Anna awoke to find herself lying in her low whitewashed room, now suffused with the warm savor of a Mediterranean morning. Sleepily she yawned and stretched. This wasn’t her bedroom … what was she doing here? Yes, of course: she had been ill. She had done these irrational things, for no apparent reason, her memory was failing, and Gerhard had agreed to look after her until David arrived at the weekend.
Thoughts of David sent her hands involuntarily roving across her breasts. How long to Saturday? Too long … but she might as well stay here until then.
Her bed stood opposite the only window. Someone had put a vase of fresh bluebells on the sill. She looked at the flowers, knew who had picked them, and sat up. Dear Gerhard. Such an old-style romantic. Flowers … how like him.
David gave her a bouquet every Friday evening; he bought them from the same little stall by the entrance to Westminster underground station. How that memory made her yearn for him! His comforting voice, the feel of his strong arms holding her close … “David,” she whispered. “Why aren’t we together?”
She must telephone him right away. Gerhard would take her down to the harbor, where there was a phone. How wonderful that he spoke Greek; he could help with the operator.
She jumped out of bed, hastily pulling on her clothes. As she emerged into the hallway a few moments later, she became aware of odd sounds coming from Gerhard’s bedroom. Suddenly she felt curious to know what he could be up to. Why not give him a shock? Anna giggled. She slipped out of her sandals and padded across the breakfast area, along the corridor leading to the front of the villa. His door was ajar.
She sidled along the wall until she could look through the gap. As she did so, Gerhard straightened up from kneeling by the bed. He had his back to the door, unaware of her presence. He put something into his pocket.
For a second, Anna refused to believe what she had seen. Her first instinct was to challenge him. Then caution prevailed. She retreated, not daring to stop until she had regained the relative safety of the living room.
Gerhard had put a gun in his pocket.
“Good morning, Anna. How are you feeling today?”
Fortunately she was facing the sea, or he could not have failed to detect her unease. She clenched her teeth until they hurt, widening her lips in the mockery of a smile, and turned.
“Much better, thank you, Gerhard. You?”
“Wonderful.” He seemed not to notice anything amiss. “Look at that … sunshine, blue sea.”
Anna, grateful for the respite, turned her back and stared out the window.
She must not let him think she knew. She must keep control. Her life might depend on that. Anna examined this latest instinct with wonder. Was she really in danger, from the man she’d trusted for nigh onto sixteen years?
Why didn’t she come straight out and ask him?
No. She knew somehow that everything depended on her not doing anything until she was alone. For now, safety lay in blanking out the recollection of that odious weapon in Gerhard’s pocket. It hadn’t happened.
“I thought we might go for a picnic,” he said.
“Good,” she replied, keeping her back to him. “What a lovely idea.”
“So you’ve definitely changed your mind about leaving?”
“Oh, yes.” She managed a tense laugh. “I’d like to stay here forever, if I could.”
Now it was his turn to laugh. Then he turned serious. “Is something the matter?”
Anna struggled to find a satisfying answer. “I’m worried, naturally.”
“About what?”
“At home they’ll be waiting to arrest me, won’t they?”
“If you go back now, without waiting for the results of my preliminary overtures, then yes, I’m afraid they will.”
“Embarras des riches.”
“How do you mean?”
“Not one court case but two. First the trial for treason, then, when I’ve got a moment, there’s that claim for three million pounds to fight, the one I told you about, remember?”
“Yes.”
The words were coming out naturally, and they were the right ones to persuade Gerhard that she was completely ignorant of the gun.
“Oh …” Anna heaved a deep sigh. “The thought of going back to chambers and facing them all …”
“Outfacing them. You can do it.”
“Mm. I didn’t behave very well toward them. Not always.” She produced another little laugh from somewhere. “I’m sure a few more hours’ freedom won’t change anything, will they? And perhaps your … overtures will come to something.”
She drank a cup of coffee but could eat no breakfast. It was a silent meal.
Gerhard borrowed Yorgos’ car and drove them across to the west coast, where he kept a boat moored in one of the coastal hamlets. Anna stared out the car window, concentrating her entire attention on the scenery. In happier circumstances she could have fallen in love with this isolated place. The peach trees were a mass of white flowers, irises and marguerites were everywhere in full bloom, orange and lemon trees stood laden with young fruit. It was to be an olive year, and already buds were blooming on their twigs as they strove up toward the spring sky. Everything she saw appealed to her: geraniums, poppies, roses in tubs, peeling walls in need of paint, terraced, overgrown gardens, cocks crowing … how swiftly these things beguiled!
They took his boat, the Medina, to a smaller, uninhabited islet that lay to the south. There they swam in a deep place where you could see the bottom three fathoms down. It reminded Anna of a cathedral, with broad shafts of light pouring through limpid water straight onto the sand. Gerhard was in a lighthearted mood, first he ducked her, then held her tightly around the waist. Anna fought until she had no breath left and he had to carry her ashore, thinking it was all in play.
By the time she had toweled herself dry, she was ready to think again. She knew what she had to do. She must find out about his real intentions. Then, if she had to, she would find a way to escape.
