JOHN GORDON DAVIS

A Woman Involved

Copyright

HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 1987

This edition 2014

Copyright © John Gordon Davis 1987

John Gordon Davis asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication.

Source ISBN: 9780007574438

Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2015 ISBN: 9780008125370

Version: 2015-02-11

Dedication

To Minna and Max Lucas

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Volume 1

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Part Two

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Part Three

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Part Four

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Part Five

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Volume II

Part Six

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Part Seven

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Part Eight

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Part Nine

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Part Ten

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Keep Reading

About the Author

About the Publisher

VOLUME 1

Rome, 1978

‘Who murdered you?’ people cried at the corpse.

There was no autopsy to find out why he died. Yet he had been in excellent health. No death certificate was ever published. And when he was embalmed, within twelve hours of his death, the morticians were forbidden to draw one drop of blood off his body. For three days Pope John Paul I lay in state in the Basilica of Saint Peter’s, and thousands of people filed past the coffin to pay their last homage to the Pope who had reigned for only thirty-three days. At seven o’clock on the third day the doors of Saint Peter’s were closed, and the body lay in flickering candlelight for the last night, Swiss guards standing vigil at each corner of the catafalque. But at seven-thirty, through a side door, entered some more pilgrims. They came from the Pope’s birthplace, and they had received special permission to come late to pay their last respects. They began to file past the body, mourning. Then something strange happened.

Suddenly a group of Vatican officials and doctors appeared. The pilgrims were told to leave immediately. They did so, bewildered. Then the Swiss guards were ordered to leave. Then big crimson screens were erected around the body, so that nobody who had chanced to hide inside the massive basilica could see what was happening. The officials and the doctors began an examination of the Pope’s body, behind the screens.

The examination lasted one and a half hours. The press demanded to know whether this had been a belated autopsy, but the Vatican announced that it had been a routine examination, lasting only twenty minutes, by the morticians and a professor of medicine to check on the state of preservation of the body.

But neither the morticians nor the professor were even present.

Rome, May 1980

He was probably the most popular man in the world when they tried to murder him.

There were thousands of people in Saint Peter’s Square to attend the papal audience in front of the basilica. At about five pm Pope John Paul II appeared in his popemobile and a roar went up from the crowd. He stood in his vehicle, beaming, dressed in white, his arms outstretched, waving and leaning out to touch people as he rode slowly between them. Then suddenly the shocking shots rang out.

They were fired from seven feet away. Two bullets struck Pope John Paul II in the abdomen, three more grazed him. He clutched himself and lurched, then he fell back into the arms of his private secretary. There was pandemonium. The screams from the crowd, the shock, the horror, the surging. A young man was trying to race away, dodging and shoving, but within moments outraged people overwhelmed him.

He was a Turk. His name was Mehmet Ali Agca, and he claimed he had been hired by the Bulgarian secret service to assassinate the Pope.

Falkland Islands, 1982

It was bitterly cold. The windswept South Atlantic was icy. On the archipelago of hard, bleak islands the Royal Marines were outfighting the Argentinian soldiers who had invaded the far-flung British colony. But it was in the skies that the outcome of this war could be determined, since the British forces were over seven thousand miles from home and their troop ships and lines of supply were very vulnerable to aerial attack.

The fighter plane of the Argentinian Air Force came screaming out of the bleak west, and suspended under its wings were deadly exocet missiles. Out on the black ocean the British warship steamed towards the rocky beaches. When the Argentinian aircraft was still miles away from the ship the pilot pressed the button and the exocet’s rocket fired, and it unleashed itself.

The rocket went streaking over the sea, its electronic equipment unerringly telling it where to go, homing in on the man’o’war. On board the British warship they hardly knew what hit them.

It hit them with a mighty blinding crash that rent through the ship, steel and machinery flying midst flesh and blood and bone, and within minutes the ship was engulfed in terrible fire and killer smoke, and men were jumping into the freezing sea to escape the flames.

London, 18th June 1982

It was before dawn when they found him.

The man hung from the ironwork of Blackfriars Bridge, his arms limp by his side, the rope gouging into his neck. He was podgy and smallish, with a bristling black moustache and black, thinning hair. His eyes were bulging, and he was very dead. The police hauled him up, and when they searched through his well-cut suit, they found ten kilos of bricks in his pockets, and over fifteen thousand dollars in cash.

His name was Roberto Calvi. He had a forged passport, and he had recently been convicted of serious currency offences in Italy. He was the president of Banco Ambrosiana, financial adviser to the Vatican Bank, and he was called ‘God’s Banker’.

Grenada, Caribbean, October 1983

There were still some pockets of resistance in the jungled mountains, but the island was quiet for the first time since the war began. There was a curfew.

On the runway, an aeroplane stood ready to fly the bodies of soldiers back to America for burial. In the mortuary the coffins stood in rows, labelled, ready to go. In the dispensary, Medical Corporal Smythe was drinking Coca-Cola and surgical alcohol. His portable radio was on, but he was drunk and hardly interested in it; but then he heard something that made him pay attention:

‘It has been officially announced by the Pentagon that the number of American servicemen killed in the recent invasion of Grenada is only eighteen. Their bodies are being flown home from Grenada tonight … ’

Corporal Smythe wondered if he had heard right.

Eighteen? … But he knew there were only seventeen! He had laid the poor bastards out.

Corporal Smythe felt a flash of self-importance. He was in the news – they were talking about his job! … Millions of people across the world were being misinformed, and only he knew the Pentagon was wrong! He wanted to tell people. And he couldn’t. Then frustration turned to indignation – the goddam Pentagon had made a boo-boo …

Corporal Smythe sat there, then he got up aggressively. He opened the dispensary door, and started down the corridor.

He came to the mortuary door, and unlocked it.

There were the coffins, in three silent rows. Corporal Smythe pointed at the first one, and started to count.

He had only counted half when he realized that the radio had been right: there were six coffins in each row!

He stared. He counted again. Six times three makes eighteen …

Corporal Smythe stood there, astonished. Where had the other one come from?

He walked indignantly to the first coffin. He peered at the typewritten details fixed onto the lid.

He went down the row, reading each label. He remembered each name. Halfway down the second row he stopped.

This label he certainly did not remember … This label he was absolutely sure he had not typed!

Name: Steven M. Jackson

Sergeant, Delta Force …

Corporal Smythe was astonished.

Who had put another body in his mortuary without telling him?

If he had not been drinking surgical alcohol, perhaps Corporal Smythe might not have been so indignant; perhaps, but for the surgical alcohol, he might not have found it extraordinary that at the end of a war, in the middle of the night, another body was found and encoffined without anybody waking him to tell him; perhaps, but for the surgical alcohol, he might not have been so aggressively disappointed to find out that he was not in the news after all; but Corporal Smythe began to unscrew the coffin lid.

He stared down into the open coffin.

There was no corpse in the coffin. No Sergeant Jackson. Only sea sand.

Part One

1

The sun shone bright and the sea was like glass.

A launch lay at anchor near a coral reef off the Caribbean island of Grenada. A man sat on the after deck, in swimming trunks, drinking a bottle of beer. Near him lay an airtank, goggles and flippers. His name was Max Hapsburg, and he was half German with big blue eyes that were very intelligent, but his dark good looks came from his Greek mother. He was about thirty-eight, and he was known to most big bankers of the world.

He was alone on his boat at the moment. His guests and his wife were somewhere along the reef, under the water.

Anna Hapsburg did not know where the others were. She had not seen them for almost half an hour.

