His mind went back again to his meeting with Hamish Grant at the house on the cliffs. There had been method behind the old man’s bullying, of that he was certain. He had been a soldier himself for too long to subscribe to the opinion that all generals were rather stupid, dull-witted blimps who spent their time either needlessly sending men to their deaths or over-indulging at the table.
Behind the worn, leather-coloured face, the half-blind eyes, was a will of iron and a first-rate brain. Iron Grant, who had force-marched his division through the hell that was the Qattara Depression rather than surrender to Rommel, who had led the way down the ramp of the first landing craft to hit Sword Beach on D-Day, was an adver-sary to be reckoned with by any standards.
And then there was his daughter-in-law. Mallory closed his eyes, trying to picture her face. There was a calmness about her, a sureness that he found disturbing. Even on the wharf at Southampton she had not seemed afraid. It was as if life had done its worst, could do no more. As if nothing could ever really hurt her again. It came to him quite sud-denly that she must have loved her husband very much and he was aware of a vague, irrational jealousy.
He heard no sound and yet it was as if a wind had passed over his face and every muscle came alive and singing, ready for instant action. The lower step of the companionway creaked and he reached for the butt of the revolver under his pillow.
“No need, my friend,” Raoul Guyon said quietly.
As Mallory opened his eyes, the young Frenchman dropped on to the opposite bunk and produced a packet of cigarettes.
“We missed you at lunch,” Mallory said. “What happened?”
Guyon shrugged. “Something came up. You know how it is?”
“I certainly do. There’s grass on your jacket.”
“A fine day for lying on one’s back and contemplating heaven,” Guyon said brazenly.
“Not when there’s a job to be done.” Mallory opened a cupboard under the bunk, took out a bottle of whisky and two glasses and set them on the table. “Business and pleasure don’t mix.”
“On occasion, I’m happy to say that they do. Am I not supposed to be a fun-loving young artist on vacation?” Guyon poured himself a generous measure of whisky and raised his glass.”Sante.”
Slim-hipped, lean and sinewy, Raoul Guyon possessed that strange quality to be found in the airborne troops of every country, a kind of arrogant self-sufficiency bred of the hazards of the calling. While unaware of this in himself, he recognised it at once in the Englishman, but there was more than that. Much more. Mallory was the same strange mix-ture of soldier and monk, of man-of-action and mystic, that he had seen in the great paratroop colonels in Algiers. Men like Philippe de Beaumont. Strange, wild, half-mad fanatics, marred by their experiences in the Viet prison camps, for the time controlling the destiny of a great nation.
But Mallory also had passed through the fire of a Com-munist prison camp and, like Philippe de Beaumont, he had tried to put into practise those lessons hard learned from his Chinese taskmasters and with the same disastrous result.
Mallory lit a cigarette and leaned back against the bulk-head. “How good is your skin-diving?”
Guyon shrugged. “I know what I’m doing. A little out of practice, that’s all.”
“Anne Grant wants me to take her out over the reef this afternoon. She’s brought a couple of aquamobiles back from the mainland. Wants to try them out. I thought if you asked Fiona nicely you might get yourself invited.”
“As a matter of fact, I already have. All part of my business-cum-pleasure activities.”
“You don’t waste much time.” Mallory grinned. “We’ll see how things look. We can make a full-scale reconnaissance later tonight.”
You really think there may be something in this business?”
Mallory shrugged. “I wouldn’t like to say. As I was bring-ing the boat in this morning something damned big passed us underwater. Anne Grant said it was a shark. Apparently they’re pretty common round here.”
“Do you think it’s worth reporting?”