He paused for some moments. ‘No. That’s crap. Well, I say that’s crap, but I don’t know for sure. No one does. But what we generally think would happen is that that steam would stay together in a concentrated mass, and spread out a few hundred yards in every mile on either side, so it gets wider and wider. There would be so much radioactivity in it, it would be a killer at a hundred miles long and thirty wide. It wouldn’t disperse for weeks, not unless there was a hurricane. But we’re not going to tell the press that! No way! Why worry them? It’s never going to happen.’ He grinned, and chinked the ice cubes in his glass.

Chapter 4

4

The canopied stern of Chanson II moved little in the calm St Tropez dusk. Two stout hemp ropes held her secure to the bollards on the quay, and a battery of smart navy and white fenders protected her port and starboard sides. Her teak decks shone with polish, her white paintwork glistened, and the gold lettering of her name and the word Panama underneath were immaculate.

She was a rich man’s boat, in a parade of rich men’s boats. One of a dozen and a half genuine gin palaces that sat swanking in silence down the most public part of the quay, opposite the cafés and the restaurants where thousands of holiday-makers from campsites and pensions mingled with the few wealthy villa owners to sip their cafés au lait and pernods and pick at giant ice-creams in glass bowls, and ogle in awe at the passing crumpet, and the stunning white bums of the boats of the super-rich.

Chanson II was one hundred and forty foot, and had fourteen private berths, all with en suite bath or shower, plus generous quarters for a crew of sixteen. One of the berths was a sizeable state room with a bedroom off it, that had a circular bed, with mirrored walls and ceiling. The private bathroom had a double bath and a Jacuzzi. In one corner of the state room was a twenty-six-inch Bang and Olufsen colour television set, and next to it was a matching B & O stereo. Down one wall, under a large expanse of glass that was more a picture window than a porthole, was an exquisite, genuine George the Third writing desk, with two telephones on it.

The telephones, the desk, the hi-fi, the television, the bathroom, the bedroom and the boat belonged to a handsome 46-year-old German named Deke Sleder. Sleder was a familiar name to the readers of gossip columns and glossy magazines as one of the world’s international playboys. A doyen of the jet set, five times married – once to an heiress, twice to film starlets, once to a rock singer and the last time to a black fashion-model – he was one of the world’s most publicized ageing trendies.