Since she had moved to England, Susan saw her only twice a year. She had compensated for this with the knowledge that the money she and John made in England would enable her to keep Casey in the luxurious clinic in Orange County rather than have to put her into state care. Now the realisation that she might not be able to help Casey was hurting deeply.

  Right at the bottom of the last compartment she found the tiger prawns. As she packed everything back in, she thought about children, suddenly. Alex and Liz Harrison had four, two boys and two girls, all three years apart. Liz was a perfect mother, attentive, intelligent, attractive, funny, and Susan, who had always preferred flawed people to perfect ones, was filled with a deep, irrational loathing for her friend.

  And with the loathing came the yearning.

  She knew it well: it was an ancient enemy that returned to her every few months, and she had her ways of dealing with it, of talking herself through it - until the next time.

  All the old arguments came out now. She told herself there were too many people in the world, that kids killed the romance in a marriage, destroyed their parents" freedom, cost a fortune to feed and educate, and anyhow, she and John might not even be able to have them if they did want them. She had stockpiled an arsenal of defences but none worked.

  The truth was that she loved John and John did not want children. She loved her job, too, and that gave her no time to have children even if she wanted them. And besides, she was only twenty-eight, she had plenty of time, John might change. Somehow, in time, she would make him change. Or maybe she would change, and go off the idea for good.

  And anyhow, in their current situation, children were more unthinkable than ever. So why was she thinking about it? Strongly.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the front.doorbell, right above her head. Who was it? Harry the painter? He was due to bring a builder mate to do some odd jobs, like fixing the cellar door. No, he was away on holiday, it was next Saturday he was coming.

  She hurried up into the hall. The bell rang again just before she reached the door. Then, as she opened it, she remembered.

  The tall, rather simple-looking man in the Telecom uniform stood there, holding a toolbox in one hand and a large sealed pack in the other. On the street, parked behind her little Renault, was the Telecom van. "It is convenient?" he said. "Yes, yes, of course."

  "I was worried you had forgotten, perhaps."

  "Er - no - I -" She saw him looking at the bag of frozen prawns in her hand. "I'm sorry, I was in the cellar. No, I hadn't forgotten. A new circuit board? Mother board? Something like that, you said."

  "Exactly like that." Klindz smiled. It felt good, so good, just being close to her, smelling her again. No sperm this time, and he was glad about that; she did not smell as if she had made love to her husband since he was last here, and he wished desperately that he could reward her now, here on the doorstep before they even went inside.

  Susan, my darling, you have been a good girl.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dr. Doomandgloom needs cheering up. One of the three boxes on the screen will cheer him up. Click either of the other two boxes and he will stamp his feet, burst into tears and pull the lever that will release the trapdoor on which you are standing. The trapdoor will drop you into a stinking sewer, where you will have to negotiate a maze of tunnels infested with giant mutant rats and man-eating crocodiles to get out.

  One of the boxes tells Dr. Doomandgloom that in your morning break you ate a chocolate bar; the second tells him you ate crisps; the third that you ate an apple. Clicking on the box that tells him you ate an apple really makes his day. His eyes light up, his ears wiggle, he bursts into song and performs a hand-stand followed by a back-flip.

  "What do you think?" Gareth asked. Then, before John could reply, he added, "It's coming along, right?"

  "I think we have a problem," John said, and undaunted by his partner's look of sullen hostility, continued, "I think kids will be more enticed to the sewer than seeing Dr. Doomandgloom look happy. This has been bothering me for a while."

  "We can change it, but it'll delay the launch and we're already behind schedule," Gareth said, then added petulantly, "None of the teachers who read the script felt that way."

  John was standing over a workstation in the development room. Twenty-five of his staff were concentrating all around him, and normally John would have stopped by each" of them in turn for a brief word. But today he was trying to avoid eye contact. Neither did he want to get into an argument with Gareth.

