Perfect Strangers

e and then sliding into her in one movement. She gasped, moaned, exquisitely full of him. Clenching herself around him, she rotated her hips as they found their rhythm. In and out, hard, soft, quick, slow. Kissing her throat, her earlobes, her nipples, his stubble rough, his lips soft, the extremes of sensation driving her wild.

She had never felt more intimately connected to anyone. He was passionate and yet tender, maddeningly sexy and yet gentle and loving. They had known one another barely a week and yet he found her sweet spots with such accuracy it was as if they had been romantically involved for years.

She could think of nothing except the absolute pleasure of him being inside her, moving as one, her whole body shivering on the edge of climax until finally she cried out, biting his shoulder with such force that it surprised her when he moaned with contentment rather than pain. White-hot ripples of lust radiated from her belly down to the tips of her toes, wave after wave of glorious, pulsating pleasure. He came moments after her, and they lay in silence, calm, exhausted, slowing their breathing together, overwhelmed by the intensity of what had just happened.

They made love again a little while later; slower, less frantic the second time around, with more time taken to explore and enjoy each other’s bodies. She took him in her mouth, savouring his taste, bringing him to the edge of pleasure, astonishing herself that she could make one man so wild with desire.

She had no idea what time they fell asleep. So when she woke up in the middle of the night, she felt completely displaced. It was perfectly quiet. No ceiling fan, no noise of traffic on the street outside, just the faint sound of crickets and bullfrogs in the distance. For a second she tensed, before the blissful recollection of falling asleep in Josh’s arms came to her. She reached for him, but the other side of the bed was empty. Still drowsy, she sat up and pulled the white sheet around her naked body. Josh was sitting in a chair in his T-shirt and boxer shorts, bent over a reading lamp.

‘Josh?’

He looked up, and when he didn’t smile, Sophie immediately felt a stab of pain: she didn’t regret what had happened for one second – did he?

‘Everything okay?’ she asked.

He looked at her for a moment.

‘I think I know where the money is,’ he said.

‘What?’ she said, suddenly feeling wide awake.

He held up a battered paperback book, and Sophie’s heart gave a jump – I Capture the Castle; she would have recognised that green cover anywhere.

‘How the hell have you got that?’ she gasped. ‘Sergei took it from us.’

‘Sleight of hand,’ smiled Josh. ‘When I was out doing my research on the Russians, I found a little second-hand bookshop. They had about five copies of I Capture the Castle, so I bought one and copied the name and the numbers into it. I knew the Russians wouldn’t know the difference.’

She got up and walked over, wrapping a towel around herself.

‘Josh, why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Because I knew you wouldn’t have reacted in the same way. Sergei had to believe he was getting the real thing. I’m sorry.’

He handed it to her. ‘And I thought you’d probably want to hang on to the original.’

She looked down at the desk. Josh’s smartphone was sitting there, and he had been writing something on a pad.

‘So what’s all this about?’

‘You were right, Sophie,’ he said, excitement in his voice. ‘The book is the key to it.’

‘You know who Benedict Grear is?’ she said incredulously.

‘Not who, where,’ said Josh. Sophie sat on the arm of his chair as he turned to the front page. ‘We always wondered who Benedict Grear was, rather than what it was. You know why I thought of it? Walking into the restaurant yesterday, seeing all those tourists, thinking they probably thought the Steppes was named after the stairs at the front of the restaurant. Stupid, I know, but it triggered something in my mind: what if Benedict Grear isn’t a name?’

Sophie frowned.

‘But it is a name . . .’

‘Yes, a name of a place, not a person,’ replied Josh, running his finger under the text. ‘Benedict Grear is Ben Grear,’ he said. ‘Ben is Gaelic for mountain. I did a search; there’s a Ben Grear in Scotland. And this number here?’ he said, pointing at the faint pencil numerals in the corner of the page. ‘Again, we were making wrong assumptions. We thought it was a date of birth or a sort code or account number. But it’s Ordnance Survey coordinates.’

Josh picked up his phone.

‘There’s an OS Explorer map of the Ben Grear area and you can download digital copies.’

He played around with the phone until he showed her a map page.

‘Look, here’s the mountain, and if you read off the numbers from the book, it gets you here.’ He tapped his finger on the screen, just below the mountain. ‘It’s a building, on an outcrop of land in this small loch. You said your dad always told you he’d get you your own castle one day, didn’t he? I bet that’s it. And I bet Asner’s money is hidden somewhere there.’