Kitabı oku: «Bloodline»
SIDNEY SHELDON
BLOODLINE
COPYRIGHT
HarperFiction
An imprint of
HarperCollinsPublishers
77–85 Fulham Palace Road,
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published in Great Britain by Collins 1978
Copyright © Sheldon Literary Trust 1978
Sidney Sheldon asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Source ISBN: 9780006175018
Ebook Edition © APRIL 2012 ISBN 9780007380893
Version: 2014-12-10
DEDICATION
For Natalie with love
EPIGRAPH
The physician will carefullyprepare a mixture of crocodiledung, lizard flesh, bats’ bloodand camels’ spit …
from a papyrus listing
811 prescriptions used
by the Egyptians in
1550 BC
CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PART TWO
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Keep Reading
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also By Sidney Sheldon
About the Publisher
PART ONE
Chapter One
Istanbul Saturday, September 5 10 p.m.
He was seated in the dark, alone, behind the desk of Hajib Kafir, staring unseeingly out of the dusty office window at the timeless minarets of Istanbul. He was a man who was at home in a dozen capitals of the world, but Istanbul was one of his favourites. Not the tourist Istanbul of Beyoglu Street, or the gaudy Lalezab Bar of the Hilton, but the out-of-the-way places that only the Moslems knew: the yalis, and the small markets beyond the souks, and the Telli Baba, the cemetery where only one person was buried, and the people came to pray to him.
His waiting had the patience of a hunter, the quiet stillness of a man in control of his body and his emotions. He was Welsh, with the dark, stormy good looks of his ancestors. He had black hair and a strong face, and quick intelligent eyes that were a deep blue. He was over six feet tall, with the lean, muscular body of a man who kept himself in good physical condition. The office was filled with the odours of Hajib Kafir, his sickly sweet tobacco, his acrid Turkish coffee, his fat, oily body. Rhys Williams was unaware of them. He was thinking about the telephone call he had received from Chamonix an hour earlier.
‘… A terrible accident! Believe me, Mr Williams, we are all devastated. It happened so quickly that there was no chance to save him. Mr Roffe was killed instantly …’
Sam Roffe, president of Roffe and Sons, the second largest pharmaceutical company in the world, a multi-billion-dollar dynasty that girdled the globe. It was impossible to think of Sam Roffe as being dead. He had always been so vital, so full of life and energy, a man on the move, living in aeroplanes that raced him to company factories and offices all over the world, where he solved problems others could not deal with, created new concepts, pushed everyone to do more, to do better. Even though he had married, and fathered a child, his only real interest had been the business. Sam Roffe had been a brilliant and extraordinary man. Who could replace him? Who was capable of running the enormous empire he had left? Sam Roffe had not chosen an heir apparent. But then he had not planned to die at fifty-two. He had thought there would be plenty of time.
And now his time had run out.
The lights in the office suddenly flashed on and Rhys Williams looked towards the doorway, momentarily blinded.
‘Mr Williams! I did not know anyone was here.’
It was Sophie, one of the company secretaries, who was assigned to Rhys Williams whenever he was in Istanbul. She was Turkish, in her middle twenties, with an attractive face and a lithe, sensuous body, rich with promise. She had let Rhys know in subtle, ancient ways that she was available to bring him whatever pleasures he wished, whenever he desired them, but Rhys was not interested.
Now she said, ‘I returned to finish some letters for Mr Kafir.’ She added softly, ‘Perhaps there is something I can do for you?’
As she moved closer to the desk, Rhys could sense the musky smell of a wild animal in season.
‘Where is Mr Kafir?’
Sophie shook her head regretfully. ‘He has left for the day.’ She smoothed the front of her dress with the palms of soft, clever hands. ‘Can I help you in some way?’ Her eyes were dark and moist.
‘Yes,’ Rhys said. ‘Find him.’
She frowned. ‘I have no idea where he could –’
‘Try the Kervansaray, or the Mermara.’ It would probably be the former, where one of Hajib Kafir’s mistresses worked as a belly dancer. Although you never knew with Kafir, Rhys thought. He might even be with his wife.
