A Five Year Plan

Chapter Fourteen

Some of the crew and yacht-owners stayed aboard their own vessels for dinner. But mostly they went to the accommodations block in the forehouse, curious to see more of the ship and to meet the captain, his officers and their crew. Officers and crewmen on the Duke ate separately and in different messrooms. In the British Merchant Navy, it had always been done this way. Now Jellicoe gave orders that owners and their captains would be permitted to dine in the officers’ saloon. Crewmen, however, would have to eat with the crew of the Duke in the crewmen’s mess. So it was that Dave found himself sitting down to dinner with Jellicoe, those of his officers who were not on watch, and a couple of dozen assorted owners and captains, including Al Carnaro, Kate Parmenter and the captain of the Jade, the handsome Rachel Dana.

Rachel said, ‘Captain Jellicoe, I was wondering, what’s the purpose of those two brass cannon on your fo’c’sle?’

‘What the hell’s a fo’c’sle?’ grumbled Kent Bowen.

‘It’s the deck above the forecastle in the bows of the ship,’ explained Jellicoe, and marked Bowen down as a complete idiot in all matters relating to the sea and seafaring. Turning toward Rachel, he smiled bleakly.

‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘there’s a bit of a story attached to those cannon. You see, on our way back from the Balearics...’ He nodded toward Bowen. ‘That’s the small group of islands including Mallorca, that is, of course, our destination. Well, we had to stop for repairs, pretty close to Lanzarote...’ Another nod to Bowen. ‘Which is of course in the Canary Islands. Anyway, we were lying at anchor close to some cliffs for the best part of a day while the chief engineer sorted out the engines and the boys started to get rather bored. Now at the top of these cliffs were two ceremonial cannon. And I thought that it would be a pretty good way of keeping them out of mischief, if we climbed to the top of the cliffs, along the lines of a film I once saw and, instead of blowing up these particular guns, stole them instead.’ Jellicoe was chuckling as he relived this exploit. ‘So that’s exactly what we did. It took most of the day, since, as you can no doubt imagine, they were rather heavy. Anyway, they’re in full working order. We fire them once a year, to commemorate Admiral Lord Nelson’s victory over the French at the Battle of Trafalgar...’ He nodded toward Bowen again. ‘Famous sea battle during the Napoleonic wars — 21 October 1805, in case you should be wondering. Fought not so very far north of the Canaries, as a matter of fact. You see, the cannon were originally British. Came off a ship in Nelson’s squadron that was wrecked in Madeira. For a while the cannon stayed there, until the governor lost them in a card game with the governor of Lanzarote. Something like that, anyway. So you see we were merely reclaiming naval property. England expects, eh Chief?’

Bert Ross smiled a wintry smile and helped himself to some more of the execrable white wine that was served aboard the Duke.

‘How heroic,’ said Rachel. ‘Perhaps you should be in a film yourself, Captain.’

Kate wondered what kind of film Rachel Dana could have in mind. She said, ‘Captain Jellicoe, if that’s how you keep your men out of mischief, I’d love to see what might happen when you were planning on causing trouble.’

‘Come, come, Captain Parmenter. It was just high spirits, that’s all.’ Jellicoe looked at Dave and said. ‘Wouldn’t you say so, sir?’

‘It sounds a blast.’ Dave grinned back at him, wondering how Jellicoe would react when he and Al enacted their own high-spirited caper. Badly, he thought. Jellicoe was the kind of guy who’d have called what Dave was planning ‘Piracy’. Well, that was OK by him. He’d always kind of liked Errol Flynn and Tyrone Power. When he was holed up somewhere, several million dollars better off, he might even grow himself a small mustache. Maybe even wear an earring again. When you were worth several million dollars you could wear more or less what you wanted and no one ever complained.

‘A blast?’ Jellicoe said. ‘Yes, I suppose it was.’

Kate smiled at Dave. ‘A few too many beers is as wild as it gets on the Carrera.’

