Thank Christ he’d beaten the others to it, the thought of them groping and fumbling her was unbearable. He reckoned that Abby was far too tall often to have been carried by a man, and probably never in a bedroom. So, to make her feel precious and fragile, Viking gathered her up, telling her her mouth was like a dark red rose, before he buried his lips in it, kissing her so passionately and for so long, that it was Abby who pulled away gasping for breath.

Then, with the ecstasy of an art dealer unrolling a previously undiscovered Modigliani, he laid her across the two beds, sliding his hands in wonder over the sleek satiny scented contours.

‘Oh, my beauty.’

‘Am I OK?’ Fazed by the intensity of his gaze, Abby’s hands fluttered to shield her breasts and her pubic hair.

‘Oh my American, my newfound land,’ murmured Viking.

Normally, he would have progressed with infinite slowness, talking her through it, making her so relaxed she glided into her first orgasm almost without realizing it, but he had no time. He could feel her long eyelashes fluttering against his cheek, and then her gasp, as his finger tested her slipperiness.

‘Oh, please say you love me.’

‘I’ve never lossted after anyone so much,’ said Viking diplomatically, as he guided his cock deep inside her, letting it rest for a moment.

‘Isn’t that great?’ he whispered. ‘Lie still, my darling, josst feel what’s happening inside you, now go for it, my angel.’

Viking had had many women, but none had ever wanted him so much, nor made love with such utter conviction and desire to please. With most girls, you made them come, then they made you come. Abby, with a conductor’s ability to do many things at once, could give and take at the same time.

‘L’Appassionata,’ Viking glanced down at her reddening cheeks, her eyes cloudy and drugged with desire, ‘who would have thought it, but who wouldn’t, having heard you play.’

Abby didn’t even miss a beat when she noticed the ‘I Love Juno’ tattoo.

‘Lasers’ll zap that.’

‘If you carry on sucking me,’ groaned Viking in ecstasy, ‘it’ll soon be covered in correcting fluid anyway. No, no, don’t bite my dick, I won’t take the piss any more.’

Arching himself out of her like a great golden cat, he slid downwards until his mouth was level with hers.

‘The first time I come,’ he listened to her breathing getting faster and faster, ‘it’s going to be inside you.’

Afterwards Abby buried her face in the smooth ivory curve of his sweating shoulder.

‘Definitely Guinness Book of Records,’ she mumbled.

‘Good, tell all your friends about it.’

‘You’re a rat.’

‘You’re a revelation. How come you’ve got lava in your veins?’

‘Not lava, love. I lova you.’

Down below in the night-club, a lone guitar was playing Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez.

Reaching for the bottle of Evian by the bed, Abby hazily noticed how right Viking’s blue shirt looked entangled with her suede skirt. On the side-table, his casket and St Christopher lay in a glittering heap with her gold bracelet and Marcus’s ruby ring.

‘Omigod,’ she sat bolt upright, ‘what about Marcus?’

‘He’s a darling boy,’ Viking kissed the soft flesh above Abby’s hip-bones, then working up her ribs, reached her breast. ‘But he’s too young and too onforceful. You need a man.’

‘I figure I’ve just had one.’ Then, as Viking slowly licked her nipple, she pushed his thick yellow hair out of his eyes and said, ‘I love you, Viking.’

When he didn’t answer straightaway, she asked hastily, ‘How come, when you’ve pulled everyone else in the RSO-?’

‘I have not,’ interrupted Viking with some hauteur. ‘I have not pulled Cathie Jones, nor Miss Parrott, nor Isobel, nor Moll, thank the Lord, nor Hilary, nor Mary-the-mother-of-Josstin.’

‘-that you never tried it with me?’

‘Did you mind?’

‘Sure I did, it was like being frantic for a taxi and one with its “For Hire” sign blazing driving round and round and round me, refusing to stop.’

Viking laughed.

‘Didn’t you want to?’ asked Abby indignantly.

‘Indeed I did,’ then, half-joking, ‘I’m shit-scared of being emasculated by powerful women.’

‘But you’re the most powerful person in the orchestra.’

‘Josst a minute, listen.’ Gently Viking tugged at her earlobe. ‘It was also respect and not wanting to rossh things, as my Granny Wexford’s always saying. There’s a time for loving.’

Longing for Viking to introduce her to his family, Abby said she’d just adore to meet Granny Wexford. Had she ever visited the States?

‘Not yet.’ Like Francis earlier, Viking had the grace to blush.

To distract Abby, he slid his thumb in and out of her, the knuckle gently grazing her clitoris, his long fingers caressing the tender underside of her bottom.

