‘Fab.’

‘Is it? Then I shall go for a dip!’ Iris stood.

‘Can you manage?’ asked Kate but Iris flapped her away. She made her way to the shallow steps and waded into the warm water, the skirt from her swimming costume lifting and floating around her, and she turned and smiled at Kate with such vitality she looked about ten years younger.

They decided to go outside the hotel to eat that night and explore the pilots’ recommendation of Sandy Ground. By chance, Magic was their taxi driver again and he greeted them like long-lost friends.

With the sun beginning to set behind them, they walked barefoot along the sand, Iris holding Kate’s arm for support.

‘Do you mind if we don’t go far tonight?’ asked Iris, looking wearily down the small beach. ‘Only, I think it must be past my bedtime back home.’

‘This must be what they call jet lag,’ said Kate, yawning. She glanced up at the beach bar adjacent to them. ‘I reckon this is the one tonight then, don’t you?’

They sat at a table on a raised wooden veranda right by the beach and ordered whole grilled red snapper and a Sandy Sizzler cocktail. Iris sipped through her straw and her eyes nearly popped out of her head.

‘That’s bloody lovely,’ she exclaimed, before taking another sip, then another. She placed a hand on Kate’s. ‘Oh, this is turning out to be such a lovely holiday, Kate. And the heat, it’s helping with my arthritis. Thank you.’

‘Glad you came?’

‘I’m beginning to wonder why I’ve been such a stick in the mud. All those years telling myself I never wanted to go anywhere. I think I might have been very foolish. You see, Geoff was more of a caravan-in-Wales type of man. Sometimes we even ventured as far as the Cotswolds. He liked the open road, liked driving with his home pulled along behind him. You’d think with all that taxi-driving at work he would have had enough, but he loved it. It was his life. I just fell into the same routine.’ She slurped the last of her drink, then held her glass and looked around hopefully. ‘Can I get another one of these?’

A smiling face obliged, bringing over a fresh drink and their fish.

‘So, are we all set for tomorrow?’ asked Iris, tucking into dinner. ‘Oh, my word, this is delicious. Delicious!’ she called out to the bartender who’d brought it over.

He indicated another man sitting in a small group at the bar. ‘George, here, caught it this morning,’ the bartender called back, and Iris gave the fisherman an appreciative wave.

‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ said Kate. ‘I think we’re going to have to play it by ear a bit.’

Iris nodded. ‘Have you had any more nasty threats?’

‘No.’

‘Good. And what about who was behind that bullet? You are being careful, aren’t you, love? I worry now Tim’s not there and with me gone as well. Can’t you and Tim make up?’