Sophie was apologetic. ‘I will try, but I am afraid I –’
‘Explain to him that if he’s not here in one hour, he no longer has a job.’
The expression on her face changed. ‘I will see what I can do, Mr Williams.’ She started towards the door.
‘Turn out the lights.’
Somehow, it was easier to sit in the dark with his thoughts. The image of Sam Roffe kept intruding. Mont Blanc should have been an easy climb at this time of the year, early September. Sam had tried the climb before, but storms had kept him from reaching the peak.
‘I’ll plant the company flag up there this time,’ he had promised Rhys, jokingly.
And then the telephone call a short while ago as Rhys was checking out of the Pera Palace. He could hear the agitated voice on the telephone. ‘… They were doing a traverse over a glacier … Mr Roffe lost his footing and his rope broke … He fell into a bottomless crevasse …’
Rhys could visualize Sam’s body smashing against the unforgiving ice, hurtling downward into the crevasse. He forced his mind away from the scene. That was the past. There was the present to worry about now. The members of Sam Roffe’s family had to be notified of his death, and they were scattered in various parts of the world. A press announcement had to be prepared. The news was going to travel through international financial circles like a shock wave. With the company in the midst of a financial crisis, it was vital that the impact of Sam Roffe’s death be minimized as much as possible. That would be Rhys’s job.
Rhys Williams had first met Sam Roffe nine years earlier. Rhys, then twenty-five, had been sales manager for a small drug firm. He was brilliant and innovative, and as the company had expanded, Rhys’s reputation had quickly spread. He was offered a job at Roffe and Sons and when he turned it down, Sam Roffe bought the company Rhys worked for and sent for him. Even now he could recall the overwhelming power of Sam Roffe’s presence at their first meeting.
‘You belong here at Roffe and Sons,’ Sam Roffe had informed him. ‘That’s why I bought that horse-and-buggy outfit you were with.’
Rhys had found himself flattered and irritated at the same time. ‘Suppose I don’t want to stay?’
Sam Roffe had smiled and said confidently, ‘You’ll want to stay. You and I have something in common, Rhys. We’re both ambitious. We want to own the world. I’m going to show you how.’
The words were magic, a promised feast for the fierce hunger that burned in the young man, for he knew something that Sam Roffe did not. There was no Rhys Williams. He was a myth that had been created out of desperation and poverty and despair.
He had been born near the coalfields of Gwent and Carmarthen, the red, scarred valleys of Wales where layers of sandstone and saucer-shaped beds of limestone and coal puckered the green earth. He grew up in a fabled land where the very names were poetry: Brecon and Pen-y-fan and Penderyn and Glyncorrwg and Maesteg. It was a land of legend, where the coal buried deep in the ground had been created 280 million years before, where the landscape was once covered with so many trees that a squirrel could travel from the Brecon Beacons to the sea without ever touching the ground. But the Industrial Revolution had come along and the beautiful green trees were chopped down by the charcoal-burners to feed the insatiable fires of the iron industry.
The young boy grew up with the heroes of another time and another world. Robert Farrer, burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Church because he would not take a vow of celibacy and abandon his wife; King Hywel the Good, who brought the law to Wales in the tenth century; the fierce warrior Brychen who sired twelve sons and twenty-four daughters and savagely put down all attacks on his kingdom. It was a land of glorious histories in which the lad had been raised. But it was not all glory. Rhys’s ancestors were miners, every one of them, and the young boy used to listen to the tales of hell that his father and his uncles recounted. They talked of the terrible times when there was no work, when the rich coalfields of Gwent and Carmarthen had been closed in a bitter fight between the companies and the miners, and the miners were debased by a poverty that eroded ambition and pride, that sapped a man’s spirit and strength and finally made him surrender.
When the mines were open, it was another kind of hell. Most of Rhys’s family had died in the mines. Some had perished in the bowels of the earth, others had coughed their blackened lungs away. Few had lived past the age of thirty.
