Leo smiles politely. ‘It’s a pleasure to see you, Nico, as always. But I’m afraid I won’t be able to linger – I’m back on shift at midnight. The younger ones are more bothered about tonight’s party than me, so I’m happy to let one of them have the time off and take my turn keeping the ship on course.’

Nico nods. ‘That’s very generous of you – I’m sure they appreciate it.’

Leo laughs. ‘I doubt it.’

Some amuse-bouches are brought to the table and set in front of us. There’s a blob of wakame (basically, seaweed by another name, but in a high-end restaurant like this, it is always wakame) on an elaborate spoon adorned with orange fish eggs, a parmesan crisp with cayenne topped with Beluga caviar, and a tiny courgette muffin served inside a freeze-dried and lightly caramelized courgette flower. All of these are my creations, and all ones of which I’m very proud. The waiter describes each one in an impressive amount of detail, as I insist they do. We serve three different amuse-bouches every day of the week, and the menu changes daily, so the servers have a lot to memorize. But it’s important. People don’t come to a Michelin-starred restaurant just for the food – they come for the entire experience. I sometimes say it’s more like a theatrical production than a meal, and pretend I don’t see the kitchen staff rolling their eyes. I’m right, though – I know I am.

The waiter finishes his spiel, which he does to perfection. I must remember to congratulate him on his next shift.

‘This looks delicious, Alice,’ Nico says. ‘I don’t mean to be a fanboy, but I’m not ashamed to say I’m extremely excited to have you on board, and almost as excited to be having dinner with you today. I’ve eaten several times at your restaurants and I wanted to tell you personally what a pleasure it always is, and how delighted I am that you accepted this post with Heracles. You’ve already worked wonders with TopSail, and I’m sure you’ll put it even more on the map than it already is. If that makes sense.’

‘The food has always been excellent on Immanis,’ he continues, ‘but it’s really gone up a notch since you arrived. I hope that in the future, we might be the first ever cruise ship to have a three Michelin-starred restaurant. Wouldn’t that be something?’

I blush. That would be something. And not something I can promise by any means. ‘I’ll do my best,’ I say vaguely.

Three waiters appear in sync and whisk the used crockery away. The plates are replaced by elaborately and somewhat impractically shaped bowls of squid-ink soup with miso and pork belly.