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'Probably got wind of us,' Chavasse said. 'From what my uncle was telling me, they can, even at this range.'

She handed the binoculars back and moved to the very edge of the slope and he sat down, his back against a boulder and focussed on Loch Dubh. The grey, broken walls of the old castle sprang into view. There was a square tower at one end, typical of Scottish keeps of the period, which seemed in a reasonable state of repair, but nothing moved.

He followed the shore line carefully, pausing at a wooden jetty. A motor boat was tied up there. As he watched, Jack Murdoch appeared from an arched entrance in the castle wall and walked down through the bushes to the jetty. He dropped into the boat and cast off. Chavasse was aware of the engine, echoing faintly in the valley below and then Murdoch spun the wheel and moved away.

Chavasse lowered the binoculars slowly and when he looked up, saw that Asta had turned and was staring at him, a slight frown on her face. 'Isn't that a motor boat down there on the loch?'

He nodded and got to his feet. 'It certainly looks like it.'

'That's strange,' she said. 'Max told me at lunch that there were terns nesting there this year. That he didn't want them disturbed which was why he's banned the fishing this season. I should have thought a motor boat would have disturbed them even more.'

'Oh, I don't know,' Chavasse said. 'He probably wants to keep an eye on them.'

She still looked dubious and, in a deliberate attempt to steer the conversation away from the dangerous course it had taken, he pointed down the hillside to where a stone hut nestled in a hollow a couple of hundred feet below.

'That'll be the deer stalker's bothy my uncle said we'd make for. Come on--let's see what you're made of.'

He grabbed her hand and plunged down the mountainside and Asta Svensson shrieked in delight as they rushed downwards, stumbling over tussocks, never stopping until they reached the hollow.

They went over the edge, sliding the last few feet and then she lost her balance and fell, dragging Chavasse with her. They rolled over twice and came to rest in the soft cushion of the heather. She lay on her back, breathless with laughter and Chavasse pushed himself up on one elbow to look down at her.

Her laughter faded and in a strangely simple gesture, she reached up and touched his face gently and for one long moment he forgot everything except the colour of that wonderful hair, the scent of her in his nostrils. When they kissed, her body was soft and yielding and she was all sweetness and honey, everything a man could desire.

He rolled on his back and she pushed herself up on one elbow, looking utterly complacent. 'Not unexpected, but very satisfactory.'

'Put it down to the altitude,' he said. 'I'm sorry.'

'I'm not.'

'You should be. I'm fifteen years too old for you.'

'Now that's the English side of you coming out,' she said. 'The only country in Europe where age is presumed to have a dampening effect on love.'

He lit a cigarette without answering and she sighed and leaned over him, a frown on her face. 'Each time we meet I have the same feeling--that somehow, you are in two places at once. Here in person, somewhere else in thought.'

'You're a romantic, that's all,' he said lazily.

'Am I?' she said. 'But this raises limitless possibilities. I can imagine anything I want, for example.'

'Such as?'

'Oh, that you are not what you seem to be. That you followed me over the mountain for a deeper reason than you admitted. That you aren't even a university lecturer.'

'That's licence, not imagination,' he said lightly.

'Oh, but I'm not the only one to think so.'

He turned to look at her sharply and, suddenly, his face was wiped clean of all expression, the face of a stranger. 'And who else indulges in this kind of fantasy?'

'Max,' she said. 'I heard him talking to Ruth last night. He told her to get in touch with Essex University. To check on you.'

Chavasse laughed harshly. 'Perhaps