“Tell me what you’re planning,” she said.
“Lunch, followed by a siesta.”
“Planning to do about me, I mean.” She let him see she was in earnest. “It’s all such a mess.”
“I’ve already got in touch with London. We can’t do anything until my people reply, so you might as well relax and forget about things for a while.”
“I must ring David, make sure he’s all right.”
She waited in suspense. How would he deal with that?
“I’ve been thinking about David,” he said. “Your Islington phone is almost certainly being monitored. If you try to make contact, you could put him on the spot in a very big way, you know.”
“Mm-hm.”
So. He didn’t want her to contact David. Her heart produced a sickening thump. Anna felt the onset of rage. The fear was still there, yes, but more than anything now she was angry.
They lunched simply on fresh fruit, cheese, and luscious “black” wine before sunbathing awhile, scents of jasmine and resin deep in their nostrils and the drone of nearby bees soothing Gerhard to the verge of sleep.
Anna opened one eye. He seemed relaxed, unapprehensive. She had come up with a theory; now was the time to test it. “Holidays,” she murmured drowsily. “When I was a child, I never liked them.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It always seemed like water behind a dam, a holiday. You’d think about it for ages, savoring every minute before it happened….” She carved out a ball of sand and squeezed it hard.
“Then on the first day there was a trickle of water through the dam, just a few drops that first day, because there were still thirteen more left, weren’t there? And tomorrow was going to be the same as today … but the trickle became a flood … and suddenly all that was left of the water was tears on your face … and you’d lost it.”
Anna raised her head, pretending to be struck by a thought. “Therapy’s a grown-up holiday, isn’t it? You have sessions, life becomes per
fect, but then it fades. Like our affair …”
She was conscious of him sitting up. “Any regrets?” he said lightly.
“No. And yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“I love David. But the times with you were … were so outside normal human existence. So exhausting.”
He chuckled. “Thanks.”
“You know what I mean. Those days were heavenly. But they faded.”
“I … hated losing you, you know?”
“I didn’t want you to divorce Clara.”
“I know. But love, real love, doesn’t ‘fade,’ to use your word. It petrifies. Becomes a monument to something wonderful that was but can no longer be.”
Anna squeezed her eyes tight shut. She was analyzing every note, each timbre of his voice, and she knew, she could have cheerfully sworn an oath, that he meant what he said. Somewhere inside he was conscious of personal grief, an emotional ulcer that refused to heal.
Her theory was right. He wanted her all to himself. Wanted her back.
After their siesta she swam again, investigating strange channels carved in the rock by the currents of a luminously turquoise sea. Gerhard fetched the boat and they ventured further out.
He sat in the stern, watching Anna alternately swim and dive. The current took her gently away from him, toward the shore. She drifted so far that he did not hear her first scream. Only when she yelled a second time did he jolt upright, his heart thumping. A scream filled with salt water and terror. It fired him to action. He gunned the Johnson 50 and put the Medina hard about.
Gerhard grasped everything in a second. Fifty yards of sea separated him from the beach. Anna was racing for the shore. Close behind and swiftly gaining was a long, sinuous shadow.
There were two empty wine bottles left over from lunch. As the Medina sped off, Gerhard flung them one after the other, timing each to fall ahead of the shadow. Then he picked up an oar and began to beat the water with it.
The engine was howling. He dropped the oar, grabbed the spare petrol can and threw it at the shadow as hard as he could before again starting to thrash the sea. The world wrenched sideways, there was a sudden crack, and Gerhard was falling backward.
He pulled himself up with the aid of a thwart. Not ten feet away from him, the remains of his oar were floating in two pieces. Something had bitten through one and a half inches of seasoned wood as though it were a breadstick.
He scanned the water for yards around, but it was empty. The black shadow had gone. As the pounding in his ears died away he heard Anna start to sob. He saw her crouched on the sand. Thank God …
He waded ashore. She ran to him, knocking him over, so that they collapsed in a tangle of arms and legs on the sand.
“I was swimming out there, by the cave….” Her voice sounded flat and low, her eyes looked straight through him. “I dived a couple of times. As I was coming up, I saw …” She gnawed her hand. “It was terrible … such teeth, such jaws. I could feel it catching up.”
Gerhard chafed her hands, spoke meaningless things.
“What was that?”
“I think … I’m sure, it was a moray eel. They don’t normally attack unless … a freak …”
She felt herself in a whirl of confusion. Gerhard had somehow become her enemy. But when compared with this terror of the sea, that scarcely seemed to matter anymore. Almost without realizing what she was doing, she hugged him tightly. Gerhard laid her down on a towel and began to massage her shoulders with deep, firm strokes. His hands ranged to and fro along her back until he was tired.
You’re a fool, she told herself. You shouldn’t let him do this. It’s wrong. But, oh! how wonderful, how soothing to feel those hands on my skin.
“It’s been ages since I massaged you,” he murmured. “Do you remember the first time?”
She said nothing, unsought sensual pleasure competing for superiority with a deep-seated fear. You’re such a fool….
