Sunset: Saturday. Mallorca.

"So you came?" Liam's smile of delight was infectious as he watched Pilar run across the small square to where he was seated on the same church steps where they had sat the night before. He had spent all day wondering whether she would turn up, almost coming to accept that she might not. His confidence was at rock bottom about this beautiful girl. He simply couldn't imagine what she would see in him either physically or any other way. He'd hardly strung two coherent sentences together the night before.

Even so, well before the arranged time, he had arrived at the rendezvous - and even though Pilar was on time, Liam had already spent a nervous half hour, swinging from jumpy to despondent at the thought that he might not see her again.

"Of course. I said I would!" Pilar insisted. She looked wonderful, dressed in a soft pale pink dress, a floaty gauzy material that clung to her slender curves and managed to look both virginal and provocative all at the same time. "You didn't bring your guitar!" she teased.

"It's in the car. Maybe later?"

He took her hand and strolled to the edge of the square; a car was waiting and the driver moved off smoothly as soon as they were inside. "Where are we going?" Pilar asked, clearly impressed by the limousine and the sight of Liam dressed in a smart linen suit and brushed up like a male model from a cat walk.

"Secret...." he whispered and took her hand, kissing it softly.

They drove up into the hills chatting quietly, making small talk about the balmy evening and the impressive view as they left the shoreline behind. Liam hadn't been on a real date in a couple of years, he realized - and he certainly hadn't had the money then for chauffeur driven cars and fine dining restaurants. Did people of his age even date much anymore, he wondered? Most women he met he slept with the first night, so - if he saw them again - they were already an item and way past the date sort of place by breakfast the next morning. Future dining out was merely eating as a prelude to more sex.

But he couldn't deny this felt like a totally different experience than his normal associations with women. How long since he had met a girl he had wanted to romance? Liam gazed out of the window and remembered Abigail with a sad smile. He had known her in sixth form. God, he had been head over heels in love with her. Abigail. Such a stupid name, really, but it still had a resonance to him that made him want to say it softly in his brain. Abigail Merchison. When he had lost her he had thought his life was over. It seemed like a different life.

His boarding school had had a lot of joint activities with hers - it was encouraged for these single sex private schools to intermingle with the right sort in sixth form before they all went up to university and were thrown into that sexually charged pit. Since year eleven Liam and the fair Abigail had circled each other until he had plucked up the courage to approach her at a sports meet. He hadn't known exactly why he had been so curiously shy with her up to then when he was fairly forward with most girls, even, some might say, a bit of a hound dog. His Mum had always said Thorne men were born with the ability to charm any woman of any age. Maybe that had been the problem. He hadn't wanted Abigail to get the impression that he was just after one thing, a bit of a smooth talker. He suspected she already knew something of his reputation - some of his past conquests had been girls from her college.

Abigail had been a lovely girl, tall and lithe with corn-ripe hair and a golden Scandinavian beauty. Liam had seen her since in magazine spreads - she was making quite a stir as a model these days. They had finally got talking at a tennis tournament and he had asked her out to dinner. He could still recall his nervousness and how his tongue had stuck to the roof of his mouth every time he tried to get round to the subject of a date. But finally he had mumbled something and this perfect creature had actually said yes. It had scared him a bit. He had even rung his Dad and asked him where he should take her. Dad had laughed but given him the name of a decent restaurant in Oxford and a few tips about wines and the like to impress her. Plus told him to make sure he had a packet of three in his wallet just in case.

It had been a magical night. Liam had fallen hard for this golden girl. Abigail was smart and enigmatic, more self-assured than most girls of her age, as well traveled as he was - her parents were expatriates - and for the first time he began to understand about finding a woman as a partner not just as a sex toy. They had seemed to have so much in common and he had found himself admitting to her about his inner hopes and dreams, showing her poems he had written, singing songs he was working on. Up to then he had concealed that side of himself from most people as if it was an embarrassing secret which might ruin his tough guy image.

Abigail had loved it all and encouraged him so much. They had spent the whole summer term between lower and upper sixth together, studying for exams in libraries, hardly apart when it was possible to be with each other, soon becoming the couple most likely to in the eyes of the rest of their peers. It was with Abigail that he had really learnt to please a woman, rather than just please himself. It had changed his life to know her, made him confident enough to be the man he wanted to be and to drop the macho pretensions he had been hiding behind. Even now, Liam knew he owed her so much.

The summer holiday that year had parted them - his parents had expected him to join them all in France and hers to travel to Singapore where they were currently based. Whilst out there, she had met a guy spending the summer who was reading Law at Oxford. He was older, better looking - and Abigail really fell in love. She had let him down gently when they met again in September and had really tried to stay his friend but he had still been broken up about it all; he had spent the summer writing love letters and pining, much to the amusement of the family. He had been counting the days until they could be together again.

And the first time he saw her again, she had told him it was over. He had run out, gone for a long walk and cried his eyes out in a wood like a little kid, ashamed his friends would find out what a baby he was, but incapable of holding back the tears at the knowledge that he would never be with her again - and that she was already with another man, the memory of him fading rapidly. He had just been a kid she had been fond of.

With the distance of a few years, Liam couldn't say he blamed her. They had both been kids and it had probably just been infatuation anyway when it came down to it. But love hurts whichever you cut it.