Dave smiled back. ‘Same here,’ he said, although he was thinking that what had happened to Lou Malta and his boy Pepe would count as pretty wild.

Al, who had wisely stayed silent throughout dinner, leaned toward Dave’s shoulder and murmured, ‘That her? That the babe you were talking to earlier?’

‘Yes it is.’

‘Cute. Very cute. The question is, does she have a good-looking friend?’

Dave looked at Al and shook his head. ‘No, Al, the question is, do I?’

After dinner, Dave asked the chief officer, Bert Ross, which of his officers was the radio officer.

‘Radio officer?’ Ross sounded surprised.

‘Yeah, only I’ve got a fist-mike that’s cutting out on me.’ Although this was true, Dave knew pretty much how to fix it. His real purpose was to find out where the ship’s radio was. The first part of his plan, when eventually it kicked in, would involve immobilizing the Duke’s VHF.

‘We’ve got an electrical officer,’ said Ross. ‘Radio officers went out with flared trousers. We’re all satellite and microchip these days. Fax, telex, digital selective calling, you name it. Most of the lads on this ship think Morse Code is the capital of Russia.’ He laughed and glanced at his watch. ‘As it happens, Jock — our electrical officer — he’ll be on the blower now. Gettin’ the soccer results from England. Come on, I’ll take you there myself.’

‘Thanks. That’d be great.’

‘No problem. What you want to do anyway? Have a chat with your personal trainer or something?’ Ross led the way out of the officers’ saloon. ‘After that dinner you’ll probably need a couple of hours in the gym.’

‘It was kind of heavy,’ admitted Dave, thinking how much the food had reminded him of the chow back in Homestead.

‘What we don’t eat, we use as ballast.’

They went along to a cabin close to the bridge where a thin, undernourished-looking man with the reddest hair Dave had ever seen that wasn’t on a dog, was seated in front of a series of teak-mounted transceivers and loudspeakers. In his hand was a digital telephone handset and on the table next to him was a sheet of paper covered with team names and scores.

‘This is Jock.’

The red-haired man looked up and nodded.

‘He’s Scottish, so don’t expect to understand a bleedin’ word he says.’

Jock replaced the handset on the cradle and sat back on his plastic office chair.

‘How’d the Arsenal do, Jock?’

‘Lost, three-nil.’

‘Bastards.’ Ross sighed and looked away in disgust. ‘Jock, this is Mister Dulanotov. One of our supernumos. He’s got a problem with his VHF.’

Dave answered a few rudimentary questions about the VHF system aboard the Juarista while at the same time he considered what would be the best way of taking out the ship’s radio. The sailor in him recoiled from the idea of simply putting a bullet in the radio and leaving a hundred people stranded on the ocean with no means of communication. But he could see no obvious alternative. At least that was how it seemed until, backing out of Ross’s way, he caught and tore the pocket of his chinos on the heavy steel door.

‘Sorry about that,’ said Ross.

But Dave was more interested in the discovery that there was a key in the door than in any apology. All he would have to do was steal the key and then hide it somewhere.

Jock leaned forward in his chair, frowning with puzzlement as through the loudspeaker came a sound like a fax machine in transmission. He said, ‘Odd. There it is again.’

‘What is?’ asked Ross.

‘That sound. One of the supernumos must be broadcasting a signal using a digital scrambler.’

‘So?’

‘So, it’s a little unusual, that’s all.’

‘What channel?’ asked Dave, curious.

Jock hit the squelch button on the transceiver to try and filter out the background atmospheric noise. He shook his head and said, ‘It seems to be between frequencies.’

Ross shrugged and said, ‘Whoever it is is probably trying to have a private business conversation, that’s all. There are a lot of nosey bastards around these days. You never know who’s listening to your blower. I was reading about it in the paper. Industrial espionage is on the increase.’

‘That’s true,’ said Jock in an accent as thick as porridge. ‘But digital’s sophisticated.’ He looked accusingly at Dave. ‘Even for some mega-rich supernumo. Normally it’s only the military and the intelligence community who get to play with these kinds of toys.’

