling, it was something about the scale. The room was like a perfect replica of a drawing room in a five-star hotel, or a reception room on the QE2, but it was small. There could not have been more than twelve or fifteen people in the room, and yet they filled the space, and even the chandelier was scaled down to fit. It gave the strangest impression—a little like looking in through the doorway of a doll’s house, where everything is miniaturized and yet slightly off-kilter, the replica cushions a little too large and stiff for the tiny chairs, the wineglasses the same size as the fake champagne bottle.

I was scanning the room, looking for the girl in the Pink Floyd T-shirt, when a low, amused voice came from the corridor behind me.

“Blinding, isn’t it?”

I turned to see the mysterious Mr. Lederer standing there.

“Just a touch,” I said. He held out his hand.

“Cole Lederer.”

The name was faintly familiar but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

“Laura Blacklock.” We shook, and I took him in. Even in jeans and a T-shirt struggling up the gangway, he was what Lissie would have called “eye candy.” Now he was wearing a dinner jacket in a way that made me remember Lissie’s rule of thumb: a dinner jacket added 33 percent to a man’s attractiveness.

“So,” he said, taking a glass off a tray proffered by yet another smiling Scandinavian stewardess. “What brings you to the Aurora, Miss Blacklock?”

“Oh, call me Lo. I’m a journalist, I work for Velocity.”

“Well, very happy to meet you, Lo. Can I offer you a drink?”

He picked up a second flute and held it out with a smile. The empty miniatures in the cabin floated up before my eyes, and I wavered for a moment, knowing I was on the cusp of drinking too much so early in the evening but not wanting to seem rude. My stomach was very, very empty and the gin hadn’t quite worn off, but surely one more glass couldn’t hurt?

“Thanks,” I said at last. He handed it over, his fingers brushing mine in a way I wasn’t sure was accidental, and I took a gulp, trying to drown my nerves. “How about you? What’s your role here?”

“I’m a photographer,” he said, and I suddenly realized where I’d heard the name before.

“Cole Lederer!” I exclaimed. I was ready to kick myself. Rowan would have been all over him, right from the gangway. “Of course—you did that amazing shoot for the Guardian of the melting ice caps.”

“That’s right.” He grinned, unashamedly pleased at being recognized, though you would have thought the thrill would have worn off for him by now. The guy was only a couple of steps down from David Bailey. “I’ve been invited to cover this lot, you know, moody shots of the fjords and stuff.”

“It’s not usually your thing, is it?” I said doubtfully.

“No,” he agreed. “I tend to do mainly endangered species or at-risk environments these days, and I don’t think you could say this lot were at any particular risk of extinction. They all look particularly well-fed.”

We gazed around the room together.

I had to agree with him when it came to the men. There was a little knot in the far corner who looked like they could survive for several weeks off their fat reserves, if we were ever shipwrecked. The women were a different story, though. They all had that lean, polished look that spoke of hot Bikram yoga and a macrobiotic diet, and they didn’t look like they’d survive long if the ship went down. Maybe they could eat one of the men.

I recognized a few faces from other press shindigs—there was Tina West, whippet-thin and wearing jewelry weighing more than she did, who edited the Vernean Times (motto: Eighty days is just the start); the travel journalist Alexander Belhomme, who wrote features and foodie articles for a number of cross-channel and in-flight magazines and was sleek and rotund as a walrus; and Archer Fenlan, who was a well-known expert on “extreme travel.”

Archer, who was maybe forty but looked older with his perma-tanned weathered face, was shifting from foot to foot, looking distinctly uncomfortable in his tie and dinner jacket. I couldn’t quite imagine what he was doing here—his normal beat was eating witchetty grubs up the Amazon, but maybe he was having a bit of time off.

I couldn’t see the girl from the next-door cabin anywhere.

“Boo!” said a voice from behind me.