It felt good to make her cry. I laughed in her face for a good two minutes as we stood there clapping the encore. She didn’t move – she just took it. But as I turned away, Ryan Prosser was watching me, holding a child’s milk bottle. He gestured towards the door and I followed him out.

‘Where’s Jayde and the kids?’ I asked as we emerged out onto the deck.

‘She’s putting them to bed. I’m supposed to be warming up Sansa’s bottle. Listen, about today, I can’t stop thinking about it.’

‘I’ve told you, we’re cool. I ran after her, rugby-tackled her to the ground, you grabbed Ty and she ran off, never to be seen again.’

‘You’d have killed her,’ he said, his voice quivering on the salt breeze. ‘If I hadn’t dragged you off her, she’d be dead.’

‘And?’

‘Is that all you can say?’

‘What do you want me to say? Ty could be on some boat to fuck knows where now with fuck knows who doing fuck knows what—’

‘Don’t you dare say that—’

‘Say what? The truth? You’re having a go at me for beating the bitch dry when I was the one who saved him? You wouldn’t have caught her.’

He shook his head. ‘That’s what worries me,’ he said. ‘You saw her first. You saw her before anyone else… did you know her?’

‘You what?’

‘Did you know her? Did you know she was going to do that?’

I laughed. ‘You think I truck with women who steal children?’

‘I don’t know what to think. But what I saw – in that alley today – it scared the living shit out of me. And the fact you’re around my kids…’

‘You reckon I’d hurt them?’

‘I don’t know, do I—’

‘—well I wouldn’t. Ever.’

‘I know what I saw and I don’t want that around my family. I won’t go to the police because, yeah, as you say, you saved him. I’ll make some excuse to Jayde about breakfast tomorrow, why you can’t join—’

‘—what excuse? What are you going to say to her?’

‘I’ll say you’re busy with your husband. An early excursion he booked as a surprise or something. Where is he, by the way?’

‘I told you. He had a bad prawn. He’s in our cabin.’

He folded his arms. ‘Is he.’ It wasn’t a question. ‘Is he English too?’

‘What?’

‘Your Australian accent has disappeared.’

Big boo-boo. I stood there, stinging like a smacked arse.

He pointed at me, his eyes black. ‘Don’t come near my family again.’

I reared back. ‘That’s the thanks I get, is it? Your son could have been Maddie McCanned today and I get a load of filth for saving him?’

‘You’re a psychopath,’ he hissed, pulse thumping, black eyes searching.