‘Are you sure it’s coming from the Duke?’ asked Dave.

‘Positive. Look at that signal strength. We’re right on top of it. And what’s more, VHF has a very short range. Fifty miles max. If someone’s broadcasting then it’s to someone else who’s quite close.’

‘Can you get a fix on it?’ asked Dave.

‘Not with this kit.’ Jock picked up a half-smoked cigarette and puffed it back into life. ‘There is another possibility, if the signal’s not actually coming from the ship.’ He took a drag, stubbed out the cigarette in a saucer, and started to roll another.

Ross said, ‘Well, don’t make us change our underwear for it.’

Jock licked his cigarette paper and said, ‘It’s possible. Just possible, mind, that we’re over a submarine.’ He put the cigarette in his mouth and scraped a match alight. ‘Those bastards play all sorts of stupid games. If it is a sub, he’s probably using us as the subject of an exercise. Right now he could be going through the motions of firing a torpedo at us.’

Dave said, ‘That’s a comforting thought as we prepare to go to bed.’

Ross said, ‘Yeah. And to think that it’s to help us all sleep soundly in our beds that they do these bloody stupid things.’

Aboard the Carrera, Kate finished her conversation with the first officer of the USS Galveston, the 688-Class attack submarine that was, she had just been informed, 200 feet below the twin hulls of the Duke. She felt a lot better knowing they had company, even though it would only last as far as the Sargasso Sea. After that there would be several hundred miles across the Cape Verde Basin before they picked up their French nuclear sub escort at another underwater landmark, Great Meteor Tablemount.

She and Sam Brockman were seated behind the drawn shades and closed doors of the wheelhouse skylounge. Brockman was keeping one eye on the electronic chart, more out of habit than of necessity. A tall man — too tall to be really comfortable on the yacht: at six feet five his steel-gray hair was forever brushing along the Carrera’s suede-covered ceilings — Brockman had the air of someone who’d seen it all before. Kate liked him, finding confidence in his steady demeanor, admiring his attention to duty, but most of all enjoying the fact that he shared her own low opinion of Kent Bowen.

Kate said, ‘Where is His Excellency?’

‘Asleep. In his stateroom. He and the beer got well acquainted during the game on TV. And then there was the wine he had at dinner. I guess he’s drunk as much as he’s breathed today. Looks like he intends to play the part of lazy fat cat to the whiskers, Kate. Not so much under cover as under the influence. It amazes me that he’s managed to keep such a tight rein on his mouth. So far.’

‘I should never have suggested it,’ Kate said. ‘You’re right, Sam. He’s acting like he’s Donald Trump. This owner thing really has gone to his head.’

‘It’s not just his head. Did you see the way he was coming onto the captain of the Jade?’

Sam grinned. ‘I wonder why?’

‘Oh come on, Sam. Not you too. Those are tits in her polo shirt. Not golden apples.’

‘Can’t say as I noticed her tits. But I love that woman’s ass.’

‘Sam.’

‘Sea air does strange things to people,’ he explained. ‘There’ll be all kinds of shit before this voyage is out. You just see if I’m wrong.’

‘I hope so. I could use some action. Miami Bureau’s been a little dull of late. Bo wen sees to that. Dullest AS AC I ever worked for.’

‘Don’t you worry about a thing. You did right. Believe me, he’s playing the dumb schmuck owner to perfection. I should know, I worked for plenty. During college vacations I used to crew yachts. One particular asshole I worked for, heir to a sanitary napkin fortune, he owned this classic three-masted schooner. Two hundred feet long, built in 1927, a real beauty. His private plane flew him down to meet the yacht at Tierra del Fuego, in Argentina. This was after us radioing him to say that the weather was real quiet. We picked him up and he spent forty-eight hours on board going round Cape Horn just so that he could boast to his yacht club pals back in Manhattan that he’d actually done it. Two days later, we dropped him off the coast of Chile and he flew home. Asshole. As soon as he got back to Wall Street he put the yacht up for sale.’ Sam shook his head with disgust. ‘Yes, I think he and Kent Bowen would have gotten along real well.’

