Free No Comebacks by Frederick Forsyth Page A

manager.'
    'Higgins,' said Higgins. 'This is Mr and Mrs Murgatroyd.'
    'You're very welcome,' said Jones. 'Now, let me see about the rooms.'
    From down the hall a lanky figure strolled towards them. His lean shanks emerged from drill shorts and a flower-patterned beach shirt flapped about him. He wore no shoes but he had a beatific smile and clutched a can of lager in one large hand. He stopped several yards short of Murgatroyd and stared down at him.
    'Hullo, new arrivals?' he said in a discernible Australian accent.
    Murgatroyd was startled. 'Er, yes,' he said.
    'What's your name?' asked the Australian without ceremony.
    'Murgatroyd,' said the bank manager. 'Roger Murgatroyd.'
    The Australian nodded, taking the information in. 'Where you from?' he asked.
    Murgatroyd misunderstood. He thought the man said, 'Who are you from.'
    'From the Midland,' he said.
    The Australian tilted the can to his lips and drained it. He burped. 'Who's he?' he asked.
    'That's Higgins,' said Murgatroyd. 'From head office.'
    The Australian smiled happily. He blinked several times to focus his gaze. 'I like it,' he said, 'Murgatroyd of the Midland, and Higgins from Head Office.'
    By this time Paul Jones had spotted the Australian and come round from behind the desk. He took the tall man's elbow and guided him back down the hall. 'Now, now, Mr Foster, if you'll just return to the bar so I can get our new guests comfortably settled in ...'
    Foster allowed himself to be propelled gently but firmly back down the hall. As he left he waved a friendly hand towards the reception. 'Good on yer, Murgatroyd,' he called.
    Paul Jones rejoined them.
    'That man,' said Mrs Murgatroyd with icy disapproval, 'was drunk.'
    'He is on holiday, my dear,' said Murgatroyd.
    'That's no excuse,' said Mrs Murgatroyd. 'Who is he?'
    'Harry Foster,' said Jones, 'from Perth.'
    'He doesn't talk like a Scotsman,' said Mrs Murgatroyd.
    'Perth, Australia,' said Jones. 'Allow me to show you to your rooms.'
    Murgatroyd gazed in delight from the balcony of the first-floor twin-bedded room. Below him a brief lawn ran down to a band of glittering white sand over which palm trees scattered shifting shoals of shadows as the breeze moved them. A dozen round straw-thatched paillots gave firmer protection. The warm lagoon, milky where it had stirred up the sand, lapped the edge of the beach. Farther out it turned translucent green and farther still it looked blue. Five hundred yards across the lagoon he could make out the creaming reef.
    A young man, mahogany beneath a thatch of straw hair, was windsurfing a hundred yards out. Poised on his tiny board, he caught a puff of wind, leaned out against the pull of the sail and went skittering across the surface of the water with effortless ease. Two small brown children, black-haired and -eyed, splashed each other, screaming in the shallows. A middle-aged European, round-bellied, glittering sea-drops, trudged out of the water in frogman's flippers, trailing his face mask and snorkel.
    'Christ,' he called in a South African accent to a woman in the shade, 'there's so many fish down there, it's unbelievable.'
    To Murgatroyd's right, up by the main building, men and women in wraparound pareus were heading to the pool bar for an iced drink before lunch.
    'Let's go for a swim,' said Murgatroyd.
    'We'd be there all the sooner if you'd help me with the unpacking,' said his wife.
    'Let's leave that. We only need our swim things till after lunch.'
    'Certainly not,' said Mrs Murgatroyd. 'I'm not having you going to lunch looking like a native. Here are your shorts and shirt.'
    In two days Murgatroyd had got into the rhythm of holiday life in the tropics, or as much as was allowed him. He rose early, as he always did anyway, but instead of being greeted as usual by the prospect through the curtains of rain-slick pavements, he sat on the balcony and watched the sun ride up from the Indian Ocean out beyond the reef, making the dark, quiet water glitter suddenly