“Well,” she said slowly, “I was about to say that you just might be on to something.” She paused, considering. “But so far all you have is a document found in Bath. That’s not a lot. And I’ll be honest, Max…”
“Maxwell.”
“…We as a company are not prepared to embark on another Colchester fiasco.”
Maxwell hissed in annoyance, but Amanda held up a hand to stop his reaction. “Maxwell, we are not prepared to put cash up front to fund your adventures. My boss would skin me alive if I agreed to that. But I am interested enough to tackle it in a staged approach. Get some material together, outline how it might pan out, do some talking heads to camera, make some tangible progress. Then we can talk about funding again. In the meantime, I’ll lend you a high-def camera – everything needs to be high-def these days – and you send me a schedule and weekly updates.”
Maxwell looked offended. “If I could take this elsewhere…” he began.
“You can’t. So don’t waste my time. Five years ago, you wanted cash and you signed away your future media rights to get it. It’s not my fault that your Brazilian bimbo cleared out your bank account on the way to the airport. That’s down to your gullibility. So work with me here. Get me something worthwhile and we’ll stage some payments.”
He scowled. “She was a visiting professor, I thought we were in love, and throwing that at me is just not called for.”
Amanda snorted. “You were never very good at listening to your friends, were you. That was just a reminder that sometimes, your old friends are right, and you act like a fool. I’m right, so don’t be a fool. Where do you want me to send the camera?”
Without another word, he pulled a card out of his wallet and slid it across the table. Amanda picked it up. “I have to go,” she said, and stood up. She pointed to the toasted sandwich sitting cold and forgotten on his plate. “Going to eat that?” He shook his head, so she scooped it up and took a big bite on her way to the door.
Maxwell sat silently for a moment. That didn’t go too badly, he thought. A little painful, but after Colchester, that could have gone a lot worse.
He looked across the room and caught the eye of the pretty young lady, tucked his floppy hair behind his ear and grinned his trademark boyish lopsided grin. He walked over to her table. “Hi,” he said with a smile. “I could swear we’ve met somewhere. Is your name Linda?”
She smiled back. “No,” she said with a laugh. “And I’m sure you knew that already. I’m Victoria. All my special friends call me Tori. I hope you’re going to call me Tori, too. You are, aren’t you?”
“Of course – Tori,” he replied. He felt his pulse quicken with growing desire as he watched the tip of her tongue swipe across her full lips. “My name is…”
“Maxwell,” she supplied. “I’ve seen you on TV, haven’t I.”
Maxwell smiled his best boyish smile. “Do you fancy joining me for dinner?” he asked.
She smiled back and desire raced through him, so that he almost trembled. “If breakfast is included too,” she said softly. “I do like a hearty breakfast. Something I can really… get to grips with.”
He let out a breath that he had not noticed holding. There was something unbelievably attractive about this woman, and he felt a stirring below his waist in response.
The day – and the coming night – could only get better.
Chapter 7
A rigid inflatable boat slowly manoeuvred in towards the rocks at the foot of the hundred-metre cliff on the north coast of Anifail Island. It was moving slowly, cautiously, because of a fog that had gathered at dawn and steadily thickened as the morning progressed. Now, approaching noon, the fog was showing no sign of clearing.
Aboard the RIB, there was a brief debate between the passengers – four teenage Explorer Scouts and two members of the Scout Network – and the helmsman, a volunteer lifeboat crewman.
“Visibility’s not good enough,” said the boatman, Stan. “You shouldn’t be taking beginners up a cliff in this.”
The expedition’s leader was Mike, a 24-year-old with several years’ experience of climbing. “I don’t agree,” he said. “We can get ’em to the top and back down again, no bother. When you’re climbing your focus is on the rock face right in front of you. Let’s face it, most of this is a scramble rather than a serious climb anyway.”
“No, I agree with Stan,” said Gabrielle, his deputy. She, too, was an experienced climber. “You’ll be able to see what’s in front of you, but you also need to be able to pick out your route ahead up the cliff, and that means seeing a good twenty to thirty metres ahead. You and I might be able to do it, Mike, but we can’t take the chance of the youngsters getting into difficulties. They’d find it enough of a challenge on a sunny day, but this too much.”
“How about a compromise?” said Mike. “Gabby, you and I can go up, put in pitons and ropes to mark the route, then you come down and get them up as far as the tricky part, where I take over and get them up using a top rope. The fog should start clearing soon anyway.”
“I don’t know,” Gabrielle said, obviously reluctant.
“Let’s make a start,” said Mike. “If we both judge that it’s OK to carry on, then fine, we can carry on. But if either of us says no, then no it is. What do you say?”
“I suppose so,” she answered. She looked at the four scouts, sitting quietly in orange life jackets, and she knew that they were quiet because they were uncertain, maybe even scared, about going up the cliff. She decided then and there that she would say, “No,” to going up, but that she would humour Mike and let him get to the top himself.
Stan nosed the RIB in against the rocks so that she and Mike could scramble ashore with their gear. He pulled away, back out to deeper water and well away from the rocks. As she made her way to the foot of the cliff, she noticed how the rocks formed a breakwater, keeping the waves off the cliff itself.
“Hey, Mike, do think this is a man-made breakwater?” she called out.
Mike looked back, and studied the rocks for a few minutes. “Maybe. Does it matter?”
“I just wondered why anyone would put a breakwater here. I mean there’s nothing here to protect, is there? There’s nothing at the top of cliff, so who cares if the cliff gets eroded?”
“Like I said, does it matter?” asked Mike.
“Guess not.”
As Mike had said earlier, the lower part of the climb was a scramble, up scree that had built up through years of weathering of the cliff face. The climb became a little more challenging at a height of fifty metres or so, where the scree gave way to steep, bare rock. The rock face was uneven and fissured, making for numerous hand and foot holds, and plenty of opportunities to install protection for the beginners.
“Did you bring any chocks?” asked Gabrielle.
“Nah,” said Mike. “But there are plenty of pitons. Knifeblades and angles are all we need.” He hammered a Z-angled piton into the rock, clipped on a carabiner, and threaded it with rope. “And up we go!”
They proceeded, free-climbing upwards, with Mike leading and planting pitons, and Gabrielle following ensuring the rope was set and securely anchored. She had to admit that Mike had been right: it was a very easy climb, and the rock was so fissured that there was little need to look ahead to pick out a route. As they ascended, she had to admit also that the fog was thinning. She glanced down to see where the boat was, and was surprised that the sea below was invisible.
Suddenly Mike cursed, and swung himself to the side. Gabrielle looked on in horror as a slab of the rock face suddenly gave way, leaving Mike without a foothold. Worse, it tore away not only the piton Mike had just been hammering, but also the one beneath, to which she had just anchored the guide rope.