Brittany had just gone through one of its tempestuous periods, thunderous skies and deluges of warm rain that washed away everything in its path. Now the July skies were cloudless and dazzling but there was a brisk breeze that was deceptive and on the beaches the unwary would burn and feel ill if they stayed out too long.
Henry Lomax was not one of those. He came up from below where he had slept deeply after a lunch which had involved far too much wine. He put on his white skipper’’s cap and his dark glasses and watched his crew of one take the big motor cruiser into the little harbour, elbowing its way among the elegant yachts like a prizefighter muscling in on a troupe of ballerinas.
‘‘Oh, we’’re here then?’’ a woman’’s voice said.
‘‘Yes, we’’re here’,’ he sighed with little tolerance.
She was his next door neighbour in Jersey, a widow spending the fruits of her husband’’s achievements without much difficulty. She was good fun at a barbecue or a party by the pool but Lomax regretted the moment of liquid weakness in which he had asked her to come on this trip with him. Still, he had brought plenty of drink and it helped to blot her out of his consciousness.
He wished that was the case with the other woman, Laura Keane. She haunted him. He saw her face everywhere, in shops, restaurants, walking on the street. He was imagining things, of course. People who had been shot five times and then fallen from a multi-storey building did not tend to survive the experience. Still, her body had never been found, or so they said. Maybe that was just a story and they had recovered it after all, getting rid of it quietly so that there would be no questions asked about her. But buried secrets had a habit of working their way back up to the surface, as well he knew.
They had stopped now and lines had been tied. She wanted to see the shops. He would find the nearest bar and sit outside it until she came back.
People had gathered at the harbour rail, as they always did, to see who was coming in and going out. Lomax’’s boat was attracting a lot of attention and he looked up at the faces gathered above.
Was she there, waiting among them? He felt the beginning of a cold sweat in spite of the heat of the day and he told himself not to be so stupid.
The woman began the steep climb up the rusting iron ladder mounted against the wall. ‘‘Don’’t let me fall, Henry, will you?’’ she called out over her shoulder. One or two of the people watching began to laugh at her awkward progress. Lomax glared indignantly and began his own climb, his eyes trying to seek out the offenders.
He was about half-way up the ladder when his chest felt as if someone had hit him a blow with an enormous, heavy hammer. He gasped and lost his grip and began to fall back on to the deck.
The faces on the harbour wall looked down at him as he died. One was a woman, slim features, auburn hair.
It was probably her imagination but she could have sworn he had been staring right at her.