'Are you from the police?'

'No, why?'

'I just thought…'

Looking in the direction she'd indicated, about halfway down the jetty, I could see people gathered around, staring down at a moored boat. I heard sirens wailing and I hurried. Attracting all the attention was a sleek boat with Gretchen III painted in blue on its white hull. Two men were bending over a man lying on the deck. One of the men had a mobile phone to his ear. The man on the deck was still; water was dribbling from his clothes and his head was cocked at an odd angle. There was a tangle of rope around his left leg.

The crowd was murmuring and one man swore as he saw another taking pictures with his mobile phone.

'What happened?' I asked the picture snapper as he backed away.

'Looks like he got caught up somehow, fell in and drowned. I've gotta get this off to the media.'

The sirens screamed, people jumped aside, and an ambulance and a police vehicle drove down the jetty. There was an eerie silence as the sirens died, broken only by the slapping of the water against the boats and the pylons and the flapping of the flags on the masts. The paramedics jumped down onto the deck and the men who'd been attending the victim moved aside. I got a good look at him -long-limbed, long-headed with pale blonde hair matted against his skull. His pale eyes stared sightlessly at the sky.

I hung around picking up snippets of information. Nordlung had been found by the owner of the boat berthed alongside his, about twenty minutes before I got there.

He'd noticed how untidy the deck of the Gretchen III was and had gone aboard to investigate. Nordlung was famous for keeping his boat in pristine condition. He found the rope running from where it had caught on the hatch door over the side. When he hauled on it, the body came into view. Nordlung was a big man and it had taken two to get him on the deck. They tried to resuscitate him but failed.