It was true that the pots were only moderate, but that couldn’t be allowed to matter. Not when they were building steadily towards their agreed purpose.

Just keep going in the same way, Daddy, please, she appealed silently, and we can be out of this room, this hotel, this place and on our way elsewhere by noon tomorrow.

At the same time, she couldn’t avoid an odd feeling that the play so far had been almost deliberately restrained.

‘Cigarette, honey?’ The usual break had been called in the proceedings, and Chuck was offering her his pack of Chesterfields.

‘No, thank you.’ The room already felt like an oven, and her eyes were stinging from the smoke. She noticed thankfully that a member of the Gordanis entourage, in response to a murmured instruction, was sliding open one of the heavy glass doors which led out on to the balcony.

‘Then how about a Scotch or some bourbon?’ Her neighbour signalled to the waiter.

She shook her head. ‘I—I don’t drink spirits.’

‘You don’t smoke or drink? Then your vices must be the more interesting kind,’ he drawled.

Think what you like, Joanna advised him silently. And then go to hell.

As the waiter came to her side she asked for Perrier water, and noticed his swift enquiring glance at Vassos Gordanis and saw the swift, barely perceptible nod in reply.

He’s in control of everything, she thought with a sudden shiver. The air we breathe. Even what we have to drink.

She found herself suddenly wondering how old he was. He looked to be only in his early to mid-thirties, yet in spite of that he’d managed somehow to survive the dangers of the past few years in Greece under the Colonels, and prosper.

She recalled that Denys had mentioned he was a widower, and wondered how long he’d been married, and when his wife had died. Then paused, startled.

Now, why would I want to know that? she asked herself blankly. When there are other aspects of the situation that should concern me more?

Under the general buzz of conversation, she turned to Denys. She said very quietly, ‘I’m being watched.’

‘Of course you are, my pet.’ He flashed a conspiratorial smile at her. ‘You’re a very beautiful girl, and I want you to be looked at.’

‘But it’s not in the right way or by the right person,’ she protested, troubled. ‘I really think it would be better if I found some reason to leave.’

‘Don’t be silly, darling.’ His smile widened, became fixed. ‘Everything’s fine and I need you to stay exactly where you are. They’re raising the ante and the stakes are about to become very interesting.’ He took a satisfied breath. ‘We’re on our way, sweetheart. Trust me.’

‘Then at least allow me to get some fresh air before you make our fortune.’ She rose restlessly from her chair and walked towards the balcony door, taking care to look at no one, and to ignore the inevitable glances that came her way.

Once outside, she stood for a moment filling her lungs with a couple of deep, steadying breaths before advancing to the elaborate metal railing and leaning against it, moving her shoulders gently in an attempt to ease the tension in her muscles.

The darkness seemed to wrap her like a warm blanket, while below her the stillness of the hidden garden was disturbed only by the rasping of cicadas.

And beyond, in the bay, she could see the lights of the boats challenging the stars as they rode at anchor, dominated by the looming grandeur of Persephone.

No matter where I turn, she mused wryly, Vassos Gordanis seems to be dominating the picture.

But he’d chosen an odd name for his yacht, she thought, recalling the stories of the Greek myths she’d read at school. Persephone, if memory served, had no connection with the sea. She’d been a springtime goddess captured and carried off by Hades, the dark god of the Underworld, while she was picking flowers.

‘A classic example,’ her teacher Miss Gordon had said, ‘of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

As a result of Persephone’s abduction, so the story went, her mother Demeter was in such grief that she forbade the crops to grow until her daughter came back to her.

So Zeus, the supreme deity, decreed that Persephone should be returned to earth, as long as she had nothing to eat or drink while she was in Hades’ power.

Only one day she’d found her favourite fruit—a pomegranate—in a dish on the table and eaten six of its seeds, enough to condemn her to spend half of each year in the Underworld. While the earth above stayed cold and barren, only coming back to life with her return for six months each spring.