Angel of Death

‘He’s a very nice man but we hardly know each other,’ she fenced, rather flushed. ‘But if he’s been waiting for ages, I’d better join him. See you, Milo.’

She walked into the bar and saw Neil at once as he stood up to greet her.

His roving eyes told her he liked the way she looked before he smiled at her. ‘Thank you for coming. I’m very pleased to see you looking so much better. You were so pale and stressed last time I saw you, in London. Now you’ve got a nice tan and you look far more relaxed and happy.’

‘It’s a lovely island and the people I’m working with are lovely people.’

She sat down; the barman came over and she ordered a glass of sparkling mineral water.

‘Tell me how far your investigation has got,’ she asked Neil.

‘We’re still waiting for the body to turn up. Without that, we can’t prosecute.’ He hesitated, then brusquely told her, ‘My bosses have told me to shelve the investigation until the body does surface.’

Biting her lip, Miranda said, ‘They don’t believe me, do they? Terry has convinced them I’m nuts.’

‘No, no, they just want proof of murder before they act.’ Neil’s face was sober. ‘But you must be very careful, Miranda. Until we find that body you could be in danger, even here.’

She shivered. ‘I know. I’m very careful, don’t worry.’ She hated thinking about it, so she changed the subject. ‘How long are you staying here?’

‘Not sure – a week, a fortnight. It depends on events. If the body shows, they’ll call me back to London.’

After a leisurely, candlelit dinner he walked her back to her bungalow through the gardens, under rustling trees, the sound of cicadas all around them.

‘Thank you for tonight,’ he murmured huskily, ‘It was a wonderful evening.’

Sensing that he meant to kiss her, and reluctant to go too far down that road, she bolted through her front door, muttering, ‘Goodnight, Neil.’

In bed in the dark she thought of Tom and was shaken to realise he no longer haunted her the way he had for the past three years. Was she beginning to get over his death at last? But she had had the old dream only the other night. Yet the cause of that had not been her guilt – she had had the nightmare because of jealousy and misery over Alex, not because of Tom. A realisation that made her guiltier than ever and made her sleep badly again.

Next morning, at seven o’clock, she put on her swimsuit and a towelling robe and carried her towel under her arm to walk through the hotel grounds to the beach.

The sun was rising on the horizon, a burning golden ball, the sky was streaked pink and deep blue, sending shimmering lines across the blue sea.

She had spent half the night restlessly tossing, her mind occupied with memories of the murder, of Tom’s death, of Neil, of Alex, and her helpless, stupid jealousy over that woman, whom she saw every day, around the hotel, looking exclusively streamlined in her designer clothes, gold around her neck and on her fingers and wrist. Miranda despised herself for feeling as she did but couldn’t stop herself. Her heart was in turmoil – if they never found the body what should she do? Stay here? Watch Alex with that woman? She wished she knew how he really felt about Elena. Maybe she should go home? But that would mean risking Terry or Sean’s vengeance.

It sounded so melodramatic, using a word like that, with its overtones of operatic threats, she wished she could laugh the idea off, but Sean had drowned that girl, and someone had tried to run her down in the street.

Reaching the top of the sweep of beach she stripped off her white towelling robe, draped it over a gorse bush growing at the edge of the sand, laid her towel on top, kicked off her flip flop sandals, and began to walk down towards the sea.

As she entered the waves and began to swim a body rose up in the warm blue water right next to her and grabbed her.

Miranda gave a terrified scream.

‘I know,’ he murmured, holding her closer. ‘Poor girl. But I’m watching out for you. Milo and I

take it in turns to be on sentry duty, at night, checking that no strangers are in the grounds, that nobody tries to get into your bungalow, or the hotel. I promise you, you aren’t in danger while we’re here.’

She was astonished, staring at him, lips parted, eyes like saucers.

‘You and Milo . . . keep watch on me?’

He nodded. ‘Day and night, somebody is there, making sure you’re safe every minute of the day. When you’re in the office, in your bungalow, in the sea here. One of us is always on guard.’

‘I’ve never noticed either of you around.’

‘The last thing we want is to be noticed – by you, or anyone else. If we’re easy to spot it would warn off anyone trying to get to you. We want to catch them and have them locked up. There’s no other way of stopping these attempts on you.’

She shivered and he frowned.