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was looking out of the window, he slipped his hand under the sarong tied low around her hips. Unbuckled his seat belt. Stood up. There were thirteen passengers on board – he counted them as he negotiated Nancy’s legs on his way to the aisle. He opened the overhead locker, unzipped his bag, pulled out a map and struggled to rezip it. The padded box containing his specimen jars and test tubes had risen to the top. He pulled them out, removed his swimming trunks, fins and snorkel, stuffed the box down the side of the bag and jammed the trunks, fins and snorkel back on top of them. With a struggle, he was able to rezip. He surveyed the other passengers. A couple in row six had fallen asleep. In row eight, a septuagenarian with hornrimmed glasses and skin hanging down in pleats was nodding to himself as he read the International Herald Tribune . The old-fashioned glasses made him look as if he was in disguise. A retired CIA agent, Daniel thought. Or an international paedophile. Either way, he had swapped seats at the beginning of the flight with the tall, solidly built black man with his legs stretched out in seat 1a.
    ‘How many?’ Nancy asked without looking up from the National Geographic she was again flicking through.
    ‘How many what?’
    ‘Passengers.’
    ‘Dunno.’
    ‘There are thirteen. I counted them, too. Don’t worry, it’s just a number.’
    ‘I’m not worried.’
    ‘Lots of people are superstitious about numbers. They’re called triskaidekaphobes.’
    ‘I know they are. And I am not one of them. I’m not superstitious. How many more times?’
    ‘Do you know why the number thirteen is considered unlucky?’
    ‘Yep.’
    ‘It’s because there were thirteen apostles originally, before Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus.’
    ‘I know.’
    It amused Nancy to imitate his teacherly custom of offering unwanted explanations. She knew that, though Daniel pretended to find it annoying, he enjoyed it really. Daniel sighed again, because he knew Nancy liked to pretend that it annoyed her.
    There was another shudder, lighter this time. It made the gut of the tall black man jiggle. Susie unzipped a bumbag and produced a bright yellow underwater camera. ‘Can I take a photograph, Dan?’
    Daniel pointed a finger at himself. ‘Of me?’
    ‘Here,’ Greg said, taking the camera. ‘I’ll take one of you together. Stand next to him, Sus.’
    Daniel felt embarrassed as Susie put her arm around his waist and the other passengers turned to stare, trying to work out why the young woman would want a photograph of herself with him. The picture taken, Daniel returned to his seat and strapped himself in. Susie took the camera back and framed another shot – of Nancy and Daniel sitting together. She took one of Greg half crouching beside Nancy. As the flash went off, Greg was staring at Nancy’s cleavage, the weight and depth of the press between her breasts rendered more impressive than usual by a black ‘deep plunge’ bra purchased at Heathrow.
    ‘Hang on,’ Susie said. ‘You weren’t looking at the camera, babe. Let me take another.’
    The seaplane trembled for a few seconds. Daniel gripped thearmrests and concentrated hard on keeping it in the air. Standard prop blades create a hum, which, along with the airstreams passing over the wings, becomes white noise after a while. Daniel focused on that for a few seconds and felt calmer. As he was sitting near the propellers, his body was vibrating in rhythm with the plane. That calmed him a little, too.
    Nancy put an arm round his shoulder and pulled him gently towards her, so that the side of his face was resting on her neck. He closed his eyes and smelled the Ambre Solaire on her skin. She sometimes wore this in winter, to remind herself – and her patients – of holidays. They couldn’t quite identify what it was, she reckoned, but it nevertheless lifted their spirits.
    A jolt made Daniel sit back squarely in his seat. He checked his belt. Nancy removed her arm