After she'd left him, he'd gone a little crazy then, blaming the entire female sex for the damage his heart had suffered. He knew he'd hurt a lot of girls that year in his turn with his lies and manipulation. He would tell a girl anything to get what he wanted and played the field as if his life depended on it, leaving a trail of broken female hearts in his wake and earning himself a reputation for being a total tosser into the bargain. His Dad would have smacked him one had he known half of the things he had done. And he would have deserved it. It ended up with him destroying the career of a young female teacher at his college and almost got him sacked. His parents had given him hell over it, quite well aware that despite the age difference, Liam had not been the innocent party by any means. Not his finest hour really. But he'd learnt a few lessons and was a different man now. Ready for love again?

"You are quiet!" Pilar disturbed his thoughts. He snapped out of his reverie.

"Yeah, I am. Not like me. Sorry." He turned back to her. "You look so beautiful, Pilar. You take my breath away."

Her eyes sparkled with pleasure. "I was thinking how good you looked, too. So handsome and manly. I like that you wore more formal dress. I like it when a man makes the effort. Most men today are so...so.....I don't know the word in English...we would say... desaliñado..."

"Untidy...messy...." Liam supplied the translation. Pilar looked surprised at his knowledge. He had hardly used a single word of Spanish up to now.

"You speak Spanish?"

"Some. We lived in Chile for awhile when I was a kid. I know a lot of words but I'm pretty rusty. Not as good as your English..."

"Chile?"

He began to tell her about the time they had lived in Valparaiso. She asked him why they had been in such a remote place. Had his father been working there? Liam suddenly realised he didn't actually know the reason for that strange interlude in their lives and wondered why he had never asked that question himself. Children just accept everything as normal at that age, he supposed, and the period was now such a firm part of their family story that there was no reason to stop and think why they had been there at all. He had presumed that it was connected to his father having been away for so long and had guessed that the reason for that absence had been something to do with some covert mission. But as to why Chile? If they had wanted to take a break together surely there had to be more hospitable places to take a young family? Money had not been the object. Or had they been in hiding? That thought suddenly struck him.

"Just his job," Liam lied because it was easier than to make elaborate explanations that he mostly couldn't have made anyway.

They reached the restaurant shortly afterwards. It was housed in an old villa of pale yellow stone with old fashioned roof tiles in a chocolate brown that seemed almost purple in the night, reflecting the carefully placed spotlights that illuminated the lush grounds. The small estate was nestling on the slopes of a valley, the sea a distant mirror rippling in deep violet-gold under a starry sky and dappled with the lamps from fishing boats and yachts. The verdant valley below was a dark forest, strands of lights winking from the villages dotted along the way like chains of fine gold spilling on a velvet cloth. It was quiet and clear, a warm night with a welcome breeze blowing in from the sea.

Liam and Pilar dined on a patio on the upper storey that seemed to be suspended above the silent valley. It was an arbour of flowers and candles, the soft strum of a lone guitar playing Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez from the room beyond, a subdued hum of background noise from the other diners and the efficient waiters who never seemed to impose on their haven but deftly made food appear and plates disappear as if by magic.

Pilar chose a selection of food of the region and Liam opted for the best wine on the list. Money was no object and it had never before seemed to him to be such a boon as that night when he could afford anything he wanted for her. They dined in the Spanish fashion, taking hours over their courses and talking animatedly as the good food and vintage wine loosened them up, ranging far and wide about their lives and what made them both tick. By the end of the meal, they both felt like they had known each other for years. There are some people whom you realize you always knew - you just hadn't met them yet. Or so Liam thought that evening.

Later, he took her home to his suite - and played his guitar deep into the night. 

Sunset: Saturday. Berlin.

Zoe stood at the entrance to the hotel bar and caught a glimpse of her reflection in the highly polished glass of the door. There was no way he was going to treat her again like he had this morning. She had pulled out the stops for this one. The woman staring back at her was hardly recognizable as the girl in the cheap clothes he had talked to that morning.

She was wearing a tight black silk trouser suit of a severe, almost mannish cut, a dramatic plunging neckline revealing that she wore nothing but a black lacy bra beneath the jacket. She had strung a choker of red stones around her neck, had gelled her chin length hair back in a masculine fashion but had smeared a deep red gash of lipstick across her bee-stung lips to complete the androgynous vamp effect. She thought she looked teutonically alluring, a latter day Dietrich, gender-confusing deviance oozing from her aggressive sexuality. She wanted to confuse Nick - and surprise him. The little innocent girl had grown up and didn't need to play with the big bad wolf anymore. If she wanted thrills, she knew how to get them for herself. She wanted him to look at her with unrequited desire not self-satisfied pity.

The Brandenburg Hof suited her mood perfectly - from the outside, typically fin-de-siècle but in the interior an eclectic mélange of Neo-Classicism meets minimalist Bauhaus. She tossed her head and scanned the Piano Bar for sign of him. She could handle Costello. She could handle anything.

He was there sitting at the bar, head down, apparently lost in thought - but she doubted he had missed her entrance. Nick was always most observant when he appeared distracted. That much she had always understood. For a moment she watched him as he sipped on a glass of Scotch, trying to see him in a dispassionate way, as if she really was the predator of her brittle image. And then she knew without a doubt that he would see right through her disguise; it was such a childish conceit. How could she even hope to intimidate the ultimate raptor perched like a sleek vampire on the high bar stool rapacious as ever and ready to strike, drawing innocence into his hypnotic gaze?

But it was too late to avoid him now. Zoe strode forward, attracting the glances of both men and women drinking at the tables; the only one who took no notice of her approach was Nick himself, his back still turned. He knew she was there though.

"You slipping?" Zoe snapped tersely.

He answered without even looking. "You care?"

She laughed wryly and sat down on a stool next to him, calling for Scotch.

The waiter set it down, she picked it up languidly and swiveled round on her seat, surveying the elegant surroundings. "So, you planning on ignoring me all night then?"