‘It’s kind of you to say so, Sam.’

He stretched his long arms and yawned. ‘Bowen’s right about one thing, though. That early night. I’m bushed. Mind if I turn in?’

‘You go ahead. I’m going to stay up a while and enjoy the night air. It’s not every day you set sail on a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.’

Sam smiled politely and rose to his feet. He had no great love for the ocean. Fort Lauderdale was one of the busiest stations in the service. They’d performed over a thousand boardings the previous year and Sam never worked less than a seventy-hour week. The Coast Guard motto was Semper Paratus — Always Ready — and boy, did they mean it. Sam had never married. He’d never found the time, let alone the right girl. The kind of girl who would put up with a rival like the sea. Kate, he liked. But already he knew her for what she was. Someone like himself. Someone prepared to put her job ahead of any relationship. And there was no future in that for either of them. So he said goodnight and went down to his stateroom.

Kate went to the back of the bridge and stared out to sea. The ship was making good speed at almost seventeen knots, although she would hardly have noticed but for the low noise and dull vibration of the engines. The sea itself looked as calm as if they’d been sailing in one of Lauderdale’s intercoastal waterways. The moon was full, as big as a soccer ball, and there was only a light warm breeze as they cruised through the night. Kate lit a Doral and meandered barefoot around the deck. In the moonlight you might have believed all of the boats on the ship were made of cocaine, they were so white. A poet at least might have appreciated Kent Bowen’s half-baked theory. And it was easy to think of all their passengers as supernatural voyagers from some Greek myth, or maybe flying Dutchmen set to sail the seas forever.

Someone cleared his throat, and, turning towards the Carrera’s starboard side, she found herself facing the moonlit captain of the Juarista. He said, ‘Lovely evening.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Kate put out the cigarette. She never felt she looked her best when she was smoking.

‘You could ask me aboard again, if you wanted to.’

‘You want a beer?’

He seemed to take this as a yes, for the next moment he was leaping athletically from his bridge to hers.

‘Oh,’ she said, a little nervous of him. ‘Here you are. Well, well.’

‘Well, it’s a marvellous night for a moondance.’

To Kate’s surprise Dave put his arm around her waist, picked up her slightly reluctant right hand in his left, and began to dance with her, all the while quietly singing his favorite Van Morrison song, smiling when their eyes met and without a trace of shyness, as if he serenaded a girl like this every night.

At the end of the song, when she thought he would surely kiss her, he released her hand and stepped back.

Kate let out her breath and said, ‘That was nice.’ She was a little shocked to hear herself add, ‘I could listen to that all night.’ She turned away so that he couldn’t see her grimace with embarrassment. ‘I’ll get you mat beer.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Really I’m OK. I don’t need a beer.’ He smiled. ‘I was thinking. How about you go to the movies with me tonight? The Third Man’s playing at the Juarista. It’s a little movie theater somewhere off the Bahamas.’

‘I know it,’ she said. ‘It’s right by the Carrera.’

‘Afterwards, we could check out a cocktail bar I know nearby. The barman there makes these really excellent Margaritas.’

Kate frowned, wondering why she should suddenly be reminded of the Pier Top at the Hyatt in Fort Lauderdale.

Dave went on: ‘Then, if you’ve still got the energy, we could go dancing.’

‘I’m not much of a dancer,’ admitted Kate. Didn’t Howard always say so? I’ve seen a book of random numbers with more rhythm than you have, Kate, he had told her.

‘Sure you are,’ he said. ‘You know all the moves.’

‘I think that’s you you’re describing.’

‘Oh, you mean moves like in chess.’

She nodded.

‘As in a gambit?’

‘Mister Gary Kasparov,’ she said.

‘Could be,’ he allowed. ‘Only a gambit involves some kind of sacrifice.’