“It was after one of your first dates with David.” In spite of herself she smiled. “The Beethoven concert.”
“When you spent all evening wondering what this dry old civil servant would be like in bed.”
She tried valiantly to suppress the memories, but they fought through. “And when I got home, and he’d said goodnight, I called you.”
“I told Clara one of my patients had been admitted to emergency care. I came … and I grabbed you.” He laughed softly. “I could sense that all evening you’d been making love to David, in your mind … his body, but with my face.”
His voice was caressing, scarcely louder than her own. Her affair with Gerhard had all but run its course; it was autumn on the streets and in her life, too…. You loved this man once, she reminded herself. In those days he was real.
When Gerhard loosened the strap of her bikini top it felt like being jolted awake in the middle of a macabre dream. Anna tensed. “No.”
He began to massage her inner thighs. She pulled herself away, and sat up.
“Really no?” His smile was teasing. “Really?”
“That was over, long ago. You know that.”
A part of her still didn’t know it. No man understood how to touch a woman as Gerhard did.
“It wouldn’t be important if we made love. Bodies, that’s all. Bodies.” His voice was agonized, matching his expression.
“And the minds? The emotions, what about them?”
He looked away. He might almost have been ashamed.
“You don’t believe people can change, do you?” she snapped. “You—a psychotherapist!”
“You’ve changed.”
“Good.”
“Changed enough to come and spend a few days here, on the island. Not many people are privileged to be invited.”
“Really? What about the other women? What about …?”
He completed the sentence for her in a whisper. “Robyn.”
“My best friend!” Anna wailed. Then, almost immediately—“God! As if that mattered!”
“When you married David you made it clear that you didn’t want our affair to continue. Friends, you said, let’s just stay good friends. And Robyn was recent—1987.”
“There were others in between, you mean?”
“Isn’t that as presumptuous as my asking if you love David?” He embraced their idyllic surroundings with a long, slow look before once more facing her. “Do you, by the way?”
His question outraged her to the point where words ceased to flow. “Are you implying,” she said at last, “that I set this up? This … crude little seaside seduction, you think it was my idea?”
His laugh had degenerated into an uncertain smile. “All I’m saying is that you’ve changed.”
“Yes. I’ve grown. I’ve got some self-respect.”
“And don’t I get any credit for that?”
“You know what you did.”
“Certainly, I showed you how to—”
“Make love.” She dashed something from the corner of one eye with the back of her hand. “Fuck.”
Anna snatched up her towel and marched off down the beach. She was angry, she was frightened, she felt utterly exhausted. But at the bottom of that violent, thundering waterfall of emotion, in a cool, protective lagoon of sanity, lay fragments of knowledge that might yet save her life.
The therapist she had put her faith in for sixteen years had no intention of either letting her contact David or releasing her. This marvelous island was nothing but a picture-postcard Alcatraz. If forced to it, he might even use the gun inside his pocket.
Anna could not understand why she felt so certain that the good doctor whom she trusted more than any other man, apart from David, had betrayed her, but her instincts would not be denied. It was as if Christ had invited the disciples to walk on water … and then laughed while they sank.
Yet Anna could see a gleam of hope, just one. Gerhard no longer loved her, because you didn’t imprison someone you loved. But his hands had told her something import
ant, as they worked along her back.
He still desired her with a passion that was terrible.
CHAPTER
17
Albert had an easy journey to Cornwall; it was a Wednesday, and too early in the year for holiday traffic jams. Once he’d passed Bodmin, the roughly turfed, unfenced moor stretched out in every direction, and occasionally he caught sight of dirty sheep grazing by the side of the road, or sheltering in the lee of crude but strong stone walls. Ahead of him, a pale blue sky descended to meet the black moor in a hem of pink and yellow. Puffy clouds danced along, their fat fleeces thinned by the breeze, like balls of cotton being teased into strips. The sun often shone in his eyes, but he did not mind, for after the gloom of London, this was bliss by comparison.
David Lescombe obviously did not know that Albert was following him. The assignment looked as straightforward as could be. Albert’s cassettes of La Bohème provided the only distraction from what would otherwise have been a boring journey.
He had found New Pendoggett Farm on his Ordnance Survey map and that clearly was David’s destination, so he wasn’t worried at the prospect of losing him. Now that the country lanes had grown narrow and cars were scarce, it would probably be best if he dropped out of sight for a while. In such a rural district, even Lescombe would eventually manage to figure out that someone was on his tail. Albert looked at his watch. Lunchtime. What he needed now was a pub, a sandwich, and a pint of real ale. He would drive on to the coast. Perhaps he might even find a fish stall, where he could buy a nice slab of freshly caught cod for Montgomery’s supper.
But as they were approaching a village called St. Breward, Albert realized for the first time that someone else might be shadowing his quarry, and he swiftly had to revise his plans.
Parked down a side road on the outskirts of the village, near where the road forked, was a black Audi with tinted glass windows. It made little impression on Albert until the other car pulled out almost into him and he hooted angrily. The Audi accelerated, taking the same branch of the fork that David had followed a moment ago.
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