Nick finally turned and ran his hand back through his hair as he let his eyes slowly travel down her body. "I wasn't sure who you were. Thought I was down Der Bleu Engel for a moment there, Marlene...tell the boys in the backroom, hey?"

She narrowed her eyes and then began to laugh. He joined her. "You think you are so bloody clever, don't you?"

Nick gave her a smug face. "Oh, but I am, darlin'. That's what separates me from the rest of your common or garden bastards."

"We gonna spar all night?"

"No. I think we've laid our cards on the table. Drink up. I've got a table booked. You actually trying to look like me these days?"

Zoe raised her eyes and stared at herself in the mirror behind the bar and she saw that his incisive comment was disturbingly apt. Her hair was not much different from how he had worn it when she met him, that messy wet look he had favoured when he was feeling louche - and the colour was, of course, almost identical. There was no doubt some fancy syndrome to explain her subliminal transference that might have escaped her notice but had certainly not fooled Nick.

She downed the malt in one and slammed the glass on the bar top; Nick raised his eyes in a pretence of being impressed by her facility. She blushed, aware he was mocking her, a little girl showing off to the over-indulgent grown ups. He stood and held out his arm in that way men have of guiding a woman in the direction they wish her to go and yet still showing respect for her person. It was the sort of gesture her father would make and it occurred to her it was what more mature men do. Young men - or the users she often found herself with these days - didn't show either the deference or the assurance of men who really knew their way with women.

Zoe walked forward and he let his good hand rest lightly on the base of her spine as she walked towards the restaurant Die Quadriga, famed for its cuisine - French with a touch of Asia - and its Frank Lloyd Wright inspired décor. A slight blush coloured her pale cheeks as she tried to pretend that the intense sensation that radiated along the nerves of her spine was not the result of his innocent but intimate contact. She hid her sudden confusion behind a glib comment. "The Chariot. Very classical..."

Nick observed the image above the name of the restaurant, a representation of the four horses pulling a chariot from the top of the Brandenburg gate. "Wondered what it meant...how do you know? Clever deduction?"

"Benefits of a British private education. Studied Latin for five years. The goddess Victory from the Brandenburg in her four-horsed chariot...sculpted by Schadow in the late eighteenth century..."

"People still learn shit like that?  What for?"

"So they can show off before those who weren't as fortunate. It's a class thing," Zoe grinned back and Nick pulled his tongue out. Somehow the moment acted like a tension reliever and the atmosphere took a distinct change, the barometer swinging from stormy to set fair. Nick indicated for her to enter, held open the door, greeted the maitre d' with panache and they were led to a secluded table, obviously one of the prime locations in the intimate room.

"How do you always get the best tables?" Zoe asked.

He smiled smugly. "Got to keep a few of my secrets secret. A wad of Euros earlier on in the day, however, is always a good starting point..." At that she giggled and he called for the wine list as they made their choices, falling into an old pattern, a familiarity creeping into the strained interlude. They knew each other's tastes and instinctively began to babble on about the choices on the eclectic menu.

At one point, Zoe glanced up and caught him just looking at her, guard down. It was a hopeful expression she saw, open and fond. A flush of warmth bloomed inside her. The waiter took their order, Nick doing the talking while Zoe found herself sitting demurely listening, again the former behaviour returning when she had always let him take the lead. A female sommelier fussed around with the wine, a fine Riesling from Slovakia while they sipped their aperitif, an elegant Schloss Vaux from Rheingau, fresh and mineral to prepare the palate.

They sampled the appetizers, Kalbskopf with balsamic vinegar, a strong zucchini soup and a mousse of eel and trout complimented by the peach tanged wine, an ideal mix of sweet and sour. Nick for all his casual pretences had always been a lover of fine food and he knew his way around a complex menu. His choices were as inspired this time as ever and Zoe let herself enjoy the rich excess of food, abandoning for once that neurosis that had assailed her of late that every mouthful she took was an insult to those for whom a handful of maize a day was too much to hope for.

"So, how's life, Nickie?" She nibbled on a sliver of home made bread and mousse.

"Great. Business's doing well, growing....thinking of a European office...the house is still a bit barren but I'm doing it up bit by bit..."

"You moved in? The house on Neutral Bay?" She was surprised. It was hardly the place for a bachelor of Nick's lifestyle.

"Sure.Why not? It was the place I'd always wanted. Got to live somewhere," he replied softly.

That morning she had wondered if he had a new girlfriend, possibly wife. It would make sense that he was now nesting with an eye to the future. "You living with someone again? Setting up home together?"

Nick didn't reply at first but he stopped and looked meaningfully at her for a while before continuing. "Yeah, matter of fact, I have got a housemate. Not much use in interior design though. Stink was never much one for elegant living..."

"Stink? He's still with you? Oh God! Stink! How is he?"

"Still farts incessantly whatever I feed him. He's good. My best mate. Always was."

His final sentence brought a lump to her throat. There had been something in his fierce attachment to that decrepit old fleabag that had always suggested qualities in Nick somewhere that he rarely allowed others to see. Something intensely pure, but also rather sad. A bit like her and her old Teddy, Zugly.

"Who looks after him when you travel?' Zoe asked, wondering if that would reveal the presence of a female in his life and wondering why she was so determined to find out.

"I've got this great housekeeper. She comes in every day and keeps an eye on Stink. He's used to being alone and he has the whole grounds to play in - plus the beach. He's cool about it all. And he likes Brenda. That's her name. My housekeeper..."

"She doesn't live in?" Zoe dug a little deeper; housekeeper was an age old euphemism.

