Zoe stayed for two days before flying back to Australia. Annie felt lonelier than ever as she continued on with the packing and those heartbreaking decisions about what she could keep and what she had to let go. Partly there were the considerations of space in her tiny new flat. The original apartment had been an enormous one, filled with antiques and large items of furniture that had no place in her utilitarian future home. But everything there had a story behind it whether it was something Terry had shipped back from his travels or things they had found together in weekends spent scouring antiques' fair or auctions. It was as if the very contents were a catalogue of their life together in the years after Terry had given it all up and they had finally found themselves back where they started in London.

After Chile, Terry had vowed never to go back again to the life he had lived ever since he had first left home to join the army almost thirty years before. He hadn't had a clue what he was going to do. He hadn't even seemed to care. They weren't short of money. Whilst in Chile she had persuaded him to write a book, a serious study of the ransom trade around the world based on his experiences. It had been favourably received and he had been offered a few visiting lectureships at US universities. For a while they were based in Berkeley and then LSE had lured him back to London where he joined the politics department and gave seminars in international conflict and terrorism. It was an ironic situation really with him now the university lecturer instead of her.

But it hadn't held his interest much. It also worried his sense of honour. After a lifetime of being guarded he found himself ambivalent about the whole whistle-blowing tendencies of the modern day. He knew there was a need to know and that future politicians and the like needed to be able to learn from those who had the first hand experience but his allegiance always lay first and foremost with those men and women out in the field and he found no pleasure in the constant need he found both among students and staff to knock the military, question the political decisions and criticize those handling the crises.

Even if he had been critical himself. But he knew that those sitting in the libraries and lecture halls were oblivious to the realities on the ground and the need for extreme decisions to be taken right or wrong in extreme situations. Annie remembered watching how frustrated he was much of the time and how he seemed to be wasting his time. He needed to be out there in the thick of it, not watching from the sidelines while lesser men fucked up.

In the end she had been the one to encourage him to return. He had received a request to be an arbitrator between the British government and an African nation. He accepted this one off undertaking and it was a resounding success. Others had followed. She had said make them an offer. Set up a package and sell it to a few governments. There is a need there. This is relatively safe, a better use of your skills and pays very well. He had smiled when she had said it. Just smiled.  It had been worth it.

The kids had been in private school in London and this had been their primary home; later they had bought the French property for a get away. When the children had gone to university, they had begun to spend more and more of their together time in the Dordogne and just used the apartment for business and trips to see the family. But this London home had amassed the bulk of their sentimental property - and now she had to see to its disposal. It felt like she was making a bonfire of their lives.

It was a painful process but she knew she had to be ruthless. Some things she discarded straight away. Their bed was the first. Other things of particular value or that she felt ought to be left to the children, she put into storage. Smaller items she designated for her new place. But the hardest decisions came with the knick knacks and decorative items, their art collection and of course the books and music. For nights she wasted hours just sitting crying holding single items, recalling their provenance and the silly little episodes that would mean nothing to anyone but the two of them.

In the end, she boxed up most of them and stored them, unable to dispose of them any other way but not wanting them around like accusations to remind her of their failure. The only thing she couldn't part with, her single act of cowardice, was the boxes of photographs, album after album, the pictorial story of their marriage. It was impossible not to torment herself with that.

Whilst working on Zoe's room, she came upon a scrap of paper that had fallen below the bed, it was in a scribbled hand, a page torn out of a notebook and probably thrown towards the wastepaper basket but clearly missing. Zoe had been writing a poem.

Straightening out the crumpled sheet, Annie read the verses which, typical of her daughter, were rather over written; Zoe had always had a tendency to melodrama in creative writing and was on much sounder ground when writing essays. Liam had always been the opposite, his spare and lyrical style suiting poetry so much better than prose. But artistic considerations apart, she was moved to more tears by the emotions her daughter was trying to capture, the sense of being out of her depth, bewildered, lost even but incapable of saving herself. Annie knew the feeling well enough

On the rocks, swept by the unseen surge
Flailing, grasping for anchorage
The world of solid certainty crumbling away
Bracing against the impact

On the rocks, lacerated by a thousand cuts
Bleeding, gasping for air,
The citadel shattered by a whim of nature
Helpless into the torrent

On the rocks, broken on the jagged edges 
Yielding, bowing to the inevitable blow,
The heart, though shattered, bared to his dagger
Welcoming the wound that kills

The final couplet scared her somewhat. Where the rest was in an impersonal vein, this sudden reminder that she was writing about a man - his dagger, with all its erotic imagery - shook her back to reality. The wound that kills. Metaphor or literal?  Was Zoe actually afraid of him? She had insisted 'He would never harm me.' But had her daughter been trying to persuade herself as much as anyone else when she had said that?

Annie wondered if in all this mess, she had lost sight of her children's needs for the first time in their lives and put herself first to their detriment. Zoe had had to travel half way across the world to try and speak to her mother about what was on her mind and yet, when it came to it, had probably suppressed a lot of what she had wanted to say for fear of further upsetting her mother. Liam must have been totally in shock; he was sensitive and fragile where his mother was concerned and still trying to rebuild with his father. What must all this have done to the foundations of his life? Why had they to be the ones to bear the cost of their parents' failure?

A picture caught her eye in a frame on the top of one open box. It was a photograph taken shortly after Liam was born when they had brought him home. Someone else had taken the shot of the four of them - she thought it might have been Harry or possibly Mel. Terry had been holding Liam and she had been at his side smiling on them both. Zoe had been standing between them peering round Terry's arm but looking up at her father with that expression she had always saved for him. That total adoration that only a little girl ever has for her father, that old Oedipus thing again. Until she meets another man to replace him. Her heart went out for how Terry must have felt when Zoe had turned against him with such vitriol. It began to occur to her just how hard the whole sequence of events had hit him. Maybe she wasn't the only one suffering from the feeling that time was passing her by. Events were beginning to look clearer in her head all the time.

How ironic that the new morning had dawned a little too late for her and Terry.

The driver weaved through the heavy traffic with the armed bodyguard watching the passing cars warily. Terry stared out of the window and tried to put as much distance as possible between him and Stavin who was perched on the seat to his left.

"Well, you're good company this morning, Terry. Got out the wrong side of bed?"

