“I know,” he said wretchedly. “I know. I was a twat.”

“You weren’t,” I said. And then, feeling dishonest: “Okay, you were. But I know I wasn’t the easiest— Look, that’s not the point now. We’re friends, right?” That was overstating it, but he nodded. “Okay, then don’t screw this up.”

“All right,” he said. He stood up painfully and swiped at his face with the arm of his dinner jacket, then looked at it ruefully. “Hope they’ve got an onboard dry cleaner.”

“Hope they’ve got an onboard dress mender.” I nodded at the rip all the way up the side of the gray silk dress.

“Will you be all right?” Ben said. “I could stay. I don’t mean that in a sleazy way. I could sleep on the couch.”

“You totally could,” I agreed, looking at the length of it, and then shook my head as I realized how my words sounded. “No, you couldn’t. It’s big enough, but you can’t; I don’t need you to. Go back to your cabin. For Christ’s sake, we’re on board a ship in the middle of the ocean—it’s about the safest place I could possibly be.”

“All right.” He walked, hobbling slightly, to the door and half opened it, but he didn’t actually go. “I—I’m sorry. I mean it.”

I knew what he was waiting for, hoping for. Not just forgiveness, but something more, something that would tell him that squeeze wasn’t completely unwanted.

I was damned if I’d give it to him.

“Go to bed, Ben,” I said, very weary, and very sober. He stood in the doorway a moment longer, just a millisecond too long, long enough for me to wonder, with a shift in my stomach that echoed the shifting sea, what I would do if he didn’t go. What I’d do if he shut the door and turned around and came back into the room. But then he turned and went, and I locked the door after him and then collapsed onto the sofa with my head in my hands.

At long last, I don’t know how much later, I got up, poured myself a whiskey from the minibar, and drank it down in three long gulps like medicine. I shuddered, wiped my mouth, and peeled off my dress, leaving it coiled on the floor like a sloughed-off skin.

I stripped off my bra, stepped out of the sad little pile of clothes, and then fell into bed and into a sleep so deep, it felt like drowning.

I don’t know what woke me up—only that I shot into consciousness as if someone had stabbed me in the heart with a syringe of adrenaline. I lay there rigid with fear, my heart thumping at about two hundred beats per minute, and I scrabbled for the soothing phrases I’d repeated to Ben just a few hours before.

You’re fine, I told myself. You’re completely safe. We’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean—no one can get in or away. It’s about the safest place you could possibly be.

I was clutching the sheets with a rigor mortis–like grip, and I forced my stiff fingers to relax and flexed them slowly, feeling the pain in my knuckles subside. I concentrated on breathing in . . . and out. In . . . and out. Slow and steady, until at last my heart followed suit, and I could no longer feel its frantic pounding in my chest.

The drumming in my ears subsided. Apart from the rhythmic shush of the waves, and the low engine hum that permeated every part of the vessel, I couldn’t hear anything.

Shit. Shit. I had to get a grip.

I couldn’t self-medicate with booze every night for the rest of this trip, not without sabotaging my career and flushing any chance of advancement at Velocity down the drain. So that left—what? Sleeping pills? Meditation? None of that seemed much better.

I rolled over and switched on the light and checked my phone: 3:04 a.m. Then I refreshed my e-mail. There was nothing from Judah, but I was too wide-awake now to go back to sleep. I sighed and picked up my book instead, lying splayed like a broken-backed bird on the bedside table, and opened it to the last page I’d read.

But although I tried to concentrate on the words, something niggled at the corner of my mind. It wasn’t just paranoia. Something had woken me up. Something that left me jumpy and strung out as a meth addict. Why did I keep thinking of a scream?

I was turning the page when I heard something else, something that barely registered above the sound of the engine and the slap of the waves, a sound so soft that the scrape of paper against paper almost drowned it out.

It was the noise of the veranda door in the next cabin sliding gently open.

I held my breath, straining to hear.

And then there was a splash.

Not a small splash.

No, this was a big splash.

The kind of splash made by a body hitting water.

JUDAH LEWIS

24 September at 8.50am

Hey, guys, bit concerned about Lo. She hasn’t checked in for a few days since she left on a press trip. Anyone heard from her? Getting kinda worried. Cheers.

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LISSIE WIGHT Hi Jude! She messaged me on Sunday—20th I guess it must have been? Said the boat was amazing!

Like · Reply 24 September at 9.02am

JUDAH LEWIS Yeah, I heard from her then, too, but she didn’t reply to my e-mail or my text on Monday. And she hasn’t updated facebook or twitter, either.

Like · Reply 24 September at 9.03am

JUDAH LEWIS Anyone? Pamela Crew? Jennifer West? Carl Fox? Emma Stanton? Sorry if I’m tagging random people, I’m just—this is kind of out of character to be honest.

Like · Reply 24 September at 10.44am

PAMELA CREW She emailed me on Sunday, Jude love. Said the boat was lovely. Do you want me to ask her dad?

Like · Reply 24 September at 11.13am

JUDAH LEWIS Yes, please, Pam. I don’t want to worry you both, but I feel like she’d have made contact by now, normally. But I’m stuck here in Moscow, so I don’t know if she’s been trying to phone and not getting through.

Like · Reply 24 September at 11.21am

JUDAH LEWIS Pam, did she tell you the name of the boat? I can’t find it.

Like · Reply 24 September at 11.33am

PAMELA CREW Hi, Judah, sorry, I was on the phone to her dad. He’s not heard anything, either. The boat was the Aurora, apparently. Let me know if you hear anything. Bye love.

Like · Reply 24 September at 11.48am

JUDAH LEWIS Thanks, Pam. I’ll try the boat. But if anyone hears anything, please message me.

Like · Reply 24 September at 11.49am

JUDAH LEWIS Anything?

Like · Reply 24 September at 3.47pm

JUDAH LEWIS Please, guys, anything?

Like · Reply 24 September at 6.09pm

- CHAPTER 10 -

I didn’t even think about what to do next.

I ran to the veranda, threw open the French windows, and hung out over the rail, desperately searching for a glimpse of something—or someone—in the shifting waves. The dark surface was spattered with bright refracted light from the ship’s windows, making it almost impossible to make out the shape of anything in the swell, but I thought I saw something beneath the crest of a black wave—a swirling white shape that trailed beneath the surface as it sank, like a woman’s hand.

Then I turned to look at the balcony next to mine.

There was a privacy screen between the two cabins, so I couldn’t see very much, but as I peered over, I saw two things.

The first was that there was a smear on the glass safety barrier of the next-door veranda. A smear of something dark and oily. A smear that looked a lot like blood.

The second was a realization, and one that made my stomach clench and shift. Whoever had been standing there—whoever had thrown that body overboard—could not have missed my stupid, headlong dash to the balcony. In all likelihood they’d been standing on the next-door veranda as I dashed onto mine. They would have heard my door crash back. They would probably even have seen my face.

I darted back into the room, slamming the French windows behind me, and checked the cabin door was double-locked. Then I put the chain across. My heart was thumping in my chest, but I felt calm, calmer than I had in ages.

This was it. This was real danger, and I was coping.

With the cabin door secure, I ran back and checked the veranda windows. There was no deadlock on this—just the normal latch—but it was as secure as I could make it.