"I don't think her husband and three kids would be too happy if she did," Nick added with a grin. "She's forty five and could double as a prop forward. We are not an item."

Zoe reddened, grateful for the arrival of waiters and the first course. Nick had read her probing accurately. "I don't have a girlfriend. Much less a wife. I haven't had a one night stand in a very long time. I am actually a single man in the true sense of the word these days. Taken the veil, you might say."

"Oh!" was all she could think of replying to his revelation.

"Well, we did say cards on the table, huh?" He added and tucked in to the goose liver with truffles, knowledgeably discussing with the sommelier the unusual Beernauslese wine that was served along with it.

"Yes....Nick...you know about me and Brook?" Zoe asked, her eyes cast down on her plate.

"Yeah. Liam mentioned. Your Dad said something, too."

Her head shot up at that. "You've seen them?"

"Yeah. Catch up with your bro when I can and drop in on Terry from time to time. They're my mates."

"I thought you and Dad broke over me."

"You and I broke, sweetheart. Nothing between me and your father now," he replied with a patronizing glance across.

That surprised and even annoyed her a little. She wasn't sure why. It was something about how she and her mother had had their lives ruined by these men who could simply wave it all aside and then go out and get drunk together.

"How is he? Dad, I mean."

"You not seen him?"

She shook her head. "Not often since he buggered off and left us all."

"Yeah, right. Forgot it was all his fault for a moment there. He's okay. Seems settled enough. Doesn't say much. Keeps it all deep down. You know Terry."

"Has he got a new woman?"

Nick laughed and tasted his wine. "You fixated on who's banging whom? I don't know fuck about who he's seeing. He never said. And if he is she must be the only Sheila in a hundred mile radius. You any idea how remote that station is? All I know is, your Mum's got some new squeeze and you put out to anything with a penis..."

"...How do you know that?" She rasped back at him.

"Liam fills me in. He worries about you. I can see why."

Zoe shrugged. "I haven't seen him in months."

"I know. Which also worries him. You hiding something?"

She tutted; he just rolled his eyes. They ate in silence for awhile.

"You haven't mentioned your career. You've done well. I've seen you on TV news...."he began.

Zoe brightened up at that. "I've had a few reports syndicated. Most of my copy is online or research for the team. But let's face it, I'm photogenic and I use it. Even in disaster areas, surveys show the audience wants a good looking journalist delivering the bad news..."

"..Whatever it takes, love. We all use our God-given talents to get on..."

"I'm not just a pretty face..." she argued.

"I know. Neither am I. Doesn't mean I won't use it though..."

To that she concurred. Their second course arrived: he had ox filet with a glass of rich Cabernet, she had Atlantic turbot with crayfish and champagne sauce. He recommended a glass of dry, tangy and typical Silvaner Spätlese. Naturally it was the perfect complement.

"Enjoying the fish?" he asked. Zoe nodded, offered him a taste. They had always done that when they dined out, ordering different things and then swapping bites, feeding each other sensually. He shook his head.

"Too bland after this rich sauce. I couldn't appreciate it." It was a sensible retort but she felt a little deflated. They were no longer in a place where you could eat from each other's forks. There had been a time when they had exchanged every sort of bodily fluid imaginable. Now they sat across a table and behaved with impeccable manners.

"I can't finish it," Zoe announced, giving up with the dish barely a quarter finished. "I don't usually eat much."

"I can see that," he observed, referring to her emaciated frame. "Leave it. Taste what you like. Don't have to force it down."

"It seems an obscene waste. All this food and it gets thrown away. I was just in a camp in Darfur..."

Nick exhaled and sighed deeply. His obvious empathy seemed unusual; she had forgotten that beneath his brash exterior, Nick had always had a keen sense of what constituted the real evil in the world. "It doesn't go away if we clear the plate. Or stop eating properly ourselves. Baby..." and it was the first endearment that hadn't had the ring of mockery... "It isn't your fault. You're doing more than the rest just by bringing the story to the world. Guilt belongs to other people, not to those who try to make a difference. Being well fed is not a crime. The travesty is what's being done to those poor bastards...."

His words were nothing new to her but she found herself listening as if she was a child and he in some position of care over her. It felt good to have his reassurance somehow. It had been a long time since she had touched base with her parents or had accepted anyone as her mentor. He covered her hand with his, the real one, that well shaped dusky olive hand, broad but with elegant fingers, nails cut square, immaculately manicured. She had an urge to caress the soft black hairs that thickened as they reached past his wrist. She had always loved this beautiful masculine hand and still despaired for the loss of its partner.

"I know, Nick. But it's a psychological thing. It's hard to feed your face when you have held a baby with a bloated belly, dying of dysentery... I'm sorry....I shouldn't say this while we're eating..." she added.

"Won't put me off, Zoe. I've eaten over the corpses of men I've killed in the past, smoked the bloodstained cigarettes I stole from their pockets. I don't have a threshold for squeamishness," he replied bluntly. His answer was refreshingly honest. When had Nick ever really pretended to be something that he wasn't? Even when he wouldn't tell her the whole story, he hadn't hidden that there were stories he was not prepared to share with her, the result of the things he had had to do in his career which were brutal in the extreme. Nick could tell lies but he was always aware what the truth was and didn't shirk from it. Most people don't react like that.

They passed on the cheese course but decided to have a go with the dessert menu. Zoe smiled. Nick always had a sweet tooth, able to eat the most sickly concoctions. He had said he was raised on his mother's Greek puddings, drenched in honey and nuts, formidably sugary. He plumped for a heavy crusty cake, Pfirsich in Pergament, with peaches, laced with coconut, pineapple and small pralines; she chose a light passion fruit soup. A fine Léopold Gourmel cognac called Age de Fleurs was served with it and strong coffee in fragile, almost transparent, bone china demi-tasses.

