'Okay – how did you come to be on the game when you're so ready to pick fights with the clientele? '

For some reason she didn't throw a bottle at me. She just nodded, and her voice was suddenly gentler. 'Yes, I don't really know why I do it. That's what's so sweet about Suzie: the way she sticks with me. Would you believe she's had two offers at good houses in Beirut in the last six months but she wouldn't go without me? And I can just see anybody offering me a good place in Beirut.'

'You mean youwant to go on the game in Beirut?' My second match died of surprise.

'Haven't you seen the money they throw around over there? A girl can do pretty well for herself if she knows the business. Oh, I don't mean getting yourself sold off to some old goat in Saudi Arabia; that happens to some poor kids. But if you've got a work permit and the proper protection… Well, if I was a tennis player I'd want to play at Wimbledon, wouldn't I?'

'I suppose so. I'd just never thought of Beirut as the Wimbledon of… Well.' I finally got the pipe drawing. 'How did you get to Cyprus?'

'I was born here; my father was in the British Army. So I can speak Greek pretty well and when I left home it seemed better to come a long way… And that's all I'm telling you about my family.' She took a defiant swig of the wine.

'Fair enough.' I sipped quietly for a while.

Then she asked: 'Have you known your friend Ken for a longtime?'

'About twenty years. We met in the RAF, on my first squadron. Night fighters. Then we did a tour on Transport Command together, some work on tactical transport development… then we got the idea of coming out and setting up our own show.'

'lust like that.'

'It took a couple of years before we were really on our own: getting civilian licences, working for charter airlines to get marketing experience. Nobody would lend us money for our own aircraft until we knew the civilian ropes."

'What are they going to lend you after this little trouble?'

I shrugged. T suppose we may have to change our style a bit. I haven't had time to talk to Ken about it, yet.'

'Who takes the decisions?'

'On the operations side – the flying – I'd take Ken's word; he's the best pilot. But mostly it's a straight partnership.'

She finished her glass and about a second later a waiter appeared, looking expectant.

I said: 'D'you want any more?'

'I don't think so, thank you,' she said steadily.

So I asked for the bill and he simply said: 'Fifteen pound, please.'

When I'd got my breath back, I said: 'Look, chum, I expected to get bitten but not swallowed whole.'

'Fifteen pound,' he said impassively.

Then Nina said something fast and low in Greek and without changing his expression by a millimetre, he said: Ten pound.'

I paid him, said to her: 'I know some governments who could use your touch with price control.'

She smiled briefly and stood up.

As we reached the bar I peered around, but it was solid Canadian soldiery. Ben Iver had vanished without me noticing.

She found her coat, a thin white mac, and I helped her into it. 'Well, where would you like to go now? Ledra Palace for a last jar?'

'Good God.' She swung around and glared at me. 'Are you going to screw me or not?'

I made shushing noises, but far too late. About half a dozen soldiers turned on their bar stools and looked at us – mostly at her.

Then one said: 'Say, pal, if you've paid for your ticket and don't feel up to the ride, I'd be happy to oblige your lady friend.'

'Save your strength for the mooses! '

He got his feet on to the floor and swung his right at the same time.

In that light, he wasn't likely to be too accurate, but I had to duck anyway. And if I hit back, I'd make another five enemies…

Something small and shiny-black swished over my shoulder like a scythe and clunked solidly on the Canadian's cheekbone. He slammed back against the bar and his knees melted. Two of his mates reached him before he hit the floor, Nina grabbed me and we ran for the stairs while they were still regrouping.

As we galloped upwards, I identified the secret weapon as a small handbag covered in black sequins; I just hadn't noticed it before.

'What the hell d'you keep in that bag?'

'Just a load of pennies,' she panted. 'It doesn't look as suspicious as a piece of lead.'

'When you've reformed the Treasury, try for the Ministry of Defence.'

We reached the front door and she said: 'Itold you.'

It was raining like something out of Noah's memoirs. The street, pavements and parked cars were covered with a grass of spray two feet high and the only sound was a steady roar like a waterfall. Until the street was lit by a neon-coloured flash and almost immediately a gigantic explosion of thunder right overhead.

Mediterranean thunderstorms always have an over-melodramatic quality that makes them seem unreal. Unless you're up in among them. I said: 'Pity poor airmen on a night like this.'

'What?' she shouted. 'We'll have to go back inside and wait.'

'With all those mad Canucks? They'd rape both of us, and personally I'm not used to that sort of thing.'

'Coward! '

I nodded. 'Come on – run! '

So we ran. The moment we hit the rain, visibility went down to nil. But nobody else was fool enough to be on the street, even in a car, so we blinded up the middle and reached the Castle in about fifteen seconds – soaked through.

I was, anyway. Nina was a bit better off: her hair looked fairly lank, her legs were wet to the knees and her face was dripping, but the mac had saved the rest. It didn't seem to cheer her much.

She shook herself angrily and said: 'My shoes were new last week and I had my hair done only this afternoon. Blast you.'

I was taking papers from my jacket pockets and laying them on the lobby desk. They were only slightly damp and buckled. 'Never mind, you can have a free bath while you're here.'

That solves everything, of course.' She sounded rather bitter. 'Oh, hello Papa.'

The Sergeant didn't even notice her. His face looked lemon yellow in the thin light and his red jacket was undone at the neck. 'Captain – thank God you've come. Thank God. The man – the Professor -1 think he's dead.'

I thought so, too.

He was in the bathroom, sprawled over an upright kitchen chair, head hanging over the back so that… so that… well, so that what had been in his head had dripped into the bath.

It's the suddenness, not the sight itself. You walk up to a wrecked aeroplane and you have time to think what you'll see, to pull the lace curtains behind your eyes. I stepped back into the bedroom and wanted to sit down with my head on my knees, but also didn't want to, with the Sergeant watching from the corridor. And there'd been a spatter of blood and something on the wall behind the bath… Gradually the hot-cold feeling passed and I stopped swallowing.

I said: 'You were right first time. Get on to the police.'

'Perhaps a doctor, too? It's normal when something like this…'

I shrugged. 'It's a waste of money, but… You'd better ring Kapotas as well, so let him decide.'

He nodded and moved off, for once briskly.

Then I just stood and looked around the room. It looked tidy enough: even the glasses, champagne bottles and caviar pot -empty – were all back on the tray on the window table, beside a square rigid black briefcase. Two black suitcases stacked neatly in a corner. The silk dressing-gown folded neatly on the bed -he'd been wearing just trousers, shirt and slippers.

A tidy, economical man, the late Herr Professor. Gunshot suicide's a messy business at best, but he'd done what he could to minimise the damage. Always assuming that itwas suicide, of course.