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The sun was getting low, but it was still very hot and she was shattered by the ride. It felt as if every bone in her body had been tossed in a bag and banged against a wall. And she had no idea how much further it was to Horta. She was beginning to think they would arrive there too late to do anything, added to which was the worry of where she was going to spend the night. In the rush to get away from Sam she had made no plans other than to try and reach an Embassy. If there wasn’t one perhaps the police could help her. Or Dr Porva.

‘I think I’ll visit the doctor,’ she said. ‘Which is his house?’

Vasco put out his hand and touched the stonework beside them. ‘This one. I will come back for you here.’

When he had gone she was too nervous to knock on the door. Twice the doctor had cared for her, yet she had forgotten what he looked like. All she could remember was his voice and the way he had panted for breath coming up the cliff from the beach, and from these she had formed the picture of a round, genial Dickensian character which was probably nothing like reality. Perhaps he wouldn’t want to see her after she’d been such a nuisance, but at least she could thank him.

Two children were staring at her. Strangers were rare in Santa Silva and when she spoke to them in English they laughed and ran away, kicking a ball as they went. Wishing she was as carefree as they were, Minella plucked up courage and tapped the door, but no one came. The doctor was out.

Vasco had disappeared down a road at the side of the house and with nothing else to do she turned the same corner, finding herself on a shingle path that led down to the shore. She could see the sea some distance away, gentle breakers curling on to black sand in a horseshoeshaped bay, and she knew this was the hill up which Sam had carried her, though she hadn’t imagined it looking like this. There was a peculiar tightness in her chest at the thought of him bearing her to safety like Perseus rescuing Andromeda from the sea monster. If it hadn’t been such a perilous situation, the way he took charge would have had quite a romantic touch. Pity he hadn’t followed through.

She walked a little way further, drawn towards the shore by morbid fascination. It was a fishing village and boats were drawn up high as though they were expecting more bad weather, but the sky was clear and not even a breeze disturbed the lush green vegetation. Nets were spread to dry outside cottages, and down on the beach women were collecting seaweed. The tang of brine and seaweed was like iodine, and Minella was near enough to the water to taste salt on her lips. Or was the taste just part of an irrational fear that was taking hold of her? She wished Vasco hadn’t brought her here. It was cruel of him to leave her alone at this spot. She was beginning to re-live the horror of that night in the sea so vividly her clothes felt wet and she was shaking, for it was all much worse in retrospect than when she had been only semi-conscious.

She covered her ears to shut out the sound of the sea and tried to look away, but the black-garbed women searching the shore were like carrion crows, and for one gruesome, terrifying minute the bundles they carried took on the form of Greg and Annette.

Slowly Minella rid herself of the vision, focusing on the ribbons of wrack until she could see they were nothing more sinister than seaweed, but she was trembling uncontrollably and the perspiration beaded on her skin felt like drops of ice. Remembering how it had been when she collapsed at Sam’s feet, she made a determined effort to shake off this renewed attack of nerves.

‘Minella Farmer, you won’t gain anything by staging the Victorian vapours here. There’s no one to pick you up, for one thing.’ She clenched her teeth to stop them chattering. ‘And you wouldn’t like it if Sam Stafford came along and gave a repeat performance either, so ' face life the way Greg would expect.’

She allowed herself to sit on a rock, just in case her legs gave way, but scorned any other concession to weakness, and after a few minutes she was warmer and in control of things. But she continued the scolding therapy until a man appeared at the top of the hill. He came towards her, an overweight figure and bushy hair making him instantly recognisable as Dr Henrique Porva. A cherubic smile rounded his cheeks, creased the comers of his eyes and showed strong white teeth beneath a full black moustache. Funny, she had no recollection of the moustache at all, and when he was near she discovered he wasn’t even as old as she had thought. His hair was as black as Vasco’s.

‘Minella Sparrow, I am so pleased to see you! You are better.’ He held out his hands, drawing her to her feet.

‘How did you know I was here?’ she asked, and amazed herself by popping a kiss on each of those olive-skinned cheeks as if he was a long-lost relative.