‘Oh wow,’ Abby drew in her breath. ‘Oh please, can we make love again?’

‘Don’t be greedy. As Bruno Walter said, “In every truly great work there is only one climax.”’

‘Can’t you ever be serious?’

Not when I’m this jolted, thought Viking.

There was a long pause.

‘Was I better than Juno?’ asked Abby in a small voice.

‘Onotterably. She used to slide table mats onder my elbows in case I burnt the sheets.’

As Abby burst out laughing, Viking reached under his bed.

‘Here’s a present for you.’ He handed her his latest CD of the Brahms Horn Trio.

‘Oh wow,’ said Abby in excitement. ‘Will you sign it for me, please write something lovely.’

As she ran a hand down his cheek, she could have grated Parmesan on the hard, emerging stubble.

‘I can’t help it, I just love you.’

He was about to kiss her, when there was a terrific hammering on the door.

‘Go away,’ shouted Abby.

‘Shot op,’ hissed Viking, putting fingers reeking of sex and Amarige over her mouth. ‘Don’t answer it.’

The hammering increased.

‘Must be Blue trying to get in — it is his room,’ protested Abby.

‘Who is it?’ she shouted.

‘Room shervish,’ said a voice.

‘We didn’t order anything, leave it,’ snarled Viking, tense as a roused Dobermann.

‘I could do with some more Dottch courage,’ teased Abby, ‘since you watered those flowers with my last lot.’ And wriggling out of his grasp, she wrapped herself in the blue shirt and fumbled with the door handle.

‘Don’t, for Chrissake,’ begged Viking, but it was too late.

At first she thought it was the Press, as the flashes of a dozen cameras blinded her. Then, in horror, she took in the muscular hairy legs below the straining black skirt of the waitress who was carrying the sliding magnum of Moët aloft. Behind her, leering and cheering in varying degrees of drunkenness, were most of the male members of her orchestra.

‘Who’s a clever Viking, then?’ shouted Randy.

‘Hooray for the lucky winner,’ cried Peter Plumpton, who was still wearing his upended bread basket.

‘Too much molestar-hic, too much molesta ar,’ cried a dripping Dirty Harry.

‘I’ve won more than you, Viking.’ An exuberant Dixie smugly patted his strawberry-blond wig. ‘I had a grand on you at three to one.’

‘Fock off the lot of you,’ howled Viking, yanking Abby back inside, ‘and leave os alone.’

A moment later, the crowd dispersed as a yelling regiment of policemen and soldiers, brandishing guns, stormed the landing.

Another moment later, there was a crack like a pistol shot as Abby drove her high heel through Brahms’s Horn Trio.

Davie Buckle, having passed out behind the jacuzzi, had missed the arrival of the forces of law and order, but waking, had dragged a pair of underpants on over his trousers, and was now progressing noisily along the third floor.

Julian caught up with him outside Number 387.

‘Hallo there,’ he was saying to an enraged Spanish bureaucrat in a hairnet.

‘Come on, Davie.’ As Julian took his arm, Davie started walking away from him in little circles. ‘You’ve got to stop disturbing people.’

‘Got to find Abby.’

‘Not at four o’clock in the morning.’

Julian decided his own room was the nearest.

Once he’d thrown Davie on the bed, however, Davie started to fight.

‘Got to find Abby.’

‘I shall telephone Brünnhilde,’ said Julian sternly.

Davie looked owlish. He was terrified of Brünnhilde.

‘She’s in Rutminshter,’ he said sulkily, then brightening, added, ‘then I’ll telephone Luisa.’

‘Luisa doesn’t mind, she trusts me,’ said Julian, dropping five Redoxins into a tooth mug, and handing them to Davie.

‘You’ve got Beethoven Nine again tomorrow, no it’s tonight now, drink it.’

‘This isn’t Scotch,’ Davie looked into the tooth mug in outrage. ‘Someone’s pissed in this glass.’

Limping towards the window, he was about to chuck it into the street.

‘Drink it,’ ordered Julian.

A shattered George fell into bed at four o’clock in the morning after trying to unravel the endless red tape of flying Rodney’s body back to Lucerne. Having switched off his mobile, he was roused a few minutes later by his wife.

‘It’s Nicholas someone, he sounds put out,’ she added, as George took the house telephone from her.

Knickers was apoplectic. The orchestra were completely out of control, orgying and rioting in Abby’s jacuzzi which had overflowed and flooded the bridal suite below, where the President of some African state was having an illicit unbridal bonk. His bodyguards had gone beserk and called the troops out. Twenty members of the orchestra had been arrested and were now cooling their heels in Barcelona gaol.