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The Arctic Bridge is the polar shipping route that links the Russian port of Murmansk to the Port of Churchill on Hudson Bay. It’s 3,600 nautical miles long and, when it’s ice-free, acts as the geostrategic bridge between northern Russia and the Canadian heartland. It’s not a route for the fainthearted. It’s only open for four months of the year. Even then, the extreme Arctic weather and the unpredictable, ship-crushing ice floes make each journey a test of nerves and skill. Only the Cape Horn shipping lane, where the Atlantic meets the Pacific, is considered more dangerous.

The Danish-registered Merchant Vessel Swan Hunter had been delivering grain from the Canadian Prairies to Europe, and fertilisers from Russia to North America, for ten incident-free years. MV Swan Hunter was a Handymax bulk carrier. She had five holds and four cranes. She was 190 metres long and had a maximum deadweight of fifty thousand tons. The holds were huge, cavernous. Floating grain silos, deeper than the Hollywood sign is tall.

But for the last two years Swan Hunter had been dry-docked in Murmansk. Officially, it was for a much-needed refit. The peeling and blistering paint had been blasted off and a new coat applied. Navigation and communication systems were upgraded. Crew quarters had been refreshed. The galley got new ovens and freezers. A modern cargo-management system was installed.

The cost ran into millions, the lost revenue even more. But the ship’s owner had been asked to do this by the kind of people who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Say no to these people and you might fall out of your hotel window.

And then, like nothing unusual had happened, MV Swan Hunter had resumed her route along the Arctic Bridge.

But something unusual had happened. The updated navigation and cargo-management systems, the 4K television for the crew, the new equipment in the galley, were smoke and mirrors. Deception. A way to explain Swan Hunter ’s two-year absence.

The real reason for the refit was so that hold number five could be fitted with a false bottom. A twelve-inch lip had been welded to the inside of the hold, two metres from the hatch. The false bottom sat on the lip like the top tray in a jewellery box. It resembled a giant drip tray and was filled with the same bulk cargo as holds one through four. The rest of hold five was a smuggler’s dream. Two hundred cubic metres of stale air. Bigger than three large shipping containers.

Three people on MV Swan Hunter knew about the false bottom. The captain and the first mate – who would both be involved in offloading the cargo mid-sea – and an Australian called Simon Jenkins. Jenkins wasn’t crew. He wouldn’t appear on any manifest. He was a smuggler. His job was to transport the cargo to its next destination.

Until that time, he was supposed to stay hidden in his cabin.

Which was fine in theory. For ten days, Jenkins had done exactly that. He’d not seen or spoken to anyone. His meals were left outside his door by Gregor, the first mate. Other than Gregor and the captain, no one knew who he was. And that was fine. It was how it was supposed to be. It was what he’d signed up for.

Except he’d overheard one of the crew mention the northern lights. The aurora borealis. The natural light display caused by electrically charged space particles getting trapped by Earth’s magnetic field.

Jenkins waited until the crew had retired for the night. He figured that if he didn’t turn on any deck lights, it was unlikely whoever was on the bridge would see him. He would stay in the shadows and spend an hour watching the light show. Get some fresh air.

He was a heavyset man, running to fat, but he’d been a smuggler all his life. He knew how to move quietly. He made his way along the corridor and opened one of the watertight doors that led to the deck. The Arctic air hit him in the face like a blast-chilled sledgehammer. It literally took his breath away.

He was about to give it up as a stupid idea when he saw them. The northern lights. Dancing rivers of green and blue. Curtains of light, the edges tinged with crimson. Swooping and swirling like a murmuration of starlings. He stood and stared, his freezing face temporarily forgotten. It was mesmerising.

Hypnotic.

Which was why he didn’t hear the bosun.

Andrei Belyaev had been on the MV Swan Hunter for seven years. He’d started on the deck crew as an ordinary seaman, had quickly been promoted to able-bodied seaman, and had taken up the role of bosun during the refit. The bosun oversaw all deck operations, and he was keen to do a good job. Which was why he was on deck at 3 a.m. when everyone else was in bed. Strong winds were expected in the morning. He wanted to double-check everything loose was lashed down.

At first, he thought the big man was a trick of the shadows. The same way manipulating your hands could make a bunny hop across the wall. He didn’t know why he thought that. It was clearly a man. But it was so unexpected his mind had provided a more plausible explanation. In all his years on the MV Swan Hunter , they’d never had a stowaway. Murmansk was the asshole of Russia, but Churchill in Canada was even worse. The northern tip of an Arctic wasteland. The nearest town was two hundred miles away; the province capital, a thousand. Churchill was supposed to be the polar bear capital of the world, like that was anything to brag about. Any town where there were as many polar bears as people, and the locals had to keep their doors unlocked so people could run into their house if a bear was chasing them, wasn’t a real town as far as he was concerned.

Andrei didn’t need to tiptoe up to the man. His eyes were fixed on the northern lights, and even if they hadn’t been, the wind masked his approach. He pulled a wrench from his tool bag and tapped him on the shoulder.

Then he bashed him over the temple.

The captain of the MV Swan Hunter was called Dominik Volkov, and he wasn’t a happy man. He blew into his hands and stomped his feet as he stared at the Australian. Jenkins was trussed up like a November Christmas tree. The bosun had restrained him with deck ropes, then alerted Volkov. Volkov had asked him to fetch the first mate.

‘I only wanted to see the lights,’ Jenkins tried to say. His teeth were chattering so much it was hard to talk.

Volkov ignored him. He waited for the bosun to return with his first mate. They weren’t long. No one got undressed on this trip. Even with the heating on, it was too cold to get naked.

The first mate and Volkov shared a glance.

‘Show me where he was standing,’ Volkov said to the bosun.

The three left the shivering Jenkins and walked over to the edge of the boat. The deck was icy, and even with their rubber boots, it was treacherous underfoot.

‘Just here, Captain,’ the bosun said.

‘And he wasn’t doing anything?’

‘Just watching the lights.’

‘Did anyone else see him?’

‘No, Captain.’

‘And have you told anyone about this?’

‘Only you.’

‘That’s a shame, Andrei,’ Volkov said. He nodded at the first mate.

The first mate was a squat man with weightlifter arms. He crouched behind the bosun, wrapped his arms around his lower legs, and heaved him over the side of the ship. The bosun might have screamed on his way down, but if he did, the wind stole his voice.

The captain and the first mate walked back to Jenkins.

‘Andrei was my friend,’ Volkov said. He let that sink in. ‘He was my friend and now the crabs have him.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Jenkins said. ‘I only wanted to see—’

‘Do you wear spectacles, Mr Jenkins?’ Volkov cut in.

‘Excuse me?’

‘You heard me. Are you near- or long-sighted? And if you are, do you correct your vision with spectacles?’

‘I wear sunnies in the summer,’ Jenkins said. ‘But I don’t need glasses.’

‘Then you won’t miss an ear,’ Volkov said. He unfolded a clasp knife that Jenkins hadn’t even known he was holding, bent down, and sliced his left ear clean off. Like he was pruning a rose bush. He threw it over the side as if it were fish guts. ‘Now you too are feeding the crabs.’ He leaned down and whispered into Jenkins’s remaining ear: ‘If I see you out of your cabin again, I’ll fucking keelhaul you.’