She swam slowly along the magnificent coral reef, fifteen feet below the surface. The sunshine shafted down onto the multitude of beautiful shapes, onto growths and flowers and animals all the colours of the rainbow: the kaleidoscope rambled, rugged and smooth, sparkling and dark, with bays and grottos, going on and on, fading into mistiness. Anna loved the reefs. She swam slowly in her underwater wonder-world, her long golden legs gently flipping, her long blonde hair streaming silkily behind her.

When she was about two hundred yards fhe was halfway out of throm the boat, she saw the sharks.

There were two. They were indistinct, to her right, on the surface. Her heart missed a beat and her stomach contracted; she stared at them a terrified, heart-pounding moment, then she frantically turned for the boat.

She swam desperately, resisting her screaming instinct to thrash her legs. She swam and she swam, her heart knocking, her eyes wide: she glanced back frantically, and she could not see them any more, and that was worse: she swam and swam and swam for what seemed an eternity; then she saw the keel of the launch ahead, and it seemed the sweetest sight she had ever seen. She looked back desperately over her shoulder again; then the keel was coming up, the swimming ladder gleaming. She rose, arms upstretched, and she grabbed the ladder and broke surface and she began to scramble up. She spat out the mouthpiece and gasped: ‘Sharks …’

Max got to his feet. ‘Where?’

She pointed behind her. Max saw the fins on the surface. He snapped: ‘Have you warned the others?’

She was halfway out of the water

‘No …’

‘Go and warn them! I’ll follow.’ He snatched up his flippers.

She stared at him, horrified, her hair plastered to her head. But oh God yes of course they had to warn the others … She clung to the ladder a terrified moment more, then she crossed herself and rammed the airhose back into her mouth, and she sank, with dread, back into the water.

She swam back the way she had come. And her fear was the purest she had ever known.

She did not see the sharks on the way back. Within two hundred yards she saw Bill and Janet Nicols. She signalled to them desperately, Shark … She turned back towards the boat.

The keel came into view again. They swam and they swam, hearts pounding. Anna made for the swimming ladder and grabbed it, and heaved. She scrambled up onto the sun-beaten deck. Janet came up the ladder frantically behind her. Anna grabbed her hand and heaved her onto the deck. Bill came scrambling up after her.

‘Where’s Max?’ Anna swept her eyes over the sea.

‘Here I am …’

Anna spun around. Max Hapsburg was coming out of the saloon, a grin all over his handsome face. ‘Anyone for tennis?’

She looked at him incredulously, and he burst out laughing.

‘They were dolphins! Dolphins … ’

She was absolutely shocked.

Max laughed, ‘You should have seen the look on your face–but any fool could have seen they were dolphins … ’

She screamed: ‘You beast–!’

She ripped her goggles off her head and hurled them at him: ‘You beast–!’

2

It was five years since Jack Morgan had seen Anna Hapsburg. But he still dreamt of her often; and they were always intense and beautiful dreams, and his heart sang because he was with her again at last; and when he woke up he was filled with yearning. He tried to go back to sleep so he could be with her again, but he could not, and she was gone.

Only three months they had had together. In those lovely days her name was Anna Valentine, and she was in her final year at Exeter University; he was a young lieutenant-commander in the Royal Navy on ninety days study-leave at the same university. She lived in a women’s residence on the campus; he had digs nearby in town, a bedsitter with a gasring. ‘We have not yet met,’ he had said on the telephone, ‘but I’m the ardent admirer who sent you those flowers this morning.’

‘Oh, yes … Well, thank you, Mr Morgan, they’re lovely roses and I’m very flattered,’ she had replied, ‘but as it happens I am engaged to be married.’

This was terrible news. ‘Married? When?’

‘At the end of this term, Mr Morgan.’

‘This is very depressing news, Miss Valentine. But where is this painfully fortunate man?’

‘In Grenada. That’s a small island in the Caribbean, you mightn’t have heard of it.’

Relief. ‘Certainly. A spice island. You grow nutmeg.’

‘Correct! Most people think it’s a city in Spain.’

‘So did I, but when I heard you speak at the Debating Society last night, I made enquiries about you, then looked up Grenada in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, so I would impress you over dinner. I know all about Grenada, Gross National Product, per capita income, birth rate, electricity problems, the works.’

She smiled. ‘I am impressed, Mr Morgan. But I’m afraid dinner together wouldn’t be appropriate, because I’m getting married in three months’ time.’

‘On the contrary, all the more urgency about this dinner, Miss Valentine. Because I’m going back to sea in three months’ time and I think it highly important that we have the opportunity to consider each other before then, because it’s a crystal-clear case of love at first sight, Miss Valentine. I’ve never resorted to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and a florist in the same context before …’

And, oh, why, why had they not done it? Why, after three glorious months of love and laughter and absolute happiness, that made them want to dance in the streets, that made the whole world seem a bowl of cherries and terribly amusing, happiness that made the whole world laugh with them, and envy them, happiness that gave them daydreams in the middle of lectures, that gave them the giggles every night as he smuggled her up to his digs past his landlady (House Rules: No Visitors of Opposite Gender, No Drink, No Cooking for Visitors, No Curries, No Music, No Pets, No Confabulations, By Order, Mrs Garvey), happiness that made them make love all night when they should have been cramming for final examinations, the happiness of talking talking talking about everything under the sun, and the rapture, rapture, of each other’s bodies – oh why, at the end of those three glorious months, when the examinations had somehow been written and passed (though not with the flying colours expected of both of them), why had they not just walked into the nearest registry office and married and lived joyously ever after? – Oh how different the world would have been.

But, they had not. Because she was a Catholic and she wanted a proper church wedding, with her family around her. So they had flown back to Grenada for their last few days together, to introduce him to her parents and tell them that their darling daughter was going to live in darkest England for the rest of her life. They were going to be married on his next leave, four months hence. Then he had gone back to sea in his goddam submarine.

He had never seen her again.

It was that shark story that had finally made up his mind to go back to Grenada, after five long years. Janet Nicols had looked him up on her last visit to England, and the tale had come out.

So now here he sat in a dark aeroplane, staring out of the window at the moonlight, at long last doing what he had so often dreamt of doing, flying across the Atlantic to try to see the woman he had once loved so madly. He had no idea what was going to happen. He had not told anybody he was coming, not even Janet Nicols. He did not know if he would set eyes on Anna, even from a distance. Maybe she would refuse to see him. And now that he was actually doing it at last, fulfilling his dream, he was not even sure what he wanted to happen. Did he really still love her so madly? Or was she just a dream? And if so, was it not best that he just keep her as that, his lovely dream-girl? When you’re lying in your lonely bunk in your submarine, or sitting in your lonely farmhouse drinking whisky in front of the fire, home is the sailor home from the sea but the home is empty, it is easy to be sure that you still love her with all your heart, you are even glad to be sad, thinking of what might have been – but now that he had finally made up his mind to go, he was not so sure. It was unreal. He was very excited, but wasn’t all this foolishness? What the hell are you doing? he asked himself many times that long night – why are you flying halfway round the world just for the chance of seeing, of only glimpsing maybe, the woman who once loved you and left you and married another man? What right have you got to try to interfere with her marriage now? What makes you think you’ve got a chance? The shark story? Because Janet Nicols cautiously admitted, under cross-examination, that Anna’s marriage to Max had not been going well? But had Janet said that Anna ever spoke of him? No. Indeed, Janet had said that Anna would never leave Max because she was a devout Catholic, marriage is for better or worse … What makes you think she’ll even want to see you? So, what foolishness is this? – and now that you are actually on this aeroplane at last, are you even sure you really still love her? Don’t you really prefer to be free to be glad to be sad? … Don’t you even resent her, for breaking your heart? …

Many times in that long, unreal night it was like that. But then, a little later, it was different again. Because you had another dream about her, he said. Because she came to you again, and she was beautiful and smiling, and you felt her whole loveliness pressed against you again, and you smelt her scent and you looked into her lovely eyes and oh God yes you still loved her, and oh yes she still loved you, and when you woke up your heart was breaking and you desperately tried to go back to sleep, to be with her again. And for days afterwards you could not stop thinking about her, and there was such yearning …

And then the sun came up, glorious and red and gold, and the Caribbean was born below him, the turquoise waters, and the reefs, and the white beaches, and the palms, and he glimpsed again the golden girl; this was her part of the world, where she lived, he glimpsed her hair swirling across her laughing face as she ran across the white sands into his arms, he felt her warm-cool body against him, and he knew that he did still love her, that she was in his blood. He was very excited when the plane began its descent and the island of Grenada came up out of the sea, mauve and brooding in the sun, the blue sea fading to turquoise around it; and his heart was beating deliciously, and he knew he still loved her.