Zoe observed that Nick had difficulty with the handle, and picked up the entire cup gingerly in his false hand. There was something affecting in that; he could do so much with that formidable appendage but a tiny delicate cup inhibited him and showed up his handicap. How brave he had been to overcome it and what a cost it had been to the self-esteem of a man like him. It was so normal to her that she had forgotten how incredible his rebuilding of his life had been after the devastation of its loss. He made it seem too easy. No one ever gave him credit for his courage.

"It was a lovely dinner, Nick. Superb. Thank you. I enjoyed it so much. And it was good to talk to you."

He agreed. Signed the receipt. Held her chair while she rose and they made their way out. He even helped himself to a single red rose and slipped it into the lapel of her black suit with a sad smile. "I have a car with a driver from the hotel. I'll see you home."

He just said it without asking for her agreement. She found herself going along with it. He held her hand as they rode back to her place. The conversation was intermittent but warm. At her apartment block he walked her to the door. They stood facing each other. She reached out a hand and touched his face. He put his hands on her hips and tilted her towards him. They hovered in silence, watching each other, their lips moving wordlessly, faces dropping nearer together. On the edge of a forbidden kiss.

Zoe felt his thumbs slide down from her hips to lean in on the pulse points of her groin. The stress was firm, relentless even, knowing and controlling. She felt the strum of blood against his insistent pressure. Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, he massaged the spot, pushing deeper until the vein protested, pulsing urgently back.  It was a painful and pleasurable sensation, wholly intimate, frighteningly erotic without actually being sexual. Unexpected. But so typical of his intuitive understanding of a woman's body.

Then he hitched and rubbed his erection against the rise of her mons, crudely moving the moment from an hypnotic advance to a lewd gesture. That complex mix of spell-binding seduction and raw earthiness that was such a feature of Nick's sexuality. And her reply? Total capitulation. A button to her inhibitions freed with just his touch. His hands. The real and the false. There was something significant that she knew she would have to think about later.

"Come up. I want you," she whispered. He did not kiss her, just made a sign to the driver to leave before taking her hand and drawing her with him towards the elevator.

Afternoon: Saturday. Broome, W. Australia.

He spent the day driving around stocking up on provisions, buying a new satellite phone (surprisingly easy to find here but then perhaps, given its remote location, not too surprising after all) and the parts he thought he needed to hook up his internet link again. Gillie had remained in her workshop although she had told him she was going out later for a few hours. Neither suggested spending the day together. They might have been awake half the night in intimate sex games, but that closeness still did not stretch to their daily lives.

Gillie didn't have a computer; she was obsessively resistant to many of the revolutions of the technological age. But she did make use of them and during her trip out to buy something special for dinner, she made a stop at a cyber café and googled for a while. It was easy to find information about Liam Thorne and from his biography she pieced together a few snippets about the family. It said he had been largely raised in Britain, despite his Australian nationality, but his family had spent periods all over the world. His sister was older than him by a year and she was a journalist. That led her to see if she could find anything on this Zoe and, sure enough, up came a few of her articles. The kid was a foreign correspondent and had been in some really nasty places of late. Gillie was impressed. She was also taken by the girl's beauty, even accounting for the army combats and the flak jacket on the one picture that she found.

She was nothing like her father, or her brother, so Gillie guessed she had to favour her mother. It was as she had suspected. Terry's wife had been a great beauty by the looks of it. That fact stuck in her craw.

On a whim, she googled the name Anna Thorne and to her surprise up came a book she had written, some weighty tome on Roman history, and then a link to a Channel Four TV series. Anna Thorne - or as she was also known now, Anna Dwyer - was an advisor for a new documentary series on Greek and Roman culture. She wondered if it was the same woman, but as soon as she saw her picture, a still from the series in which she apparently had some minor presenting function, she was in no doubt. The thick black hair and the astounding eyes were the give away. Anna Thorne was a delicate elegant woman, obviously highly educated and inhabiting that rare atmosphere of the British upper classes. Or so it appeared to Gillie as she played with a knotted curl and tried not to notice her own washed out cheese cloth dress and scuffed sandals.

Who was she kidding? Terry Thorne would want her when this was his ideal woman?

Closing down that window aggressively, she typed in his name. Up jumped a reference to a news story she vaguely remembered from a while back. One of those hostage executions in a Middle Eastern country. With rather less shock than she should have felt, she learnt of his other life, that of some top honcho in highly sensitive international negotiations. Well, there was the key, she imagined. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to work out that this case had been a pivotal one in Terry's decision to drop out of sight. Had he made some crucial error of judgement? Did he blame himself for the woman's death?

There was also another issue. Had this been the woman who had broken up his marriage? He had left his wife for this young lioness of Washington only to cause her death inadvertently by his negligence? It wasn't something she intended to ask him about but it was enough to satisfy many elements of her curiosity about him.

There were dozens of links to his name and she began to follow each one. He had written a well-received academic work on the subject of hostage taking and the Kidnap and Ransom trade worldwide. There were some notes of lectures he had given on security topics and international terrorism at various universities around the world. He had once been involved in a thrilling rescue after having been shot by insurgents in Indonesia and left for dead in the jungle. The article was dated more than twenty years ago. The scar on his shoulder.

Glancing at her watch, she realized that she had been sitting there for an hour already and still her interest was not slaked. But it would have to wait for another day. Her real purpose had been to find out about private sperm donation clinics. She spent a further half an hour on that.

