Chapter 11: Bottom FeedersIt had turned out to be as good a morning as the weather forecast had promised. Olaf's first glance through the porthole on wakening revealed a clear blue sky with barely a wisp of cloud, a sultry heat-mist already forming that made the distant shore ripple while the sea itself remained majestically still, with only the barely perceptible rough-patch marking the reef's closest approach to the surface. They had anchored not long after sunrise, and while Olaf and Henrietta had slept, the Spanish-speaking Captain and Olaf's young safety diver Morris had studied the echo-sonde traces, eaten a light breakfast, and assembled all the equipment neatly on the rear deck ready for the dive. Olaf's camera gear and lights were neatly laid out behind his BCD and wet-suit. By the time he appeared from his cabin, having kissed Henrietta good morning (but, with an effort of will, left it at that) there was nothing more to do but suit-up and explain to Morris exactly what he

Chapter 13: IMMACULATAImmaculata's sensible flat shoes clicked along the pavement as she hurried past the open iron gates of the school hall car park. Her slight and youthful figure was respectably covered by her ample grey overcoat and a plain blue scarf held her long dark hair tight against her head. Her monthly confraternity meeting at the church had run unusually late because of a talk given by a visiting missionary father with a high pitched voice and a slow delivery: it was quite dark now, and she could hear the repetitive mechanical bass line of an undistinguished dance record playing inside the hall. The end of term disco was clearly getting under way.The signs of the impending event barely registered in Immaculata's brain, it was not the kind of thing that interested her: for some reason she had never felt drawn to the activities of other girls of her age."Immaculata!"She stopped dead in her tracks. It was Billy Sullivan, the son of the local filling station proprietor, a

Chapter 15: FLAT MATEBenny came in, hung up his wet plastic mack, and went at once to the wall mirror in the sitting room. He stood in front of it and looked at his reflection.“Raining outside?” his reflection asked.“Of course it’s raining. You’re not going to tell me that it isn’t raining on your side, are you?”His reflection paused. “No. You’re quite right. If it’s raining on your side it must be raining on my side too.”“Must? Is that a logical must? Are you trying to pretend that there’s some kind of sense to all this?”“You’re in a bad mood tonight. Why are you in a bad mood?”“You know perfectly well why. Stop pretending.”His reflection frowned. “So it didn’t go all that well with Sharon. You didn’t manage to press the right buttons.”Benny turned away from the mirror and sat down. He could still hear his reflection’s voice. There was no need to see him. “You were with her as well tonight. How did you get on with your Sharon?” He glanced towards the inhabitant of the mirror

Chapter 17: SAM (PART 2) The following day was a Saturday so Anna didn’t have to go to work. They spent the time quietly together, cooking, cooperating on a few domestic tasks, and took a relaxing shower together which led to a passionate session in bed.In the evening, at Ivor’s request, they sat down together at the computer to see what else could be discovered about Ivor 1’s earlier life, beyond the little that he had told Anna.Although Anna seemed reluctant to delve, and urged Ivan to concentrate more on their future together and less on the past, she was a lot more skilled than Ivor at using the search tools to unearth buried fragments of information. His research notes swelled. His father Yaraslav had been a colourful character in the chess world, though his career had been short-lived. World champion for less than a year, defeated by the American whose title he had won, then the defection and the marriage, and a year later a comeback match against the same man in which Yarasl

Chapter 19: THE SUMMER OF DUSTWith a pang of envy I leave my wife still sleeping and shower and dress silently, skipping breakfast so that I can arrive early to work as planned. The list of new students should be in today. There’s going to be a lot of administration before I can give any thought to my opening lecture.I log in to the University e-mail system. Yes, the list is there. But before I click on it I notice another e-mail from someone with the first name Balgeet. Seeing the name gives me a little jolt – like a shot of electricity going through my body. Ridiculous, I tell myself, after all these years. It’s probably a very common name in the Punjab. My finger hovers above the left-hand button on the mouse but does not descend. I lift my eyes and see the dust motes drifting in the shaft of light from beneath the window blind. The empty office fades from my vision. I am lost in a reverie, back in that tatty two-bedroom flat in Southall almost forty years ago…My place of study,