  Cliff Worrols, ponytailed with granny glasses, dressed in the unofficial DigiTrak uniform of T-shirt and jeans, looked anxiously up at him, seeking approval of his work on the Doomandgloom graphics. John nodded at him. The program, aimed at getting kids to understand about nutrition, was fraught with minefields, but he was too distracted to apply his mind to it. It was Wednesday, there were just six days left, and he had decided to break the news to Gareth today, at lunch-time.

  He was also going to have to tell him about his meting with the liquidator, and about the liquidator's salvage plan. It needed a few phoney invoices, a bit of backdating here and there, which meant screwing the creditors, just a little. John was concerned that Gareth might have a problem with this, because he was scrupulously honest to the point of naivet.

  He had decided that the way to sell him the idea was by pointing out that, if they could salvage some cash, they had a chance of starting up again and paying back those creditors - something John genuinely intended to do.

  He stared again at the graphics on the computer screen, and at Gareth and Cliff's anxious faces.

  Worrols's phone warbled. He anssered it, and turned to John. "Stella. Call for you."

  John took the receiver and Stella told him she had Mr. Sarotzini on the line. John felt as if he was standing on a rolling floor. "I'll take it in my office," he said. "See you at one, Gareth. Good work, Cliff!" He hurried out.

  In the sanctuary of his own room, he picked up the receiver, with a strong image in his mind of the banker as Dr. Doomandgloom.

  "Mr. Carter? You are well, I hope?" Mr. Sarotzini sounded better-humoured than he had been on Friday, much more the warm, caring man John had sat next to at the Carmichaels" dinner at the Guildhall than the drv, cold one with whom he had had lunch. But he was a bag of nerves. "Yes, thank you. Thank you for lunch last Friday. I enjoyed going to your club very much." He'd dropped the banker a thank-you letter to the PO box address on his card, and wondered if he had received it.

  Mr. Sarotzini did not mention it. "I'm so glad you enjoyed it. It was a pleasure to meet you again and to get to know you a little better. One can be so private there. So many places it is difficult to be private, do you not find?"

  "Yes," John said politely, despite his impatience for Mr. Sarotzini to come to the point. From the tone of the man's voice, there might be hope.

  "And your quest for funding, Mr. Carter, how's that progressing?"

  "We've had some interest," John lied, trying to stop shaking, aware that he sounded breathless. "But nothing firreed up yet."

  "Ah."

  There was a long silence. John waited for Mr. Sarotzini, but the silence continued. "Is - is there any further information you'd like?" he asked, trying to think of an enticement he could offer.

  "No, I think at this stage not. I have talked to my associates, and before I took matters further I wanted to establish that your requirements remain unchanged."

  "Yes, they're unchanged." John's brain was racing. Before I took matters further. That sounded positive. What else could he tell Mr. Sarotzini? What had he forgotten last week, or had anything changed since then? "Well, actually, we've had some good business developments, since we spoke, which might interest you."

  "Ah? Tell me."

  "I can't remember if I mentioned - with Microsoft. It looks like we could have a terrific distribution deal - the junior version of our Home Doctor series. They came back to us on Monday. It could become part of a package with their online version of Encarta."

  Mr. Sarotzini did not sound as if he had connected with this. "Good," he said. "Yes, that sounds very good, most encouraging." He was silent again. "So, your requirements are exactly as we discussed?"

  "Yes, they are."

  "No developments with your lawsuit?"

  "I'm afraid not."

  "Allow me to come back to you, Mr. Carter, in a few days."

  It seemed an odd formality that he still did not use John's first name: it contradicted Mr. Sarotzini's good-natured tone, John thought. "The deadline I have with my bank is next Tuesday."

  "Yes, of course, I am aware," the banker replied, chidingly. "How could I forget a date of such gravity? But thank you all the same for reminding me. I am indebted to you for the opportunity to help you. We will speak again before Tuesday."

  The phone went dead.

  John stared at the receiver in surprise, then replaced it. He sat Sarotzini had phoned him - he had not expected to hear from him again after the banker had expressed his concerns about Zak Danziger.

