there. He made several phone calls, sitting near the window, enjoying the slant of afternoon light silhouetting the gables of houses across the canal. It reminded him of Cheyne Walk seen from the riverside promenade in Battersea Park. The brick façades unified in their confident Protestant affluence presented a slab of bourgeois urbanity.
He briefly concluded his conversations, arranging meetings for the next day, completing notes in the margin of his schedule, underlining the matters for compromise, doubly underlining the matters on which he must stand firm.
Glancing at his watch, he decided to slip out for a brisk walk along the canals before his appointment with Erskine. He left the hotel with alacrity, eager for a breath of air. A clear lemon sky gilded rooftops reflected in the smooth water. It was a static version of his view from the Christabel, there the Thames turbulent, tidal, busy with river traffic: barbaric by comparison.
He stepped out under the lime trees eager to reach the houseboats moored, if he remembered rightly, in the next canal. He wished he had brought his camera, wished he could pretend to be just another tourist with nothing more on his mind than choosing a delicious Indonesian rijstafel.
He found the houseboats: a motley selection, not as self-conscious as the Chelsea lot but looking more seaworthy, more ‘boat’ and less ‘house’, he admitted to himself with a smile. The curtains were mostly drawn, the decks empty, no old man and his nephew sipping brandy at dusk, watching the tide churning deep water. He shrugged off this line of thought, unwilling to relive the ghastly rescue of that vast female. It was only in recollection that fear had set in. Simon now realized with an icy twist in his gut that both he and the girl were very lucky indeed to escape drowning. He found himself staring at the barely rippling surface of the canal and flung aside this morbid certainty which the sheer banality a swim here would present. Lifesaving in a Dutch canal would have been a Mickey Mouse affair by contrast.
Back in the hotel, he showered and changed and tried to ring Frederick again. At first the engaged signal was heartening—at least the old boy was safely back in residence—but the continued blocking of the line was very strange. With mounting anxiety Simon called the boatyard office and recognized the nasal growl of the dreadful Wayne.
‘I am a little concerned about the gentleman who stayed on board last night, Wayne. My uncle, Mr Flowers, you remember? Is the car back yet?’
‘The Volvo’s ’ere, in full view, Si. I got the keys from ’im just after me dinner.’
Simon glanced at the time. ‘You mean early this afternoon?’
‘’Sright. He came back driving your motor and ’opped off with that plump new bird of yours what stayed last night,’ he said, the innuendo strongly underlined.
Simon frowned. ‘You say Mr Flowers drove the car himself?’
Wayne sniggered. ‘Parked it an’ all. Not so much as a scratch. I give it the once over jest in case. Thought he didn’t drive?’
‘Not for years.’ Simon’s confusion grew. ‘Then the girl didn’t drive him home, after all?’
‘’e went off with ‘er all right. She had this van, see, and he ’opped off with her like I said, right as ninepence. Can’t say where they went, though.’
‘I’ve tried telephoning his house but the line’s engaged. I expect he’s there all right but I told the girl to drive him home. At least,’ he added, ‘the Volvo’s back. Wayne, don’t give the keys to her if she comes back for the car. I’ll be home myself in a few days.’
After he had put the phone down, Wayne fingered his jottings of the van’s particulars on the grubby page of the log-book. He hadn’t shared this morsel yet, maybe he would follow it up himself. Or find a buyer … Wayne Denny, aged twenty-two, greasy collar-length hair and sallow complexion, was old for his years. Being taken into care on his eighth birthday had made an indelible impression, and streetwise intelligence—honed by two short custodial sentences for petty theft—had completed his education, preparing him for a variety of jobs and a lifetime of living on his wits.
He liked this present lark looking after the houseboats. It left him free to poke about, gave him a degree of power over the naïve—by his standards—tenants. It also placed him at the trendy end of Kings Road. Wayne had many contacts and no friends, his innate cunning armour in the war of survival. He missed Sharon since she disappeared up west with Fletcher but there were plenty more fat chicks scratching round this back yard. That one on Si’s boat, for instance.
Wayne wiped his nose on the ragged cuff of a nasty maroon jumper and tore out the sheet of the log-book where he had scribbled the address of the girl’s van.
The Orange Bar at Simon’s hotel was already filling with businessmen and tourists relaxing after a footslogging day on the Dutch cobblestones. Simon caught sight of Erskine already seated at a corner table, his back to the wall. Simon guessed this to be a precaution acquired since the Pantin days. Erskine made a languid signal indicating the bottle already ordered. They shook hands, as continental as true Europeans, chameleons under the skin.
‘OK with you?’ Erskine poured a glass of wine for Simon and they settled back, covering a polite hurdle of general commentary regarding their flight out, their familiarity with downtown Amsterdam, their assessment of the local restaurants. To the casual onlooker, two attractive Englishmen, thirty-something, already confidently on the way up.
‘About this little problem of yours,’ Erskine prompted, his mind shuffling the possibilities, not altogether approving of the more fanciful hairstyling Simon now affected.
After a moment’s silence, Simon plunged into his version of Rowan’s rescue. Erskine, visibly startled, butted in.
‘You mean to say you leapt off your boat, swam out and brought this crazy woman back on board?’
Simon nodded.
‘You’re bloody mad!’ Erskine raised his glass and sardonically added, ‘Congratulations. The Press will be pounding on your door any minute now. Sir Galahad is not dead! I can see the headlines.’
Simon looked uncomfortable but pressed on with the strange story.
‘I sincerely hope not. That’s the funny thing, Larry. I didn’t report it, it was all so confusing last night, I was only too relieved she wasn’t dead, not to mention myself,’ he said with a grin. ‘I am pretty sure Frederick let it go at that and this mysterious female insists we misinterpreted the whole incident and that she actually jumped overboard.’
‘Suicide?’
‘Not at all. If you met this great Juno you would realize she’s the very last person to take her own life. Irrepressible,’ he said with feeling. ‘No, the weird thing is, both Frederick and I are convinced she was shoved overboard deliberately by these two men. You remember my uncle from the old days, don’t you? The jolly old cove who used to come to Oxford and treat us to the odd case of wine at Christmas. He’s not as clear-headed as he was but we are both absolutely sure of what we saw, and even if we were wrong surely the police are looking for a missing person who disappeared from a disco boat in the course of a party?’
‘Can you say exactly when this incident took place?’
Simon winced, recognizing the stiffened phrases of an official request.
‘Oh, heavens, let’s think … I know! It must have been almost exactly eight-fifteen. I had switched on the radio to hear a concert and it had just started as Frederick was watching the boat through my binoculars.’
‘Do you want me to make a report?’
‘Christ, no!’ Simon leaned across the table, lowering his voice. ‘Look here, Larry, I know this puts you in a difficult position but as an old friend,’ he appealed, ‘could you just pass on the word informally that this girl’s safe? They’ll be sending down divers next, presumably, if they’ve already started searching.’
‘Her name and address?’ Erskine’s attention wandered, his interest in Simon’s