He ignored her.

"I hear you split from your wife. What a shame. You were married so long too, weren't you?"

He didn't even blink.

"I suppose she wasn't too happy to find out her husband was a cheat. What goes round comes round, so they say, hey?"

He fixed his gaze on a little child in the car that had drawn up next to theirs. The child waved and he smiled back.

"Is she with anyone else? If I were her I would play the field now. An attractive woman like Anna. They'll be queuing up for her. All those years waiting patiently for you and now she can really have a ball..."

Deborah glanced over at him and smiled.

"I know you can hear me. I don't care if you answer or not. It's still getting through, isn't it?"

Terry looked across and said nothing.

"That's the thing about women. A woman doesn't slow down with age. She can have as many orgasms as her partner can give her at any age. Imagine if she's with a younger guy? After all those years with you...she'll have forgotten how it used to be when a man can perform a few times a night. She'll think she's died and gone to heaven..."

But he wouldn't take her bait. He had withstood harsher interrogation techniques than this.

"Now Liam....he was pretty impressive. I guess there must have been a time when you could turn around like that, hey? Of course, he's still got a lot to learn about technique. But he's got staying power. He doesn't come in five minutes like his father. Don't suppose you knew he cries when he ejaculates, did you? It's rather poignant...he's so intense..."

Terry froze, his face set betraying nothing but internally his mind raging. Liam? She'd been with Liam? When? Recently? What had she done to him? Liam hadn't mentioned any women when they'd been together in New York. Surely he would have thrown a new conquest into the arena at some point - unless he was hurting in some way about Deborah - or he had fallen for her? Christ, just what had she been up to?

"We've been an item for a while. The sweet boy thinks it's love. He was devastated that I was going to be away indefinitely..."

Had she infected him too?  He groaned inwardly at the thought Liam might be now carrying something. It was a relief to see their car turn into the building where their meeting was scheduled to take place because he knew he was going to find it difficult to keep his hands off this woman if she continued with her taunting. He could take most things - but where his children were concerned, he knew his tolerance was slim.

Jumping out even before the car had finally stopped, he strode ahead of her into the entrance and was led up to the office of the minister with Deborah having almost to run to bring up the wake.

"Excuse me. I need a bathroom," he remarked to an aide who led him into a rather ornate tiled room. Locking the door behind him, he took out his phone and keyed in the rather complex series of numbers that ensured the security of the line. With a quick glance to his watch, he calculated the time in California. He might catch him up.

The number rang a long time before it was answered. 

"Yeah?" Liam sounded gruff and sleepy. Terry smiled despite his anxiety.

"Put her down, Liam, it's your dad."

"I wish..." he replied. "You know what time it is?"

"Yeah, time enough for a boy like you still to be up and partying. Thought you were a rock star?"

"I'm not a bloody rock star! How many times I got to tell ya that, ya nong? Okay, I'm awake now. So what the fuck's up?" Liam was grumpy as he always was if his precious sleep was disturbed.

"Listen, Liam...this is important and I don't have long. You ever met a woman called Deborah Stavin?"

There was a pause. Liam yawned. That seemed a good sign. He was neither covering up nor appearing to recognize her name immediately. "Deborah what? I met this woman in a cab called Deborah a few months ago. Can't remember her other name. She was a bit of a wackjob. Blonde, skinny, good looking, pretty old..."

"Old?" Terry asked.

"Yeah... about thirty..." he added. Terry shook his head.

"What happened?"

"None of your bloody business...Anyway, what's this about?"

"Did you sleep with her?"

"What?"

"Answer the fucking question! I haven't time to pussy around the topic."

"No."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm bloody sure...! I don't usually slip it in without realizing I'm doing it..."he retorted sarcastically. "Now you tell me why you want to know and what this woman is to you..."

Terry paused and then gave him what he wanted. "She's CIA. She's the one who set me up. Told your mother what we'd done. Claims you were her next conquest..."

"What?" Liam shouted down the phone. "You fucked that bitch?"

"Must you put it quite like that, mate? The main thing is this. If you did and weren't rubbered up, get a test. She's carrying a nasty little itch. You might be asymptomatic."

There was a silence. "What're you saying, Dad? You caught something from her?" And then came the sigh as Liam worked it out. "You infected Mum? Jesus Christ!"

Terry wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead as he imagined what his son must think of him now. "I just want you to be safe..."

"I never slept with her, Dad."

"She's telling it differently."

"Then she's lying. I swear it."

"Good enough for me. Liam...I'm so sorry I had to tell you this...."

For a moment Liam did not answer and then he said: "You're still my Dad. And I can imagine what this cost you to admit. Thanks for putting my welfare first. I'm going to see Mum next week when I go back to England. I'll look after her for you..."

"You do that, mate. You do that. Gotta go. Sleep well." He cut off the call and rested his head against the tiled wall trying to get his game face back. How much lower did he have to go in the eyes of those he loved before he reached rock bottom?

Nick couldn't meet her at the airport due to his being caught up in an important meeting in the city. Zoe felt slightly relieved, still unsure what exactly she was to say to him about the malicious lies he had told and their effect on those she loved. Taking a cab home, she showered and thought about taking a nap but her body clock was all out of synch and she had had too much sleep on the plane. It occurred to her she needed some fresh air and exercise, so taking her jeep, she rode to the club and got a few laps in at the pool before lying on a lounger catching the sun.

"Hey, Zoe?" She had been dozing off and the voice jarred her awake.

"Suzy! Kiri!" Two of her friends sat down on the next lounger. "I just got back this morning from UK."

"Must have been bloody freezing," Suzy giggled.

"It was. November. What do you expect! Great to see you two. What's new?"

The three women chatted awhile and then their attention was taken by a fourth woman, a rather beautiful blonde who was walking past.

"Hi, Bessie!" Suzy called over but the woman walked on and appeared not to acknowledge them. Kiri and Suzy exchanged an amused glance. "Poor thing. She's taken quite a drubbing recently. Ashamed to raise her head...."

Zoe frowned. "I think I've met her. She was in a club in New York. Nick seemed to know her..."