3

There had been a revolution here since his last visit, a coup by the New Jewel Movement; there were some tattered posters proclaiming its glory and he saw Cuban soldiers around Pearls airfield, but otherwise it was just like he remembered: the sun shining big and bright, the sky so blue; everything so green, the air fragrant with spices: it was a beautiful day to be doing the wonderful thing he had yearned to do for so long. He was grinning inside with excitement as he strode into the hot airport building, he wanted to smile at everybody, and he loved every black face. He rented a car. It seemed he remembered everything, and he loved every mile of the road into town. This was her island in the sun … He was grinning when he turned his car into the gates of the Victoria Hotel.

It was somewhat run-down, and he did not remember it like that, but he did not care. He checked in, carried his bag to his room. It was unreal, and beautifully real. The gardens out there beyond his balcony, the bar, palms, the beach beyond, the sparkling sea. Her sea. He showered, and shaved carefully. He looked at his face in the mirror. How much change would she see? There were no grey hairs yet – and most of his colleagues had plenty of those. He brushed his teeth thoroughly. Then he did not know what to do with himself.

It was only breakfast time, too early to do anything yet. He went down to the empty bar in the garden. It was sultry-quiet. He ordered a cold beer, and just gave himself up to the delicious excitement of waiting.

He had drunk half of the beer when a voice behind him said: ‘Hullo, Jack.’

He turned, taken by surprise. ‘Janet Nicol … ’

He stood up. He took her hands, grinning, and kissed her cheek. ‘What a coincidence! I was going to contact you …’

She said, ‘Not a coincidence at all. I’ve known for three days that you were coming back to Grenada.’

She sat beside him, drinking fruit juice. She said: ‘I work for British West Indies Airways, remember. BWIA has strict instructions to report if ever a Jack Morgan books a seat to our fair island.’

He was astonished. ‘Good God …’

She said: ‘Max is extremely jealous, Jack. And one of his many sidelines is that he’s a director of BWIA. And the immigration department is under instructions to report the arrival of any Mr Morgans.’

‘Good God! Does he run the Post Office as well?’

Janet did not smile. ‘Grenada is a small island. And Max has a lot of clout.’ She added significantly: ‘With the police, included.’ Before he could ask what the hell that meant she went on soberly: ‘And he’s not just a big fish in a small Caribbean pond.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘And big fish can bite.’

‘Are you saying that he’d use the police?’

‘He might.’

Morgan said incredulously: ‘For what bloody offence? …’

She said, ‘I don’t know what he’d do. But your offence is that you’re in love with his wife.’

‘I haven’t seen Anna for five years!’

‘And they haven’t stopped having arguments about you for five years.’

He was amazed. ‘Arguments?’

Janet said, ‘Hell-fire rows. Max is obsessed with the belief that Anna is still in love with you.’

Morgan wanted to throw his arms wide to the sky in joy. ‘And? Is she?’

She ignored the question. ‘He even says that you have lovers’ trysts every time she goes to New York and London.’

He wanted to throw back his head and laugh, because she loved him. ‘Would that we had … ’

Janet said: ‘That’s why he did that shark hoax. To punish her.’ She looked at him: ‘So don’t you think you should stay away from the island?’

Morgan put his hands on his chest.

‘I should stay away from the island because Max … ?’ He shook his head. ‘Look, in five years I haven’t so much as sent her a Christmas card. And I wouldn’t be here now, if you hadn’t looked me up and told me how he punishes her with shark hoaxes.’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘Why doesn’t he put detectives onto her and find out the truth?’

She said: ‘Oh, he’s done that. And had detectives following you.’

He was incredulous. ‘I don’t believe it.’

Janet said, ‘You have a grey Ford station-wagon. Three years ago you bought a farmhouse outside Plymouth. You’ve had a number of girlfriends but the last one I heard of was a blonde bombshell called Ingrid something.’ She raised her eyebrows.

He was amazed. ‘Then he knows I’ve been at sea every time she came to England.’

She said, ‘No, you spent a year ashore. With the Special Boat Service.’

Morgan was astonished. The Special Boat Service is a very secretive branch of the Royal Navy. ‘He must be out of his mind to go to such lengths.’

‘Is he?’ She gave a little smile. ‘Tell me – why have you come back to the island?’ Before he could answer, she said: ‘After all these years, you come to take his wife away from him.’

His heart turned over like a porpoise.

‘I’ve come to lay a ghost,’ he said.

Janet nodded at the sea.

‘So he’s not out of his mind, is he? He loves her, you see. Obsessed with her, if you like.’ She turned to him, ‘Like you are. And so he’s obsessed with the notion that she’s still in love with you.’

He felt his pulse flutter. ‘And? Is she?’

Janet turned back to the sea.

‘He says she dreams about you.’

Morgan stared at her. Dreams … And he felt joy.

‘How would he know what she dreams?’

‘She speaks your name.’

Morgan slumped against the bar happily. Janet went on: ‘So you should go away and not cause any more trouble and pain, Jack.’

‘Trouble? I haven’t uttered a murmur since that awful day she sent me a telegram saying she was marrying Max.’

‘You don’t know what it was like for her to send you that telegram … You don’t know the agony of indecision she went through.’ Janet sighed, and shook her head. ‘The pressure upon her – the last-minute pressure from friends and family alike to think again, was enormous.’ She turned to him earnestly. ‘She will never leave Max. She believes she’s made her bed and must lie in it. So all you can do is cause emotional confusion. And endless trouble.’

Oh God, he was so happy.

‘ And if I don’t leave, what is Max going to do? Burst in here with the police?’

She shook her head. ‘He’s not even here at the moment – he’s in New York. But don’t underestimate him.’ She paused. ‘You must leave.’

He squeezed her hand. ‘Is that the message she sent me?’

She said, ‘She’s not going to see you, Jack.’

He did not believe that. ‘But her message?’

She hesitated, then she said, reluctantly: “‘Tell him I love him. And goodbye.”’

He wanted to shout for joy. I love him … Janet sighed, as if she regretted telling him. ‘And now I must go.’

He was deliciously happy.

‘Will you give Anna a message from me?’

Janet waited, noncommittal.

‘Tell her that I’m not leaving until I’ve seen her.’

4

Oh yes, he was in love.

It seemed the longest day of his life, and the happiest. He thought through what Janet had said, and he tried to caution himself, against causing pain, against being optimistic, but he did not quite make it. He dared not leave the hotel, he dared not sleep off his jet-lag, in case she came and went while he was asleep. He sat alone at the crowded bar in the garden, slowly drinking beer, watching the hotel lobby, just feeling the excitement, of her, of being back here where she lived. Finally the sun went down, blazing red and gold through the palms; after dinner he could resist it no longer. He got into his rented car. He drove through Saint George’s, out onto the winding coastal road, through the heavy tropical foliage, past the grand houses; then he came to hers, on the seashore. He had never seen it before, but he knew the address from the telephone directory. He drove slowly past it. He stopped two hundred yards beyond. He walked down onto the beach.