Rhys used to listen to his father and his ageing young uncles discussing the past, the cave-ins and the cripplings and the strikes; talking of the good times and the bad, and to the young boy they seemed the same. All bad. The thought of spending his years in the darkness of the earth appalled Rhys. He knew he had to escape.
He ran away from home when he was twelve. He left the valleys of coal and went to the coast, to Sully Ranny Bay and Lavernock, where the rich tourists flocked, and the young boy fetched and carried and made himself useful, helping ladies down the steep cliffs to the beach, lugging heavy picnic baskets, driving a pony-cart at Penarth, and working at the amusement park at Whitmore Bay.
He was only a few hours away from home, but the distance could not be measured. The people here were from another world. Rhys Williams had never imagined such beautiful people or such glorious finery. Each woman looked like a queen to him and the men were all elegant and splendid. This was the world where he belonged, and there was nothing he would not do to make it his.
By the time Rhys Williams was fourteen, he had saved enough money to pay for his passage to London. He spent the first three days simply walking round the huge city, staring at everything, hungrily drinking in the incredible sights and the sounds and the smells.
His first job was as a delivery boy at a draper’s shop. There were two male clerks, superior beings both, and a female clerk, who made the young Welsh boy’s heart sing every time he looked at her. The men treated Rhys as he was meant to be treated, like dirt. He was a curiosity. He dressed peculiarly, had abominable manners and spoke with an incomprehensible accent. They could not even pronounce his name. They called him Rice, and Rye, and Rise. ‘It’s pronounced Reese,’ Rhys kept telling them.
The girl took pity on him. Her name was Gladys Simpkins and she shared a tiny flat in Tooting with three other girls. One day she allowed the young boy to walk her home after work and invited him in for a cup of tea. Young Rhys was overcome with nervousness. He had thought this was going to be his first sexual experience, but when he began to put his arm around Gladys, she stared at him a moment, then laughed. ‘I’m not giving none of that to you,’ she said. ‘But I’ll give you some advice. If you want to make somethin’ of yourself, get yourself some proper clothes and a bit of education and learn yourself some manners.’ She studied the thin, passionate young face and looked into Rhys’s deep blue eyes, and said softly, ‘You’re gonna be a bit of all right when you grow up.’
If you want to make somethin’ of yourself … That was the moment when the fictitious Rhys Williams was born. The real Rhys Williams was an uneducated, ignorant boy with no background, no breeding, no past, no future. But he had imagination, intelligence and a fiery ambition. It was enough. He started with the image of what he wanted to be, who he intended to be. When he looked in his mirror, he did not see the clumsy, grubby little boy with a funny accent; his mirror image was polished and suave and successful. Little by little, Rhys began to match himself to the image in his mind. He attended night school, and he spent his weekends in art galleries. He haunted public libraries and went to the theatre, sitting in the gallery studying the fine clothes of the men seated in the stalls. He scrimped on food, so that once a month he could go to a good restaurant, where he carefully copied the table manners of others. He observed and learned and remembered. He was like a sponge, erasing the past, soaking up the future.
In one short year Rhys had learned enough to realize that Gladys Simpkins, his princess, was a cheap Cockney girl who was already beneath his tastes. He quit the draper’s shop and went to work as a clerk at a chemist’s shop that was part of a large chain. He was almost sixteen now, but he looked older. He had filled out and was taller. Women were beginning to pay attention to his dark Welsh good looks and his quick, flattering tongue. He was an instant success in the shop. Female customers would wait until Rhys was available to take care of them. He dressed well and spoke correctly, and he knew he had come a long way from Gwent and Carmarthen, but when he looked in the mirror, he was still not satisfied. The journey he intended to make was still ahead of him.
Within two years Rhys Williams was made manager of the shop where he worked. The district manager of the chain said to Rhys, ‘This is just the beginning, Williams. Work hard and one day you’ll be the superintendent of half a dozen stores.’
Rhys almost laughed aloud. To think that that could be the height of anyone’s ambition! Rhys had never stopped going to school. He was studying business administration and marketing and commercial law. He wanted more. His image in the mirror was at the top of the ladder; Rhys felt he was still at the bottom. His opportunity to move up came when a drug salesman walked in one day, watched Rhys charm several ladies into buying products they had no use for, and said, ‘You’re wasting your time here, lad. You should be working in a bigger pond.’
