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coffee. “Just as you like it,” he said.
    She thanked him and continued to read the newspaper. A magistrate in Naples had been found floating in the sea; the government in Rome announced that it took a very serious view of this and would be dispatching further judicial resources. “We are not going to be intimidated by the Mafia,” a spokesman said. And also in Naples, an unidentified source close to “powerful interests” was quoted as saying that this unfortunate event had nothing to do with anybody in the city and merely underlined the need for swimmers to take great care when entering the sea. Isabel winced at the cynicism. And yet such people—such powerful interests—were everywhere getting closer and closer to the seats of power. There was corruption at every turn, and those who stood for honesty and integrity were more and more vulnerable, more and more isolated amongst the hordes of people who simply had no moral sense. And it was not just Italy; it was everywhere, even here in Scotland, that the lines between integrity and compromise were being eroded. Even here in Scotland, with the moral capital of Presbyterian rectitude in the bank, there were rich businessmen who thought they could buy the attention of those in power, and who did so, sometimes quite openly. And then, when people queried this or protested, the politicians in question simply brushed off suggestions that there was anything improper in the arrangement. Perhaps they were simply being honest; money spoke in every dialect, in every language, and it was rare that anybody said that they could not hear it. All human affairs, Isabel thought, are rotten; perhaps political morality was just a question of trying to limit the rottenness.
    She put the paper down and reached for her coffee cup. Then she gave a start. There was a woman standing in front ofher; she had not seen her from behind the paper, and it was a shock.
    “Isabel Dalhousie?”
    She racked her brains to remember where she had seen this woman.
    “Yes,” she said brightly. It was an unusual, rather angular face, not one that was easy to forget. “Hello.”
    She feared that her lack of recognition would show, and it did. “You may not remember me,” said the woman. “Do you mind if I join you?”
    Isabel indicated the empty seat on the other side of the table. “Please.”
    The woman lowered herself into the chair. She was well-dressed, Isabel observed, with an understatement suggestive of both good taste and funds: it was not ostentatious clothes that were really expensive, it was quiet clothes that exhausted the credit card.
    “Forgive me for interrupting,” the woman began. “Jillian Mackinlay. We met at …”
    It came back to Isabel. “At the Stevensons’. Yes, I remember. Sorry, I was having difficulty.” People could tell when you were having difficulty placing them; it was best, Isabel thought, to be frank and apologise. And apology was usually necessary;
I can’t for the life of me recall who you are
may have the virtue of honesty, but it was no balm to the injured feelings that a failure to be remembered may otherwise cause. If we remember somebody, then how can they forget us? Are we that forgettable?
    Jillian nodded. “I saw Susie the other day at a concert. Shespoke about you, actually. She said something about how you had helped somebody she knew.”
    Isabel was uncertain what to say. She helped people occasionally, but it was not something she proposed to wear on her sleeve.
    “Yes,” Jillian continued. “And I wondered … well, I was going to get in touch with you. And then I saw you here and I thought that it might be easier to speak face-to-face rather than to telephone you.” She paused, and looked at Isabel as if she was waiting for encouragement.
    “It’s better to see the person you’re speaking to, I think,” said Isabel, adding, “as a general rule. So often today one is actually speaking to a machine somewhere—a very sympathetic