Desert Barbarian

Stonor Grey smiled.

For a few moments they moved in silence, with the harmony of people who habitually dance together, their steps moving easily and gracefully.

Then Marie remembered, and looked up at him. 'You'll kill my father if you go on with this take-over bid, do you know that?'

His face grew sombre. 'You exaggerate,' he said. 'Busi­ness is only business.'

'Not to Dad. That firm is his life.'

'Then he's a fool. He has you.'

'He has always put the firm first,' she admitted.

'No man should put his work before his family. People matter more than things.'

'All the same, it will kill him to lose Brintons.'

'I hope not,' he said flatly.

'You could stop the deal,' she said huskily.

There was silence. Marie looked up and found him watching her intently, a curious look on his face.

'Couldn't you stop it?' she asked him in pleading tones.

'Are you asking me to do this for your sake?' he asked in a neutral voice.

She flushed hotly. 'No, of course not. For my father's sake.'

He shrugged. 'Unex controls dozens of firms like Brin­tons. We took them all over in the same way, and none of their previous owners died as a result.'

'Dad is different,' she said despairingly. 'He… has nothing to put in its place.'

>

The music stopped, and the other dancers clapped. Stonor Grey guided her back to the table, his hand under her elbow. They found an argument going on between the other men. James Brinton was flushed, his eyes hot and weary. His voice rose above the others.

'You'll put hundreds of workers out of a job if you close down the Birdley factory. Don't you care about that?'

'It's uneconomic to run the plant,' said Henry Carr brutally. 'It overlaps with one of our others. We don't need it.'

'Asset-stripping…' James Brinton ground the word out, rising, one hand at his collar, his breath coming in a ragged, uneven fashion that terrified Marie.

'James!' Clare was at his side, her face pale, staring at him as she tried to catch him.

He made a choked sound and fell forward on to the table. People at a nearby table screamed and the waiters came running, while the whole restaurant rose to stare. Marie ran and knelt beside her father, tears hot in her eyes.

Behind her she heard Stonor say in decisive, icy tones: 'Get an ambulance here at once.'

She looked round at him, white-faced and shrivelled with pain. 'You've killed him!' she whispered hoarsely.

CHAPTER THREE

HIS dark eyes looked into hers, the blackness of the pupils seeming to dilate with anger. Then he pushed her unceremoniously out of the way, bent and lifted her father with an ease that reminded her of the way he had carried her through the gardens of the Hotel Marina and down to the moonlit beach. Shouldering his way through the staring crowd, he paused to ask the head waiter: 'Is there a room we can use?'

They were directed to a room on the ground floor. Clare and Marie followed the tall, striding figure, their eyes on his burden with the tension of terrified anxiety. James lay with head lolling back over Stonor Grey's arm, his silvery hair ruffled, pale pink patches of scalp showing through. One arm trailed along behind, the hand curi­ously, painfully, lifeless, the fingers loosely dangling.

Stonor gently laid him on the narrow single bed in the room, while Clare stood, staring at the still body. She scarcely seemed able to breathe, her hands caught stiffly at her breast in an attitude of terror.