“Frankly, when Cochabamba arrived, I couldn’t give a fish’s tit about any of them.” But he could see what Cochabamba was up to. There was no question of him being at the dictate of her wrist. He had seen it all, all very distinctly, from the moment in their first conversation when he said, “Will you come out to sea? Tomorrow? Diving?” Because Cochabamba’s principal interest consisted not in hotels, nor in water-purification systems, still less in dining somewhere with Silkleigh tête-à-tête which was why she could never make tomorrow night, and it was always can-I-wait-and-see about next week. Then, who knows? But if he happened to be taking his boat out diving, that was another matter. Cochabamba would always come diving. Then she would kiss him, liberating his tongue with hers if only for a brief second. “Can I come?” she’d say. “My kleine belulino. Of course, give me your hand, sit there,” and they’d head out to sea and he would feel a sort of thwarted contentment.

He never touched her, not beyond putting a few munches on her. He might like to have spent any number of nights inside her underpants, but no, that wasn’t on. “Sad to relate, it was the old Jesuit training. The more you conquer, the more there is to conquer. That’s what they taught me about crumpet, old soul.”

Wavery rubbed his neck. He was glad to concentrate on anything that would divert his mind from his weekend in Africa.

“But, Marie, what do you do when you want to forget?” he had asked, as he walked her home.

“I do what I’ve always done. I stare at something so strongly, it becomes something else. If I stare at something strongly enough, I can usually leave myself behind.”

Wavery stared hard at Silkleigh and here in the residence kitchen he began at long last to see the Englishman for what he really was. A most successful provider of truths and disguises. An observer, leading other people down the garden path while absorbing any number of insults along the way. His cover had been sea-going, but it had become a passion too. Some people spent whole lifetimes looking for a cover in order to disguise what they didn’t do with their lives. Silkleigh had met his passion by way of his cover. Out of doors he was the fantasist. He flicked haloes at stones on the sand. He passed his torch over deep-sea creatures. He imagined their stories. But when he returned home and bolted the door behind him, he was a very good agent. A better agent, on paper, than Wavery ever was a diplomat.

With Cochabamba, Silkleigh had again been deceiving the deceiver.

Wavery asked, “Where is Cochabamba now?”

Silkleigh waved his Rolexed wrist in a gesture of farewell. With a trace of regret he said, “She won’t be coming back.”

Wavery walked over to the sink. He found a glass on the draining board and filled it with water.

Silkleigh removed his feet from the chair and stood up. “You still haven’t told me about Africa.”