Throw me out when you need me. Bring me back in when you don’t need me any more.
On his way to the prow of the Sultan, Martin couldn’t help think of a riddle he’d read years ago in a book. He couldn’t remember the title, only the answer: anchor.
He wished the puzzles served up to him by the most recent events on the ship were as easy to solve. But he feared that inspecting the anchor room would merely throw up more questions than answers.
He began by visiting deck 3, the ship’s official anchor room and essentially its only one. Deck 11 merely housed a small spare anchor, its chains stored outside for aesthetic reasons, visible to everyone who came to the top viewing deck. There was no chance of keeping someone permanently hidden there unnoticed.
‘Here we are!’ Elena Beck said. After Martin had followed the ship’s doctor down a narrow, windowless corridor, which took them along the hull behind the musical theatre, they’d reached the steel door marked ‘ANCHOR ROOM’ via a small entrance. Behind it they were met by Bonhoeffer and a deafening noise.
‘Why’s it taken so long?’ Martin asked the captain, who for understandable reasons didn’t want to shake his hand. With his fingertips he nervously checked that the plastic cap was sitting properly on his broken nose.
‘Long?’ Bonhoeffer looked at his watch.
It was just after 5 p.m. nautical time and it had taken almost two hours for him to get them access. Elena didn’t have any explanation for this delay either.
‘As you can see, we’ve got rather a lot of steam from the boiler at the moment,’ Bonhoeffer shouted. As the prow narrowed, the walls formed an acute angle, like in an attic, and there were no closed windows, just open holes. Given how close they were to the sea here, and that Sultan had now reached its top speed, you had to shout at the top of your voice to be heard over the noise the ship made as it followed its course. Martin felt as if he were inside a steel kettle being bombarded from outside by a water cannon.
‘Normally there’s no access here when we’re out at sea,’ the captain said. He went on to explain to Martin that last year a drunken Canadian had managed to climb into the anchor room and let the chains down from the capstan. The anchor had damaged the propeller, gouged a hole in the ship and rendered it completely unsteerable. At the time the Sultan had just filled up with three and a half million euros worth of fuel. What would have happened had the anchor caused a leak in the fuel tank didn’t bear thinking about.
Today the pisshead was in jail for dangerous infringement of ship security, and since then the doors to the anchor room could only be opened when the liner came in and out of port.
‘I had to get my chief engineer to remove the electronic security lock,’ Bonhoeffer concluded. ‘It couldn’t be done any faster.’
Martin looked around. They’d entered the room on the port side. Turbine-like constructions, possibly generators, covered an area which would have easily accommodated twenty parking spaces. He saw a metal cage, which was used to store the mooring ropes, and several cupboards that looked like fuse boxes with warning stickers indicating high voltage.
And then, of course, there was the chain. Painted black and huge. Viewed up close it looked like something an enormous macho giant might wear across his chest. Martin could have easily slipped his forearm through the links. And he’d have needed a dozen arms to lift just one of them. ‘Seventy tonnes,’ Bonhoeffer said, knocking on the metal monster as if they were on a sightseeing tour.
The chain was coiled on a huge, pistachio-coloured metal reel – the chain winch, reminiscent of an outsized train wheel – and then ran down via a slightly smaller winch into a chimney-sized shaft, which at the moment was blocked by the anchor set firmly into the hull.
Anouk’s drawing flashed through Martin’s mind.
Through small gaps he could see the choppy water of the Atlantic.
‘The anchor itself weighs ten tonnes,’ the captain said, going further into the room.
As Elena and he followed Bonhoeffer, Martin realised that there were two anchors, one each for the port and starboard sides. The two large chain winches were separated in the middle by a podium, on which sat a box with a number of levers. Each large winch had a metal brake wheel which you had to rotate like a valve if you wanted to let the anchor down or stop it falling.
‘What exactly are we looking for here?’ the captain asked on the podium, with his back to the brake wheel for the port anchor. ‘Surely not Anouk’s hiding place?’
Martin allowed his gaze to wander around the anchor room.
He was surprised by how clean everything was, almost sterile. Given the prevailing smell in here, he would have expected rust and oil dotted on the floor, or at least signs of weathering from the aggressive salt water, which kept splashing up through the holes. But even in the non-public areas, cleanliness and tidiness were the order of the day. Everything looked as if it had been newly renovated. The walls were painted white, the floor laid with thick rubber mats to stop you from slipping even when it was wet.
Huge amounts of space.
But not a place you could survive for weeks. It was draughty, cold and damp. You’d get pneumonia within a week. In any case at least two sailors would enter this room to weigh anchor each time the ship came into port.
She can’t have been here.
Elena seemed to share Martin’s unspoken assessment. ‘This is a dead end,’ she shouted. She sounded shrill and several years younger when she had to raise her voice.
Martin nodded. They’d clearly got carried away. Just idle speculation, he thought, his irritation brewing. Treating a child’s drawing as important evidence was just as foolish as seeing the face of the Virgin Mary in a slice of toast.
‘Let’s go.’ As Martin bent down to tie the laces of his boots, which had come undone, he found himself looking below the first step of the platform.
‘Where’s the chain?’ he asked Bonhoeffer. The captain looked down at him blankly.
Martin pointed to the large metal reel to his left. ‘I can only see the few metres that run from the huge wheel to the anchor shaft. Where’s the rest?’
‘Right where you’re kneeling,’ Bonhoeffer replied, getting down from the platform. He stamped his foot. ‘Right under here.’
‘Is there space down there?’
Bonhoeffer wiggled his outstretched hand, as if trying to imitate a rocking boat. ‘Depends how much of the chain is hauled in. But there’s always a bit of room. It’s actually a favourite hiding place for stowaways. But they could only last a few days down there, not weeks.’
‘Is there access to it?’ Martin asked nonetheless. He rapped his knuckles on the metal plate he was squatting on.
‘One deck lower. You can only get in from here if you unscrew the floor panels. Which happens once a year for maintenance,’ said the captain, who was now kneeling beside him. With his blond, tousled hair and the protective cap on his injured nose he resembled Hannibal Lecter. All that was missing were the straitjacket and hand truck he was secured to.
‘It’s probably a waste of time…’ Martin said.
‘Maybe not,’ Elena contradicted him. ‘What have we got to lose now that we’re here?’
‘Just a moment,’ the captain said, getting to his feet. He went over to a metal locker and opened it. Martin expected him to return with a toolbox, but when he came back he was holding a large torch. He kneeled beneath the platform again.
‘Found something?’ Martin asked, kneeling again too.
‘Maybe. There. Can you see it?’
Bonhoeffer shone the torch directly below the platform to the spot where the anchor chain disappeared into the deck below the large metal reel.
‘What is it?’ Elena asked excitedly.
‘Looks like a bag,’ Martin said. The torchlight was reflected by a crinkled surface of brownish plastic.