A head turned at the next table.

“Penny –”

“That wasn’t making love. That was fucking. This wine is awful.”

“Oh, Penny.”

“I’m going to complain.”

“Penny, no.”

“I need a man,” she said dismally. A muscle flickered at the corner of her right eye. “Someone who will put his arms around me. Someone who will talk to me. Someone who won’t subtly shrug off the blame for things until it’s the other person’s fault. And I’m going to find him. I don’t care how low I have to sink. I’m fucking well going to find him. And don’t you dare laugh this off. Don’t you dare not take any blame.”

He called for the bill. When it arrived he said, “You know, we couldn’t afford to live in London.” He signed the credit card chit. “I need to go the loo.”

When he returned Penny was kissing the waiter. She had discovered he came from Colares, not far from Sintra. He was telling her Colares boasted the only pre-phylloxeric vineyards in Europe. She had invited him to the residence. “But after Christmas,” she said. “We won’t be there till after Christmas.”

It was a ten-minute walk to their flat. Penny had been upset by the state of the kitchen. Wavery locked the door and joined his wife in the bedroom. She was removing her face cream.

“That’s why I look so young. This gunge,” she said tipsily. “Do I have anything on my face?”

“No,” said Wavery. He lay in bed. He was in Suffolk, listening to her father’s voice through the study window. Her father was discussing Wavery with Penny’s mother. “He won’t let her down. As a matter of duty, not affection.”

“Why don’t you wash?” she said. A hanger grated in the cupboard. “Why don’t you ever wash? Women wash. I wash every night. Yet when do you wash before you go to bed? Think what it’s like for us? Where have your hands been?”

“All right,” said Wavery, getting out of bed and padding into the bathroom. “I’ll wash.”

He turned a tap. She was saying something. He continued washing. When you’ve been with someone so long, you stop hearing them. He returned to the bedroom. He switched off the main light, leaving on the lamp by the bed. She had stopped talking. He looked up, to see what she was doing. He saw her cradling in her arms the shirt she had given him last Christmas. She was studying the contours of two black shadows.

PART THREE

Chapter Nine

1

SILKLEIGH FOUND THE fisherman. It was three weeks after the Admiral Grau slammed into Emilio’s new boat.

He had been diving in the shallows between La Mujer Muerta and Punta Benzú when he saw something caught in the springs of a car seat.

Emilio’s body floated upright. He was bone from the belt up. His right hand was missing, spun off by the conger eel, but the spine was intact. The bones were black-brown with oil and his skull was wigged with seaweed.