The Last Passenger

About the Author Will Dean grew up in the East Midlands and had lived in nine different villages before the age of eighteen. After studying Law at the LSE and working in London, he settled in rural Sweden where he built a house in a boggy clearing at the centre of a vast elk forest, and it's from this base that he compulsively reads and writes. His debut novel, Dark Pines, was selected for Zoe Ball's Book Club, shortlisted for the Guardian Not the Booker prize and named a Daily Telegraph Book of the Year. Red Snow was published in January 2019 and won Best Independent Voice at the Amazon Publishing Readers' Awards, 2019. Black River was shortlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Award in 2021. The Last Thing to Burn was released to widespread acclaim in January 2021. Also by Will Dean The Last Thing to Burn First Born The Tuva Moodyson Thrillers Dark Pines Red Snow Black River Bad Apples Wolf Pack The Last Passenger Will Dean www.hodder.co.uk First published in Great Britain in 2023 by Hodder & Stoughton An Hachette UK company Copyright © Will Dean 2023 The right of Will Dean to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library eBook ISBN 978 1 529 38284 6 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd Carmelite House 50 Victoria Embankment London EC4Y 0DZ www.hodder.co.uk ‘. . . one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath . . .’ Herman Melville, Moby-Dick ‘Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.’ Mary Shelley, Frankenstein To librarians. I’ve visited libraries my whole life. To escape, to warm up, to learn. Librarians are the protectors of those spaces. They help us find what we are looking for, even when we’re not even sure what that is. Contents Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Chapter 63 Chapter 64 Chapter 65 Chapter 66 Chapter 67 Chapter 68 Chapter 69 Chapter 70 Chapter 71 Chapter 72 Chapter 73 Chapter 74 Chapter 75 Chapter 76 Chapter 77 Chapter 78 Chapter 79 Chapter 80 Chapter 81 Chapter 82 Chapter 83 Chapter 84 Chapter 85 Chapter 86 Chapter 87 Chapter 88 Chapter 89 Chapter 90 Chapter 91 Chapter 92 Chapter 93 Chapter 94 Chapter 95 Chapter 96 Chapter 97 Chapter 98 Chapter 99 Chapter 100 Chapter 101 Chapter 102 Chapter 103 Chapter 104 Chapter 105 Chapter 106 Chapter 107 Chapter 108 Chapter 109 Chapter 110 Chapter 111 Chapter 112 Chapter 113 Chapter 114 Chapter 115 Chapter 116 Chapter 117 Chapter 118 Chapter 119 Chapter 120 Chapter 121 Chapter 122 Chapter 123 Chapter 124 Chapter 125 Chapter 126 Chapter 127 Chapter 128 Chapter 129 Chapter 130 Chapter 131 Chapter 132 Chapter 133 Chapter 134 Acknowledgements Chapter 1 Stepping aboard a ship is an act of faith. You place your life in the hands of the captain and crew. You decide, actively or passively, to offer up your autonomy, and oftentimes that decision is not one that is easily reversed. ‘Welcome aboard, ma’am.’ I take a tentative step and hand over my voyage card. Below me, through a gap between metal plates, I see a sliver of darkness: a structural crack allowing me a glimpse of the water below. ‘Ms Ripley. Have a lovely voyage.’ ‘Thank you.’ Pete follows. ‘Mr Davenport, welcome aboard the Atlantica.’ He compliments her hat and then we walk into the ship proper and although we’re not the first to board we’re among the first hundred or so. We head deeper into the grand Ocean Lobby, me dragging my carry-on suitcase, Pete unencumbered. I am not a natural traveller. My instinct is to stay close to home and to surround myself with the familiar. I look on with awe as people like Pete catch flights and trains without a care in the world. ‘Seven storeys tall,’ he says, pointing to the mural that dominates the lobby. It’s an Art Deco depiction of the Atlantic Ocean in bronze relief created by a lauded Senegalese artist. Our destination is there on the left. The Atlantic coast of America. We arrive at our cabin and my pulse is racing. Pete opens the door. I scan our room – rooms, plural – my mouth slightly ajar. ‘You promised this was a last-minute bargain. I’m paying for the next trip, remember.’ ‘It was a bargain,’ says Pete. ‘When I booked, all the Diamond cabins were taken. This is only Platinum. And it was a bargain thanks to you never making your mind up.’ I kiss him. ‘I’m here, aren’t I? With you? We’re actually doing this.’