By two o’clock, we were in my bed, going at it like a rodeo. I had been concerned that my foof wouldn’t be up to the job since giving birth but Gabriel made all the right noises and I’d felt all the right inches so maybe there was life in the old girl yet. Once I’d cum for the second time, I lay there on his thumping great chest as his cock pulsed against his leg and the last trickles of spooge left him.

‘Woof! That was awesome, thanks, darlin’!’ he said, and once he’d got his breath he bounced out of bed and climbed back into his uniform.

‘Oh, you’re not staying then?’

‘Nah, I should be working. It was good though.’ He reached inside his trouser pocket and pulled out his phone. He showed me a picture in his album of some woman asleep with her arse out.

‘I did her on the last cruise. Recognise her, from that girl band?’

‘Uh no, I don’t,’ I said, squinting.

‘She used to be in that group. Five girls. She was on here touring her solo stuff. I had her every which way but loose.’ He shoved his feet into his shoes without untying the laces.

‘Oh right,’ I said, handing back the phone. ‘So your thing’s been up her as well as me. Delightful.’

He guffawed. ‘She preferred it in the ass.’

‘Even better.’

He kissed me again when he had his shoes on and as he pulled away, I held onto him.

‘What’s up?’

‘Hug.’

‘Baby, I have to go.’

‘I know, I know. Just hold me for a couple of seconds. Please.’

And he did. I saw Craig in my mind. I breathed against him. I’d missed it. The closeness of another body, dead or alive. Someone with heat and a heartbeat and regularly inflating lungs. But he pulled away. He didn’t get it.

‘See you later,’ he said.

‘You will?’

‘Yeah. I clean your room once a day so I’m bound to,’ he laughed, striding across the carpet without another look.

The bed felt cold but not because of his lack of warmth. Gabriel wasn’t what I’d wanted, but I was getting closer to it. Whatever ‘it’ was.

I washed and changed into my virginal broderie anglaise vest top and shorts and went up on deck to watch the ship pulling out of port, heading for the next stop: Genoa. Seven days remaining. I breathed in, breathed out. I checked the cracked iPhone 4 – still as silent as the grave, but there was one bar of signal remaining. I chanced a call Dannielle Fairly. Good or bad news, I had to know.

There was no answer. I left a message:

‘Hi, it’s Hilary. Just wondering if there were any developments, anything at all to report. I need… something. Anything. Please.’ I hung up.