Page 145 of The Island of Lost Girls

She waits quietly for a few minutes as shouts of surprise rise up from the crowds on the quayside. And then she walks on.

I hate you.

I hate you. You belong in the blackened fires of hell. I hate you, Matthew Meade. I have always hated you, but now I know why.

The Princess Tatiana has a premium mooring, close to the foot of the funicular and tucked away for privacy. She hates this place. These boats. All the same, lined up in their rows, the way she imagines cities to be.

I hate them. I hate them all. They have destroyed my home. We fought off invaders for a thousand years. These people are no less invaders because they come with diamonds and pearls and cleaning jobs for all.

A light burns in the bridge and another in a porthole, but she sees no other signs of life.

Mercedes shifts her chiller bag – her cover story if she encounters Philip on board – onto her left arm, and unlocks the gangway gate. Steps softly on to the gangplank, freezes as it takes her weight. To her heightened senses the shift as her weight lands feels extreme, a lurch rather than the small list it really is.

No one comes and no new lights come on, and she walks on up to the deck.

All so familiar. The third Princess Tatiana of her lifetime, ever same-same. In all the detail – the layout, the furniture, the furbelows that make his pleasures easier – everything remains unchanged. The same, upgraded. His youthful fantasy of a rich man’s life, frozen in time like a fly in amber. Even the gilded anchor is still here, by the gangplank gate, taken from boat to boat like a shiny brass figurehead. To remind him of where he began. To remind him of the lives he has stolen.

I hate you, Matthew Meade.

She slips onto the staff staircase and descends to the bowels of the boat. If she waits in a stuffy little maid’s cabin, traces of Blu Tack on the walls above the beds where photos of love and family have sustained its occupants through lonely nights, she can be certain that no one will find her.