Terry also had in mind to find a computer and reach out to the world, although unlike Gillie, he chose a business centre for his access and a more private environment than a noisy café.

Opening up his mails, he groaned at the hundreds unread. Most of them he deleted. They were official requests or things he simply did not care to answer. It no longer bothered him that he might let people down. They'd soon enough find another mug to shoulder the problem. That left him the personal ones. A quick scan showed him there was nothing from Annie. Not in the nine weeks since he had checked had she written to him even once - surely there might have been something, even some mundane tax, legal or financial issue she needed to run by him, something about the kids - Christ, they still had them in common! - how could they have nothing left to say? Then he realized that he had also done the same. Nine weeks and he had never contacted her. Tit for tat - or had they really run out of conversation in the end?

Somehow the whole reminder made him inclined to shut down and walk out before he put his fist through the screen for something better to do, but guilt stopped him. His kids had mailed him. He had to read and answer them. Even if somehow he had no inclination to.

Liam wrote regularly. Every few days. He started from the bottom and could not help smiling at the amusing rambles his son sent him, diary-like accounts of his life, snapshots of people he met, observations on life in general. Liam was a very witty and dry raconteur and was able to infuse his prose with so much of himself. Terry knew he was nothing like this boy. Liam wore his heart and colours proudly. He had no need to disseminate behind a tightly drawn veil.

The mails were newsy but curiously restrained about the family. Liam studiously avoided mention of his mother and there was almost no reference to Zoe either apart from very general. It seemed to be the one area where Liam was reluctant to go: saving his feelings or angry with him? Hard to tell. He tossed off a friendly but cursory reply, apologizing for the lack of contact and sending him the details of his new phone number, promising regular contact as soon as he got back home.

There was one mail from Harry. It was just asking if he was alright and giving a little bit of information about the christening. It had happened two months ago. They had waited until Barnie was eighteen months to do it. Harry said they had rather hoped he might have been there; Terry winced. He had completely forgotten the invitation. Barnie. What a bloody stupid name, he thought to himself. Sounds like a bear in a puppet show. Short for Barnabas. Where did these upper class Brits get their ideas from? It amused him that he had this grandson called Barnabas Thorne.  Like a character from Dickens. What would his old Dad have made of that?

Harry mentioned that Annie had been there. That made him sit up and take notice. She hadn't stayed long but he had been grateful for some representative from his father's side of the family. It sounded like an admonition. He deserved it. So did they all. Not one of them had thought to turn up for their stepbrother or his son. Only Annie, who had no real connection at all. And he could imagine Penny would have made her squirm, reducing her to the even lower status now of 'other' ex-wife. Not even the senior one.

And who knew better than he did how Penny could exploit any perceived weakness? She would have been in her element. Christ, he had let Annie walk into that for him.

Another apology and promise to be in touch soon. 

Moving on, he opened Zoe's mails. She had written regularly if not as often as Liam. Her mails were nothing like her brother's. They were chatty but oddly distant as if she was writing to a formal acquaintance. He suspected she was angry with him, blaming him for the divorce, firmly on her mother's side this time. Ever since Brook, she'd been frosty. Well, he hadn't liked the ingratiating bastard. And he had been proved right. That appeared to be the main problem.

She was informative about her job to a point although seemed more inclined to write a travelogue than a real letter; she knew he worried about the places she visited and her safety and seemed to delight in informing him of them - but there wasn't really much about her job underneath the prose. It was affecting her but she didn't say how. About her personal life she was completely silent. All he knew was that she lived in Berlin. She hadn't even given him an address or a contact number.

It was partly his fault - hell, it might have been all his fault - but it was so typical of his daughter. She was incapable of seeing the other point of view, which struck him as an inordinately stupid trait for a journalist and then he realized it was probably an essential quality. Opinionated and cocksure...much as he had always been, really. He was always right; everyone had to do what he said and it would be fine. Mostly he was absolutely on the nail. With a few spectacular errors of judgement here and there to add an element of balance.

How odd that Liam had seemed to inherit his mother's compassionate empathy while Zoe had acquired his obsessive stubbornness and that tendency to turn pain inwards on themselves. He didn't know much about his beloved daughter's life these days but one thing was crying out between the lines of these mails. She was a very unhappy young woman. That realization cut him to the quick, like a knife thrust twisted in his gut. He had wanted to give her everything good in life. In the end, he had failed miserably with the most precious thing of all.

Finally he merely replied with a hope that they might get together soon; he would think about a trip to Europe, maybe at the end of the year to get out of the cruel summer ahead. He mentioned that Nick had been by recently. He knew it was interfering but he couldn't help himself. Time had made him think very differently on that particular pairing. Nick would have been the making of her. That was probably the other half of the girl's problem.

Nick had mailed too. As usual it was an almost unreadable paragraph without capitalization or punctuation. The bastard refused to hand over even a casual greeting easily. He was doing well, busy and didn't appear to be seeing anyone. That was the gist of it. Terry felt a sense that Nick was finding some sort of peace in his life at last, a rhythm that enabled him to stop and be himself for once. Of all the letters he had read that day, he found more pleasure in Nick's than all the others. It was as though Nick was his only real victory. He had done something with that boy's shattered life and seen him grow into a man of purpose. Pity he hadn't had that success with those who had depended on him most.

Finally he opened Dino's mail. It made him laugh: 

Obviously over exposure to the sun has finally addled your brains. Or killed you? That account for the silence? 

Guess what I know for sure?

I definitely get more clit than you these days. There is a God.