‘So what have you got to lose?’

Dave said, ‘I had the naive idea of simply expressing my feelings as they occurred. Will that do?’

‘Sure. But maybe we’d better skip the movie. We might disturb the other patrons.’

‘Okay, but how about that Margarita?’

‘If you think it’ll help with that naive idea of yours. Just the one though, and remember this. One: I’m driving home. And two: I like to lick the salt off my own lips.’

Dave helped her to cross to his boat and, while Kate cast her eye over the salon, he stepped downstairs to make sure that Al was fast asleep. The first decent girl he’d met in five years, the last thing he needed was Al sticking his nose in. Behind the polished cedarwood door, the TV was still on, but Al was snoring loudly. Dave went back up to the salon to fix the drinks.

‘Al’s asleep,’ said Dave. ‘He won’t disturb us.’

‘Tell me about Al.’

Dave said, ‘I guess you could say that Al’s pretty much the guy next door. That is if you happen to live next to a zoo, or a pig farm. But he’s useful to have around, y’know?’

Kate laughed. She was looking at the mock-glass aquarium by Lalique that surrounded the sofa and thinking that the boat’s interior was a lot less obviously masculine than she had imagined. Quite apart from the glass there were the scatter-cushions on the sofa. She had never known a man to possess cushions aboard a sport-fisher.

‘Nice interior,’ she pronounced politely.

‘It’s okay,’ he allowed. ‘A little fussy. I’m not sure that the glass works. So I’m thinking of a refit in the winter.’ He handed Kate her Margarita. ‘Something more practical, perhaps.’

She sipped her drink. ‘Mmmm. Just right.’

‘That’s the way I like them.’

‘A perfectionist.’

‘That would certainly explain why I’m attracted to you.’

‘Flattery’s my favorite compliment.’

‘I’d have thought you were used to it by now.’

‘Not really. My ex-husband was a little stingy with his good opinions. He made up for it with his bad ones, though.’

‘The ex part sounds good.’

‘He’s well out of my life,’ she lied. ‘Short on compliments, but he’d always take his hat off to a pretty woman. Only trouble was, it never stopped at just his hat.’

‘Philanderer, huh?’

‘Like his name was Phil, and er... he came from er... Philadelphia.’

Dave grinned. ‘Who writes your dialogue?’ he said. ‘I love the way you talk.’

‘Little guy, with a battered Remington, upstairs in my head, looks a bit like William Holden.’

‘William Holden. He used to be big.’

‘He is still big,’ declared Kate, with mock solemnity. ‘It’s his arteries that got small.’ She was pleased that he liked the way she talked. Howard had never cared for Kate’s wit. She was always too quick for him and he had hated that. Sometimes she was too quick even for herself, saying things, funny things she would later regret. If her mouth had been a gun she’d have been the Sundance Kid. But in her own opinion it wasn’t that Howard had lacked wit or intelligence, merely that he took himself too seriously.

‘It’s good that you and I share a sense of humor,’ she had once told him. ‘The only trouble is that I’ve got 95 per cent of it.’

There was certainly nothing wrong with David’s sense of humor. Kate was pretty keen on the way he talked too. She said, ‘You’re not so badly off yourself. After all, you’ve got Van Morrison on your case. I always liked Van the Man. Where are you from, Van?’

Dave smiled and looked away for a moment. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘What matters most is where you’re going and how you get there.’

‘Uh-huh. So you’re from Miami,’ Kate said.

Dave laughed.

‘People are always coy about being from Miami,’ she explained.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It’s like saying you were born in a K-Mart.’

‘You’ve lost most of your accent,’ she observed.

Ever since he’d started learning Russian Dave had been trying to improve the way he spoke English too. To use conjunctions and prepositions. Except when he spoke to Al. It hardly seemed to matter the way he spoke to Al. Dave said, ‘I didn’t lose it. I wiped it off my shoe.’

‘Self-improver, huh?’