‘Ah, I have spies.’

‘Spies?’

‘The children. They tell me a foreign lady knocks at my door, so I know it is you. And I see the iron machine that belongs to Vasco.’

She laughed at his description, tension melting away. ‘He’s taking me to Horta, but we had to stop here first.’

‘Does Sam know you trust yourself with that reckless young man?’ They had started walking, but he paused, turning to her with a troubled frown.

‘It’s none of his business,’ said Minella.

‘Ah, but it is. He has cared much for you.’

Her face coloured at the censure, but Henrique Porva was biased. Sam was his friend.

‘He was out when I left,’ she told him truthfully. ‘And I don’t think he’ll mind. He doesn’t want me there anyway. Like you once said, he doesn’t like women.'

'Women in general ... perhaps,’ he agreed, with an eloquent shrug. ‘I was hasty when I said that, and I did not expect you to remember.’

They arrived at a gate at the back of his house which he opened, leading her into an overgrown yard where the weeds flowered in spectacular profusion. To Minella it was more beautiful than a carefully cultivated garden.

‘Why doesn’t Sam like Vasco either?’ she asked, trying not to sound too inquisitive. ‘They must have been friends at one time for Sam to have taught him such good English.’

The look he gave her was guarded and he didn’t answer straight away, but he could see she was anxious.

He said: ‘Vasco learned many things from Sam. He was always at his house with Benita and they were close, but one day he stole something very valuable to Sam and he never forgave him. Never, even though it is back now.’ Minella’s eyes widened. ‘What did he steal?’

Flowers gave way to bins and pots of all sizes near the house, arranged with a collector’s precision which stopped it becoming like a tip. Henrique Porva never discarded anything that might come in useful.

‘You are ... how you say ...?’ He tapped his nose, seeking the word he wanted. ‘You are a nosey English Miss.’

She just loved Henrique Porva. ‘I know I am,’ she laughed. ‘But I really
do
want to know what it was. A watch? Money?’

‘No. It was a painting. But I should not be telling you. Please do not say anything about it. I am fond of Vasco, too.’

Henrique twittered on, unaware of Minella’s reaction to the information. She felt as if she had been winded, the breath thumped suddenly out of her, and there was a pain in her stomach. It seemed ages ago that she had been down at the lakeside, peering through the window of Sam’s locked hut, yet it was only a few hours. Everything that had happened since stemmed from that moment when she had stumbled on a cache of hidden paintings. So Vasco had found them, too. No wonder Sam was so violently opposed to him, if there was something there he wanted to keep secret. She’d been trying not to think about it, pushing it to the back of her mind until she was far enough removed from Sam to consider the facts objectively. She didn’t like him, but it wasn’t fair to judge him on a single discovery which might only have seemed suspicious because she was in a feverish, over-sensitive state. But now it became more intriguing.

She was only half listening to Henrique. He had gone on to talk about relative values, how something that meant a lot to one person might mean nothing to another.

‘That is why I cannot clear out my store,’ he said, opening a door which had once been green but was now so blistered from the sun only flaking strips of paint remained. The house, being built on a slope, had a basement at the back and it was crammed with accumulated objects, the conglomeration in the yard being only an overflow. ‘Come, Minella Sparrow, I will show you something special.’

Among the more recent treasures he uncovered a lifebelt, scraps of weed dried on to the framework but its white surface as fresh as if it had been scrubbed. He held it up.

‘This is what saved your life, so I keep it,’ he said.

Vasco burst in through the door like a tornado, singing in a tenor voice which struck an incongruous note in the quiet of late afternoon and echoed round the Aladdin’s cave. Minella was unaware of him. She was staring at the lifebelt in disbelief, afraid to touch it because the tale it told was too incredible.

‘You’ve made a mistake,’ she said. ‘This isn’t the one.’

‘I assure you it is. Vasco will bear me out. This is the lifebelt to which our little bird was clinging, is it not?’ Vasco’s song faded away and he took the belt from Henrique to study it. ‘Si, it is the one. All that is left, I think, of the
Nineveh.
I am so sad for you, Minella.'