‘What did you have in mind?’ Rhys asked.
‘Let me talk to my boss about you.’
Two weeks later Rhys was working as a salesman at the small drug firm. He was one of fifty salesmen, but when Rhys looked in his special mirror, he knew that that was not true. His only competition was himself. He was getting closer to his image now, closer to the fictitious character he was creating. A man who was intelligent, cultured, sophisticated and charming. What he was trying to do was impossible. Everyone knew that one had to be born with those qualities; they could not be created. But Rhys did it. He became the image he had envisaged.
He travelled around the country, selling the firm’s products, talking and listening. He would return to London full of practical suggestions, and he quickly began to move up the ladder.
Three years after he had joined the company, Rhys was made general sales manager. Under his skilful guidance the company began to expand.
And four years later, Sam Roffe had come into his life. He had recognized the hunger in Rhys.
‘You’re like me,’ Sam Roffe had said. ‘We want to own the world. I’m going to show you how.’ And he had.
Sam Roffe had been a brilliant mentor. Over the next nine years under Sam Roffe’s tutelage Rhys Williams had become invaluable to the company. As time went on, he was given more and more responsibility, reorganizing various divisions, troubleshooting in whatever part of the world he was needed, coordinating the different branches of Roffe and Sons, creating new concepts. In the end Rhys knew more about running the company than anyone except Sam Roffe himself. Rhys Williams was the logical successor to the presidency. One morning, when Rhys and Sam Roffe were returning from Caracas in a company jet, a luxurious converted Boeing 707–320, one of a fleet of eight planes, Sam Roffe had complimented Rhys on a lucrative deal that he had concluded with the Venezuelan government.
‘There’ll be a fat bonus in this for you, Rhys.’
Rhys had replied quietly, ‘I don’t want a bonus, Sam. I’d prefer some stock and a place on your board of directors.’
He had earned it, and both men were aware of it. But Sam had said, ‘I’m sorry. I can’t change the rules, even for you. Roffe and Sons is a privately held company. No one outside the family can sit on the board or hold stock.’
Rhys had known that, of course. He attended all board meetings, but not as a member. He was an outsider. Sam Roffe was the last male in the Roffe bloodline. The other Roffes, Sam’s cousins, were females. The men they had married sat on the board of the company. Walther Gassner, who had married Anna Roffe; Ivo Palazzi, married to Simonetta Roffe; Charles Martel, married to Hélène Roffe. And Sir Alec Nichols, whose mother had been a Roffe.
So Rhys had been forced to make a decision. He knew that he deserved to be on the board, that one day he should be running the company. Present circumstances prevented it, but circumstances had a way of changing. Rhys had decided to stay, to wait and see what happened. Sam had taught him patience. And now Sam was dead.
The office lights blazed on again, and Hajib Kafir stood in the doorway. Kafir was the Turkish sales manager for Roffe and Sons. He was a short, swarthy man who wore diamonds and his fat belly like proud ornaments. He had the dishevelled air of a man who had dressed hastily. So Sophie had not found him in a nightclub. Ah, well, Rhys thought. A side-effect of Sam Roffe’s death. Coitus interruptus.
‘Rhys!’ Kafir was exclaiming. ‘My dear fellow, forgive me! I had no idea you were still in Istanbul! You were on your way to catch a plane, and I had some urgent business to –’
‘Sit down, Hajib. Listen carefully. I want you to send four cables in company code. They’re going to different countries. I want them hand-delivered by our own messengers. Do you understand?’
‘Of course,’ Kafir said, bewildered. ‘Perfectly.’
Rhys glanced at the thin, gold Baume & Mercier watch on his wrist. ‘The New City Post Office will be closed. Send the cables from Yeni Posthane Cad. I want them on their way within thirty minutes.’ He handed Kafir a copy of the cable he had written out. ‘Anyone who discusses this will be instantly discharged.’
