Prologue Summer 2001

      ‘Hey, you! What do you think you’re doing?’

      It was a girl’s voice, brittle as cut crystal. Rio, daydreaming amongst sea pinks, wondered if the words were directed at her. Lazily, she turned over onto her tummy, pushed a strand of hair back from her face, and leaned her chin on her forearms. From her vantage point atop the low cliff she had a clear view of the shore, picture-postcard pretty today, with lacy wavelets fringing the sand. Below, on the old slipway that fronted Coral Cottage, a girl of around twelve years old stood, arms ramrod stiff, hands clenched into fists.

      ‘You!’ said the girl again. ‘Didn’t you hear me? I asked what you were doing.’

      The boy squatting on the sandstone glanced up, took in the blonde curls, the belly top, the day-glo-pink pedal-pushers, the strappy sandals, then resumed his scrutiny of the rock pool that had been formed by the receding tide. ‘I’m looking for crabs,’ he told her.

      ‘Smartarse. I didn’t mean that. I meant – what are you doing on my land?’

      ‘Your land, is it?’ murmured the boy. ‘I don’t think so, Barbie-girl.’

      ‘You may not think so, but I know so. That’s my daddy’s slipway, and you’re trespassing. And don’t call me Barbie-girl, farm-boy.’

      Río smiled, and reached for her sunglasses. Bogtrotter versus city slicker made for the best spectator sport.

      ‘Shut up your yapping, will you? There’s a donkey up in the field beyond trying to feed her newborn. You’ll put the frighteners on the pair of them.’

      Río saw the girl’s mouth open, then shut again. ‘A donkey? You mean there’s a donkey with a baby?’

      ‘Yip.’ The boy rose to his feet. ‘I’ll show you, if you like.’

      The girl looked uncertain. ‘I’m not supposed to go beyond the slipway.’

      ‘Why’s that?’

      ‘I’ve got new sandals on. I might get them dirty’.

      The boy shrugged. ‘Take ’em off.’

      ‘Take my shoes off’

      ‘They’re not nailed to your feet, are they?’

      From the field beyond came a melancholy bray.

      ‘What’s that?’ asked the girl.

      ‘That’s Dorcas.’

      ‘Dorcas is the mother donkey?’

      ‘Yip.’

      ‘What’s her baby called?’

      ‘She doesn’t have a name yet.’

      ‘What age is she?’

      ‘A week.’

      ‘A week! Cute!’

      ‘She’s cute, all right,’ said the boy, moving away from the slipway.

      The girl gave a covert glance over her shoulder, then reached down, unfastened her sandals and stepped down from the slipway onto the sand.

      ‘My name’s Isabella,’ she said, as she caught up with him. ‘What’s yours?’

      ‘Finn. Do you want some liquorice?’

      ‘Hello? Don’t you know the rule about not taking sweets from strangers?’

      ‘Liquorice isn’t really a sweet. It’s a kind of plant. Have you clapped eyes on a donkey before?’

      ‘Yes, of course. On the telly. What’s that stuff?’

      ‘That’s spraint.’

      ‘What’s spraint?’

      ‘Otter poo.’

      ‘Ew!’

      Finn laughed. ‘Wait till you see donkey poo.’

      The children’s voices receded as they moved further down the beach. Río was just about to call out to Finn, to warn him to mind Isabella’s feet on the cattle grid, when new voices made her turn and look to her left.

      Two men were strolling along the embankment that flanked the shoreline. One sported a shooting stick, the other had a leather folder tucked under his arm. Both were muttering into mobile phones, and both wore unweathered Barbours and pristine green wellies. City boys playing at being country squires, Río decided.

      The men clambered down the embankment, then meandered along the sand until they came to a standstill directly below Río’s eyrie.

      ‘Get your people to call mine,’ barked one man into his Nokia, and: ‘I’ll get my people to call yours,’ barked the other into his, and then both men snapped their phones shut and slid them into their pockets.

      As Isabella and Finn disappeared round the headland, Río heard Dorcas greet them with an enthusiastic bray. One of the men looked up, then raised a hand to shade his eyes from the sun. Leaning as he was on his shooting stick, he looked like a male model from one of the naffer Sunday supplements.

      ‘What’s that bloody racket, James?’ he asked.

      ‘A donkey. You’d better get used to it,’ said the man with the folder. ‘Noise pollution in the country is as rampant as it is in the city, only different. You’ll be waking up to the sound of sheep baaing all over the place.’

      ‘And birdsong. Felicity’s having a statue of some Indian goddess shipped in from Nepal, so she can greet the dawn every morning from her yoga pavilion.’

      Yay! Río realised she was in for some top-quality eavesdropping. Yoga pavilions! Indian goddesses! What kind of half-wits were these?

      ‘Did Felicity mention that she wants me to relocate the pavilion further up the garden,’ asked the man called James, ‘in order to maximise the view?’

      Sunday Supplement Man swivelled round to survey the bay, then nodded. ‘She’s right. Imagine starting the day with that vista spread out in front of you.’

      ‘She’ll be like stout Cortez.’

      ‘I beg your pardon?’

      ‘Stout Cortez. Upon his peak in Darien. It’s Keats, you know.’

      ‘Oh, yes.’

      Río smiled. Something about the man’s demeanour told her he was bluffing, and that he didn’t have a clue about stout Cortez or Keats.

      ‘You’ll be able to moor your pleasure craft there,’ observed lames, indicating a buoy that bobbed some fifty yards out to sea. ‘That’s where the previous owners used to moor their row boat, according to the agent.’

      ‘I’ll need a rigid inflatable to take me out. I assume there’ll be space in the garage for an RIB as well as the Cherokee?’

      ‘Of course. And space for the garden tractor too. I was mindful of all that when I drew up the dimensions. But while you’re in residence you’ll be able to leave your RIB on the foreshore below the gate.’ James indicated the five-bar gate that opened onto the foreshore. It was the gate into the old