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'Were you looking for Steve, or something?' she asked.

'Steve?'

'My brother. In the lifeboat crew?'

'Oh – of course. Yes. You see, I'm a journalist. I heard about the ... incident here a few days ago, and I wondered if it might be possible to meet the people who were involved.'

'Ah, right. Have you talked to the lifeboat press officer?'

The girl looked baffled. 'I'm sorry?'

'He's the guy you have to talk to first if you want to know anything about the lifeboat shouts.'

'Shouts.'

'Call-outs.' Nina smiled with a slight air of superiority. 'You're not from any of the papers round here, are you?'

'No. I work for a national publication –'

'Really?' Interested, Nina interrupted. 'Which one?'

'— and they didn't tell me who to contact. But really, I don't think the press officer could help me. I need to talk to someone who was actually

there.'

'Oh, I see. The human angle, and all that kind of thing?' She probably worked on one of the tabloid women's pages, Nina thought, and she wanted to ask Steve about his emotional reactions: 'Steve, our readers need to know: how did you feel when you saw that bloated corpse floating in the water?' and so forth. She knew Steve's opinion of that sort of journalism, and could vividly imagine what he would say if the girl launched questions like that at him.

A small demon came to life inside her. The tabloids were always like this, weren't they: hassling people, prying, anything to get their 'human interest' story. Well, then; let her have it. Point her at Steve. She'd get a few answers she wasn't bargaining for, and serve her right. Why not?

She gave the redhead a very sweet smile and said, 'My brother's at work at the moment. But he finishes early on Fridays, and he usually comes down to the beach. If you come back at ... say, four-thirty, he should be here.'

'Four-thirty. Right.' The journalist smiled back. 'Thank you very much. I'm grateful.'

She walked away in her townie clothes, and Nina rolled over to continue sunbathing. She felt much less ruffled now, and she would love to be a fly on the wall when the journalist encountered Steve.

It occurred to her briefly that the redhead didn't seem to have any reporter's equipment with her. No tape recorder, not even a notebook. Nor a bag where they might be hidden, either. She probably thought they would scare people off to start with, and she'd be bristling with technical gizmos when she came back. What the hell.

Nina yawned and cast her book aside as the sun's heat and the ceaseless, rhythmic sound of the waves made her start to feel drowsy. She was, in fact, almost nodding off to sleep when someone kicked her ankle.

'What –' She shot up with a flurry, and was just in time to see a man regaining his balance after tripping over her outstretched legs.

'I'm so sorry!' He righted himself and backed up the words with an equally apologetic movement. 'I'm afraid I wasn't concentrating – I simply didn't see you!' He was an odd-looking character, dressed in a loose cotton shirt and trousers and with a floppy white sun-hat on top of light brown hair that curled softly down to his shoulders and gave him the look of a Victorian poet. Hard to tell his age; he could have been anywhere between twenty-five and forty. But his smile was genuine and his manner very polite.

'That's OK,' said Nina.

'Really? You're not hurt? No broken bones?'

She laughed. 'Of course not! But thanks for asking.'

He seemed about to move on, then paused. 'Are you local?'

'Yes.' What the heck was this? she wondered. Another reporter? Two in one day was pushing it.

But he said only, 'I thought so. You've got that wonderful tan that lasts all the year round. I do envy you. I'm only on holiday, I'm afraid. Just arrived.'

'Really?' said Nina. 'I thought you must be another journalist.'

'Another? Sorry, you've lost me.'

'Oh, never mind. It's just that there was some red-haired woman asking questions a few