‘I plump for J. de B. L. in the car,’ Troy said. ‘It sounds so magnificent.’

‘Do you? No: my fancy lies in the contrary field. I put Dr Natouche in the car. A specialist in some esoteric upper reaches of the more impenetrable branches of medicine. An astronomical consulting fee. And I fetch our friend on the wharf from Barbados. He owns a string of hotels and is called Jasper de Brabazon Lazenby. Shall we have a bet on it?’

‘Well,’ Troy said, ‘propose your bet.’

‘If I win you have a drink with me before luncheon. If you win, I pay for the drinks.’

‘Now then!’ Troy exclaimed.

Mr Bard gave a little inward laugh.

‘We shall see,’ he said. ‘I think that I might—’ He smiled at Troy and without completing his sentence walked down to the quay.

‘Are you,’ Troy could just hear him say, ‘joining us? I’m sure you must be.’

‘In the Zodiac?’ the great voice replied. ‘Yes. I am a passenger.’

‘Shall we introduce ourselves?’

The others all strained to hear the exchange of names.

‘Natouche.’

‘Dr Natouche?’

‘Quite so.’

Mr Bard sketched the very vaguest and least of bows in Troy’s direction.

‘I’m Caley Bard,’ he said.

‘Ah. I too have seen the passenger list. Good morning, sir.’

‘Do,’ said Caley Bard, ‘come and meet the others. We have been getting to know each other.’

‘Thank you. If you wish.’

They turned together. Mr Bard was a tall man but Dr Natouche diminished him. Behind them the river, crinkled by a breeze and dappled with discs of sunlight, played tricks with the two approaching figures. It exaggerated their size, rimmed them in a pulsing nimbus and distorted their movement. As they drew nearer, the pale man and the dark, Troy, bemused by this dazzle, thought: ‘There is no reason in the wide world why I should feel apprehensive. It will be all right unless Mr Pollock is bloody-minded or the Rickerby-Carrick hideously effusive. It must be all right.’ She glanced up the lane and there were the cyclists, stock-still except for their jaws: staring, staring.

She held out her hand to Dr Natouche who was formal and bowed slightly over it. His head, uncovered, showed grey close-cut fuzz above the temples. His skin was not perfectly black but warmly dark with grape-coloured shadows. The bone structure of his face was exquisite.

‘Mrs Alleyn,’ said Dr Natouche.

Miss Rickerby-Carrick was, as Troy had feared she would be, excessive. She shook Dr Natouche’s hand up and down and laughed madly: ‘Oh—ho—ho,’ she laughed, ‘how perfectly splendid.’

Mr Pollock kept his hands in his pockets and limped aside thus avoiding an introduction.