"Come in," she said, furious at the sudden quaver afflicting her voice. She almost let out a whimper of relief when she saw it was Adrian. He was wrapped in his burgundy towelling robe. Bare feet, no pyjamas.

She blipped the lock. Sealing him in.

"Julia!" There was a note of surprised admiration in his voice; and desire lighting his eyes as he drank down the sight of her.

She couldn't stand it anymore, and ran at him. Swept up in strong warm arms. Spinning round and round. Both of them laughing jubilantly.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

On Saturday morning Greg parked the Duo in a side street just outside New Eastfield, and handed over a fiver to the local teeny-bopper extortionists before walking out into the plush precinct's tranquil boulevards. He'd used the Event Horizon card to splash out on new light-grey slacks, blue canvas sneakers, and a jade-green pure wool Stewart sweater. His usual jeans and T-shirt would've aggrieved the private police squad which New Eastfield's residents employed.

One major contributory factor to Peterborough's post-Warming prosperity had been its burgeoning maritime links. The Nene allowed cargo ships to sail right into the heart of the city. They docked at a new port and warehouse complex which had sprung up in the place of the old shopping precinct and Queensgate mall.

In addition to the commercial shipping, an armada of nearly seven thousand small boats had set out from the Norfolk Broads as the Antarctic ice melted, converging on the city. They'd anchored around the island suburb of Stanground; their moorings evolving into a hugely complicated maze of jetties built out of timber scavenged from the roofs and floors of deluged buildings out in the Fens. The boats at the centre were trapped there now, ten years' worth of rubbish clogging the water around them, embedding them in an artificial bog. He'd heard that around ten thousand people lived in the sprawling boat-town. The actual figure was uncertain, Stanground's inherent chaos made council hall governance nigh on impossible. An aspect which the residents took full advantage of. The narrow twisting channels were Peterborough's main haven for smugglers, pumping hard currency Eurofrancs into the city's economy.

Finally, there was an impressive squadron of pleasure craft. The potential of the city's industrial vigour, coupled with the kind of seedy spice endemic to monstrous overcrowding, proved a powerful attraction to Europe's ship-borne rich. People who ran their mini-empires of financial trusts and venture projects from floating gin palaces. They were a flock in eternal migration, never in one port long enough to qualify for the taxman's attention.

They had their own marina in New Eastfield, north of the Nene's main course. The quays were concrete, substantial, immaculately clean. Every requirement was catered for, from stores supplying five-star food and maritime gear to a not-so-small dry dock capable of providing complete refits.