D

He replied:

Yeah, me. Or that's what she called me last night, anyway...

.....OHGODOHGODOHGOD.......TERRYYYYYYYY.....

Kisses

T

Late night: Saturday. Berlin.

The door had hardly closed before they reached for each other. Nick pushed her forcefully against the wall and pressed in close. The room was dimly lit, a lamp the only source of illumination. Her face looked pale and haunted, his dark and shadowed. They stared at each other, pulse beats rising and breathing short. "Do not speak!" Nick muttered as he held her face in his hands. She looked scared, panda-eyes, large pools of pale light; he wondered if she was afraid more of herself than him.

It angered him. Why was he the devil? What had he ever done to hurt her? His hands ripped her jacket open; she lay back on the wall, her breasts heaving as she watched him, almost as if she was taunting him. He tore the button from the top of her tight fitting pants and pushed them down, not even giving her time to remove her shoes. There was a moment of stillness when he just looked at her, the new angularity of her body strange to him, all corners and edges where once she had been like silk over sand. But her breasts were still full, more so than ever, exaggerated against the narrow smallness of the rest of her frame.

He murmured a profanity under his breath and it was like a surge of electricity; she grabbed him as he pulled her back and they locked in a vicious, hungry kiss, teeth clashing, the metallic taste of blood pricking on his tongue as she grazed his lip with the force of her suckling. His hands ranged down her body, pushing up her bra, too eager to even try and unfasten it, clamping his hands on her breast, mauling as he kissed; she groaned like an animal in pain. He hitched her against the wall, her body like a little limp doll in his powerful grasp. She hit her head against the corner of a picture frame. He stumbled back, knocked over a small table, tripped and they fell to the floor, his knee breaking the impact and cushioning her as she tumbled.

Zoe scrambled back; he grabbed her leg and drew her back to him, climbing on top of her, holding her legs with his as he gripped the flimsy thong and yanked it off. As he drew away, she suddenly sprang forward and he rolled back; it was her turn to be the aggressor. Straddling him, she struggled with his tie, wrenched open the buttons of his shirt and bared his chest, scratching her nails through the hair as she traced a path to his belt, unfastened it, unzipped and dragged his pants and briefs down.

It was dirty, wild, unrestrained sex, like two animals on heat. They fumbled with taking off the discarded clothes trapped by shoes and cuffs, tearing where they couldn't even wait to remove properly. She wriggled down and fellated him roughly, grazing his skin, making him gasp, biting and squeezing. He realized she was in some sort of frenzy and it snapped him out of his similar state.

Easing himself out of her lips, he gripped her by her upper arms and shook her, calling her name but she just lashed out, laughed at him, egged him on to be rough with her. Nick laid her back and this time sat on her, holding her arms by her wrists and jamming his thighs against her hips. "Zoe! Stop it! Stop it! Get a grip!"

She writhed manically and he wondered if perhaps she was on something; she'd seemed fine and clear-eyed during the evening but maybe she'd popped something on the way up. For a moment he considered slapping her; she was perilously close to hysteria, but he thought better of it. He would probably break her jaw. That was really going to pave the way for happy ever after in the future.

"Zoe! Zoe! It's me. Nick. Baby...what's the matter?"

Her eyes seemed to focus at the sound of his appeal; he felt her body subside. She was physically drained, damp with sweat, her hair wild and tangled, her lipstick smeared across her face like an ugly gash. Her naked body seemed fragile and wasted. Her hip bones jutted out so far that he was almost repulsed by them even as desire swept over him. "Zoe....what are we doing to each other? I didn't come here to treat you like this...I want to love you..."

And she began to cry. Lying sprawled out on the floor, tears trickled soundlessly down her cheeks. He lay by her side and held her, reached down and kissed her softly - and then the love began. She responded, softly and almost shyly, tasting him and stroking him as he rolled over her and they kissed like lovers.

He carried her to the bed and they made love, deep, silent, powerful orgasms that left both of them weak and tearful. They didn't even speak apart from crazy, disjointed gasps of half-uttered phrases, mostly making no sense. When it was over, she huddled against his chest and curled round him, her thumb tucked in her mouth as she went to sleep. It was a habit she had always had; she had once told him that it had been something she had done since childhood and in times of stress the need still returned. It was biological; she had probably done it in the womb. Somehow the sight of her vulnerability almost broke his heart.

Nick couldn't sleep. Even after the wild ride, draining him after his fairly long lay off, he still couldn't sleep. Frankly, he had not anticipated the evening ending this way. Not in his wildest dreams. And he couldn't figure out where he went from here. What did this mean for them now?

Prising himself from her and covering her over tenderly, he got out of bed and used the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror. She had spilt his lip and bitten his shoulder, too. There were nail tracks on his chest and thighs. The whole bizarre incident still disturbed him. Zoe had always been a free spirit sexually but there had been something dangerous about her tonight, something in the air between sadism and masochism. Not healthy behaviour.

Throwing cold water over his face, he began to take in the details of the room, typically female clutter, Zoe's usual mess: cosmetics, creams, sprays, hair products, tampons, those peculiar tools for plucking and curling women always had lying about, nail care, varnish, contraceptive pills, large box of condoms - at least she'd been thinking. He lifted up the cistern and noted the packet of cocaine taped inside above the waterline, and rummaged in her bathroom cabinet, checking the prescription bottles and trying them. Most were concealing illegal substances of one kind or another, from Es to more mind-altering drugs. She obviously liked to experiment. He flushed everything away down the toilet.