The big house was across a little bay. There were lights on, twinkling between the trees. Her house. He stood, looking at it. Imagining her inside it, imagining what she was thinking and feeling; she knew that he was here, he knew what she was feeling, and with all his happiness and his yearning he willed her and willed her to come to him tomorrow. He sat on the dark beach for over an hour, just watching her house, imagining her, remembering her. Finally he drove back to the hotel, and went to bed, very tired but too happy to go to sleep easily.

That first night, five long years ago, their dinners had gone cold whilst they talked and laughed and talked. She had said:

‘Saint Thomas Aquinas will prove it to you, Jack Morgan, by pure Aristotelian logic, even if he cannot prove by logic what kind of God He is – read his Summa in Theologica. He gives five proofs of God’s existence, though it’s his third argument I like best, his Actuality-Potentiality proof of a Prime or Un-moved Mover. “And this all men call God.” No intelligent man could read that book and remain an agnostic, Jack …’

And when the floorshow came on, a troupe of limbo dancers from Jamaica, she had been unable to resist it when the pole was only twenty inches above the floor and she had kicked her shoes off and gone dancing under it, to roars of applause, her long blonde hair sweeping the floor, her arms upstretched, her jerking feet wide apart, a grin all over her lovely face; and when she had come back to the table, flushed and laughing, he had known with absolute certainty that he was going to marry this marvellous girl; he had taken her hand, and what he wanted to say with all his heart was ‘Let’s check into this hotel and make love’, but instead he said:

‘Tomorrow, you’re coming on a picnic, Ms Valentine, and reading Saint Thomas Aquinas to me, it’s this Actuality–Potentiality theory I’m really wild about …’

‘Oh? What about my lectures, Jack Morgan?’

‘What about my immortal soul, Ms Valentine?’

She had agreed to try to save his soul, though not to kiss him goodnight (nor had he tried too hard, in order to impress her), but he had driven back to his digs on air, wanting to whoop and holler and toot his horn, and he had blown Mrs Garvey a big kiss instead when she came out complaining about him disturbing the house by coming in late. ‘Mrs Garvey, be joyful, tomorrow I’m taking the most wonderful girl in the world on a picnic to read Summa in Theologica! …’

‘What about your lectures, Lieutenant-Commander?’

‘What about my immortal soul, Mrs Garvey? – What about my immortal soul? … ’

And what a picnic it was! He bought Summa in Theologica as soon as the shops opened and he swotted up Saint Thomas’ third proof while the delicatessen packed up the hamper. It was an absolutely beautiful spring day for saving his soul! The sun shone bright and the birds sang and the bees buzzed and butterflies fluttered and he sang her ‘The Surrey with the Fringe on Top’ as he tootled her down the Cornish lanes in his beat-up old Volkswagen, absolutely on top of the world. And he knew he was going to live deliriously happily ever after with this wonderful girl, and it was a wonderful feeling to be totally self-confident and very, very amusing. He spread their blanket on the soft grass by the stream and popped the champagne, and the cork flew and went dancing away over the sparkling rapids and he said:

That’s how our life’s going to be, Anna Valentine!’

And he took her in his arms and toppled her over onto the blanket, and she grinned up at him:

‘What about your immortal soul, Jack Morgan? That’s what I’m bunking lectures for …’

‘Ms Valentine, I’ve got a complete arm-lock already on the Third Proof and I know that good Saint Thomas would approve entirely of my honourable intentions towards you …’

And she had laughed up at him, and let him kiss her. But she had not made love to him. They really did read Summa in Theologica. While the birds sang and the bees buzzed and the stream twinkled, and the champagne tasted like nectar.

She had not made love to him for five long, deliciously nerve-racked days, five more days of walking on air, of singing in the rain, of Summa in Theologica and everything from Karl Marx and Adam Smith to the Beatles and Beethoven, from P. G. Wodehouse to Franz Kafka, five more delightfully anguished days of lovely Cornwall country pubs, bangers and mash and cream teas, of Cornish moors and coves and beaches, long tracks along the sand, five more days of delicious frustration and almost no lectures at all; on the sixth day he had fetched her at her residence, and she had solemnly announced:

‘I wrote to Max this morning. I’ve told him.’

It was the most important moment in his life, the happiest and the most solemn. He had taken her hand, and turned and led her silently down the steps to his old car. They drove in silence through the town. He parked the car, and opened the door for her. They walked hand in hand, by unspoken agreement, into the hotel. His hand was shaking as he signed the register. They rode up in the elevator wordlessly. Hand in hand, down the corridor. Room 201.

He closed the door, and leant back against it. They looked at each other. They were both very nervous. Then he took her in his arms, and crushed her against him, and his hands were trembling as he undressed her. They toppled wordlessly onto the bed, and, oh, the bliss of each other’s bodies at last.

He was awake before dawn. For a few moments, at his lowest ebb; Janet’s words flashed through his mind, and he tried to caution himself; then he was properly awake and he knew that she was awake too, lying in this same pre-dawn unreality. He got up and pulled on his swimming trunks. He went down onto the beach, and he started to run. To run, to run, to appease his yearning in the humid dawn, sweating out the booze and cigarettes of yesterday, with each rasp of his breath just thinking of her, thinking of her. When he had run two miles he turned into the sea, splashing and pounding, and he plunged. He swam and he swam underwater until his lungs were bursting, then he broke surface with a gushing gasp. And he flung his arms full wide to the horizon where she lived, and he bellowed to the early morning:

‘Come today my love … ’

She came in the middle of the day.

He was sitting at the bar, in the dappled shade, where he could see the lobby. He saw her suddenly appear in the front door, a splash of blonde hair, her willowy silhouette against the outside light, and his heart turned over and all his self-caution was forgotten. He stood up; she walked through the lobby, out onto the verandah, and she took his breath away. She stood for a moment at the top step, tall and blonde and elegant, frowning slightly in the sunlight, looking about the shadowed garden with half a smile of expectation on her mouth; then she saw him striding towards her out of the shadows, and her lovely face broke into her dazzling Anna smile, and she started down the steps.

He strode towards her, his heart pounding, and there was nothing else in the world but her coming towards him, smiling. Then his hands took hers, and then her face was next to his, for a fleeting moment their bodies touching as he kissed her cheek, and he got the delicious scent of her, and in that instant he felt all the passion of five long years. Then they were standing back from each other a laughy, shaky: ‘Hullo’ – she grinned, ‘–Hullo …’

Afterwards, when he would try to remember the details, it was all confused, like a dream; he would remember just wanting to crush her in his arms, and her backing off, laughing, saying, ‘We better sit down, but I can only stay a moment …’ which was the most ridiculous statement in the world, because no way was this wonderful thing going to be stopped. He remembered taking her hand and leading her back up the steps into the hotel, laughy and shaky and saying God knows what, and she let him lead her through the lobby, up the staircase, and it did not occur to him that he was compromising her, they were just naturally hurrying away together to a private place to be alone with their excitement; then they were inside his room, and they just stood a moment, looking at each other, grinning, and it seemed the happiest thing in the world, he could hardly believe that this was happening at last, and she was more beautiful than he remembered her: she grinned: ‘I can hardly believe this …’

‘Nor can I …’

And he took her in his arms, and she put her arms tight around his neck, and they kissed each other, mouths crushed together, and oh, God, God the sweet taste of her again, the glorious feel of her body against him again, the warmth, and she clawed him tight and cried: ‘Oh why didn’t you come back five years ago?’ – and he did not care about any of that, all he cared about was now, now, and his hand went joyfully to her breast and, oh, the wonderful feel of her, and she kissed him fiercely and then broke the embrace.

