A thought raced through my mind like a nasty little rodent. I wondered what she would look like with a beard. With all the Venetian blinds down it looked impassive yet vulnerable, like a face with closed eyes. Sunk in the terraced lawn behind the house was an oval pool like a wide green eye staring at the sky. There was another man floating in the water, the blotched brown swell of his stomach breaking the surface like the shell-back of a Galapagos tortoise.