Searching someone's private space had never given Nick any qualms. It was such a familiar aspect of his career that he simply didn't regard it as intrusion; he wanted to know what she was up to, so he looked for evidence. Back out in the bedroom, he instinctively began gathering up their clothes. He had always been quite orderly by nature and the army had exacerbated that tendency. Zoe and he had often quarreled about her total lack of order with her personal possessions - she had driven him mad at times with her untidiness.

Righting a lamp and the table they had knocked over, he picked up a few more objects that had fallen from the dressing table. He smiled at the range of clutter and treasure trove that was scattered about among the makeup, perfumes and combs. The mirror was covered with photographs. Most of them were of the two of them, some of her Mum and Dad and Liam over the years. They all had witty comments or descriptors. His thumb traced the shots of the two of them together in happier times. She had still kept his images in front of her every day. That had to mean something surely? If you cut a man out of your life completely, you burn his pictures, you don't decorate your bedroom with them.

There was a carved box on the table top. He remembered her picking it up once in an ethnic curio shop in New York and he had bought it for her. Opening it up, he was surprised to find that it wasn't full of jewellery but stacks of what looked like receipts. Was she at last beginning to organize her cheque book properly? One by one he picked up the bits of paper. They were all bills from restaurants, places where they had eaten. Underneath were cards from clubs and matchboxes from bars they had visited, stubs of airline boarding cards for trips they had made, notes he had left around the place for her: 'Gone jogging...be back in an hour...' 'Get some milk, I drank the last of it.'... 'Take my grey suit to the cleaners...' Trivial, pointless mementoes like girls always keep when they are in love: the sappy messages from flowers he had sent, ribbons from gifts he had given her, a lock of his hair - she had decided to trim his fringe one day when it kept flopping in his eyes.

Nick sank down on the stool and held the precious cargo to his chest. And as he struggled to adjust to the fact that this girl had loved him all along quite as much as he had loved her, he found the final piece of the puzzle staring him straight in the eye. Propped up at the corner of the mirror was Zugly, the decrepit old Teddy she had always carried about with her. Liam had named it when he was tiny, some combination of Zoe and Ugly, the kind of thing a brother says to his sister when he teases her.

But it had a new name now. Round its neck was one of those cheap tin ID bracelets you buy in fairgrounds or in tacky shops on beachfronts. With the name of your boy scratched on it. Hanging round the Teddy bear's neck was a chain with a tin heart that read: Nick.

Suddenly he felt tired. A good kind of tired. The kind where you wrap your girl in your arms and fall asleep, safe and sound, and don't wake up until spring. Slipping back into bed, drawing her pliant, warm sleepy body against his, he nuzzled against her; she mumbled his name and sighed. His eyes drooped closed.

Maybe at last something was going right.

Or maybe not. It was still dark when he awoke, suddenly aware that he was alone and the sheets of the bed had been thrown back. He dragged himself up and saw her sitting on the chair by her window, staring out at the night sky streaked with morning. "What's the matter? Come back to bed. It's late."

"No."

She rose up.

"Where are you going?"

"You can stay until morning. I've got work to do."

"Work? At four thirty in the morning?"

"Yeah, work. Go back to sleep, Nick."

"Wait...wait!" He grabbed her hand as she walked past; she shook him away angrily.

"Don't touch me!"

He recoiled. "Zoe....I don't understand. We need to talk. Last night was....we need to talk about us....where we are now...."

"Us?" she laughed mockingly. "There is no us. Didn't I make that clear when I walked out on you? I'll tell you where we are now. We are nowhere now. That's where we are..."

He stared at her. "But....last night...we slept together...we made love..."

"Last night we fucked. The night before I fucked another guy. I couldn't wait to get out of his bed the next morning. Same with you, only I was fool enough to bring you home - and you're in my bloody bed so I can't just get the hell out. I usually don't do that. I rarely bring them home. Nick, it was sex last night. That's all it was. Don't bore me with the rest of your needy crap. I'm not interested. You can stay until morning then piss off out of my life and leave me alone..."

"You're lying...!Last night was not like the other times. I am not some guy you picked up when you were bombed..." He sat on the edge of the bed, his back turned, suddenly unwilling even to let her see him naked. Anger was rising in him, coursing through his blood; he had an urge to hurt her, show her who was the man here. This little bitch was not going to twist the knife in again.

"No, you're not like most of the others. I'll give you that. You're better in bed. Otherwise I wouldn't have given you a sniff, mate. And how do you know so much about the others? You been stalking me, Nick? It wasn't a coincidence when you bumped into me, was it? You're sick, you know? Sick....You always were sick...a sad, sick, pervert....obsessed with a woman almost half your age...."

He stood up and thrust his clothes on, his eyes closed in an effort to keep his temper. A dull headache throbbed in his temple and his gut was churning. He felt like throwing up. Or taking her little white neck in his hands and....Jesus Christ....what was he thinking of?

Lurching past her, he flung back the door and made for the hallway. She was still standing there, frozen in place. He turned at the door and looked back at her, raising his hand to point accusingly. "You feel better now? The final victory? Not satisfied until the humiliation is complete? Sick? One of us is, for sure, and it fucking well isn't me, baby. Take your life and flush it down the toilet for all I care. Make us all proud of you. I'll give you six months tops and they'll be calling it. Drug overdose? Choked on your own vomit? Crashed your car? Sex with someone who likes a bit of snuff? Well, guess who won't be one of the mourners? You've just burnt your last boat with me, love."

He walked out, slamming the door and leaving her trembling at his outburst. She had no idea why she had treated him that way, except that a part of her had thought it was for his own good. Now he hated her. Perhaps he could really go on with his life at last.