She backed out of his arms, her hair awry, her face smouldering. He stepped after her, recklessly happy, to take her in his arms again, possess her, to carry her off and she held up her hand to stop him. ‘I didn’t mean this to happen …’

She turned away and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘Wow …’ she breathed, ‘Oh boy …’ She walked to the window shakily; then she turned to him. She said ardently:

‘Of course I want to make love to you! With all my heart! But I’m not going to … I came to tell you …’ She stopped, then shook her head. ‘I came to see you – I had to just see you again. And then tell you that you had to go away …’

He was deliciously happy. ‘You love me.’

She tried to say it seriously, but she could not help grinning. ‘Do I? Or am I only in love with that magic memory of you – those wonderful days? …’

‘You love me.’

She closed her eyes. ‘I’m married, Jack. For better or worse …’

He said relentlessly, ‘The magic is still there.’

She ran her hand through her hair again and turned away.

‘And I want to keep it as magic, Jack. To be cherished …’ She turned back to him, then held out her hand to him: ‘Come,’ she appealed. ‘Walk with me. Openly, for all the world to see. Along the beach, in the sunshine. And tell me all about your wonderful life. Talk to me … Let me feast upon your story. So I can take it away with me …’

He held out a happy finger at her: ‘No more Summa in Theological … ’

They burst out laughing. It seemed the most tragically hilarious thing to say.

5

And oh he was in love!

They walked out into the dappled sunshine of the garden, walking on air, out onto the long white beach, oh so happy. He wanted to remember every detail, each step beside her, each glance, each laugh, each word; they talked constantly, laughy, seriously, urgently, and he wanted to throw his arms wide to the sky and rejoice – He was here, back in paradise, and she was with him, just like in the dreams! And he knew with absolute certainty that it was nonsense that he was never going to see her again – she was his and this was just the beginning! And he wanted to fling his arms around her and laugh into her beautiful face that this business of her Catholic vows was absolute nonsense because she was going to be married to him every day for the rest of her beautiful life! She said, pacing along beside him, her hands locked behind her back:

‘I went to one of the best psychiatrists in New York. I said to him: I only want to ask you one question: “What does it mean when you keep dreaming repeatedly about one man?” And he said to me: “Tell me about him?”‘ She shot him a laughing glance. ‘So I told him. And he said: “Well, clear as day, you’re in love with this paragon of virtue. Describe these dreams,” he said. So I did. And do you know what he said?’

‘What?’ He was grinning.

‘He said: Correction: You don’t love this man – you’re obsessed by him!’ She flung her arms wide: ‘Obsessed!’

And Morgan laughed and made to grab her and she skipped aside: ‘And I said, “So what the hell does one do about such an obsession, Doctor?”’ She was walking backwards in front of him: ‘He said: “It depends on how you look at it, Mrs Hapsburg … To sensible people it is just a romantic memory which they get into perspective … ”’

And he tried to grab her again. ‘But to other lucky people?’

‘“To other unlucky people – it seems better than real life! Because it is unspoilt by life. But they’re unlucky because dreams never come true and if they’re not careful it can screw up their lives” –’

‘But ours are going to come true!’

She walked backwards in front of him, the laughter suddenly gone out of her eyes.

‘No, darling Jack. Please believe me. But, yes, we are lucky, because we can cherish our dreams – they will stay with us forever …’

And he wanted to laugh and holler, ‘Bullshit, Anna Valentine! …’

She shook her head firmly as she paced beside him.

‘Please don’t ask me that. I want to talk about you.’

He said, ‘I have a right to know.’

‘Do you? For better or worse, Jack. That’s what the preacher-man said.’

He knew it was nonsense. ‘You also made a vow to me.’

‘Yes, I did. And I’m truly sorry.’

‘Because you still love me,’ he said.

She looked at the horizon, her hands clasped behind her back. ‘You are entitled only to know what happened five years ago.’

This was very important information but he cared about Now, not five years ago. She breathed deep and said:

‘I was a coward …’ She paced, formulating it. ‘You were so clever. So well-read, and … learned. And so damn … funny. You had done so much with your life. And we had such an intense, crazy time together. It seemed as if I had packed everything I had ever learned, and felt, into those three glorious months. All my worldly experience had been paraded and brought into service. And so when you were gone back to sea, and all the chips were down, and the pressure was mounting … I became afraid that when you came back you’d find that you’d burnt me out. That I had nothing new to offer you – that I wasn’t the soulmate you’d thought I was … And then you wouldn’t love me any more.’

Morgan was truly amazed. And he did not believe her. She was one of the strongest-willed persons he had known. And she had spoken as if rehearsed. And as for him being more learned than her – they had had countless discussions about everything under the sun.

‘Bullshit, Anna.’

She said resolutely: ‘And Max didn’t demand anything like that from me, you see. And I had known him for years – I was safe with Max. He’s very clever but he was no intellectual.’

He did not believe for one moment that she would have married Max or anybody for those reasons. Something else had happened. ‘Nor was I an intellectual.’

She insisted, ‘You were. Master of Science. Only twenty-nine years old and already second-in-command of one of Her Majesty’s submarines! Oh, that was a pretty tough act for poor Max to follow.’ She half-laughed. ‘And when I wrote and told him I was in love with you, he had the nerve to write back and say that it would not last because submariners are notoriously dull people.’

He knew she was trying to get away from the question. ‘Well, maybe he was right.’

‘Dull? God, anything but dull! You were the funniest man alive! You made me laugh! And all that derring-do submarine stuff?’ She smiled, and her eyes smarted a moment. ‘Even Dad slapped Max down on that one. Dad didn’t want me to marry you, either, but he said to Max: “I’ll have you know that every submariner is an extremely likeable and absolutely first-class fella! He has to be – you can’t afford to have a dislikeable man on a dangerous job like that!”’

He laughed. He knew that she had not told him the truth, that something else had happened to stop her marrying him, but right now he did not care. He was happy.

She sat on the rocks, hugging her knees, her smoky-blue eyes feasting on him. He said:

‘That was the first thing you ever asked me. Between limbo dances and morbid interest in my soul. You see, all your crew are experts at their different jobs. And you rely on them completely, and you do your own job. It’s a matter of complete mutual trust.’

She asked: ‘Are you still a Christian, Jack?’

He smiled. ‘Of sorts. Thanks to you and Saint Thomas. In that order.’

She smiled. ‘But a Catholic?’

‘Once a Catholic, always a Catholic, you can’t expect too much of us. I still live in fear secretly. It’s the only way I know how.’

‘Do you pray?’

‘I have a crack at it once a day.’ He added: ‘I don’t think I sound very convincing.’

She grinned. ‘But why do you live in secret fear?’

‘The Jesuits say, Give me a child till age seven, and you’ve got him for life.’

‘But you weren’t brought up by Jesuits.’

‘My father was.’

She smiled and got back to her original question. ‘But now that you’re the commander of the submarine, all that responsibility for this multi-multi-million-pound machine. So huge, in that dark, hostile environment – sailing blind … How do you feel?’

He said: ‘I still rely completely on my crew. And our equipment is so very sophisticated. I know exactly where we are. I know the depth to the ocean bed, my charts and radar tell me what obstacles lie ahead, the contours of the sea bed, even if there’s a shoal of fish. Our nuclear fuel and oxygen will keep us going for months. And it’s always calm down there, even if there’re mountainous waves on the surface. It’s really very safe.’

She sighed, unconvinced. ‘And what about the Special Boat Service you’re in?’

He was surprised again that she knew.