'But you don’t have to be!’ Minella gasped. Her heart was beating furiously and she thought she would burst with excitement. ‘That’s not the name of the yacht I was on. I don’t know how I managed to grab hold of
that
lifebelt, but it certainly didn’t come from the
Delphine Rose
, which was the name of our yacht.’ She gave a cry of joy and flung herself in Henrique’s arms. ‘Don’t you see! If it was the
Nineveh
that broke up then the boat I was on is all right!’

‘That is good,’ said Vasco.

‘Good? It’s a miracle!’ cried Minella. ‘My brother must be alive!’

They were on the road again, winging towards Horta, and Minella was exultant. She clung to Vasco fearlessly, his reckless driving now thrilling her because she felt lightheaded, and when he burst into song she joined in, though their voices hardly carried above the raucous engine.

It was evening already. The streets of Horta were quiet until they reached an avenue bordering the sea, and a stream of evening visitors drifted aimlessly from one end to the other, or sat under the palms and gazed across at the majestic mountain over the water called Pico, the same as the island which had given it birth. Vasco pottered the length of the Avenida Marginal, past an exotic park draped richly in every shade of green, and down to the Largo do Infante between the sea wall and a yachtsman’s paradise of bars and chandlers. He stopped by one of the bars.

‘You wait for me here,’ he said. ‘I will park the motorbike and come back for you.’

Minella gazed around with bright, excited eyes, reborn after days in a grey world of hopelessness, and felt like smiling at everyone. Greg was alive, and she was impatient to find out where he was so that they could be reunited, and just in case he had been directed to Horta she scanned the face of every yachtsman who passed by, though she knew it would be a fairy tale if he appeared. When Vasco returned he would tell her where she could start making enquiries.

The seats outside the bar were packing cases and some boys with a transistor, who had been trying to chat her up in their native Portuguese, made room for her to sit. She thanked them in English and shook her head when they made signs offering to pour some red wine from the jug on the table.

‘
Cracas?'
One of the boys pushed a plateful of scarlet crabs and things that looked like oysters towards her, but at the risk of offending them she refused again with a smile. It was impossible to hold a proper conversation, and she wished Vasco would hurry. They were beginning to get annoying, thinking perhaps she lingered there purposely, and there was no mistaking the gist of their remarks. She was being propositioned.

She got up and walked away, afraid they would follow her, but the wine had made them lazy and they lost interest. She didn’t feel safe, though, until she was well clear of the bar, and then she stood in a craft shop doorway to regain her composure.

Where was Vasco? He was supposed to be looking after her, but he had done a disappearing trick and she couldn’t rely on anyone. She glanced in the window at a display of local lace and artificial hydrangeas, but after a moment it was her reflection that riveted her attention. She looked awful!—scruffy, hair unkempt after the motorbike ride, shirt and jeans creased and stained. No wonder those boys had taken her for a good-timer! She looked as if a meal wouldn’t come amiss and there were dark circles under her eyes, but there was nothing she could do about it. She ran her fingers through her hair because she hadn’t a comb. It made no improvement. Vasco had probably been glad to escape, and it could be she had seen the last of him.

In an acute attack of loneliness, bordering on panic, she knew what it felt like to be a down-and-out without money or possessions, not knowing where the next meal or bed for the night was coming from. People passed by, uncaring. But Minella hadn’t been on the sidelines when courage was handed out, and she reminded herself that she had always had a spirit of adventure. All the same, she wished Sam was around.

Sam. She pinched herself sharply for being so ridiculous. It was partly to get away from him that she had made this dash to Horta, and now she was soft enough to wish he would appear and make everything all right. Perhaps it was because he was the only English person she knew here and he represented a link with home. There couldn’t be any other reason. She tried to push him out of her mind, but a persistent memory of being carried up the beach from the sea in strong, protective arms haunted her like beautiful music. If only Sam had been as warm-hearted and romantic as that first impression and not harshly overbearing, she would have been completely under his spell by now. She might even have fallen in love with him. Heaven forbid! What was it about the man that made her crave information, and now a glimpse of him?