‘Donna, I think we should get something straight here, love. I want you as nothing more than a go-between. You can give up any ideas of jaunting off to Scotland this minute. It’s a dangerous thing you’re taking on and the less you have to do with that side of it, the better. Tell Alan I trust him to keep you out of it. What the fucking hell’s he playing at, eh? What’s the next step? You going to turn up here riding shotgun on a fucking helicopter or what?’

Donna’s voice dripped ice as she answered her husband.

‘Don’t swear at me, Georgio Brunos. Sometimes I wonder where the hell you get off. You talk me into putting my liberty on the line, my life in Alan Cox’s hands, and then you have the audacity to sit there and out of petty jealousy tell me that I can’t go and do the job you specifically asked of me.

‘Did it ever occur to you,’ she went on hotly, ‘that I can walk into a lot more places than you or Alan Cox? That I have a better cover for what we’re doing than anyone? That I have a bit more brain in my head than you obviously give me credit for? And, finally, that I might want to help out properly? It’s bad enough that Alan Cox thinks I’m about as much use as a chocolate fireguard, without my husband agreeing with him - and to my face as well. Thank you very much! Shall I take up knitting then? Or shall I get myself a lover? A lot of the women do, you know. Oh, I’m not as sheltered as you think. I keep my eyes and my ears open. Some of the talk on the ferry coming over here would make even you blush. So you tell me, big man, what am I to do?’

Georgio listened with increasing annoyance, yet he knew that he needed this woman in front of him, and more than she needed him at this time. This wasn’t his little Don Don, who jumped at his whim, this was a grown woman, and in all his years with her she had never looked as desirable as she did now. Her hair was awry, her eyes were glinting with temper, and her face was flushed. She had what he called ‘the just-rogered look’, and what he wouldn’t give to have been able to put that look on her face properly!

‘I’m sorry, Donna. I worry about you, darlin’.’

She relaxed slightly and said softly, ‘It’s a pity you didn’t worry so much before all this, then neither of us would have to be here today.’