His face went hot and red. He squinted at Wavery.

“How old is the photograph?”

Chapter Three

1

THE BAHIA DE Abyla sailed out of Algeciras at five. It was the last ferry of the day. Wavery carried his suitcase to the upper deck. He had removed his tie and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up. The deck was empty. He lifted his bag onto a seat and walked to the rail. He had forgotten to wash his hands. His fingers tingled with dried earth. Gripping the rail, he inhaled.

The air smelled of grease from the lifeboat cables and engine oil from the funnel. Most of all, it smelled of the bay which rose and fell in the wind, a short fetch between the waves. Over the shuddering deck Wavery heard the waves fizzing into tangled veils of foam. He followed the wake to Gibraltar.

Gibraltar had been everything he hated about England. He hated the Union Jack T-shirts and the early Christmas decorations. He hated the chips and the beer, and he hated Hoyter who was all he had hoped to avoid and a reminder of the man he had become.

He watched the battered hat of rock until the haze claimed it. When he could no longer see Gibraltar, he crossed the deck and looked into the grimy horizon for Africa.

2

“Now I know who you are,” Hoyter had said conversationally, accepting Wavery’s two specimen signatures. “You were earmarked for Lisbon, weren’t you? Anyway, Abyla’s nice.”

But Wavery had not requested Abyla on his “Post Preference” form. For nine years he had written down one preference only: the Portuguese capital. In their inimitable, roundabout way Personnel Department had informed him the post would be his.

There was a time when Lisbon had been the least of his ambitions. He might have hoped for Paris or an important governorship. He had been going a long way then. The future held out promise of a knighthood and Wavery Commissions into an assortment of vexed issues. Once upon a time he had been a high flyer.

“I realise I held you back, Tom.”

“Darling, please. Not even in jest.”

But Penny was right. In the end, it was no good having a wife who was more committed to the German Expressionists than the Queen’s Birthday Party. When a choice had to be made, at some indefinable point an enormous number of years ago, he had chosen his wife. He had been faithful for all those years and deserved credit. But he did not deceive himself. If he had left her he would have been sunk anyway.

Penny wanted Lisbon above all. “God, we were so happy then. Weren’t we?”

They had met in Cambridge thirty-five years before, at a dinner party in Barton Road. It was a time in Wavery’s life when the party always seemed elsewhere. He noticed Penny sitting in the corner, on a pile of reddish cushions. She sat with her long legs drawn into her side, tying the lace on a grey boot with severe concentration. She had dark agate eyes, fair hair she had forgotten to brush and a round white face. “That is the girl I am going to marry,” he told himself.