‘I was never in the Special Boat Service. Max’s detective got that one wrong. The Special Boat boys are far too hot-shot for me. They’re the crack underwater warriors, Navy’s equivalent to the SAS. But they sometimes work in conjunction with submarines, and a couple of years ago I was made Submarine Liaison Officer for a year, at Poole, where the Special Boat Service has its headquarters. Submarine Liaison Officer is a boring desk job, nothing to do most of the time. So I asked if I could join in some of the training the Special Boat boys do, for the hell of it. My admiral thought it was a good idea. But I wasn’t much good. I’m a submariner, not a commando.’

She looked unconvinced. ‘What did you learn?’

‘Oh, some parachuting. Water jumps. Then some ground jumps. Then a few night jumps.’ He shook his head. ‘I got my little certificates, but I didn’t like it, I’m scared of heights.’

She smiled. ‘Then what?’

‘Then I went back to Lympstone, where I’d done my basic training years ago. I joined in some commando courses with the SBS boys. Assault courses. Unarmed combat. Weaponry. That was good fun.’

‘Then what?’

‘That’s it. I applied to learn to fly, but they thought that was a bit extravagant for a submariner. So I tried to take my private pilot’s licence, at my own expense. I got halfway through, but had to go back to sea before I finished.’

‘What a pity. Will you finish it?’

‘Yes, but only because I don’t like leaving jobs half-done. I don’t like flying.’

‘Oh, I love it. I’ve got my private pilot’s licence, now.’

He was impressed. ‘Have you?’

‘Max has a plane. A Cessna. I decided to do it, and it’s great fun. However – what else did you learn?’

‘That’s it. My year ashore was up and I went back to my nice safe submarine.’

She smiled. ‘Safe, huh? And what are your submarines doing for their living?’

‘Defence patrols. Shadowing Russian fleets. And shadowing Russian submarines that are shadowing NATO fleets.’

‘And isn’t there a Russian submarine shadowing you?’

‘Yes, but there’s usually another of our submarines shadowing him.’

‘And if there’s a war you all bang torpedoes into each other?’

‘Ah, war,’ he said. ‘Well, we’re all afraid of war, that’s why we’re all shadowing each other, to prevent it.’

She said, ‘Were you in the Falklands War?’

‘Yes, my sub was down there.’

She sighed deeply. ‘I thought you were. Was it you who sank the Belgrano?’

He grinned. ‘No.’

‘And? Were you afraid?’

‘At times. It was the first time I’d gone to war, you see.’ He added: ‘Not that I saw much of it, from down there.’

She sighed deeply. ‘Oh God, war … What a terrible way to die, deep under the hostile ocean, the water pouring in. At least in ordinary ships you have lifeboats.’ She sighed again. ‘You know, I’ve said a prayer for you every night for five years.’

‘Have you? …’ And oh, he was so happy, and he knew with absolute certainty that she was going to be his.

She walked beside him, her hands clasped behind her back.

‘Very well. I’ll try. What do you want to know?’

He said: ‘Why did he put you through that ordeal with the dolphins?’

She paced. She did not want to talk about it.

‘We’d had another row. He did it to punish me.’

‘Jesus. What a terrible thing to do. What about?’

‘Never mind.’

‘You were very courageous.’

‘Not really. I didn’t have time to think, I just thought I had to do it, to save the others. I was stupid. I should have realized he wouldn’t send me back if they were sharks.’

‘But he sent you back knowing you were terrified. And so? Have you forgiven him?’

She said: ‘I understand him.’

‘What is your understanding?’

She took a breath.

‘In some ways he is insecure. In other ways he is a charming, mature, brilliant man. It is the insecure man who has the tantrums. Who sent me back into the water.’

‘Has he done similar things to you?’

‘Please, Jack. I’m only talking about the dolphin incident because Janet told you.’

He let it go, for the time being.

‘And does Max love you?’

‘Oh, yes. Of that I have no doubt.’

‘Or just want to possess you?’

‘Both. No doubt. But he certainly loves me, in his demanding way.’ She added: ‘He’s always had everything his own way, you see. Complete success. School. Business. High-finance. Everything. You were the only one who ever stood in his way for long.’

‘For long? Only for six months. Five years ago. Why is he still insecure?’

She said firmly: ‘It’s a long story, Jack. And I don’t want to tell it.’

He frowned. ‘Are you saying he’s impotent?’

‘He’s certainly not that. But we haven’t made love for years.’

He wanted to say For God’s sake, don’t live like this any more! – come live with me! ‘And? Do you love him?’

‘I married him for better or worse.’

He did not believe this determined Catholic loyalty. There was some other reason why she stayed with him. She said, getting away from the question:

‘God, he’s a clever man with money. I’ve never known him to lose on a deal. Before the revolution, the old government relied on him enormously. He could have been Minister of Finance if he’d wanted, despite his youth and white skin. But he saw the New Jewel revolution coming. He sold everything he owned in Grenada. And now the revolutionary government also relies on him. His know-how. Or the Prime Minister does, Maurice Bishop. And the banks rely on him. The overseas banks and the International Monetary Fund.’

‘But how does he reconcile his wealth with being a socialist? He’s a hot-shot capitalist.’

She smiled. ‘Ah, but we socialists want everybody to be wealthy – with the people owning the means of production.’ She added, more seriously; ‘He’s not a socialist. But he’s an economist. If the government wants to be socialist, he’ll help them run their economy efficiently.’ She added defensively, ‘It’s a perfectly moral attitude. The old government was corrupt. The revolution here is a fait accompli. He wants to stay here. He can help.’

Morgan said: ‘There seems to be a big Cuban influence here. I saw them at the airport. What does Max think about that?’

‘Russian influence too. They’re building a big new airport.’ She sighed. ‘Max is a moderating influence. He’s persuading the Prime Minister to mend some of his fences with America.’

He said: ‘And you? You’re still a socialist?’

She looked at the sand as she walked.

‘Yes. Though I’m a bit more practical than when you knew me. I certainly don’t like what this government has done – nor what the communists are doing worldwide. But, yes, I want to see the wealth spread down to the workers who create it. Not stay in the hands of the fat shareholders who pay miserable wages. And, as far as I can see, the only way to achieve that, in cases where capitalism is entrenched and unfair, is for the workers’ government to take over and own the source of wealth.’ She smiled sadly. ‘We had many an argument about this at university, didn’t we? So now can we talk about you? …’

The sun was getting low. They lay under the palms, a yard apart; she traced a pattern in the sand while he said:

‘We were cruising happily up the Channel, back to Plymouth. We were going to dock before sunset. Your telegram was handed to me. And …’ He shook his head, half-smiling: ‘I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t believe it … I thought maybe it was some kind of bad practical joke from my mates ashore. Then I believed it – but I still didn’t. I had to concentrate on my job, and I kept thinking I was still marrying you in three days’ time.’ He smiled, because it didn’t matter now, everything was wonderful again now. ‘Anyway, we slogged on up the Channel. It seemed the longest passage of my life. I was bursting to get off the boat and go charging up the jetty to leap on the next aeroplane to Grenada.’

She closed her eyes. ‘Oh, why didn’t you? …’

He was happy. ‘Your telegram said: “Marrying Max tomorrow.” It was dated the day before.’

Her eyes were moist. ‘I didn’t marry him until several days later … But you wouldn’t have found me, anyway. I was in Las Vegas. He persuaded me to get the hell off the island. He was scared you’d show up. But …’ She breathed deep: ‘I couldn’t marry him for days.’ She shook her head. ‘Oh, I was in such a mess. Each day he wanted to drag me off to one of those ghastly wedding chapels. But I couldn’t, because I was still in a nightmare about you. Oh my, you don’t know how many times I nearly jumped on a plane and went screaming over to England.’

He sighed. ‘Why didn’t you?’

