A young woman waylaid him as he walked by, and Abandonato stopped to crouch down by her sun lounger.

She was a Londoner, he thought, and not unattractive, and she was flirting furiously; her husband was taken up with their toddler, and either didn’t notice or was used to it.

‘So how do I go about getting an invitation for dinner at the Captain’s table?’ the young woman was saying, looking at him over her sunglasses.

‘It’s a big mystery,’ said Abandonato, smiling. He was a handsome man, and he knew it, but he seemed to exert a particularly hypnotic effect on English women which he had never really understood. ‘The maître d’ has his ways, but I’m afraid I leave it to him.’

‘Well, tell him Becky in 414 on deck four would like to come,’ she said, with a conspiratorial grin. ‘Just me, my husband will be busy with our daughter.’

‘Oi, oi,’ said the husband, distractedly.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ said Abandonato, standing up. ‘Everything else is okay for you?’

‘Wonderful,’ said Becky, looking him up and down. ‘The view especially.’

Carlo Abandonato chuckled and walked on, heading to the elevator.

He’d travel a deck down, to two of the ship’s three restaurants, to make sure the lunch service was going well.

After that, he’d book himself off for an hour, go back to his cabin, and call his wife via the sat-link.

Then back to the bridge, go through the departure checks ready for 17:00hrs, when they were due to weigh anchor and be on their way.

He smiled to himself as the elevator doors closed and he started sinking.

There were worse jobs in the world.

11.

EIGHTY FEET BENEATH him, below the waterline, in the belly of the Windsor Castle, Farouk Ebrahim stood in the humming, throbbing engine room of the huge ship, looked at the wall clock, and spoke to the first engineer.

‘Excuse me, boss,’ he said, wiping his hands on a rag. ‘Is okay if I go toilet?’

The first engineer – an experienced ex-Royal Navy man called Phil Clarke – glanced at Ebrahim over his clipboard.

‘Again, Farouk?’ he said. ‘That must be the fifth time today.’

‘Sorry, boss,’ said the young Filipino motorman, putting the rag into the pocket of his red overalls. ‘I have a problem in my stomach.’

Clarke scratched his head. There wasn’t much doing – the engines were only running to generate power – and Farouk seemed like a good kid.

Not long on the crew, but eager to learn, and well aware of his place in the scheme of things.

‘Okay,’ said Clarke. ‘But don’t take all day, yeah?’

Ebrahim nodded and hurried from the engine room, and up and out to the tender station on deck three.

He squeezed himself out of sight in between two of the boats and leaned on the rail, breathing deep in the sea air.

He still couldn’t believe how easy it had been to get hired, and how lax was the security. His interview for the Windsor Castle – a ship carrying five hundred Westerners, each paying a king’s ransom to float around half-naked, eating, and drowning themselves in alcohol – had taken no more than half an hour, and only five per cent of bags were screened coming aboard.