It surprised me how desperate I was to see him. It was a hard, physical longing, like a craving for water in the desert. When the train finally shuddered to a stop at Circular Quay station, I pushed through the barrier, hurling other poor passengers out of my way. After a sprint that would have given Usain Bolt a run for his money, I arrived, panting, at the cruise terminal – just in time to see the ship I’d disembarked that morning pulling out into the harbour, newly stocked with passengers.

Standing at the back of the cluster of friends and family who’d come to farewell their loved ones, my face crumpled like a chip packet. I was blindsided by a queasy swell of emotion. Feeling faint, I grabbed the sleeve of a uniformed man to steady myself. I read his identification badge, discovering that he was, in fact, a water taxi driver. ‘Do you know where that ship’s going?’ I demanded.

‘Out there somewhere.’ The bearded boatie gestured to the ocean beyond Sydney Harbour.

‘Oh, you mean the largest, deepest water mass on the planet, which covers more than sixty million square miles and is thirteen thousand feet deep, otherwise known as the Pacific?’ I could not keep the edge of hysteria out of my voice.

He hitched a nonchalant brow. ‘Ah, yep.’

‘Could you be just a tad more specific about the Pacific?’ People were starting to look at me strangely.

‘I dunno. Ask them.’ The water taxi driver pointed to a couple emerging from a black hire car. A pair of manicured feet encased in diamante-studded high heels led to two impossibly long legs, which disappeared into a leopard-print miniskirt, above which protruded two massive breasts, draped in a sea of shimmering blonde hair extensions, all of which was topped off by a botoxed visage in designer shades. The woman had enough gold jewellery around her neck to induce curvature of the spine, and that was without factoring in the overweight bloke weighing down her arm. With his mashed-up nose, dyed black hair so perfectly smooth it looked plastic and a T-shirt that read ‘I dig Western Australia’, you didn’t have to be Hercule Poirot to deduce he was some kind of mining magnate.

The taxi skipper explained that these were the uber-rich residents of the ship’s penthouse apartment. The bloke was an iron ore exporter, apparently. Their flight from Perth had been delayed and they’d missed the departure deadline, so had booked his water taxi to whisk them out to the ship. When the harbour pilot was disembarking Brody’s ship near the heads, these tardy passengers would be allowed to board. It was highly irregular, but the captain was making an exception due to the size of their walk-in wallet.