The other women laughed. "Well, I hope you use the word 'know' advisedly! Bessie got herself caught up in a terrible scandal. It seems she made this porno video which was pretty awful. Bessie, another girl and four blokes. It is completely graphic apparently. Some how it got circulated to the papers and her agent and God knows who else. Her career's in ruins. All her sponsors have dropped her. No one will touch her. Her husband's divorcing her. They say you can buy a copy under the counter all over the place...."

Zoe was shocked. This was the woman who had accosted them in the bar! Nick had even admitted that he had been involved in some group sex thing with her. Surely he wasn't one of the men? And then she stopped and thought. Would Nick have done such a thing as purposely tried to destroy her life? Why would he have had a reason to do such a thing as that? Or was that just her putting two and two together and making five? No, it had to be a coincidence that this had happened to Bessie at this time. She'd probably done that sort of thing loads of times.

But Nick seemed to have a connection with an awful lot of lives gone wrong. That factor worried her more and more.

He was home when she returned, racing out of the front door with the dog at his heels as she drove in, a wide smile of delight on his face. Sweeping her up in his arms he swung her round and kissed her madly, her slender body like a little doll in his strong embrace. He didn't appear to notice her less than enthusiastic response, his own ardour carrying him away. He bundled her into the house, asking her a whole barrage of questions, and it was only when they were in the kitchen and he actually made a pot of tea for her that he suddenly looked up as if he had only just noticed how quiet she was.

"What's up? You tired? Maybe you should take a warm bath and get your head down?" he asked as he handed her the mug of tea.

She took it and breathed out slowly. "Did you know my Mum and Dad are getting a divorce?"

"What?" he exclaimed. Even she could see that this had come as a complete shock to him. "Terry and Annie? Divorced? You gotta be joking...!"

She shook her head. "I stayed with Mum a few days in London. She's a mess but she's adamant."

"But why? I mean, last time I saw them they were still like Romeo and Juliet..."

"Still? I thought you'd already blown that theory, Nick. Like when you slept with Mum...?"

His face darkened momentarily although he quickly cleared his expression and turned his disingenuous face on her. "What's that got to do with it? That was years ago."

"I think it may have had a lot to do with it."

"How? How is it my fault?" he answered on the defensive now.

"I didn't say it was your fault. I merely mentioned it as a contributory factor. Dad seems to think it true. But it isn't, is it, Nick? It was just one of your clever lies to put a wedge between me and my father. Just like that whole thing about him beating you up and you nobly taking the punishment. You let Dad do that so that I would think badly of him, didn't you? You played me for a fool! You used my father and my mother against me! You are such a shit, Nick. Have you any idea what you have done to them?"

He opened his mouth to speak but then he stopped himself. She was right and he wasn't going to lie to her anymore. The last thing he had wanted was to cause a rift between Terry and Annie - for Christ's sake, they were the proof to him that love could work. The thought that the one sure thing might have been brought down by the casual lies he had told, merely to stop them interfering with him and Zoe - it made his blood run cold. He hadn't ever meant for that to happen. He had thought they had each other. Zoe was a grown woman. She was bound to leave them one day.

"I'm sorry. It was something I said on the spur of the moment. I thought your father might convince you to leave me. I thought he might play dirty and give you a load of shit about me. I was just desperate. I never meant for you to tell him! What were you thinking of?"

"Don't turn this on me! You thought he would give me 'a load of shit' about you? You mean, you thought he would tell the truth about all the bad things you had done over the years? That what you mean?  Well, he didn't. Even then he protected your secrets. He did suggest, however, that I ask you a few questions about your career and see if you would be honest. He didn't think you would be. Actually, he wasn't right about that. I know you weren't entirely honest with me, but you told me more than he reckoned you would. Nick...I would not have simply listened to dirt from him without giving you a chance...!"

"No? Well, you were happy enough to believe about your Mum. And you presumed a woman at his room door meant adultery....you so sure you're immune to gut reaction yourself?"

Zoe fixed him in her gaze; she was steely in her answer. "Don't play the blame game with me - for if you do, you will lose! You lied to me. Told a malicious lie! I was wrong and foolish to believe it but that does not exonerate you one bit. And I wasn't wrong about the woman. He had been seeing her. That's why Mum left."

"What? Terry? Screwing another woman behind your Mum's back? You nuts? He's not interested in other women..."

She shrugged. "He did it and eventually admitted. Your little revelation may have been the catalyst. He was upset about that. Really upset. Who can blame him? He all but breaks with his son, his daughter takes up with a man he knows is not suitable for any decent woman..." At that Nick winced... "And then he finds out his wife has history with the same man?"

"He'd already slept with her then."

"Who says? You don't know that. You better tell him the truth. Sort this out, Nick. I'm warning you...sort this out! If you don't tell him the truth, I will never forgive you..."

Nick sighed. "I'll talk to him. But it won't change what he did, will it? I can't be blamed for that. You cheat on your wife because of an allegation she cheated on you twelve years ago which came from an unsound source? That's a piss poor excuse, love, and Annie knows it. Zoe, it may not be a very palatable fact to have to accept about your father, but he's a man. And men sometimes fuck up. That is not my responsibility and I will not take the rap for that."

They stared at each other and she seemed to consider his words. Her demeanour changed and she subsided from the cold fury that she had been exhibiting. "I'm very upset. I don't know what to do. I keep thinking about Dad and how he must feel! She sold the apartment. His home. She's getting rid of everything. She's just washing him out of her life...I can't understand why she can't get past this. She loves him! He loves her! Why is she doing this?"

Nick crossed over the room and took her in his arms. She resisted at first but then she leaned in and held him close. "He will be so hurt. Whatever he's done. He doesn't deserve this. He is such a good man..."

Nick didn't speak. He couldn't speak. He was as shocked as she was and saddened beyond words. And he knew he had played a role in this even if only peripheral. His selfish manipulations had come back to haunt him now. Terry himself had told him as much. Everybody always pays. "I know he is. The best. I'll do what I can to try and mend this, Zoe, but we have to be realistic. Anything anyone else did or said is just a minor player in all this. Only they can really come to terms..."

"I know....Oh God, I know..." She burst into tears at that and he held her as she sobbed. The whole story seemed scarcely plausible to him. What the hell had happened?

