And then there was just a lot of blood on the surface, a lot of threshing about and then the blood, Christ, it was a beautiful red, he was a beautiful man, he coloured the whole sea like a flag, like a banner.

Forty-five, I would have said, it must have been forty-five seconds since I'd seen her. The great shapes were still circling slowly, not so near the surface now, as if something below were attracting them, their long tails fanning in the clear water, the light of the surface ripples playing along their smooth metallic flanks.

Could you skipper this boat if you had to, do you think?

The sun beat down on the sea, pressing it flat, spreading its heat and its molten light from horizon to horizon while I dwelled here on this gilded mote and came as close as I have ever come to praying.

Fifty seconds, sixty, perhaps, as they circled the slim bronze other-creature in the depths.

It's not my vessel. I brought it in. And I want to report a death.

More than a minute, she'd been down there more than a minute now, her lungs beginning to feel the need for oxygen.

You did nothing to stop her?

What could I have done?

You could have talked to her, surely, talked her out of it. You could have restrained her, if necessary.

She was a responsible adult with a mind of her own.

A confused adult, surely, intending suicide.

How do we know? I think she was following her karma.

Her what?

Her karma.

What is that, exactly?

Movement suddenly in the water there, over there, a fin cutting the surface and flashing in the light, the others circling wider for some reason, oh for Christ's sake come up will you, it's a minute fifteen, a minute and a half.

What is karma?

It means fate, loosely translated. Destiny. She was following her destiny. People meddle too much, you know, with other people's lives, we are not our brother's keeper when it comes to the crunch.

Slowly, very slowly from the depths there was this smaller shape now, a dull gold creature rising with its long hair rippling at its sides until the head broke surface and the body followed, turning gently to float as the weakness flowed into my legs and the breath came out of me and I shut my eyes against the brazen light of the sea.

And even then you didn't try to dissuade her?

No. It was her wish. Her will. I do the same thing myself, sometimes.

You go swimming among sharks?

No, but it's just as dangerous. We like the brink, you see. We like being there.

The great gray shapes circled, some of them just below the surface with a fin cutting through it here and there like a knife through silk, some of them deeper, no more than dark shadows, and there she was, the female biped, lying in the middle of them with her face to the sky and her eyes closed and her mouth moving as she breathed, breathed deeply to replace the oxygen she'd used down there, a human being with a history and two dead parents and a few boyfriends around and a job to do and a life to live or simply, if you looked at it that way, the way nature looked at it, a morsel of food for these fish, a delicacy with rich sweet-tasting blood and tender flesh, a small feast for them in the heat of noon, an offering in the celebration of life.

A tail threshed at the surface close to her but she didn't move, didn't turn her head. Perhaps they were playing. Perhaps, I thought with my breath blocked and my blood chilled, they were playing.

And then she moved at last, rolling gently until she was face down and then jack-knifing, her legs coming out of the water and poising vertically for a second and then sliding out of sight, leaving a small ring of ripples that melted away as the big fish drew closer and I knew what I would finally say when they pressed me to it, yes, I should have tried to talk her out of it, tried to save her life.

She came up three times to breathe and dived three times, surfacing closer to the boat than before and breaking the pattern, floating across the circle they were making and lifting suddenly from the surface as one of them rose from below and glanced across her back and I had a rope ready in my hands before she got her balance and crawl-stroked to the side of the boat and I helped her across the rail, 'He wasn't there,' with the water streaming from her body, 'the one I was looking for wasn't there,' streaming from her hair as she faced me with her green eyes shimmering as she lived through this little time in that particular state of grace that comes with a release from close communion with death, and then her hands were on me and she drew me down with her and the knife dropped to the hot scented timbers of the deck and lay beside us.

Blood on the deck.

'Yes?'

'I'm at sea, south of Cape Florida, ten miles from the mainland.'

In a moment: 'Condition?'

'Fully active.' The knife wound I'd taken last night had slashed the hip but hadn't cut deep muscle. I could still run if I had to.

She was wiping the blood off the deck over there by the starboard rail – the shark had grazed her shoulder blades when it had lifted her from the surface.

'The chief of the Miami Mafia,' Ferris said, 'has put out a contract on you, effective immediately. Did you know?'

'I could have guessed.' It explained the Nicko thing.

He caught the tone. 'They've made contact?'

'Yes.'

Another pause and then he said, 'In any case it's too dangerous for you to disembark at the quay as you did before. You're on board the tug?'

'Yes.'

He was keeping the exchange of information as brief as he could: we weren't using a scrambler. 'Stay there till dark and I'll have you taken off. They'll ask for your exact position later. Understood?'

'Yes.'

'Anything to add?'

'Yes. We're under surveillance.' The motor yacht with the limp sails had furled her canvas and had come within a mile of us under power and I'd caught the glint of twin lenses.

In a moment he said, 'Wait for the dark.'

Chapter 15: NIGHTFALL

'So who was firing on you?'

She was splicing a rope, making a loop-end, sitting on a box; she had a pair of khaki shorts on, nothing else, letting her back heal; all she'd asked me to do was throw sea-water over the abrasions.

'I don't know,' I said.

'I saw the whole thing. The fire and everything.' She worked at the rope. 'Did you think I'd set you up, Richard?'

'Why should I?'

'You were so wary of me, that day, is what I mean. So untrusting.' With a brief glance at me, 'But then I suppose you're wary of everyone, in your business, whatever that is.' Her tone changed, became more formal. 'There's nothing you want to tell me, and I understand that, but I need to know enough about last night, the boat crash, to satisfy myself that I'm not an accessory after the fact or concealing evidence or harbouring a criminal. I've got a good record and I work for the Miami police whenever they can use an extra diver, so I want to make sure I'm not getting involved in anything illegal. You've shown me your Foreign Office card but you can get those printed by some backstreet forger if you know where to find one.'

There were two steps down into the cabin and we were sitting at the forward end, out of sight from the sea. She knew about the surveillance: she'd seen the field glasses too.

The head of the Mafia,' I said, 'has put out a contract on me. Hence the shooting on the quay and hence my boat trip last night.' I told her about it. 'Hence also the surveillance they've put on us again. I want you to know,' leaning forward, 'that as soon as I'm taken off this boat I shall keep well out of your way.'