‘I was in a much worse way than you because I was the one who had made all the heavy-duty decisions! I had taken it unto myself to change the course of the universe – I had been through all that agony of decision to turn my back on my knight in shining armour! …’ She laughed tearfully: ‘You only had to accept the decision without pranging the submarine!’

Morgan grinned. She smiled wanly. ‘I did kind of love Max. I was in love with you but I loved him. I had known him for years, he was part of the establishment. And he adored me. But you? … Oh my …’ She lay back in the sand and smiled up at the sky. ‘Lieutenant-Commander Jack Morgan, RN, who went down to the sea in ships. So handsome, so brave, so expert, so charming, so sexy, who made me laugh so much, who made me think so much – I was only so in love with you. And the pressure on me was enormous – from my family, and Max. “You hardly know him … You don’t really know what he’s like … ” And I’d have to go and live in rainy England – they really rubbed that in. Leave this lovely island, my whole way of life, and be a Navy wife, alone half the time – you won’t even know where he is because it’s all so bloody secret, you won’t even be able to write to him because he’s underwater, and you won’t even get any letters … And, of course, they said, he’s got no money.’

Morgan smiled. He believed this, but he knew that something else had happened too. But he was too happy to press her. ‘They were right on that one.’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘what a mean little argument that was – and I told them so. Ah, they said, but you’re accustomed to so much, this life here, your trips to Miami and New York and Caracas … I shouted, “He’ll be a goddam admiral soon!’”

Morgan laughed. She smiled at him. ‘Which is true. Oh, but it was an intense war that was waged against you. And it all slowly added up to a terrible doubt growing in my mind.’ She took a deep breath. ‘And you were thousands of miles away, underwater. I couldn’t contact you, to get reassurance, just talk it out with you, explain my fears …’

He reached out and took her hand.

‘Well, now I’ve come to you.’

She looked at him; then two tears welled over her eyelids. ‘Far, far too late …’

He pulled her gently towards him; she watched his mouth as he whispered: ‘It’s never too late to be happy.’

And their mouths touched; and then crushed together; and, oh, the sweet taste and scent of her again, the joy, and he felt her tremble once, and then her arm went around his neck and she kissed him fiercely; then she bit his mouth and twisted out of his arms, and jumped up. She walked away, running her fingers through her hair.

He lay a moment, watching her, the lovely line of her, and oh, he loved her. Then he got up and followed her. They were a hundred yards from the hotel lights. He caught up with her and turned her towards him.

‘Come away with me.’

She looked at him with absolute longing, rigid against him; she started to shake her head, then she closed her eyes and her body went soft against him and she crushed her mouth against his again. And she kissed him and kissed him, as if she wanted to bite him, and he felt the bliss well up, the utter joy, her strong softness and smoothness, her breasts and her belly and her loins pressed against him; then she broke the kiss, and backed off, her face smouldering with emotion and her eyes full of tears.

–I’m going now … And I’m never coming back …’

He took a pace towards her and she stepped backwards. ‘Never coming back!’ She shook her head at him: ‘Do you believe that?’

He felt his eyes burn and he wanted to laugh. ‘No.’

She cried: ‘Never! Believe that! I cannot! I dare not! I’m still a coward, don’t you see? Goodbye, darling Jack! I love you – and goodbye …’

She turned and walked away fast, up the path towards the road, her head up, and the tears running down her face.

He stood in the dusk and watched her; and his heart was singing. Because he knew she was coming back.

6

It was dark when he got back to the hotel. He was so happy he did not know what to do with himself. Gone, gone were the cautions he had given himself – he was in love! He went upstairs, to his room. Out onto his balcony. He filled his breast with balmy air and stretched out his arms to the night, and to her. Then there was a knock on his door.

He whirled around. He knew it was her. He strode to the door and flung it open joyfully.

He stared. Two black policemen stood there.

‘You come with us, Mr Morgan.’

His heart was suddenly hammering. ‘What on earth for?’

One of the policemen put his hand on his shoulder. ‘Do you come quietly, man, or do we drag you out in front of everybody?’ The other policeman pushed past him, into the room. He snatched up Morgan’s bag.

‘What the hell –’ Morgan lunged at him. The first man seized his wrist and glared into his eyes. For an instant Morgan was about to lash out at them; then furious common sense came back. He shook his wrist free.

‘Very well! We’ll find out what this is about!’

He strode down the corridor between them, his face like thunder.

Down the stairs, into the lobby. They went through the front doors, out into the drive.

A police car was waiting.

He strode furiously into the police station.

A room led off the charge office. One constable went into it, with Morgan’s bag. Morgan waited, seething. The constable reappeared at the door and beckoned. Morgan strode through.

A black inspector sat behind the desk, the bag on it. Morgan said furiously: ‘I demand to know what the hell this is about!’

The inspector put his hand into the bag, and slowly pulled out a black plastic package. It had a rubber band wrapped around it. He held it out. ‘What is this?’

Morgan stared at it. He had never set eyes on it before.

‘I’ve no idea!’

‘Open it.’

Morgan snatched it from him. He ripped open the plastic bag. Inside was a plastic box. He snatched it out and opened the lid.

Inside was fine white powder. He stared at it, aghast.

‘You bastards,’ he whispered.

The Officer said, ‘I think that’s cocaine, Mr Morgan. About half a kilo. Worth a lot of money.’

‘You bastards planted that stuff on me!’

The officer said: ‘Your fingerprints are on the box.’

‘You’ve just made me touch the box and put my fingerprints on it!’

The officer took the box, and carefully replaced the lid. He nodded to the constables.

Morgan spun around, his fists bunched, as the constables bounded at him and seized each arm.

They shoved him in a cell. He paced up and down. Then a voice said: ‘Morgan? …’

He spun around.

He recognized him immediately, from a photograph Anna had shown him years ago. It was Max Hapsburg who was on the other side of the bars, heavier in the face, with greying temples. Morgan stared at him, then whispered furiously: ‘What have you done with her? If you lay a finger on her, I’ll kill you one day.’

Max said quietly: ‘No need for such gallantry. She is safe and sound and as free as the air. And she wants nothing whatsoever to do with you.’ His eyes had not left Morgan’s.

Morgan clenched his fist. ‘I demand to see a lawyer. I’m going to blow this story sky-high.’

‘I don’t think you’ll do that. I doubt anybody will believe a man who was found in possession of half a kilo of cocaine.’ He held up a finger, and went on softly, his big eyes unwavering: ‘But what you are going to do is stay away from my wife …’ He took a controlled, angry breath. ‘Now, you’re going to get off this island, Morgan. In a moment you’re going to find this door to be inexplicably unlocked. And you’re going to escape from lawful custody. There’s a taxi outside. And at the airport is a plane, flying to Miami in an hour. You’re going to board that plane, Morgan. If you don’t, you’ll be re-arrested, and put on trial for possession of drugs. And from Miami you’ll fly back to England. And …’ His big Greek eyes widened: ‘You will never … never set foot on the island of Grenada again. And you will never contact my wife again. Because if you do …’ He pointed at the office down the corridor, ‘The police have evidence to extradite you back from England to face trial here. And you’ll go to jail for the rest of your life.’

He glared; then turned and strode away.

