“In that case, neither can the passengers,” Melvin said. “So why don’t we just hand out questionnaires like I suggested?”

“Because,” Silvia said, “the housekeeping team can issue meal passes on the spot. They visit a cabin, do the questions, issue the pass, job done. If we leave questionnaires in the restaurant, someone has to process them afterwards, then find the passengers to hand out the passes. It really is easier this way. Speaking of the passes Jake, how do we do those?”

“We’ve got working computers and printers, right?”

“Yes.”

“So we print up numbered passes on headed paper. Issue them to your team, they hand them out to passengers and note the numbers on the completed questionnaires. Then we make up lists for each restaurant, to divide the passengers and crew between them. When a passenger claims a meal, they show their pass, and their number is checked against the list.”

“Claude won’t like it, it’s a lot of extra work for his people, but yes it sounds like it should work. I think we’ll have to have two sittings for each meal, we can’t fit everyone in in one go.”

“Why the emphasis on passengers?” Melvin asked. “What about crew, they’re subject to rations too, right?”

“Of course,” Jake said. Melvin was annoying him. “Crew eat in the crew cafe.”

The four of them worked out a few final details about how crew members doing the census would themselves be canvassed, as well as other staff who wouldn’t be able to return to their cabins. When they were happy that the plan was good, Silvia left to start work on printing up questionnaires and meal passes, and to organise her team. Jake put out another PA call informing everyone aboard that there was to be a census. He emphasised that it was mainly to help plan the food rationing. Everyone was to be in their cabin by fourteen thirty, and once the operation was complete, which was expected to be before the evening meal service at twenty hundred hours, an announcement would be made.

Twenty-Seven

SEVEN O’CLOCK ROLLED around quickly. Jake had been trying not to think of what lay ahead, but there was no putting it off now.

“Melvin, ready?”

Melvin looked up wearing a confused expression.

“Morgue,” Jake said. “It’s time to go and photograph the dead and identify those we can.”

Melvin said nothing, but followed Jake to the door. Lucya came over to join them, her face a picture of sympathy. She rested her hand on Jake’s arm.

“Will you be okay?” she asked.

“I have to be.”

“It will be over quickly, and then we’ll be getting ready to sail.”

“I’m not sure which I’m looking forward to the least,” Jake said. He turned and left, Melvin a few steps behind.

The temporary morgue had been set up on deck one, below the water line. It was a large storage area that could be configured for a variety of uses. It most often served for holding extra food, but that was something it would never do again, not now that it had accommodated human corpses.

Jake and Melvin found Grau and Barry waiting for them outside. Jake introduced Melvin to the entertainment manager, and then nobody quite knew what to say. There was an awkward protracted silence in which each waited for another to lead off. In the end Jake realised that as captain he was probably meant to take charge.

“Well, shall we?” he moved to open the heavy steel door.

“Jake,” Grau put a hand on the door to stop him. “Are you ready for this? It’s not an easy thing to do you know.”

“I know, let’s just get it over and done with.”

“Before we go in, you should probably put these on.” Grau fished around in the large pocket of his white coat and produced four sterile masks of the sort used in medical procedures. “They won’t do much, but they’re better than nothing.”

The four men covered their faces with the masks in silence. Jake pushed open the door and they stepped inside.

He hadn’t really known what to expect, he just knew it would be cold, and possibly a bit creepy. The fact he was wearing a mask alerted him to the idea it might smell, but he wasn’t prepared for the overwhelming odour of death. It wasn’t so much the smell of rotting flesh, the low temperature was keeping the bodies in reasonable condition. It was the burning smell that took him by surprise. Corpses that smelt like steaks overdone on the barbecue.

“Jesus,” Melvin managed to say. Nobody else spoke.

There were more than two hundred bodies, neatly lined up in four rows on the floor. Each one was draped in a white bed sheet. The room was lit by fluorescent tubes, and even though the place was supposed to be sealed, flies buzzed around the lights and the covered corpses.

Barry noticed that some of the sheets had sticky notes stuck to them with tape. He walked over to the nearest and read the note.

“Beverly Stracken, Ohio. P. ID by Barry Stracken, husband.”

“P?” Barry asked.

“Passenger,” Grau replied. “All the information on the stickies is also recorded in a log book. We’ve got about eighty bodies still unidentified, we’ve done much better than we thought. A lot of passengers have come forward to say they’ve not seen friends they made in the first days of the cruise. And a lot of the staff have been down here too, looking for friends and colleagues.”

“Those you’ve identified, you’ve photographed them, just in case? You know, any mistakes, or people lying about who they are?”

“Yes, all done.”

“So we have to photograph the others, and hope Barry and myself might be able to identify some.”

“Yes, but I warn you that it will be difficult,” Grau didn’t seem to know how to phrase what he was about to say, he was clearly struggling with the words. “Of those who remain nameless, many are too…damaged…by the ash. Their faces are no longer…intact.”

“I see,” Jake said, and wished he didn’t have to.

“Do we split up, take a row each?” Barry asked.

“No, you and I both need to see every unidentified corpse, we have a better chance of recognising them that way. Melvin, you can take the pictures,” Jake said.

Grau handed a camera to Sherwood and showed him briefly how to operate it. The four men walked over to the first unlabelled sheet.

“Ready?” Grau asked.

The three others nodded. Grau crouched down and slowly pulled back the cover. Melvin immediately vomited, just managing to turn away from the charred and blackened head quickly enough to avoid defacing it any further with the contents of his stomach.

“Shit, sorry,” he said, sniffing, and wiping his mouth with the back of the mask he had pulled off just in time.

“Don’t worry,” Grau said, “we will clean that up later.”

Melvin took a deep breath, held it in, lined up the camera and pressed the shutter. Barry and Jake looked at each other, shaking their heads.

“Sorry Grau,” Jake said. “No idea.”

The doctor replaced the sheet, and the group moved on to the next body in silence.

At the third body, Barry gasped. The face was twisted and contorted, burnt in an expression of pain.

“I know this one. Her name is Sarah. Sarah Grennan.”

He knelt down next to her, a tear running down his cheek.

“She worked in the theatre. She was a stage hand, but wanted to be on stage, acting. She had talent, but we didn’t have any positions for her to fill. This was her first cruise. I was sure we’d get her performing before long. She was 18. So young, so full of promise, and hope.”

“I’m sorry, Barry, truly I am,” Jake said. He noted the name on a pad of sticky notes that Grau had given him, labelled it “C” for crew, and recorded the fact Barry had identified her. Melvin snapped a photo, Grau carefully replaced the sheet, and Jake attached the note.