‘I was hoping to find somebody to split a charter with.’

‘I know what you mean,’ he replied. ‘It’s a shame to have to charter the whole boat when you’re alone. Damned expensive, and they fish two lines or four just as easy as one.’

I glanced round at the girl, and a slight movement of her face told me I’d almost caught her looking at me. I was conscious again of the impression I’d seen her before. But where? I’d been so many places the past two weeks they were hard to sort out. It couldn’t have been here. This was only the third day I’d been in Key West, and the other two I’d spent out in the Stream, fishing. Miami Beach? Chicago? Las Vegas?

Maybe if I saw her with her clothes on, it would help. I tried a tailored suit, and one of the new sheath things, and then some hand-knitted jersey, but got no make. Slacks? She wouldn’t be caught dead in them, I decided; women who could wear slacks never did.

The Ohio man looked at his watch and stood up, brushing sand from his thick-set body. ‘I’ve got to get back and start packing. Take it easy, pal.’

He departed. The girl went on staring at the pages of her book. Far out, a westbound tanker hugged the edge of the reef to avoid the current of the Stream. I’d better start packing myself, I thought, and get out of Key West. I had to come up with something pretty soon; in another week or ten days I’d be broke. Sooner, if I spent any more on fishing trips.

I wondered about the girl again. Propping myself on an elbow, I glanced round at her. ‘What’s the world record for dolphin?’

I expected a blank stare, of course, or one right out of the deep freeze, but instead she said calmly, without even looking up, ‘Hmmm. Just a moment.’ She leafed back through the book and ran her finger down a column. ‘Seventy-five and a half pounds. It was taken off East Africa.’

It caught me completely off-balance. She glanced up finally. Her eyes were a very dark blue, almost violet, in a thin but fine-boned face. They regarded me with urbane coolness, but then amusement got the upper hand. ‘All right. I was listening.’

I sat up and slid over by her. Picking up the book, I glanced at the jacket. It was a volume on salt-water fishing. ‘I wouldn’t have said you were a fisherman.’

She reached for the packet of cigarettes at her side.