Kafir glanced at the cable and his eyes widened. ‘My God!’ he said. ‘Oh, my God!’ He looked up at Rhys’s dark face. ‘How – how did this terrible thing happen?’
‘Sam Roffe died in an accident,’ Rhys said.
Now, for the first time, Rhys allowed his thoughts to go to what he had been pushing away from his consciousness, what he had been trying to avoid thinking about: Elizabeth Roffe, Sam’s daughter. She was twenty-four now. When Rhys had first met her she had been a fifteen-year-old girl with braces on her teeth, fiercely shy and overweight, a lonely rebel. Over the years Rhys had watched Elizabeth develop into a very special young woman, with her mother’s beauty and her father’s intelligence and spirit. She had become close to Sam. Rhys knew how deeply the news would affect her. He would have to tell her himself.
Two hours later, Rhys Williams was over the Mediterranean on a company jet, headed for New York.
Chapter Two
Berlin Monday, September 7 10 a.m.
Anna Roffe Gassner knew that she must not let herself scream again or Walther would return and kill her. She crouched in a corner of her bedroom, her body trembling uncontrollably, waiting for death. What had started out as a beautiful fairy-tale had ended in terror, unspeakable horror. It had taken her too long to face the truth: the man she had married was a homicidal maniac.
Anna Roffe had never loved anyone before she met Walther Gassner, including her mother, her father and herself. Anna had been a frail, sickly child who suffered from fainting spells. She could not remember a time when she had been free of hospitals, nurses, or specialists flown in from far-off places. Because her father was Anton Roffe, of Roffe and Sons, the top medical experts flew to Anna’s bedside in Berlin. But when they had examined her and tested her and finally departed, they knew no more than they had known before. They could not diagnose her condition.
Anna was unable to go to school like other children, and in time she had become withdrawn, creating a world of her own, full of dreams and fantasies, where no one else was allowed to enter. She painted her own pictures of life, because the colours of reality were too harsh for her to accept. When Anna was eighteen, her dizziness and fainting spells disappeared as mysteriously as they had started. But they had marred her life. At an age when most girls were getting engaged or married, Anna had never even been kissed by a boy. She insisted to herself that she did not mind. She was content to live her own dream life, apart from everything and everyone. In her middle twenties suitors came calling, for Anna Roffe was an heiress who bore one of the most prestigious names in the world, and many men were eager to share her fortune. She received proposals from a Swedish count, an Italian poet and half a dozen princes from indigent countries. Anna refused them all. On his daughter’s thirtieth birthday, Anton Roffe moaned, ‘I’m going to die without leaving any grandchildren.’
On her thirty-fifth birthday Anna had gone to Kitzhübel, in Austria, and there she had met Walther Gassner, a ski instructor thirteen years younger than herself.
The first time Anna had seen Walther the sight of him had literally taken her breath away. He was skiing down the Hahnenkamm, the steep racing slope, and it was the most beautiful sight Anna had ever seen. She had moved closer to the bottom of the ski run to get a better look at him. He was like a young god, and Anna had been satisfied to do nothing but watch him. He had caught her staring at him.
‘Aren’t you skiing, gnädiges Fräulein?’
She had shaken her head, not trusting her voice, and he had smiled and said, ‘Then let me buy you lunch.’
Anna had fled in a panic, like a schoolgirl. From then on, Walther Gassner had pursued her. Anna Roffe was not a fool. She was aware that she was neither pretty nor brilliant, that she was a plain woman, and that, aside from her name, she had seemingly very little to offer a man. But Anna knew that trapped within that ordinary façade was a beautiful, sensitive girl filled with love and poetry and music.
Perhaps because Anna was not beautiful, she had a deep reverence for beauty. She would go to the great museums and spend hours staring at the paintings and the statues. When she had seen Walther Gassner it was as though all the gods had come alive for her.