‘Isn’t everyone? What about you? Where are you from? Or are you coy too?’

Kate said, ‘Me and coy never got along that well. Him and his sister meek? I never liked them.’

‘So you don’t believe that the meek shall inherit the earth?’

‘If they do it’ll be because they had a good lawyer. Actually, I’m from the Space Coast. It sounds better than saying I’m from Titusville, doesn’t it? If Miami’s a K-Mart then I don’t know what that makes T’ville.’ She considered the matter for a moment and then said, ‘A local church thrift shop, probably. No, the only good thing about T’ville was the view of the rocket assembly building twenty miles away. I kind of grew up with the space program. When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut. To be the first American woman on the moon.’ She shrugged, smiling brightly. ‘And now I crew luxury yachts.’ She finished her drink and licked her lips. ‘A logical career move.’

Dave said, ‘Do you want some more? I made a whole pitcher, in case you changed your mind about having just the one.’

‘A man who knows female psychology.’ She handed him her glass. ‘Shall we add that to your list of accomplishments?’

Dave took the glasses, salted the rims and then refilled them to the brim.

‘Who’s counting?’ he said.

She waited until Dave sat down again, looked him straight in his big brown eyes and answered him with a frankness she found almost exhilarating. ‘I am.’ Then she raised her glass before he could get too close, wanting to control this for as long as possible. ‘Well, that’s how I come to be the captain of a yacht. How do you come to be an owner? I mean this is a pretty expensive boat.’

‘I guess I know what I like,’ said Dave, with what he hoped sounded like evasive modesty. ‘And then, if I can, I go and get it.’

‘Do you go after everything you like?’

‘No. Not everything. But it’s the way I’d pick out a woman.’

‘You make it sound like choosing a necktie.’

‘Choosing a necktie is a serious business,’ said Dave. ‘It can be hanging around your neck for up to twelve hours a day.’

‘Twelve hours a day? Sounds like you’re in something that’s high pressure. Exactly what do you do for a living?’

‘Exactly?’ Dave grinned. ‘A bit of this, a bit of that.’

‘That sounds like a really nice job. Which of them pays better?’

‘Generally, that.’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘I work in the South East Financial Center, on Biscayne Boulevard.’

‘Sure. The tallest building in Florida.’

‘It has to be, for all the stories I have to tell my clients.’

‘So you’re a practiced liar, is that what you’re telling me?’

‘Not practiced. Perfect.’

Kate smiled. ‘You must be doing all right.’

Dave looked noncommittal.

Kate said, ‘I mean, we’ve already established that this isn’t exactly the Sloop John B. A boat like this must cost the best part of three million. That’s a lot of tall stories. Even for someone in the Financial Center.’

He put down his glass and said, ‘What would you do if you had three million dollars?’

‘Is this Indecent Proposal?’

‘I said, three million.’

‘Well, naturally there’d be some change.’

Dave slid along the sofa and put his arm around her shoulders. He said, ‘Where are we on the King’s Gambit?’

And then he kissed her.

You could tell a lot about a man by the way he kissed you, thought Kate. Sometimes you could tell what he’d had for dinner. But mostly you could tell right away if you wanted to go to bed with him. Kate knew pretty much as soon as he pressed his mouth to hers that she wanted to have it pressed to other parts of her body as well. When eventually he drew back to look for her reaction, she said, ‘I think it has probably been accepted. Only the White Queen is badly placed here. She ought to move if she’s to avoid mate.’

Kate put her Margarita down on the coffee table, slid a hand around the back of his neck and pulled his mouth back to hers, as if she was already addicted to its narcotic effect. Dreamily she closed her eyes and gave herself up to the acute intoxication of his lips, which were still necked with crystalline salt from his glass. The last man who had kissed her had been Nick Hemmings, the British liaison officer. A nice guy but not much of a kisser. And before that Howard, of course, who kissed like a clam. But this — this was a real Schedule II buzz: high abuse potential. The kind of $200 an ounce kiss that felt like she was vacuuming it up through her dilating nostrils and finding it, seconds later, tingling in her toes.

