As he pulled the boat back on course, Anne Grant moved beside him and they peered out into the fog. Perhaps a hun-dred feet to starboard he caught a glimpse of something solid moving through the water and a sizable wave rolled back to rockFoxhunter again.
“And what in the hell was that?” he said.
“Probably a basking shark. They’re common enough in these waters, but it must have been a big one to leave a wake like that.”
Mallory stared out into the fog, a frown on his face, re-membering the force of that wave. Could a shark, however big it was, have set up such a disturbance? He was still think-ing about it when they emerged from the last patch of fog and lie de Roc reared out of the sea a quarter of a mile away.
To the west was St. Pierre, much smaller, a little blurred because visibility at that distance still wasn’t good. Between the two islands the sea frothed and roared over the great underwater bridge.
“We’re in the clear now,” Anne Grant said, and he gaveFoxhunter everything she had as they roared through the water towards the great round cove which opened to meet them.
The water was a deep translucent blue, reminding him strangely of the Mediterranean. A stone jetty jutted fifty feet out from the shore and above it was the hotel, a two-storeyed, white-painted building sheltering in a hollow from the winter gales.
A fifteen-foot launch was moored on the far side of the cove. A young, dark-haired man in sun-glasses was sitting in the stern looking over the side. As he turned towards them a swimmer surfaced and Mallory caught a flash of blonde hair.
When they were a hundred feet from the jetty he cut the engines andFoxhunter settled back into the water, drifting in on her own momentum. Anne Grant was already getting the fenders over the side and Mallory ran out to help her. The moment they touched he jumped for the jetty with a line and ran it twice around an iron bollard.Foxhunter jerked once, bumped against the jetty and was still.
As he moved to fasten the other line, an engine roared into life, the sound echoing harshly from the cliffs, and the launch came towards the jetty. The swimmer was already almost there. Anne Grant moved to the port rail and Mallory joined her.
“Fiona,” she said simply.
As the girl arrived Mallory leaned down and hauled her up and over the rail. She crouched on deck for a moment, laughing and shaking herself like a young puppy.
“But it’s marvellous, Anne. Simply marvellous.”
She didn’t even look eighteen, long blonde hair trailing damply to her shoulders. She wore a pair of bathing pants and the upper half of a rubber diving suit in bright yellow that fitted her slim figure like a second skin.
She examined Mallory with interest and her eyes widened in approval. “And where did you findhim?”
Anne laughed and kissed her affectionately. “Now, don’t start, Fiona. This is Neil Mallory. He’s going to run the boat for us for a month or two till we get the hang of things.”
Fiona Grant pushed a tendril of wet hair out of her eyes and held out her hand. “I don’t know about Anne, but speak-ing for myself I’ll try not to learn too fast.”
The launch was no more than twenty or thirty feet away now and its occupant cut the engine and it drifted in towardsFoxhunter.
“Who’s this, for goodness” sake?” Anne demanded.
Fiona slipped a wet arm in hers. “A simply marvellous man, Anne. He’s French. Staying here for a week or two to paint and do a little skin-diving.”
“But I thought Owen closed the hotel last week?”
“He did, but luckily I was on the jetty when he came in. I persuaded Owen to change his mind.”
The launch bumped against the side and Mallory caught the thrown line. As he looped it round the rail, the French-man vaulted on to the deck. He wore a slim-fitting jersey that left his sunburnt arms bare, and the dark glasses gave him the sameslightly sinister and anonymous look the peaked military cap had done in the photo in his file.