'Did I see what I was supposed to see?'
'A man and a woman having sex in a hotel? Yes.'
I smiled at poor Adrian, who was dabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief. 'I see. Well, no, I really didn't recognise either of them.'
'How embarrassing. After all that secrecy.' A pause. 'I suppose I could just tell you.'
'I suppose you could.'
'Perhaps it's better if I don't, for now. You may remember of your own accord, given time.'
'I'd rather you just told me.'
'Hmm. I'd appreciate it if you kept this to yourself for the moment, Kathryn. Don't show the disc to anybody else. You may well find it extremely useful, in due course.'
'Mr H, if you're not going to tell me, I might be tempted to post it on the Web and see if anybody else can tell me who these two young lovers are.'
'Now, Kathryn, that would be very irresponsible. Please don't be petulant.'
'I was supposed to know by now. Why not just tell me?'
Another pause. The ship's horn blared, above and forward of us. Poudenhaut and I both jumped.
'What was that?' Hazleton asked.
'Ship's hooter,' I said.
'Very loud.'
'Yes, wasn't it? So, who was I supposed to recognise, Mr Hazleton?'
'I suppose I am being overly secretive. It's just that there's no need for Adrian to know.'
I smiled at Poudenhaut. 'Fine by me.' I turned and walked a few steps away, then smiled back at Poudenhaut. His mouth set in a tight line. He retreated into the shade of the lounge and crossed his arms, watching me.
I heard Hazleton take a breath. 'You didn't even start to recognise her?'
So it was the woman. I thought hard. 'No…'
'When you met her she may have had blonde hair. Quite long.'
Blonde. I thought of the woman's face (annoyingly, the image that had chosen to etch itself on my memory was of her just as she was achieving orgasm, her head thrown back, her mouth open in a shout of pleasure). I tried to ignore this, and to edit out the shoulder-length black hair and substitute blonde.
Maybe, I was starting to think, I had seen her once, or met her. Maybe I had a bad association with that face. Something I didn't want to think about. Oh-oh.
'No further forward, Kathryn?' Hazleton asked. He sounded like he was enjoying this.
'I might be,' I said uncertainly. 'She might ring a vague bell.' Definitely a bad association here.
'Shall I tell you?'
'Yes,' I said (you bastard, was the bit I only thought).
'Her first name's Emma.'
Emma. Very definitely a bad association. Yes, I'd met her, just once maybe. But who the hell was she, and why the bad association?
Then I realised, just as he spoke her second name.
Half an hour later I stood on the bridge of the Lorenzo Uffizi, braced along with the others against one of the equipment consoles still ranged beneath the windows, while the coast swept forward to meet us at thirty knots. The Lorenzo Uffizi was headed straight for a broad gap between a half-demolished bulk carrier and a wide, unidentifiable hull that was all ribs and missing plates. Spread out on either side of us, for kilometres in each direction, were dozens of ships of every size and type and in every stage of dismantling: some freshly beached and barely touched, others reduced to little more than the spines of their keels and a few girders; tiny figures dotted the vast slope of oil-stained sand and infinitesimal sparks glowed sporadically amongst the hulks, while slanted pillars of smoke rose from a hundred different sites on the remains of the ships, the salvage-littered shore and deep inland.
The faintest of tremors shook the vessel. I watched the bows start to rise as the edge of the console pressed against my pelvis and belly. The telegraph rang for All Stop. A few people cheered. Tommy Cholongai, still holding on to the wheel, laughed and wheezed as the deceleration forced him forward into it. The ship groaned and creaked around us and from somewhere below there came a distant crashing noise, like hundreds of pieces of crockery falling. Shuddering mightily, the Lorenzo Uffizi's bows rode further and further up the beach, gradually obscuring the view of the land dead ahead. Looking to port, I watched our wash go piling up against the rust-streaked hull of the bulk carrier in a great white sine of surf. Bangings and thuds sounded all around us, the deck seemed to flex beneath my feet and a window out on the far end of the bridge's starboard wing suddenly popped out of its frame and disappeared towards the glistening sands below.
The creaking and groaning and the steady pressure went on for a few more seconds, then with a final pulsing shake and a kind of softly transmitted thud that left me bruised for days and nearly hit my head on the window glass, the old cruise liner settled into her last resting place, the crashing noises ceased and the console stopped digging into me.
More cheering and applause. Tommy Cholongai thanked the ship's master and the pilot, and then with a flourish set the bridge telegraph to Finished With Engines.
I looked over at Adrian Poudenhaut, who had decided to stay aboard for the beaching but had looked distinctly green around the gills for the last ten minutes or so, calm seas or no. Still clutching his briefcase, he smiled wanly. I smiled back.
And as I smiled I thought, Emma Buzetski.
Because that was her name.
'Buzetski is her second name,' Hazleton had said on the satellite phone, half an hour earlier, just before he rang off. 'She's Emma Buzetski. You know, Stephen's wife.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
Just had a horrible thought.
You had a dream where you woke up and somebody had removed all your teeth last week. Michael, I have some bad news for you...
No, I'm serious. But it's about that. You recall the party I was going to see on the morning after that happened?
Yes. What about him?
He has a daughter. Very pretty, very Westernised, very pleased to see me, once, when her dad wasn't there. If you know what I mean.
Gosh, you're such a rake. Actually you're a fucking cretin. You risked jeopardising a deal that size by getting involved with a CEO's KID? I can't believe you're telling me this. Is this meant to endear me to you, Mike? Make me think hey, here's one worth promoting, spread the word around the Level Fours? Are you mad? Are you drunk? DICKHEAD, Mikey boy.
Calm down, will you? Look, it just fucking happened, all right? She came on to me. I mean she's not a child or anything; 19 I think. But I was practically raped.
Yeah, right.
Except she wouldn't actually let me - how shall I put it, go the hole way?
Go on.
I used my mouth.
Ah. See your problem/worry. Except what was done to you was done at this end, not that end. Of the journey, I mean, not your bod.
Still. I mean, don't you think?
You said the party concerned wasn't too bothered about your lack of dentition.
Quite unfazed.
Bad sign. Think back to your previous few encounters with him, post your tryst with his li'l girl. How was his attitude then?
Umm, well, frostier, maybe. I remember talking about that. It felt like we'd slipped back a rung or two in the negotiations. Thought it was just a ploy. But he was always really polite to me, I mean really.
You idiot. So he's frosty, then you lose half your teeth and he's the one wreathed in smiles. Didn't you ever suffer because of somebody, and - even if you had to tolerate them because of business - be really cold towards them, and then have your secret revenge on them and suddenly find it was easy, even more satisfying to be all sympathetic towards them?
I am in the presence of the master, aren't I? Or the mistress. Truly you are Yoda. Yodette, anyway.
Displeased with you I am. I can't believe...no, come to think of it, I can. You're a man. We're probably lucky you didn't try to shag his wife or have carnal knowledge of his favourite golf course or something. I mean, eighteen holes; the possibilities. Actually I don't know why I'm making light of this. In all seriousness, I'm very disappointed in you. That was a very stupid thing to do. The deal is totally done, isn't it? There isn't some last little tiny detail that could explode - oh sorry, could that be ejaculate - in our faces?