'Is Madame waiting for someone?' the waiter had asked, hurrying towards her.
'No. I'd like that table there. Is it available?'
She had pointed to the table by the end wall next to where Philip was sitting. He waited until she was settled only a few feet away and alongside him. She was slim and about five feet six, wearing golden pumps. As she studied the menu Philip nerved himself to speak to her. He hadn't approached another woman since Jean had died, hadn't felt any inclination to do so. She felt his gaze on her, glanced sideways, gave a half-smile. He plunged in.
'Good evening. You wouldn't be on your own, would you? I am. I can recommend the sole. That is, if you like fish.'
She immediately sensed his awkwardness, gave a roguish smile to put him at his ease.
'Why don't you join me? Then I can complain to you if I think the sole is rotten…'
That was how it had started. No, Philip thought as he sat gazing back at her in the quiet of the Scott Arms at Kingston, it had started earlier in London at SIS Headquarters in Park Crescent. In his chief's large first-floor office overlooking Regent's Park in the distance.
Tweed had asked his faithful long-time assistant, Monica, to leave them alone for a few minutes.
'Philip, I think you should take a holiday.'
'I'd sooner not.'
'Philip, I'm ordering you to take a holiday. You have to. I've booked you a suite at an interesting hotel in Dorset. On the outskirts of Wareham. The Priory Hotel. The suite is booked for a week in your name. Oh, and while you're down there you might make a few discreet enquiries about a General Sterndale. He's over eighty and owns Sterndale's, the private bank which has been in the family since it was founded back in the early 1800s.'
'What do you want to find out about him?' Philip asked.
'I'm not sure…'
Tweed stood up from behind his desk, removed his spectacles, began cleaning them with his handkerchief as he paced round the office. Of medium height, with dark hair, middle-aged, when he wore the glasses he was the man you passed in the street without noticing him. Which was an advantage for the exceptionally shrewd Deputy Director of the SIS.
'One thing I'd like to know is has he still got all his marbles? He had when I met him at a club, but that was several years ago. He was celebrating his eightieth birthday then. He runs the bank personally with an iron hand. He operates secretively, so if you can contact him you'll have your work cut out to extract any data.'
'What sort of data?' Philip persisted, disliking the whole idea.
He suspected Tweed was anxious to get him out of the house he had occupied alone since Jean's death. But now he had been given a specific job to do it would be useless to argue the point.
'Another thing I'd like to find out – which will probably be impossible to extract if you do get close to him – is the names of his big clients. Take the case you always keep packed here for an emergency trip. And there's a Land Rover outside to get you there. Here are the keys. Philip, do try and relax in Dorset. Talk to people
'Finished dreaming?' Eve demanded as she started to put on her camel-hair coat inside the Scott Arms. 'I'm still here. Just in case you'd forgotten.'
She likes a lot of attention, Philip thought as he donned his duffel coat. No, that's not fair. I must have been silent for quite awhile. I'm out of practice at dealing with women.
He quickly slipped in front of her and mounted the first flight of flagstone steps. The floors were paved with the same material.
'I know the way out. You could be stuck in this maze for hours.' he joked over his shoulder.
'That was Corfe Castle we could see through that window in the moonlight,' she rapped back.
'I thought you said this was your first trip to Dorset,' he replied.
'Like other people I do study guide books – they have pictures in them, in case you didn't know,' she replied sarcastically.
Outside he hurried to the car park behind the pub and climbed up behind the wheel as she ran behind him. He kicked mud off his boots on the edge of the vehicle. She climbed into the passenger seat.
'Move over.' she demanded. 'I want to drive.'
'So do I. You've had a good run.'
'You think one vodka affects my ability to handle your chariot?'
'My turn.'
Leaving the car park he drove down another steep winding hill with more hairpin bends, hit a water-splash, and water showered over the vehicle and through an open window.
'My coat is soaked.' she said in an icy tone.
He glanced at her. The camel-hair coat had only the odd sprinkle of water. She was staring straight ahead, in a bad mood because he wouldn't let her drive. In the distance and well below them two ridges of a Purbeck range dipped, enclosing a gap which must have been a strategic pass in the time of Cromwell. Corfe Castle was perched on a high mound in the gap. Its naked rocks and ruined towers reminded Philip of a skeleton, which took him back to the great fire at Sterndale Manor.
Were General Sterndale and his son, Richard, now real skeletons consumed by what must have been incredibly high temperatures? A morbid thought, but earlier that evening he had met General Sterndale having a drink in the bar at the Priory. He had gathered the old boy made a nightly visit. It had been one of those long-shot coincidences you hope for but which rarely happen. At one stage the General had stared hard at Philip and, as they were alone, made a remark.
'I see pain in your eyes. You look like a man who has suffered.. .'
Philip had found himself telling him briefly of the tragedy of Jean's sudden death, something he rarely talked about to anyone. They had talked for a while so Philip had something to report to Tweed when he got back.
Reaching Corfe, a village of old stone cottages which stood on the level, they followed the road back to Wareham, turning in a semicircle below the mound with Corfe Castle rearing above them. It was then a straight run along a good traffic-free road. Eve relapsed into a brooding silence, never once looking at Philip or saying a word. Pique.
A great glaring eye filled his rear-view mirror. A motorcyclist in black leather, wearing a helmet, was perched on his tail. Philip waited for him to overtake as the macho boys always did. Black Leather remained glued to his tail. Philip recalled the burly youngster who had entered the Scott Arms.
'Pass me, damn you!' he said to himself.
The motorcyclist refused to oblige. Philip began to wish he had brought his Walther automatic. If the rider was armed and hostile.. .
Oddly enough Eve seemed unaware of their follower. She remained quite still, arms folded on her seat belt. Philip slowed down, crossed the bridge over the River Frome at the outskirts to Wareham, signalled, turned right into a small old square and down a short lane leading to the Priory.
He was parking close to a stone wall near the entrance to the hotel when he saw the motorcyclist stop on the far side of the square, switching off the blinding lamp.
'Well, we got back in one piece.' Eve remarked as she jumped down onto the cobbles.
'Nothing to it,' Philip responded, locking the vehicle.
Eve stroked the new red Porsche he had pulled up alongside.
'Now this I love. My chariot. Not bad, don't you agree?'
Philip froze where he stood. On the drive down from Park Crescent he'd had the feeling he was being followed by someone in a red Porsche. The flash car had always kept several vehicles behind him and he'd lost it while he was approaching Wareham. The driver had worn a helmet so he'd never decided whether it was a man or a woman behind the wheel. Then he reminded himself there were quite a few red Porsches floating round. He glanced back at the old square and the motorcyclist had gone. No sound of his engine starting up, so he must have wheeled it back to the square before firing the engine. Very odd. He walked round to admire the Porsche – Eve's normal radiant cheerfulness seemed to have returned.
'That's something else again. Must have cost you quite a packet.'
