"Who was on deck with him?"
"Hamish," Lachlan said. "Just Hamish. Everybody else was down. Hamish had been up as long as me."
The room was very quiet. Somebody's phone buzzed and stopped.
"I heard it," Celestine Joubert said softly. It was the first thing she had said. "I was in my cabin, starboard side forward. I heard the bang when the shackle went, and I heard Hamish. I heard him shout." She looked at the table. "Then I heard the captain shouting for help."
"What time?"
"Ten past eleven," Celestine said. "I looked at the clock. I always look at the clock. It is my training."
Octavia nodded. She thought for a moment. Then she said the thing she had to say.
"Did anyone tell you what to put in your statements?"
Silence. Then Lachlan said, slowly, "Nobody told me. He wrote the report himself. Saturday morning. He asked me to sign a statement saying I'd been at the controls. He said, it doesn't change anything, the shackle failed, the shackle would've failed whoever was driving. He said if it says the master was operating the crane at eleven at night with one deckhand after an eighteen-hour day, they'll crucify him, and then they'll crucify the boat, and then they'll come for the rest of the sheets, and every one of you'll be done. He said, I'll take whatever's coming, but I won't have you lot take it with me." Lachlan's voice cracked. "And I signed it. God help me. I signed it."
"I didn't sign mine," Celestine said.