But this morning, as she jogged back along the beach, she forced herself to examine her life in the hungover light of day. She’d left Britain in a state of panic, and all her actions since then had been governed by the lurking fear that she might lose her liberty or even her life. When she’d been unwillingly caught up in a murder investigation at a women’s peace camp, she’d had no idea what she’d uncover. The last thing she’d expected was to find herself embroiled in the cover-up of a spy scandal.

The knowledge she’d ended up with was the sort of thing it was only safe to know if you were inside the charmed circle of the secret society. For her, a dedicated anti-establishment journalist, it had nearly sealed her death warrant. So she’d fled, but had refused to keep silent. After her story had been published by a German magazine, she knew she couldn’t go home till long after the dust had settled. And that had meant not only leaving Cordelia behind, but keeping her in ignorance of her whereabouts. She had left a long letter to explain her absence, and she’d sent a card to Cordelia to reassure her that she was alive and well, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to reveal where she was. The card had been mailed in a sealed envelope to an old friend in New York, with instructions to address it to Cordelia care of her literary agent and to post it on to London from there. A more direct route might have brought the full weight of the Special Branch down on Cordelia. She’d even been afraid to phone in case the line was tapped and they could trace the call.

While she was still a marked woman as far as the British security services were concerned, Lindsay wasn’t prepared to do anything that might expose Cordelia to more trouble than she’d already been through on her account. And that meant not giving her any information that might provide them with a reason to lean on her. If her lover had known where to find her, she’d have been out on the next plane, no doubt with a team of heavies on her trail. The irony of keeping silent was that she now had no way of knowing if the heat had died down. Maybe she’d been wrong not to trust Cordelia to act responsibly, but the fear had gnawed too deep into Lindsay for her to feel able to take even the smallest chance.