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Chapter One

Roseland

The nakdpool ht have been dead

He ht have been drowned and fished out of the pool and laid out on the grass to dry while the police or the next-of-kin were surass beside his head ht have been his personal effects, meticulously asse had been stolen by his rescuers

To judge by the glittering pile, this had been, or was, a rich es of the rich man's club–aa substantial wad of banknotes, a well-used gold Dunhill lighter, an oval gold cigarette case with the wavy ridges and discreet turquoise button that é, and the sort of novel a rich arden–The Little Nugget–an old P G Wodehouse There was also a bulky gold atch on a well-used brown crocodile strap It was a Girard-Perregaux ets, and it had a sweep second-hand and two little s in the face to tell the day of the month, and the month, and the phase of the moon The story it now told was 230 on June 10th with the moon three-quarters full

A blue and green dragon-fly flashed out froarden and hovered in mid-air a few inches above the base of the olden shie of fine blond hairs above the coccyx A puff of breeze caon-fly darted nervously sideways and hung above the rass below the e drop of sweat rolled down the side of the fleshy nose and dropped glittering into the grass That was enough The dragon-fly flashed away through the roses and over the jagged glass on top of the high garden wall It ood food, but it moved

The garden in which the man lay was about an acre of well-kept lawn surrounded on three sides by thickly banked rose bushes from which came the steady murmur of bees Behind the drowsy noise of the bees the sea booarden

There was no view of the sea fro except of the sky and the clouds above the twelve-foot wall In fact you could only see out of the property from the two upstairs bedrooms of the villa that formed the fourth side of this very private enclosure Froreat expanse of blue water in front of you and, on either side, the upper s of neighbouring villas and the tops of the trees in their gardens–Mediterranean-type evergreen oaks, stone pines, casuarinas and an occasional palm tree

The villa was arden side the flat pink-washed facade was pierced by four iron-fra on to a sed into the lawn The other side of the villa, standing back a few yards from a dusty road, was almost identical But on this side the four ere barred, and the central door was of oak The villa had two round floor a sitting-room and a kitchen, part of which alled off into a lavatory There was no bathroom

The drowsy luxurious silence of early afternoon was broken by the sound of a car co down the road It stopped in front of the villa There was the tinny clang of a car door being sla twice The nakdpool did notcar, his eyes had for an instant opened very wide It was as if the eyelids had pricked up like an animal's ears The man immediately remembered where he was and the day of the week and the time of the day The noises were identified The eyelids with their fringe of short, sandy eyelashes drooped drowsily back over the very pale blue, opaque, inward-looking eyes The sht saliva into the rass and waited

A young wo and dressed in a white cotton shirt and a short, unalluring blue skirt calazed tiles and the stretch of laards the nakdon the grass and sat down and took off her cheap and rather dusty shoes Then she stood up and unbuttoned her shirt and took it off and put it, neatly folded, beside the string bag

The girl had nothing on under the shirt Her skin was pleasantly sunburned and her shoulders and fine brsts shone with health When she bent her arms to undo the side-buttons of her skirt, small tufts of fair hair showed in her arirl was heightened by the chunky hps in faded blue stockinet bathing trunks and the thick short thighs and legs that were revealed when she had stripped

The girl put the skirt neatly beside her shirt, opened the string bag, took out an old soda-water bottle containing some heavy colourless liquid and went over to the rass beside hiht olive oil, scented, as was everything in that part of the world, with roses, between his shoulder blades and, after flexing her fingers like a pianist, beganthe sterno-mastoid and the trapezius muscles at the back of the man's neck