That night they ate a light meal, incredibly enough prepared by Nick himself - well, packets of salad and cold meat opened by him. Zoe was still a little down but his efforts made her smile and she began to let go of her anger with him, clinging to him more than ever. They made soft gentle love and he nursed her to sleep in his arms before lying back, wakeful and uneasy. Somehow this news about the couple who were a form of surrogate parents to him had made a deep impression. But what could he do? He would mail Terry and come clean but he doubted that would change anything - only make Terry even angrier with him than he already was. There was nothing any of them could do. But what a tragedy! He knew it would hit both Zoe and Liam very hard and he felt the terrible sadness that both Annie and Terry must be feeling. Imagine losing Zoe? And he had only known her a few months, not half his life.

The next morning, after a quiet breakfast on the deck and a walk on the beach together, Nick decided to go ahead with his plans. Zoe was still listless and he could see she needed something to hold onto more than ever now that the strong anchor of her parents had been cut away from under her. What better to offer her another kind of security with him? He believed she would now be ready to grab it much more than she had been the last time the subject had come up.

"Hey, get dressed and let's go out. I have a surprise for you."

Her face lit up. "A surprise? What?"

"Wouldn't be a surprise then, would it?" She giggled. "Nice frock. Lunch is included," he added.

He drove her across the bridge to the exclusive North Shore and to the elegant waterfront suburb of Neutral Bay, arguably one of the best addresses in town. Entering the wide graveled driveway of the house he had bought, Zoe stared about her. This wasn't a house, it was an estate, with a huge sprawling modernistic building almost sculpted into the landscape in a natural parkland. Nick said nothing as he let her into the hallway and she wandered through the vast spaces dominated by glass and forest outlooks and the frontage that gave out onto the harbour and looked straight on the Opera House across the water and the vistas of downtown Sydney.

He watched as she whirled round and round the silent halls, with its high ceilings and stark white expanses. He led her up the open staircase onto the upper floors through room after room. Neither said anything for a long time.

"Well?" Nick broke the silence as they wandered through bedrooms. "Isn't it fantastic? This would make a brilliant nursery....so light and airy...I could see it with really bright primary colours..."

"You mean, you want to buy this place?"

"I have. It's ours. My gift to you..."

Zoe took a deep breath. "You already bought it? Without asking me?"

"It's a beautiful place. It was going to be snapped up..."

"...Not the point. I thought this was a joint decision."

"You don't like it?"

"That's not what I mean. I would have liked to have been asked. And...stop pushing me about a baby...."

"I didn't push, I just said..."

"I know what you said.....Nick....we need to talk about all that. I've been thinking and I'm beginning to think we've been too hasty..."

Nick ran his hands through his hair. "No....this is the time, Zoe. Now. You're wrong. Look...." He pulled the jewellery box from his pocket and walked over to her. "Zoe, marry me....marry me...Please..."

She gazed on the ring, a simple but obviously fabulously expensive arrangement of diamonds. The light from the windows danced on the facets. It was astonishingly beautiful. She looked up at him and saw his face, intense, pleading, the hint of obsession in his eye.

"I.....I.....can't....I can't, Nick.....I'm sorry...."

"Why? Give me one good reason that we shouldn't do this? I love you. You love me. I want to do the honourable thing. I don't want you to be my mistress. My arm candy. My sex mate. I want you to be my partner. I want to be your rock. I want to be the father of your children, your lover, your friend.... I want all I have to be yours..."

She pulled away. "No, Nick! Can't you see! We are not partners! You are in charge of me. You buy the house. You make the decisions. You earn the money. You tell me it is time. You want a baby....this is all about you! It isn't about me at all! I'm just the little plaything that complements this dream life you've planned! I'm like Stinker. The house. Just one of the trappings of the new life you want to have. Nick! I have to learn to be me first! I have to learn how to be a person in my own right before I become anybody's partner. And I am not sure that is what you want. You don't treat me like a wife. You treat me like a child. Like you're my father. And sometimes it creeps me out. ...I'm so sorry. I am so sorry, Nick, but I cannot marry you and I don't want to have a baby. And if I don't want those things now, I am sure as hell not going to want them in the years to come...." She turned and ran down the stairs and out of the house, jumping into his car and driving off, leaving him alone. He didn't even try to follow her, standing there in the empty hallway, staring into space, unable to believe why it had all gone so terribly wrong.

Liam had spent a day steeped in thought after the phone call from his father. His mind played out all the facts that he had slowly garnered from all the players and it occurred to him that he might be the only one in possession of anywhere near the whole story having spoken to them all at one time or another. Not that it all made a great deal of sense. There seemed to be a missing element somewhere. There seemed to be no real rhyme or reason for what had happened. Why had his father had a one night stand with a woman who even he himself, rarely given to turning down free tail, had seen through straight away? His father was the most astute reader of character he knew even before you factored in his professional acumen.

Dad had said something about 'she set me up'. You don't use words like that about a woman whom you pick up - or who picks you up. You don't use that about a woman with whom you are having an affair. He had said 'she is CIA and she set me up then told your mother.'

How do you make a man like Terrence Thorne sleep with you? Drug him? How would he be able to do it then? Strip him and fake pictures? But how did he pick up the itch? He had to have done it. He even said he had. Entrapment of some sort, no doubt, but why? For what purpose? And if it was some dirty trick, why not tell Mum? Surely she would have some understanding of the things that can be done to blackmail people at this level, as incredible as it might sound.

There was something so wrong about this, some missing piece he couldn't put together and Deborah Stavin was the key. She was sure not some ordinary piece of ass.

That day he tried to find out about her on the internet, expecting little result but surprisingly finding material easily. She was part of some Washington think tank, a noted academic in the field of international terrorism, an Ivy league princess from a very prestigious family and an up and coming White House luminary. Dad said CIA. He would know.

Liam took a chance and called her office, asking for her by name. The person on the other end of the line asked him his reason for wishing to contact her. He said it was personal, an old friend back in town.

"Ms. Stavin is overseas for the next few months, I'm afraid..." She named the country. Liam froze. It was where Dad was now.

The more he found out, the more he felt she was the key. She had slept with Dad. She had told all to Mum. She had approached him, lied about him to Dad later even though he had blown her off. Why every other member of the family except Zoe? Or had she done something to Zoe? Or was she planning to?

