The Sea Break by Antony Trew

of Widmark who continued on his way until he was abreast ofthe Carlton where he slipped abruptly into the dark lane adjoining it. He went through a courtyard and up an iron staircase to the first-floor landing of an old and rambling building. In the main hall the band was playing and the dance floor and the tables round it were packed. He stood against the wall in the shadows, watching, getting his bearings. Johan le Roux and David Rohrbach were with a dark beauty at a far table and he wondered briefly if she were Mariotta. Then he began worrying about the oily man. There was no doubt that he’d been following him, and this on top of the incident in the Polana. But why, puzzled Widmark, is he interested in me? Why is he following me? Unable to answer these questions but conscious that he’d succeeded in shaking off his shadower, Widmark went over to the bar, collected another whisky, plopped in ice from a bucket on the counter, and made for the roulette room. He edged in between some women at the crowded table and watched the play with the absorbed attention of the gambler. But he held back, waiting until he’d got the feel of the table, watching the stakes go on, the wheel spinning, the croupiers calling and raking the table. When he’d bought twenty-five pounds worth of escudos counters from the cashier he went back to the table. As always he started with the equivalent of two pounds each on odd and red . The wheel spun, the small white ball ran round the rim, came lower as the wheel slowed and dropped into one of the thirty-seven cups. The croupier called twenty-two , even and black, and Widmark’s bets were raked away. That decided him. He’d work up to an odd red, since he always followed a losing bet. He raised his stakes, putting five pounds on the table, again on odd and red and this time the croupier called twelve , so it was even and red and Widmark was still four pounds down. He shifted his counters to manque , the wheel spun, and when it stopped the croupier called thirty-one . A woman cried out in dismay, and Widmark saw the rake take his money, and he made a mental note of his losses—fourteen pounds. He moved round the table to get away from the badluck and put his remaining eleven pounds carré on seventeen, eighteen, twenty and twenty-one, and it was then that he looked up and saw the girl watching him. The croupier was intoning, and with his mind now more on the girl than the table Widmark was slow to register that twenty-one was a win for him; he saw the rake push a heap of counters against his stake, and woke up. The odds on the carré were eight to one, so this was ninety-eight pounds—the eleven pounds he’d staked plus the win of eighty-nine. Pocketing half the counters, he put those still on the table on twenty-seven, chasing his luck with odd and red, preoccupied now with the girl rather than the game.
    The wheel spun, the white ball scampered and he waited impatiently for the croupier’s call; it came at last— ten , and Widmark saw his fifty pounds disappear.
    Hunching his shoulders, he stood up, nodded to the croupier, exchanged his remaining counters for a pile of escudos which he reckoned at fifty pounds, and then looked for the girl. She was still standing against the wall at the far end of the bar, and beyond all doubt she was watching him.
    The light from a wall lamp reflected on her face and their eyes met and held in one of those extraordinary moments of recognition; not of two people who’d known each other, but of a man and woman seeing other for the first time, both conscious of an irresistible attraction and acknowledging it without inhibition. She was tall and slim, and from an oval high-cheek-boned face, slanted hazel eyes watched him with a curious mixture of sympathy and inquiry.
    Without consciously making the decision, he went over to her and said: “Hallo!”
    She smiled and said “Hallo!” and he knew then that she wasn’t English; but her smile did something to