Crescendo

CHAPTER ONE

MARINA closed the cottage gate behind her and turned along the cliff path with Ruffy running ahead, his short white legs covering the ground at an amazing speed. The late afternoon breeze blew through his coat, lifting the thick white tufts of hair like ragged petals. Far out over the sea the sun was sinking into an unseen horizon, colouring the sky with fire. Gold and orange and blue layered the sea and against that flew a gull. Marina turned her face up to it, smiling. Raucously shrieking, the bird dived down to the coloured waves, only to strike into them and pull upwards again.

For a short distance the cliff path ran beside a road, little used by cars, generally only used by pedestrians, people making their way down to the rocky foreshore.

Marina walked to the edge of the cliff and stared down at the great slate blue boulders, the small pebbles sucked white by the sea, the flaring drifts of gold where celandines tumbled down the cliff to the beach.

She subconsciously heard the slam of brakes, the abrupt halting of a car some way behind her. A door crashed and then someone started running.

Marina turned in surprise. A man was tearing to­wards her at a tremendous pace, his long legs cover­ing the grass as if he were in a race. She had an impression of black hair, lithe body, oddly white face..

As she gazed at him open-mouthed, he suddenly came to a stop, a few feet away, standing poised on the balls of his feet as though to lunge at her. His eyes pierced her face.

'Is something wrong?' Marina asked after waiting for him to speak in vain.

He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving under a tailored white shirt. His dark jacket hung open and he wore no tie. The black hair was thick and crisp, windtossed at the moment, ruffled in wild peaks.

'I thought ...' He spoke roughly and broke off with a sort of groan. 'Nothing.'

She had never seen him before, so he could not live anywhere near here. Marina had lived at Basslea all her life. She had grown up in the isolated little cottage on the cliff. Everyone in the tiny community knew her and she knew everybody. It was a secure, sheltered environment, and one into which, for all her youth, Marina fitted perfectly. Most young people who grew up in this remote district on the north-west coast of England left for more populated spots as soon as they had finished school. Marina did not want to go away. She liked it here. She felt no yearning to go to London or Birmingham to find work.

Eyeing the stranger closely, she suddenly smiled. It altered her whole face. In repose she had a melancholy fragility, her small oval face pale and wistful, the fine silvery threads of her hair hanging in limp coils around her head. When she was a child her hair had been lint-white. 'Cotton head,' Grandie had called her. The colour had darkened slightly as she grew older, but it was still closer to white than any other colour.

The dark man seemed to stiffen when she smiled and the hands hanging at his side curled into balls. His eyes narrowed on her face as though her smile had amazed him. No, Marina thought in surprise! As though her smile had shocked him. Wasn't he used to being smiled at?

That idea made her look at him questioningly, but although his face was tough and harshly modelled it was not unattractive. Far from it, she thought. She could not believe anyone would find his face anything but fascinating.

'Did you think I might be going to jump off?' she asked him, faint amusement in her face.

'It wasn't funny,' he retorted, his jawline taut.

'No,' she said at once, contrite, realising that he war still disturbed by the fear he had felt when he saw her on the edge of the cliff. 'I'm sorry. I'm so used to walking along the cliff. My balance is very good and I have a clear head for heights.'

He had taken two steps as she spoke and was standing close, staring at her in a way which puzzled her, his black eyes roving over her from head to toe. It was not an insolent stare. Marina had had young male tourists eyeing her in cheeky familiarity before now, but the way this man looked at her was quite different. He had a faint glitter in his eyes.

His mouth was compressed, yet she felt he was ex­erting all his will-power to hold it steady, as though he were under some great strain. He was looking at her like someone revisiting a country they had not seen for years, and, oddly, Marina recognised that look because it was how she felt herself. Ever since she had set eyes on him she had had a disturbing sense of intimacy.

'Do you live here?' he asked her now, his heavy lids half veiling his eyes.

She had a curious impression that he was testing her. As he asked the question his voice had a de­liberate ring and he watched her closely.

'Yes,' she said. 'In the cottage over there.' She waved her hand, but the stranger did not turn his black head to look at the distant cottage half hidden by its surrounding trees, and suddenly she felt that he had known the answer to her question. It occurred to her that he had seen her on the cliff walk before.

He half turned to stare across the sea. The sun had sunk now and the horizon was less fiercely coloured. The clouds were swept into grey masses with rough streaks of flame running between them like chiffon scarves.

'An idyllic spot,' he said, but she felt his mind was not on what he was saying.' She felt that he was turning something quite different over in his mind. There was a bar of black across his forehead, his brows tense.

'In summer, yes,' she agreed.