She stood silently, her hand on mine. ‘I told you that being alive is enough,’ she said eventually. ‘That fundamentally, just being here, is enough. And it is, for the most part. Life has been kind to me. But I know it isn’t worth living for if there’s something your heart aches for. I want to see my beautiful Beatrice. I want to hold her and not let go… until I have to.’

There was a hollow plink as one of her tears dropped to the body bag.

‘Where there is life, there is hope. That’s what you told me. You’re still alive, she’s still alive. Maybe that’s enough. So come on – let’s go get her.’

The Prossers walked along the opposite gangway. They didn’t see me – I had my big floppy hat on. Neither Ryan nor Jayde looked happy. I didn’t know if that was to do with me or the fact they were staring down the barrel of another day with Ken and Gloria. Either way, I didn’t care. What I did care about was Ty and Sansa. Ty was playing up, refusing to behave, and Sansa screamed in her pushchair. My two little friends. That was the last I ever saw of them.

I knew as soon as our car dropped us off at the Circus Maximus in the centre of Rome that day, I could not go back to that ship.

We passed a news stand. There were a few British tabloids facing out:

RHIANNON LEWIS: THE FULL CONFESSION

It took my breath away. My face was on the front of a national newspaper. Me. Not Craig, not the victims, not Trump or Boris or some model’s iCloud fappening. Me. It put something of a spring in my step.

I manoeuvred Caro’s wheelchair away from the newsstand and we blended in with a snaking line of tourists heading for the Colosseum. Halfway there I heard a ping! behind me, though whether it had come from my cracked iPhone 4 in my bag or someone else’s phone, I couldn’t make out. I couldn’t wait to get it out and check, in case Dannielle Fairly had sent me the last piece of information – where I was going, but we’d been constantly told by our driver to keep our belongings close in case of muggings and I didn’t want to take the risk of losing it.

Rome was even more packed with tourists and school groups than Florence, which I should have expected because, again, travel agents are lying ass-hats.