Part Two

7

When Jonathan Morgan, nicknamed Jack, was eight years old, his mother, for whom everything British was unquestionably best, had insisted that he learn boxing, though the family could ill afford the additional cost on top of the exorbitant fees for the excellent public school she insisted he attend. It was essential, she said, that an English gentleman could put up his dukes and defend himself in an efficient and sportsmanlike manner. So, every Wednesday and Saturday, Jonathan Morgan went along to the school gymnasium to get himself terrorized by other little boys whose demented mothers felt the same as his. He had little natural aptitude for fisticuffs, but this biweekly ordeal soon developed a certain cunning in the unhappy young sportsman, a strategy that went like this: Come charging murderously out of your corner like a bull at a gate and knock the living shit out of the other little boy before he hurts you. Render him hors de combat, then he can’t hit you. This strategy back-fired because he won all his bouts, he was put on the school team, and term after term, year after year, he had to be terrorized by boys from other good public schools at boxing tournaments, extravaganzas of bloodshed and brain-damage which the mothers attended with great pride. By the time he left school he had been unbeaten champion for two years, had hated every minute of it, and he vowed never to fight again. But he brought the same bull-at-a-gate strategy to his university days. Jack Morgan was not a born sportsman, but he earned his rugby blue with suicidal tackling and fanatical fitness, and his cricket blue with sledge-hammer batting. He was brighter than most, certainly, but not sufficiently so to explain his sparkling results: he earned his Bachelor of Science degree cum laude only by unrelenting hard, hard work. And when he chose the Royal Navy as his career, he tackled the gruelling Marine training courses with the same grim determination, and passed with flying colours; but when it came to settling down in the service he knew that he was not a warrior at heart: he was an academic, and he applied to join Submarines. It is more restful down there. It was nice to use just his head, and no brawn. And when, at the age of thirty-five, he was thrown out of the Royal Navy, or ‘compulsorily retired’, as a result of The Cocaine Affair, he had refused a commission in the Sultan of Oman’s navy and declined to join the lucrative company of former SAS and Special Boat boys who undertake contracts for highly paid derring-do for which they have been so well trained by Her Majesty, even though he badly needed the money. Instead he sold his house, commuted his pension, bought a second-hand freight-ship and doggedly began a precarious civilian career in merchant shipping.

It was a small freighter, only six thousand tons, in good condition but only profitable because Jack Morgan was both owner and master and he lived permanently aboard, ate from the ship’s stores and had no wife. The only other asset he owned was a little farm in the mountains of France which he had never even seen and which he had been forced to accept as payment of Makepeace’s debts when that scatterbrain had decided that being a shipping tycoon was dead boring after the Special Boat Service and decided to join the shady company of the ex-SAS and SBS boys. ‘They make such good money,’ Makepeace had cajoled, his triangular face all plaintive. ‘Let’s sell the ship and both go.’

‘No way.’

‘But it’s not necessarily killing people,’ Makepeace appealed ‘– it’s looking after people. Like bodyguard work for these Arab guys. There’s a fortune to be made in security work in Europe – all these high-ups coming here. And training their armies. And arranging arms and ammunition, all that good stuff – pay a fortune, they do. It’s mostly official, you know.’

‘I’m a seaman, Makepeace, not a hired gun. If you don’t like the merchant marine, pay your debts and go.’

‘But how do I pay the money I owe you?’

‘In cash.’

‘That’s the difficulty,’ Makepeace mused. ‘Look, there’s this little place I’ve got in France. Lovely spot, bought it from my brother-in-law for my old age …’

‘Sell it. If you’re joining Danziger and the boys, you’re not going to have any old age.’

‘I wondered if you’d take it as payment –’

‘No way.’

So he took the rock-farm in France, because that was the only way he’d ever get anything from Makepeace, and he had not seen it to this day because he was so busy surviving, He was doing carpentry on his bridge when the Navy car drew up on the quay in Plymouth and the ensign scrambled out. He came clattering up the companionway to the bridge. He was a red-headed young man with a white, earnest face. He saluted and panted:

‘Captain S/M’s compliments, sir, he wants to see you immediately, this moment, sir.’

Morgan looked at him angrily. Ensign Phillips, who thought he dined with kings because he was a four-ring captain’s flunky … ‘The Captain of Submarines wants to see me immediately, does he, Phillips?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘This moment, you say?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Morgan breathed deep. ‘What about?’

‘Don’t know, sir.’

Morgan took another angry breath.

‘Phillips,’ he said, ‘please do not convey my compliments to the Captain S/M. But do remind him that I am no longer in Her Majesty’s Navy. And that if for some extraordinary reason he wants to see me, he can bloody well come here! And request permission to come aboard first!’

‘Sir –’

‘Do you think you can remember all that, Phillips?’

Ensign Phillips blinked. ‘But please, sir –’

‘Thank you, Phillips, that will be all.’

Morgan picked up his saw elaborately. Phillips blinked, then saluted worriedly and turned and clattered down off the bridge.

Twenty minutes later Morgan saw the car coming back along the jetty. It stopped opposite the freighter. He had been wondering what all this was about, but he studiously ignored the car. Two minutes later the Captain of Submarines clambered up onto the bridge. ‘Permission to come aboard?’

Morgan straightened, and glared at him.

‘You’re already aboard, Carrington. You can go back and holler from the jetty.’

Carrington looked thoroughly peeved. He was tall, aristocratic, immaculate in his uniform; the man did not move, he flowed. ‘Now look here, Jack – this is top priority.’

Morgan put down his saw.

‘I’ll never understand the Navy. Or you. You know I hate your guts. And yet, when for some extraordinary reason you want to see me, you send a flunky with a curt message. “This moment”, quote, unquote.’ He frowned in wonder. ‘You’re so puffed up with your own importance that you don’t even know that’s dumb behaviour – it seems perfectly normal to you to wave your wand and command.’

‘Have you quite finished?’

‘No. You can go and get fucked, Carrington!’

Carrington enquired: ‘The whole Navy as well?’

‘Yes! Because not one of you bastards stood by me!’

Carrington said, ‘We haven’t got time to go over all that again, but let me say that I didn’t ruin your career, Jack – you did. You shouldn’t have been fooling around with a married woman. Indeed, I saved your bacon. You could have been court-martialled on the story we were given about that cocaine. Instead you were quietly retired.’

‘Because you believed my version?’

‘Of course. We wouldn’t let a man we believed guilty of such a serious offence walk free.’

‘Then if you believed me you should have stood by me! But, no. The Navy couldn’t stand a whiff of scandal. Oh dear me no, we can’t have the public saying there’s no smoke without fire, et cetera, can we? So, to save your precious image you sacrifice an innocent man!’

Carrington said, ‘If you play with fire you must expect to get your fingers burnt. And married women are fire. You can’t expect the Navy to pull you out of that soup. Now, we’ve got a very important job for you to do.’

Morgan wondered if he had heard right.

‘The Navy’s got a job for me?’

‘And it’s very urgent. So will you please be so kind as to accompany me back to Headquarters?’

Morgan almost wanted to laugh. ‘This moment? And what on earth makes the Navy think I’ll do a job for them?’

Carrington said: ‘I could hand you your Call-up papers. As a retired officer you’re still subject to call-up and the Naval Discipline Act.’

Morgan held out his hand angrily. ‘So? Hand me my Call-up papers.’

Carrington said crisply, ‘We want this to be unofficial.’

Morgan was completely taken aback.

‘Unofficial?’ he said. You mean, “Deniable”?’

‘Exactly.’

Morgan stared. Jesus Christ. ‘I repeat, what makes the Navy think I’ll do an unofficial and deniable job for them?’

‘Money,’ Carrington said.

Morgan could hardly believe this. He picked up his saw again. ‘Carrington, please tell the Navy to stick their money right up their arse.’

‘Big money, in this case.’

‘The Navy’s got a big arse. Particularly in its Captain of Submarines!’

‘You’re not coming?’

‘How very perspicacious.’

Carrington sighed. ‘Then I must tell you, Jack, that the Navy will reconsider legal proceedings in respect of that cocaine report.’ He added: ‘I’ll deny I ever said that.’

Morgan wondered if he had heard right.

‘Jesus Christ … Not only does the Navy submit to blackmail, it now practises blackmail! … Jesus Christ,’ he said again. ‘Now I’ve heard everything.’

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