‘Mmmm,’ she said, deliciously, and brushed his warm cheek and hot ear with her glowing lips. ‘You could cut that feeling with a credit card.’

‘Have you ever felt really wide awake and all you wanted to do was go straight to bed?’

‘I’ve never done anything straight,’ said Kate, revelling in the new role she was creating for herself. Barbara Stanwyck. Lauren Bacall. Bette Davis. She pushed Dave gently away. ‘If I had, I’d have become an astronaut. Still, as rocket rides go this has been quite fast enough. Just look at me. Breathless.’ She sat up and collected her near-empty glass off the table. ‘Running low on fuel and oxygen. I think I’d better get back to the mother ship.’

Dave picked up a cushion and placed it on his lap. He said, ‘That’s probably a good idea.’ He finished his Margarita, waiting for Kate to show some more obvious signs of wanting to leave. Like standing up.

When she stayed put on the sofa he helped himself to one of her cigarettes while he thought of appropriate lines of poetry. There was some Andrew Marvell that fitted the situation very well, only he’d relied on other people’s words too much already. It was time to be himself. Or as much of himself as he could ever reveal to her, given what he was planning. So he said simply, ‘You know, for a ship’s captain, you’re a pretty nice girl.’

‘It’s not a condition of the job that you have to look like Charles Laughton and walk around the deck carrying a rope’s end.’

‘Al makes Charles Laughton look like Cary Grant.’

‘It’s probably just as well he does,’ suggested Kate. ‘Think how embarrassed you’d both be if this was him sitting here now.’

The obscenity of that picture made Dave laugh out loud. He said, ‘It would make it easier to say goodnight.’

‘You know, David, for a millionaire, you give up real easy.’

‘And I thought I was demonstrating an admirable restraint.’

‘Your admirable restraint is nice, don’t get me wrong. It makes a very welcome change. But how shall I put it? OK, as butlers go, there’s too much English and not enough of Rhett. Quite obviously I’m in two minds about what to do here now. Maybe I just need a little financial center salesmanship.’

‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t feel up to bullshitting you. What it boils down to is that I like your stock too much to sell it short. I’d rather force the price up than down. When I buy into something it’s not because I’m after a quick killing, but because I believe in the company. You should only sell when you’re sure of that yourself. A deal’s only a good deal if both parties think so.’

‘I love it when you talk that way,’ said Kate. ‘It makes me feel like Bell Atlantic.’ She kissed him and stood up. ‘I’ll be waiting for your offer, Rhett. You’ll know where to find me. You just look out to sea in the morning and then turn around.’

‘Want me to walk you home?’

‘That’s OK, I brought my sea-legs with me.’

‘So I noticed. As a matter of fact I’ve been noticing them all evening. They look good on you. Like one’s called Cyd and the other’s called Charisse. They make a pretty good duo.’

‘And contrary to whatever impression I may have given you, Dave, they’re seldom seen apart.’

‘I didn’t doubt it,’ said Dave, escorting her toward the stern of the yacht. ‘You know Kate, this wasn’t, isn’t, just a casual flirtation. I meant a lot of what I said. That’s not something that happens to me very often, believe me.’

‘And if I told you I already had the same feeling?’ She stopped his mouth with another kiss, and then added, ‘We’ve got ten days to find out if this means anything more important than just human biology.’

Dave frowned, momentarily at a loss. He said, ‘Ten days?’

Kate said, ‘That’s how long we’ve got on this floating tin of sardines until we get to Mallorca, isn’t it?’

‘Oh sure,’ said Dave, whose mental clock was only set for a five-day voyage.

Kate said, ‘You’ll let me know if you plan to get off early, won’t you, David? Only I’d hate to wake up in the morning and find you’d checked out.’

Dave forced a smile. ‘Where can I go? There’s only the moon and stars.’

‘You know the night’s magic, Van the Man. You said so yourself. Remember?’