  Feeling a sudden burst of optimism, he phoned Susan to tell her that there was still hope. She was in a meeting so could not talk freely, but he could hear the relief in her voice. When he hung up, he decided not to say anything to Gareth after all, until he had heard from Mr. Sarotzini again.

  If he heard from him again.

  But he had a feeling he would. He reckoned Mr. Sarotzini might at least come up with some kind of proposal rather than give him a flat turn-down.

  That evening, he suggested to Susan that they went to the That restaurant round the corner.

  The owner greeted them like long-lost friends, gave them a powerful free cocktail each, and plied them with new experimental dishes all evening, as well as massive brandies on the house afterwards.

  It was close to midnight before they finally rolled out, drunk and giggly and so stuffed they were groaning. Unkindly John waddied up and down the pavement outside the house mimicking the restaurateur: "Hawoo, plizz, you the now, gieen plawns in coconut!"

  Susan, hysterical with laughter, hushed him, and dragged him inside. They tripped out of their clothes, scattering them over the bedroom floor, and made love for the first time in almost a fortnight.

  And Klindz, who had installed a video camera above their bedroom on Saturday afternoon silently watched them, on the monitor in his attic room, aroused and angered by the sight of them making love.

  It was erotic to see them give oral sex to each other simultaneously, and then to watch John Carter climb on top of Susan and enter her. But it hurt that John Carter was making love to his woman, and it made Klindz ache to see the expressions on Susan's face, to see her chewing her husband's ear, to hear the sounds of her breathing, her cries of pleasure. It hurt him to see how much she was enjoying this.

  She rolled John onto his back and sat astride him. Then the expression on the man's face became almost too much for Klindz. But he continued to watch, as Carter threw back his head and shouted out, his mouth bursting with yells of pleasure that bordered on laughter, until he reached his climax.

  Finally, his heart heavy, Klindz switched off the monitor. He hoped that, one day soon, Mr. Sarotzini would allow him to punish John Carter for this.

  But at least night tine had something that made him happy. On the table beside him, among the remnants of his Kentucky Fried Chicken dinner and empty Coke cans, lay the white envelope with a Swiss postmark, which contained his gift.

  Mr. Sarotzini did things like this sometimes. Just when Klindz was feeling really depressed, Mr. Sarotzini would do something for him. It was further confirmation that a part of Mr. Sarotzini resided inside his head, always knowing his mood, sensing if he was down.

  Fondling the envelope, Klindz began to hum, softly, to himself.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Don Giovanni was sinking through the stage floor and down into hell. Flames erupted all around him, and Klindz smiled.

  Hell.

  He remembered the words of the writer, T. S. Eliot, whose work Mr. Sarotzini had encouraged him to study. "Hell is oneself."

  And Don Giovanni kept singing, lamenting, as he went down into hell. Alone. The huge voice of the tenor filled the auditorium. This was great music, and Klindz could not have been happier. He was sitting at Glyndebourne, in his box which could have accommodated half a dozen people but tonight was for his sole pleasure.

  Susan Carter would have enjoyed being here with him. He smiled, wallowing in the music that cascaded down on him. Yes, she would have enjoyed it. The air was balmy, and rich with the scents of all the women in their finery. None of their scents was as good as the smells of Susan Carter, but tonight Klindz didn't mind. He had Mozart to make him happy, he could wait. It would be soon now. And then Susan Carter was going to make him happy for the rest of his life.

  That had been a promise made by the man who always kept his word. Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know. Keats, Klindz remembered. He had been introduced to Keats by Mr. Sarotzini.

  He had been introduced by Mr. Sarotzini to so much beauty. To this joy of great music, to the riches of fine painting, to the sensuality of great food. And to so much wisdom. He recalled a film he had once watched in Mr. Sarotzini's private screening room. In it, the actors Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles met in a gondola high in the air above an amusement park, the Prata in Vienna. And that was the point at which Mr. Sarotzini had stopped the film, instructed" him to listen carefully, then restarted it.

