I stood staring into space, wondering what that was all about, when the phone suddenly rang again in my hand.

‘Look, Gary—’

‘Who’s Gary?’ asked a different voice, one I recognised.

‘Oh, hello, Charles. I’m sorry about that, I thought you were someone else.’

‘Clearly,’ he said. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Marina just called me.’

‘Oh.’

‘Do you fancy a tot of whisky?’

‘What? Now? It’s not even midday.’

‘The sun will be over the yardarm somewhere. I thought you might need one.’

‘What did she tell you?’

‘Not much. Just that she’s gone home to her mother. And she’s worried about you.’

That was something, I suppose.

‘Come on over. I have a new bottle of single malt for you to try.’

I didn’t really feel like going. Getting drunk on single malt whisky was hardly going to make things any better in the long run.

‘Do I have to come and collect you?’ Charles asked in a mock stern tone.

‘No, Charles. You do not.’ I sighed. ‘Okay. Give me about half an hour. I’ll come on my bike.’

‘Good. I’ll be waiting.’

CHAPTER

2

JUST OVER AN hour later, I rode my aged Raleigh the two miles over the hill to Charles’s house at Aynsford, all the while worried that I wouldn’t be at home if Marina returned.

But she wouldn’t return.

By now she and Saskia would be at Heathrow, waiting for their flight to Amsterdam.

I felt wretched. How could it have come to this?

‘I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,’ Charles said, meeting me at his front door, glass in hand.

‘I nearly didn’t.’

‘But it was an order.’

Charles Roland, retired Royal Navy admiral, was well used to giving orders, and he expected them to be carried out.

My ex-father-in-law from a former marriage to his daughter, he was my muse, my best friend and my mentor, and now, it seemed, also my commanding officer. In his mid-eighties, he had finally started to slow down a bit, not least due to the unwanted attentions of a particularly nasty former Northern Irish terrorist who had fractured his skull while trying unsuccessfully to beat some information out of him.

I followed him across the hallway into his drawing room, where he handed me a cut-glass tumbler containing at least three fingers of malt whisky.

‘From Dalwhinnie, in the Highlands,’ he said, lowering himself into his favourite armchair with his own glass. ‘One of my favourites.’ He took a sip. ‘Now, tell me what’s going on.’

‘I wish I knew.’

‘Is there anyone else?’

I looked across the room at him. The same question had, of course, crossed my mind.

‘I don’t think so but … I don’t know. I didn’t even see that she was so unhappy with me until it was too late.’

‘Is it too late?’