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Mummy’s bad news had hit him harder than he cared to admit.
    He’d known that his father’s death was coming soon enough, of course, but he hadn’t been ready for it at all. The timing was unexpected, but that was a matter of detail. The simple fact was that he hadn’t been ready for it at all. It meant too much to him. He’d been in denial. This whole trip had been a symptom of his denial. In his own eccentric fashion, he had been asking for some sort of rude awakening; he ought to be grateful that it was just a common-or-garden-robbery by some idiot who should have known better, which might not even cost him forty-seven thousand Euros. Once the Union got on to the case they’d probably pay him back the full amount, less a ten-per-cent commission, even if the stolen money had been half-spent by the time they caught up with the perpetrators—and in spite of the fact that he wouldn’t dream of insisting that they make any kind of redemption, or make any kind of a fuss if they didn’t. The Union had an image and a reputation to maintain, and its members were doubtless even more fanatical in its defense than they had been in the days before Communism had collapsed.
    Lissa Lo’s boat was still moored at the end of its jetty when the cab came to a halt on the quay; there were still ten minutes to spare before the deadline the supermodel had set.
    Canny gave the driver a hundred-Euro tip, and thanked him sincerely for his effort.
    â€œYou’re welcome, Monsieur,” the driver assured him. “ Bon voyage .”
    Canny was slightly disappointed—but also slightly relieved—when the purser showed him to a cabin, and apologized for the fact that Miss Lo had already retired to her own, in order to rest for a while before boarding the jet. Canny tried to take a nap himself, but even if the heat hadn’t been so oppressive there was far too much buzzing in his head to let him rest, even though none of it was streaky in a meaningful sense.
    He made every effort to put the mugging out of his mind, but that still left thoughts of his dying father to clash inconveniently with images of Lissa Lo, all caught in the net of an acute awareness that his former way of life was coming to an irrevocable end, within a maelstrom of possibilities and impossibilities that was dragging him inexorably along into an unanticipatable future.
    Okay , he thought, as he tried to focus his mind. So she isn’t in any hurry to make beautiful music. Maybe she is just offering me a lift because Daddy’s at death’s door. I’d still be ahead of the game. On the other hand, if this were the beginning of a friendship that might turn into a relationship...well, there are cases to which the rules simply can’t apply. Some women are just too gorgeous to pass up, if the opportunity arises .
    He had never been in love. He didn’t know whether that was an aspect of his consistent good luck or not. If it was, the reduction of his luck to its lowest ebb following is father’s death—if the testimony of the records could be trusted on that point—might give him the opportunity to fall head over heels. If not...the opportunity might still be there. It wouldn’t be sensible to fall in love with someone as beautiful as Lissa Lo, of course, but if he were to receive the slightest encouragement, being sensible would be the last thing on his mind. How Stevie Larkin would envy him, in spite of all the groupies he entranced with every spot-kick!
    The boat was fast; it skimmed over the placid waters of the Mediterranean with consummate grace, bumping over the waves in a near-regular rhythm that set up a surreal contrapuntal relationship with the throb of its motor. The darkness of the cabin enhanced the insistence of Canny’s remaining senses, which gave the journey a dreamlike quality even though he never did manage to drift off into sleep. Eventually, he got up from the bunk so