‘For Christ’s sake!’ I said. ‘All you did was to make a man a little happier. Monogamy doesn’t suit some men. We might try to blink it but it’s one of the facts of life, and it seems that David Salton was one of those men. You did the decent thing and you didn’t flaunt yourself before Mrs Salton and so nobody got hurt. Don’t blame yourself for anything.’

She put her hand on my arm. ‘You are a nice man. Maybe I will look you up in London.’ She was as tall as I am and her eyes were level with mine. She blinked a few times and then turned away, ostensibly to open the door.

I left her apartment and went down to the ground floor, where I paused for a few minutes to look out over the beach. The surfers were still relentlessly riding the waves and the bronzed bodies were still lying in the same positions under the hot sun. The only change was that the level of sun tan oil in the bottles had gone down a quarter-inch.

III

‘Mr Salton owned quite a bit of land on Campanilla,’ said Idle. He pointed to a large map on the wall of his office behind a chair occupied by Stern. ‘The parts that are shaded in colour.’

Idle was about thirty-five, an amiable Englishman with a Guard’s moustache and a slight limp. Neither the moustache nor the limp were indicative of army life, he’d been quick to explain when I asked: the moustache was fortuitous and the limp a result of childhood polio.

I walked over to study the map, forcing Stern to shift his chair out of the way. I wasn’t too sure why Mrs Salton’s lawyer was even there, unless he wanted to keep a close eye on me. ‘Why three colours?’

Stern said, ‘Blue is for Salton Estates Ltd, red is the Campanillan Land Company, and green is Jildav Ltd. That’s the holding company which represents Salton’s personal fortune.’

The map was splashed with blue and red in roughly equal proportions. El Cerco was coloured green, as was a small area of Marshalltown. Idle said, ‘The Campanillan Land Company is purely commercial – organised to make money. It’s doing very well. Salton Estates Ltd was, I suppose, Mr Salton’s private charity and dedicated to the building of low-cost housing. It also financed hospitals and contributed to educational needs.’

‘How does it really work?’ I said.

Idle limped over and stood beside me, looking at the map. ‘Mr Salton bought land steadily for about twenty-five years, mostly in small parcels as they became available. Naturally he bought as cheaply as he could and he had a keen eye to values. He split the holdings roughly equally between the Campanillan Land Company and Salton Estates. When the boom started, the price of land rose appreciably and he was on to a good thing.’