  And Orson Welles, who was playing the role of a man called Harry Lime, turned to Joseph Cotton, angry but restrained, and said: ""In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed - but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.""

  Then Mr. Sarotzini had stopped the film again, turned to Klindz and asked him if he understood. Klindz, who had never dared to lie to Mr. Sarotzini, told him that no, he did not understand. Mr. Sarotzini replied that one day he would.

  And now Klindz looked down into the stalls, which were erupting into applause, as the curtain fell. People were rising from their seats and he rose with them, clapped with them and joined in the call, the cry for the encore. And he imagined that he was in that gondola, high above the Prata, he imagined he was Joseph Cotton and that Harry Lime was speaking to him.

  Below, and around him, the audience chanted, "More! More! More!" He chanted as well, and then he wept for joy. Tears run down his cheeks. He wept at the sheer beauty, and because of all the emotions the music had stirred within him, and because of the magnificence of the secret he kept in his heart. He wished he could share it with all these people who had been swept away, like him, by the music. He wished he could rush down onto that stage, and hush them all, and call out: It is near, it is so near!

  But Mr. Sarotzini would never have forgiven him.

  So instead he contented himself with looking down at them, watching them clapping, watching the rapture on their faces. Few noticed him, alone in his box, none was aware of the true nature of the elation he was feeling.

  None knew of the white envelope in his pocket, the one in which the ticket for this box had been sent to him. None knew that to receive a white envelope from Mr. Sarotzini was an honour for which there was no equal on earth.

  Minutes later Klindz moved through the jostling crowds pressing themselves into the exits. Those who noticed him saw a man in a dinner jacket, a tall guy, built like an American-football quarterback, a foreigner, perhaps. They did not hear the special way the music of Mozart still played on inside his head. They did not know he had a white envelope in his pocket. They could not hear his thoughts, they could not know the things that Klindz knew, that secret he carried.

  They should have been grateful for their innocence.

  That was what Klindz thought as he stood outside, waiting for Mr. Sarotzini's black Mercedes limousine to collect him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The wind flailed John's hair, and the spray flecked his sunglasses. The prow of Archie's powerboat skimmed across the glassy blue water of the Solent, heading towards the battlements of the Royal Yacht Squadron and the entrance to Cowes harbour. There was a flat, steady drone from the twin inboard engines, and an occasional smacking thump as they crossed another boat's wake.

  Archie was now Mr. Toad of the waterways. In his tiny oval sunglasses and rope-patterned short-sleeved shirt, he sat at the helm, high up in the open cockpit, surrounded by the monitors and dials of enough high-tech navigational aids to have enabled a fleet of spacecraft to circumnavigate the universe.

  Behind them, on the sumptuous, white-cushioned sun-deck, Susan and a striking brunette Spanish model named Pila, Archie's current girlfriend, lay spread out, sunbathing topless.

  Archie dug his fingers into his gin and tonic, pulled out a small piece of ice and lobbed it at Pila. It was a bullseye, landing right in her belly-button. She sat up with a start. "You bastard!" She lobbed it hard back, with wild aim, and John had to duck as it went past him and struck the windscreen. He could not tell whether Susan, eyes masked behind her sunglasses, was awake or asleep. He smiled as Pila waved him an apology, then turned and continued looking out across the water at the vast canvas of the hot June afternoon.

  There were boats as far as the eye could see, mostly sail-boats, some on their own, some grouped in races, all motionless, their sails hanging listlessly, waiting for even the smallest puff of breeze to fill them.

  He watched a fort slip past, breathed in the salt, seaweed, ozone tang of the sea and could not get the thought out of his mind: it was Monday tomorrow. And there had been no further phone call from Mr. Sarotzini.

  "So," Archie said, suddenly, "you reckon your Swiss connection, this Sarotzini man, is blowing you out?"