There was only one way to find out. There was one man who could have access to material an amateur like he would never be able to find.

And if he thought for one minute Zoe was being targeted he would blow his fucking mind.

Nick.

Picking up his phone, checking the hour in Sydney - late afternoon - Liam put a call through.

"Nick....hey, mate, you got five...?"

Nick answered abruptly and with rather less than his usual charm. "She's not here. I'll tell her you called..."

"Nick...don't hang up! I called to talk to you, mate...this is serious...I need your help..."

There was a pause and then Nick spoke again, this time with more apparent concern. "What is it? Everything okay? Tell me what's on your mind..."

Liam explained the sequence of events as he understood them, told Nick the little he had found out himself about Stavin, voiced his suspicion that lying underneath all this was a reason for her involvement in their family that he couldn't figure out. He also wondered why Zoe hadn't been targeted as the rest of them had.

Nick listened without saying much other than occasionally asking a question where Liam's comment needed clarification. He did not attempt to explain away the facts or give much consolation to Liam. He didn't know the answers himself - yet - but he too saw that there was something amiss and a shrewd sense of his own made him wonder if Liam wasn't entirely missing the point. Zoe had not been mysteriously left out of this but might very well be the centre of it. Or he himself.

Someone had filled Terry in on his resignation. He felt that somewhere in that was the more viable link. Ergo, he, Nicholas Costello, was the actual root cause of what had then transpired, rather more than he had suspected.

"Leave it with me, Liam. I'll get back to you," was his only response.

"That it? Aren't you even going to give me your opinion? I've been worrying myself sick over this all day..."

"I have no opinion until I have the facts. Which I will now gather. Don't make the mistake of jumping to conclusions. There is only one thing here that has any real bearing. The phrase - CIA set up. Once you get that in the mix we could be talking anything. And, mate, you might know more of the facts than most but you do not know anywhere near the whole story. Leave it with me. Get a few belts of Scotch down you and go to bed. It's my problem now. But, I'll tell you this much, Liam. You better be prepared when you bring a problem to my door that I'll deal with it in my way. And that may not be to your pacifist tastes..."

He heard Liam laugh ruefully. "I don't give a fuck what you do. My family is in ruins. Fix it, Nick. Do what it takes...She's with him now. She's gonna destroy him..."

Nick rang off and indicated to the barman to bring him another coffee. He had taken a cab into the city and wandered around after Zoe's dramatic exit with his car. Now, in a trendy coffee bar, he had been sitting just watching the world go by rather than go home to a house that was either empty or with Zoe's presence in the frame of mind she'd been in earlier. She needed to cool down. He needed to get his head round things.

But Liam's call had given him a new focus. What if there was something entirely other about this sequence of events and in some way he himself was an unwitting player? He felt sure in some gut certainty that it was he that bound all of them to Deborah Stavin in some way and he was already beginning to imagine what had provoked her interest in him. He smiled to himself, calling up some links on his cell. 'Right, Miss Stavin, let's see what Nicky can find on you, baby...'

She had driven his Porsche around the city for about an hour, hardly paying any attention to where she was most of the time until she found herself on the highway heading for Bondi. She was miles from home but not ready to go back and face him yet. Taking the exit for the beach, she detoured past the resort and found herself on the coast road winding up the cliffs from one district to another of those towns that faced the Tasman Sea.

As a child she remembered coming here a few times. Dad had a brother who lived in Clovelly and they had visited when they had been in Sydney. She and Liam had loved to do the blustery walk over the cliff tops from Bondi to Coogee, stopping to swim in the natural sea pools that each community had, eat an ice cream or just run wild ahead while her parents had meandered behind talking and holding hands. It was one of those childhood memories you have of perfect sunny days and endless fun stretching out before you that even as you smile at the memory gives you a tinge of sadness for time lost.

She parked the car on a neat suburban street at Bronte and began to follow the circuitous cliff top path as if in search of what they had all once had. A la Recherche Du Temps Perdu. She remembered reading the Proust novel in sixth form in one of her French periods when it had been fashionable for her and her friends to steep themselves in literature of other European cultures and sit around endlessly deconstructing. They had been such pretentious silly girls discussing love and men and women as if they were vastly experienced when most of them had barely known a man other than a few experiments with spotty boys. She had by now forgotten much of that novel apart from the famous Madeleines scene and how the simple little image of a biscuit could whirl you into a place you thought had gone forever. Nostalgia. Remembrance. Memory.

Once Liam had almost fallen off the cliff top somewhere around here, racing ahead and, as usual, not looking where he was going, showing off and larking about. Dad's quick action had saved him. She and Mum had been strolling along when Dad had suddenly run forward at speed and lunged almost in a rugby tackle; Liam had lost his footing and was sliding to the edge, unable to put the brakes on. The two girls had run up when they had realized what had been going on and found Dad sitting with Liam in his arms just holding him close. Liam had been crying and Dad saying nothing, his eyes closed, resting his head against his son's.

Mum had started to shout at Liam but Dad had held his hand up and shook his head. It wasn't the time, although later he spoke to him very sternly. But at that time all he had wanted to do was hold him tight and calm him down. Zoe lowered herself to the ground and stared over somewhere near the spot where it had happened. She looked over the edge of the cliff to the jagged rocks below and the vast thunder of waves exploding in thirty foot high spray against the face. It was a dramatic coastline but a treacherous one. His life could have been snuffed out in a few careless seconds.

Imagine how a parent feels that instant when they see their child in danger? Or afterwards even when he was safe, that gut churning knowledge of how slender the thread of life might be and all the years of love and care that you have put into this young life could be for nothing in a moment of madness? She had never understood it then, being only a little child herself, but now she felt the moment acutely; her father's anguish at what might have been and that he might have failed to save his son, her mother's irrational anger that had soon given way to helpless tears.

A moment of madness and you lose everything. What was the sense in that? So Dad hit the rocks one night and that was it? Had nothing he had ever done even given him the hope of a reprieve? Life is cruel enough without those you love acting with the brutal stamp of fate. But both her and her mother had been guilty of that. Rejecting him for one mistake.

There wasn't a chance in this world he would ever have done that to either of them.

