‘Not since she was here with you this morning.’

‘She ran out of my flat a few minutes ago. You didn’t see her?’

Marcel shook his head.

‘Are you sure – you can see my door quite clearly from here?’

‘Too busy with all this.’ He caught hold of a salt cellar which had jittered to the edge of a table.

‘If you get a glimpse of her, please call me at once.’

She ran back home.

Once inside she grabbed her mobile and, with shaking hands, tried dialling the number Chloe had last used. But the phone went immediately to answer. She realised that this meant that Chloe had either turned the phone off or was on the line to somebody else. No doubt Neil.

Still gripping her phone, Theresa ran out again into the courtyard.

If Chloe had gone anywhere it would be to the company of Neil up there.

But the boy was no longer hanging out of his tiny hotel window.

She counted up and along, noting the window from which he had earlier been poking. Second floor. Third along from her right.

It was then that she saw the weird man. His face was squashed against the window, like a pig in one of those Spanish restaurants. He was mouthing panicked words into the glass. His torso, so far as Theresa could see it, was, as Chloe had said, naked.

But it was not Cyril.

It was that actor friend of Sally’s, Edgar Markham.

And he was obviously in serious trouble.

Without taking her coat, Theresa left the flat and ran up the hill to the Hotel Astra.

Twenty-four

TWENTY-FOUR

Sally was shocked to see that the boat for tonight’s stunt was not a mini gin palace like before, or even a little fisher, but an open, orange rigid inflatable boat. It had the usual steering wheel on a centrally placed control console. Behind that there was a black leatherette motorbike-style seat for two.

This was going to be a dangerous stunt in so many ways.

Sally looked out at the sea.

There was a definite swell building.

She needed to make things go as smoothly as possible, so she talked briefly to the First Assistant, pointing out that it would be extremely unwise to enter a rigid inflatable boat wearing stiletto heels. Daniel wanted her to keep them on but, after some discussion, the First, clearly worried, relayed Sally’s concern and persuaded him. Foreseeing the boat deflating, stabbed by a stiletto, before they could complete the scene, the First took Sally aside and worked out a routine in which she could appear to try getting into the RIB in heels, lose her balance on the pebbles and, in a moment of anger, take the shoes off and fling them furiously into the carcass of the boat before she herself jumped in after them and took control of the throttle.