14
Three days later and two and fifty hundred miles away, a sweet-faced, middle-aged, unremarkable looking woman was sitting in the sun, throwing out seed for a flock of blue and crimson parrots that were strutting around her on the lawn. She laughed as two of them snatched for the same corn kernel and while they were squawking at each other, a third parrot snatched the seed from under their beaks. She heard footsteps padding across the lawn behind and in the next second, the parrots screeched and took off in a whirl of colour.
She was sitting with the rising sun behind her, so her face was cast in shadow, but as she turned, the newcomer saw a flash of irritation in her large dark eyes, understandable he thought, since he had sent her favourite birds into flight.
Wincing inwardly, he wa