She fumbled in her pocket and dragged out her cell phone, calling her father's number. There was no response; it was switched off. It was never switched off except when he was on active. Mum had said he was in the Middle East. Now she knew it was something dangerous. He must be on one of his secured lines.

Calling up another number she reached her mother and asked for Dad's coded number. Mum gave it up, pleased she was going to be in touch, ready for a chat even though it was still very early morning back home. But Zoe didn't linger, saying she would call soon and redialed the complex series of digits required.

It was late morning; he was attending an important meeting. Terry went to turn off his phone but the name on the display stopped him as did the location. Zoe - in Sydney?

"Excuse me, I have to take this," he insisted and walked away from the table leaving Deborah raising an eyebrow in surprise. It was a very inappropriate moment to be taking a private call or any call. This must be something highly urgent. It bothered her that she had no way of knowing.

"Zoe, that you? What's up?"

"Nothing, Dad. Everything. Oh, Dad, I'm so sorry...I'm so very sorry..." she began to cry and he rolled his eyes. Not now, Zoe, not now.

"Princess, this is a bad time. I can't talk in this meeting. You know I wouldn't chase you off if it wasn't unavoidable..."

"I know that. I just wanted to tell you, I got it all wrong. Nick was playing me, Mum was innocent, you were trying to protect me....I let you all down so badly..."

"Hey, you weren't to know. The truth is hard to find sometimes. I'll call you later, I promise, and we'll talk all this out. What are you doing in Sydney? You with him?"

"Yes."

"He's there now?"

"No. I'm out. At Bronte. On the cliffs. Remember that day?"

Warning bells sounded in his head. "Zoe, what are you doing there?"

"I don't know. I just drove here. Everything's going wrong. I remembered that day when Liam nearly fell over. I'm there. I keep thinking of those rocks. How easily he could have..."

He breathed slowly to control the panic rising in his voice. Whatever was going on, he had no way of knowing whether this call was some cry for help or her reaching out in desperation. What was going on in her head?

"Zoe, will you do something for me? Will you go back to the car and drive back into town? Are you listening to me? I want you to go somewhere safe. You got a friend you can go to? Uncle Mick's only nearby. I can give you his address..." He had no idea if his brother still lived in Clovelly, but he had to keep talking fast, bringing her back to some normality, reminding her of her life and that she was not alone.

"I'm okay, Dad. I'm not thinking of jumping, if that's what's worrying you! I was just remembering the good times. And I recalled that day and it just made me think of all the things you and Mum have done for us down the years. All the day to day acts of love that kids don't even notice or remember. Just take for granted. And just how selfish we are. I hate what I said to you. I hate myself for being so blind. I hate that you and Mum are apart. I know it's my fault somehow. Even in a little part. And I am so sorry..."

He looked over his shoulder at the minister tapping his pen impatiently, unused to being asked to wait. This was not the time for this but how could he simply hang up?

"Zoe, it isn't your fault. Can you go home? Has something happened between you and....him?" He found it hard even to say Costello's name.

She sniffed. "Kind of. I'm not sure. I refused to marry him. He's upset."

"Are you scared of him?"

"No. He isn't angry. Just upset."

"Go home or to a friend's place. I'll call you when I'm out of this meeting, I promise. Wait for my call. Will you do that?"

"Yes, Dad. Of course."

"Good girl. You did the right thing. I'm gonna hang up now. Take care, sweetheart. Don't worry about anything. We can sort this out and everything'll be apples..."

She smiled at the expression, the sort of thing he used to say to them as little kids.

"Why apples, Dad?"

"I dunno. Apples are okay, aren't they?"

"Suppose so, Dad."

"Then so are we..."

The line went dead and she sat there still holding the phone like a lifeline to him. Down below the surge went endlessly on, the brutal beauty of the power of the wild sea against the immobility of the land, that eternal struggle for supremacy. She had felt like that sea herself, being broken against the rocks of Nick's formidable power over her. But water wears down rock, too. Perhaps she'd failed to take that into account. Had she just destroyed Nick with her rejection as she'd broken her father's heart when she had walked out on him?

A rock can be a weapon - but it can also be your anchor in the storm, something to cling on to when everything else is being hurled into the torrent. Her father was a rock to hold on to. He always had been for all of them, just as he had plucked Liam from disaster so many times and had been there for her and Mum through so many of the trials of life - and for many other people, too. But who threw a lifeline to the rock as he himself crumbled, swallowed up by the raging sea of life?

And was her estimation of Nick entirely wrong, too? Could he have wanted to become that port in the storm for her? Should she grab and cling on to him rather than try and swim for the shore alone?

Picking herself up, she wandered further along the path until she reached the cemetery at Waverley. She had always thought this was the loveliest place to be buried, up on that grassy plateau on the cliff with the wild sea and the blue sky about. Liam and she had used to run about the stones reading the snippets about people's lives and imagining the life stories, always looking for children's graves with that prurient fascination you have at that age with childhood death. It seemed unreal to die young. The brother and sister would find an interesting grave and weave tales of tragic accidents, each trying to outdo each other with melodrama, while their parents had just stood by, observing the place with the serious distance that adults effect in such places.

Today, an adult herself, Zoe read the tombstones and her melancholy turn of mind made her think of the future. Nick had witnessed his own parents' grave and it had profoundly disturbed him. Would she one day stand in such a place and see her father's name written like this - or her mother's - their vibrant personalities reduced to the sum total of  a few phrases carved in stone? Her heart felt so heavy. She was so lost. She knew it now. So completely lost. On the rocks? She'd be lucky if she even got near enough to find her way to landfall.

Retracing her steps, she made her way back to the car and set off on the long drive home. Back to Nick. She knew she didn't want to lose him. It was time to mend some fences there.

But no wedding. No baby. Not yet. There'd be time enough for all that when she had settled her own uncertain future.

The unmistakable engine noise announced her return to him. Nick breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't been entirely sure what she'd been planning when she drove off leaving him stranded at the new house. He had admired her balls, though. Took his car and left him there to walk half a mile to the main road to flag down a cab? That was his girl. She took no prisoners.

