My stomach lurches. It can’t be her they’re looking for. Can it? ‘Why do you say that?’ I ask. ‘It’s a big ship – she could be anywhere. She’s probably turned her phone off because she wants some peace. And you know what the signal’s like on here, it’s never that good. I saw her at lunchtime and she was fine.’ I also saw her later when she wasn’t so fine, but I’m not going to tell Antonio about that. She swore me to secrecy. And now … I’m not even sure if I trust him. Lola clearly didn’t.

‘She’s always laughing and joking and the life and soul of the party, but no one knows her like I do,’ he says. ‘She’s fragile. If she’s … if she’s …’ He gulps back a sob and swipes at his eyes.

‘I was just talking to Rick about it,’ I say. ‘He thinks this whole thing is a false alarm. Some woman thought she saw something, but it could well have been nothing at all. I was at dinner with Leo when he was told. If Nico hadn’t been there, I wonder if he might have dismissed the whole thing as a stupid rumour.’

He looks at me aghast. ‘Who saw something? I didn’t know that! Who did they see? Where? Was it a woman? Was it Lola? What did they say?’

Shit. Looks like I’ve said the wrong thing. ‘I’ve only heard it about sixth hand.’ I qualify. ‘A woman in Fizz thought she saw someone fall. But they’ll all have been pissed as farts. I bet it’ll turn out to be nothing – a reflection, or a bird or something.’

Antonio draws his hand across his face. ‘Oh God.’ He pulls his phone out and jabs at it, stares at it and then rams it back into his pocket. ‘Fuck’s sake! Why do the stupid phone masts on this fucking boat never work?’

He looks down at the lights of the boats searching. ‘How long will they keep looking for?’ he asks.

‘No idea.’ Why is he asking me? He’s been on the ships way longer than I have. ‘I doubt this happens very often,’ I say. ‘But …’ I’m about to tell him I’m sure Lola’s fine, because I don’t think she’s in the water. But if someone is in the water, which is almost impossible if you look at the height of the fences and guard rails all around the ship, whoever it is would probably not be fine at all, like Rick said.

I hope no one’s in the water. And if they are, I really hope it’s not Lola.

‘She was … she was …’ Antonio says.

‘What?’ I ask.