Chapter One

It was Tuesday afternoon nearly 17.30h and time for the evening meal. I walked down the four flights of stairs from my cabin and turned left into the corridor on deck 1. Normally the corridor would be quiet around this time as the Filipinos were usually having their meal in the crew-mess, but this afternoon a small group of them hovered at the end, some of them peering through the open door of the officers’ lounge.

As I looked into the lounge myself, I saw a scattering of books, videotapes and glasses. All the cupboard doors had been left open and the video recorder and dvd-player removed from their respective shelves and placed on the floor.

‘What on earth has happened here?’ I asked, as I stepped past the Filipinos into the lounge.

‘Oh…’ Mr Chavira said with a cheeky grin, ‘…the Russian engineer has done some tidying.’

I looked around more closely. The videotapes were sorted into two piles, English and German. Books the same. All the wires of the dvd-player and video recorder had been rolled up into neat little bundles. The glasses, cups and mugs put in order.

Mr Chavira disappeared in the direction of the crew-mess and Nick, one of the passengers, and I looked at Rodel. The past week-and-a-half on board had taught us that he as steward usually knew what was going on around the ship and we were in need of an explanation, if not some gossip.

‘What happened here, Rodel?’ Nick asked.

Rodel stepped into the lounge, looking over his shoulder in a conspiratorial way. He leant closer to us and whispered: ‘The Russian has gone crazy…’