Yet, despite that, he had worried about her. The car was powerful and she was distraught when she left. She didn't know the area that well. He was unsure whether she had her passport on her and, if she did, she might simply just run in that frame of mind. Had her friends stirred her up against him and would they be trying to hide her? You never knew with girlfriends. They could be such interfering bitches.

When he had finally reached home, he had found her passport still tucked into her flight bag. That had relieved his mind to an extent but he still had no means of knowing what she planned to do next. Part of him was numb, still reeling from the disappointment of her refusal of his proposal. But since the call from Liam, his mind had  taken on a new focus and it was beginning to dawn on him that there might be a real scapegoat for this mess. And for once, it wasn't actually him. Maybe they were all innocent victims.

He let her enter the house and for once did not come forward to greet her, ready to give her time. But Zoe made straight for the study; she wanted to speak with him. He closed down the window that he had been reading online, turning to look at her, smiling tentatively.

"Nick?"

"You okay? My car in one piece?"

She nodded. "Not even one prang. I should be the one asking that. How are you?" Immediately that told him that she was not about to bust his chops again. His worst fears were not realized.

He shrugged. "I'll live. I always do." He stood up but stayed where he was, not wishing to crowd her, putting his hands on his hips and hanging his head. "Are you here for your things? Are you gonna leave me, love?"

Zoe burst into tears and ran for him; he grabbed her and held her close. "I don't want to leave you! I love you! I just....need....time...." she sobbed.

"You got it, baby..."he murmured softly in her ear. "All the time in the world."

"The house? What are you going to do?" she exclaimed.

"Don't have a fucking clue - but it's only a thing, Zoe. People are what matter. Not things. Don't worry about it." All he wanted to do was crush her to him and never let go. She wasn't walking out on him. It wasn't over. Some crisis of confidence was behind this reluctance of hers to commit. She was young and unsure of herself; he could empathise with that. It has taken him twenty years to feel ready to settle down - why should he expect a kid like her to suddenly adjust overnight to having her future mapped out for her by someone else? He would never have accepted it. Nor should she.

"I said it all wrong. Even if I meant it, I didn't mean to make it sound so cruel. So definitive. I wasn't lying when I said I loved you..."

"And neither was I. Zoe, I want you. I love you. I will do anything for you. Just don't finish this. I don't believe we can't make it together. Let's take time. And I will prove to you that living with me will enhance your life and never hold you back. I swear it. Give me a chance to prove to you just how much I've changed...will you let me try, please, baby?"

She smiled then, looked up at him and he saw the glorious light in her eyes again. "I love you so much, Nick!"

He stroked her face pensively and then he had one of his lightening mood changes. "We never had lunch. Let's get dressed and go eat. Somewhere stylish..."

Over dinner they talked, holding hands across the table most of the time, feeding each other; anyone watching would have imagined that Zoe had just accepted his proposal, not rejected it. They were lovers and there was no denying it. It seemed to Nick that it hardly mattered what she agreed to call what they had in the end. Neither of them could actually contemplate a life which didn't have the other in it.

"I spoke to Dad today. He rang me back while I was getting ready. It was a good talk. I feel so much better about things now," Zoe told him.

"You tell him I lied?" Nick asked her directly.

She nodded.

"What did he say?"

"Not much. Nothing complimentary. But he sounded fatalistic. He isn't the kind of man looking to blame someone else."

"I know. He never was. Well, mostly," he remembered the woman who had set Terry up in Malaysia all those years ago. Thorne did have a weak spot where women were concerned. When he felt his head and heart were engaged anyway - he was much less likely to let his dick alone talk for him than most men Nick knew. But he had sure made that Chinese bitch pay for what she had done to him when he had got wise to her. Terry was no less capable of a brutal response than he himself was when it came down to the wire.

"What do you mean?" Zoe asked curiously.

"Nothing. Just that he's a man and a dangerous one in his own right, too. If he ever does find someone to blame then he won't hesitate. Like he didn't pull his punches with me..."

"You could have taken him down."

"I know. But he'd have fought me to the end. A man like that you don't take down. You have to take him out to stop him. And I am not prepared ever to do that in his case. Ever."

"What if he'd had a gun?"

Nick shrugged. "He didn't. I don't deal in maybes. I want to ask you something. This is slightly off the point but I need to know the answer."

Zoe frowned at his rather cryptic comment. Something in his manner made this seem suddenly a little worrying; there was something coming that was serious. "Go ahead. Anything..."

Nick paused, took a drink, and lit up a cigarette offering her one. She took it and let him light it for her. Replacing the card of matches on the table, he took her other hand. "You ever heard the name Deborah Maynard Stavin?"

Zoe thought a moment, exhaling a plume of blue-grey smoke. "The woman with Dad at the hotel. Her name was Deborah Stavin. Mum used that name again when we spoke. Deborah Stavin had approached her and told her she was sleeping with Dad."

"Tell me exactly what happened at that hotel."

"I already told you."

"I wasn't listening hard enough then. Everything. Close your eyes and recall as much as you can from the very first moment you saw them together..."

She did as she was told and he listened, occasionally jarring her memory with a comment. He showed her a photograph on his cell. She confirmed this was the woman.

"What is this about, Nick? Don't bullshit me."

"I won't. I don't know everything, sweetheart, but I'm piecing together something here. It involves your father and this woman. There is some CIA involvement and both Liam and your mother have been approached by her. I believe I may have been the initial target and that your father was asked to eliminate me when I resigned..."

"There's a contract out on you! They wanted Dad to...?"

"...Investigate. For certain reasons they have decided I am not a security risk anymore so, no, there is no contract on me. But Stavin was somehow the control. I'm still finding my way on this but I believe she set your Dad up in some way. I want to get to the bottom of it. It might be some form of entrapment and it might still be going on. It's possible they're blackmailing him in some way, using his family or some such lever."

"This is incredible!" She gasped.

"Or I might be way off. I have to do more digging. I can't say more for now but your account has shed a different kind of spin on the events. Consider if Stavin was at his room trying to blackmail him, not sleep with him. You walk up. He knows what it looks like, especially as you're already angry with him. Stavin is reading all this so she says something to confirm your suspicions. He can't say anything. The truth could be confidential. Might be about me. To argue his innocence will just make him look guilty. He tries to reach you in other ways and you go off on him...then, with the few extras I supplied to you, you really hit him when he's down. Jesus, he must have thought everyone was gunning for him. Only Annie was on his side..."

