Dispensing with his usual verbal mannerisms—so much camouflage, in any case—Markov talked on. He wondered how long it would take this McGuire man to realize that his companion was not a fool. Five minutes. Ten? It took fifteen. Five minutes on the subject of Scotland, where luckily Markov had been often on shoots; five minutes on the subject of Dostoevsky—here Markov knew he excelled—and five minutes of complete silence. It was the silence that clinched it, Markov felt. Rowland McGuire accelerated the last five hundred yards to the crest of the hill at a pace even Markov could not quite match, but he then waited for him there, a slight smile on his face.

“Okay,” Rowland said as Markov reached his side. “You walk well. You talk well. Why are you here?”

“I’m not hitting on you,” Markov replied with some impudence. “Just in case it like crossed your mind.”

“It didn’t. I’m sure you rarely waste your time.”

“‘I wasted time, and now doth time waste me,’” Markov quoted smartly. “Not my style. You’re right.”

He leaned up against a wall, drew out a pack of Marlboros, and lit one. He turned his reflective glasses to the valley a long way below them. “Great view from here.”

They were not far from the place where Rowland had discovered Cassandra Morley’s body. Rowland, thinking of that night, and other events subsequent to it, made no reply. He, too, leaned against the wall, and with a closed expression turned his face to the valley below. After a while Markov, reading the alteration in him, silently passed him a cigarette. McGuire, who—as far as he knew—did not smoke, accepted it without comment. They leaned back in the sunshine, tobacco smoke curling into the air. Neither spoke. The silence lengthened and became almost companionable.

“Well, what do you know?” Markov said at last. “You’re not what I expected at all. Seriously, I quite like you. And I thought you’d be a prick.”

“Oh, really?” McGuire colored. “And who gave you that impression? Lindsay, I suppose.”

“Lindsay—a bit. Other people too. I asked around. After you killed those pictures of mine. Remember that?”

“Ah, yes.”

“Not that anyone had a bad word to say—exactly. I mean Lindsay’s always singing your praises. How much she admires your judgment. Your editorial skills.”

“Lindsay?” Rowland looked genuinely astonished. “I can’t believe that. She never stops telling me how to do my job.”

“Oh, that’s just her way.” Markov gave an airy gesture. “It means nothing. Just Lindsay being defensive. Or teasing you maybe. She might do that. She found you insensitive, I think, and she did mention you were pretty arrogant—but then, other people said that.”

McGuire’s color deepened. He shrugged. “Well, maybe so. It’s one of my faults. I have plenty of others, no doubt.”

“Yeah, sure. Don’t we all? And then, of course, you have a reputation as a womanizer, did you know that?”

McGuire’s color deepened even further. He shot Markov an angry glance.