"And then Stavin turned the knife there and he was shafted with Mum too...."

"Fucked good and proper."

"You think it was a frame up that he slept with her - but he couldn't explain why she was there? Is he really completely innocent? Oh my God, if he's been carrying that...."

Nick was not prepared to elaborate further. Let her believe her father had not actually been unfaithful at all. Obviously Annie had not told her daughter about the little case of something nasty that he'd picked up that proved his culpability beyond a doubt. But Zoe had no need to know that sort of sordid detail. He'd keep Terry's secrets safe as Terry had kept his, despite his anguish at the role Nick had in his daughter's life.

"What will you do, Nick?"

He stroked her hand, picked it up and raised it to his lips. "I have to go away for a few days. Then I will know more. I can't promise to fix this for you, but I'll do my best to remove any obstacles I can from the issue. After that, it's up to you all to heal the breaches. I can't do that for you. He'll never accept me, Zoe. If you are with me, he will keep his distance. I was once his friend but where his own are involved, he has no friends. I'm scum to him. And I don't blame him. If you were my daughter I would kill a man like me who dared to even go close."

"In time....perhaps...?'

"Perhaps. Unlikely. But I want you and him to find it again. I never really wanted to cause this harm to any of you. I love your family. I always did. It was perhaps the only thing I did love for too many years. I sure as hell didn't love myself..."

Zoe leaned her cheek against the palm of his hand. "It isn't your fault.  Even if this was about you, they were using us all. And one day, we will all find our way back. Nick, you're not scum. You are a good man at heart. Just lost. But we all get lost at times. The mark of any person is whether they can find their way home."

"You Little Bo Peep? Leading me home?"

She chuckled at that. "I sure am. And I think it's time to follow me home. Let's go to bed and remember what we risked it all for? Even now, I can't say it wasn't worth it..."

Hours later, he bent and kissed the smooth skin of her shoulder as she slept. She always smelled so fragrant. It was the body cream she used that permeated her skin, and left its lingering scent on her clothes and the sheets of the bed. It was his favourite perfume especially when mingled with the aroma of sex.

She stirred and muttered something as he extricated his body from hers. She was stretched out naked, innocently displayed, her legs thrown apart. A trickle of semen ran down her thigh to pool on the sheet below. He shifted his weight and bent over to place another kiss on those lips, pungent with their juices, inhaling the smell of them combined. Freeing the crumpled sheet, he brought it round her and gently covered her over.

"Go to sleep, sweetheart," he whispered and left the bed, throwing on a pair of jeans and a worn T-shirt, deciding against a wash, preferring the sticky residue on his tender cock reminding him of what waited for him when this was all over.

Downstairs, in his office he booted up his computer and began his search. His levels of access were still high and coupled with his hacking skills enabled him to roam virtually unstopped through a number of extremely sensitive government servers. It was always an easy task to cut through the secrecy. Some idiot, probably with a fairly innocuous position, would be careless with the password protocols and think his lowly position unlikely to attract any attention. He keeps to the original setting, often merely 12345 or some such pattern and through this channel it was comparatively easy to leapfrog to the line manager's accounts and right across the networks. It was a form of espionage that Nick had mastered early on. He rarely bothered to use his skills as a cat burglar these days.

Within a short time, he had traced the Stavin email link and found her original orders to approach Terry and sound him out about 'McKenzie'. He accessed the files that had been sent to her as further inducements and found himself flicking through pictures of himself and Zoe and then watching the lurid vid-cam footage. Stavin had shown this to Terry. Good God, it was a wonder he hadn't just put a bullet through his brain, Nick mused. The material was nothing he hadn't seen countless times before. He himself knew his life was probably always under someone's scrutiny. But to watch this intrusion into the most intimate and personal areas of his relationship with Zoe, even if he had done this in the past to others, was hard for him to take.

His natural urge to protect Zoe from harm was on high alert - in that he was no different from her father. This woman had used their private moments as a lever to anger Terry enough to make him be prepared to eliminate 'McKenzie' if necessary. It had failed. Terry, for all his shock at the revelation, had refused to be involved with such manipulation. He might have shown his anger to him at the gym but he had also ascertained that Nick's resignation was genuine and not in any way a threat to national security. Honourable to a fault. So typical of Terry Thorne.

And Stavin had somehow taken his refusal to play her game and turned it against them all. He had no idea if there was a further agenda he could not yet see, nor was he very concerned with how Terry had managed to get mixed up with a poisonous bitch like her. He could see it happening - might have done the same himself. This woman gets so far up your nose and then comes onto you, taunting you with her control of the situation? So you show her whose boss in the time-honoured way. She probably loved it. Terry had probably just lost it for a while - and who could blame him?

But it was a hard one to sell to a wife - or a daughter. 

Returning to the job in hand, he began to open up the current assignment Terry was on and discover what was Stavin's function on that team. One thing for sure was she had to be out of the picture if Terry was ever to prove to his wife that what happened was just the result of the terrible pressure he had been under at the time. If Annie thought for a moment that Terry was shacked up in some 5star hotel somewhere with this harridan, his chance to make it up with her was really gone for good.

Had Terry thrown his lot in with Stavin? She was a good looking woman and he might be lonely. Maybe he was taking some in return for what she'd caused? It didn't sound like Thorne's style though. But you never know. Maybe Stavin had something going for her after all?

He didn't give a damn. Terry was taking a big gamble. It was time someone evened up the odds.

It would be so easy. A few days' tops. No one would even begin to suspect his involvement. Unlocking a cabinet in his office, he selected a passport and a wallet full of corresponding documents. Then he went down to the cellar and removed a few floorboards to uncover his stash of weaponry. Stink was sniffing round, his snout pushing into Nick's groin following the earthy scent of human body fluids lingering there. Nick grinned and knocked him away; the dog then began to investigate the weapons cache instead. Nick kicked him gently out of the way with his foot as he loaded the required pieces into a lead lined case. Scanning would show it up as a carrying case for CDs.

There was a flight midmorning and he bought himself a ticket. All set. Time to pay some dues. Nobody interfered with the lives of the people he cared about - or they would live to rue the day. Perhaps.