Anna was having breakfast on the terrace of the Tennerhof Hotel on the second day when Walther Gassner joined her. He did look like a young god. He had a regular, clean-cut profile, and his features were delicate, sensitive, strong. His face was deeply tanned and his teeth were white and even. He had blond hair and his eyes were a slate grey. Beneath his ski clothes Anna could see the movement of his biceps and thigh muscles, and she felt tremors going through her loins. She hid her hands in her lap so that he could not see the keratosis.
‘I looked for you on the slope yesterday afternoon,’ Walther said. Anna could not speak. ‘If you don’t ski, I’d like to teach you.’ He smiled, and added, ‘No charge.’
He had taken her to the Hausberg, the beginners’ slope, for her first lesson. It was immediately apparent to them both that Anna had no talent for skiing. She kept losing her balance and falling down, but she insisted on trying again and again because she was afraid that Walther would despise her if she failed. Instead, he had picked her up after her tenth fall and had said gently, ‘You were meant to do better things than this.’
‘What things?’ Anna had asked miserably.
‘I’ll tell you at dinner tonight.’
They had dined that evening and breakfasted the next morning, and then had lunch and dinner again. Walther neglected his clients. He skipped skiing lessons in order to go into the village with Anna. He took her to the casino in Der Goldene Greif, and they went sleigh-riding and shopping and hiking, and sat on the terrace of the hotel hour after hour, talking. For Anna, it was a time of magic.
Five days after they had met, Walther took her hands in his and said, ‘Anna, liebchen, I want to marry you.’
He had spoiled it. He had taken her out of her wonderful fairyland and brought her back to the cruel reality of who and what she was. An unattractive, thirty-five-year-old virginal prize for fortune-hunters.
She had tried to leave but Walther had stopped her. ‘We love each other, Anna. You can’t run away from that.’
She listened to him lying, listened to him saying, ‘I’ve never loved anyone before,’ and she made it easy for him because she wanted so desperately to believe him. She took him back to her room, and they sat there, talking, and as Walther told Anna the story of his life, she suddenly began to believe, thinking with wonder, It is really the story of my own life.
Like her, Walther had never had anyone to love. He had been alienated from the world by his birth as a bastard, as Anna had been alienated by her illness. Like her, Walther had been filled with the need to give love. He had been brought up in an orphanage, and when he was thirteen and his extraordinary good looks were already apparent, the women in the orphanage had begun to use him, bringing him to their rooms at night, taking him to bed with them, teaching him how to please them. As a reward the young boy was given extra food and pieces of meat, and desserts made with real sugar. He received everything but love.
When Walther was old enough to run away from the orphanage, he found that the world outside was no different. Women wanted to use his good looks, to wear him as a badge; but it never went any deeper than that. They gave him gifts of money and clothes and jewellery, but never of themselves.
Walther was her soul-mate, Anna realized, her doppelgänger. They were married in a quiet ceremony at the town hall.
Anna had expected her father to be overjoyed. Instead, he had flown into a rage. ‘You’re a silly, vain fool,’ Anton Roffe screamed at her. ‘You’ve married a no-good fortune-hunter. I’ve had him checked out. All his life he’s lived off women, but he’s never before found anyone stupid enough to marry him.’
‘Stop it!’ Anna cried. ‘You don’t understand him.’
But Anton Roffe knew that he understood Walther Gassner only too well. He asked his new son-in-law to come to his office.
Walther looked around approvingly at the dark panelling and the old paintings hanging on the walls. ‘I like this place,’ Walther said.
‘Yes, I’m sure it’s better than the orphanage.’
Walther looked up at him sharply, his eyes suddenly wary. ‘I beg your pardon?’
Anton said, ‘Let’s cut out the Scheiss. You’ve made a mistake. My daughter has no money.’
Walther’s grey eyes seemed to turn to stone. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’
‘I’m not trying to tell you anything. I’m telling you. You won’t get anything from Anna because she hasn’t got anything. If you had done your homework more thoroughly, you would have learned that Roffe and Sons is a close-held corporation. That means that none of its stock can be sold. We live comfortably, but that’s it. There is no big fortune to be milked here.’ He fumbled in his pocket, drew out an envelope and threw it on the desk in front of Walther. ‘This will reimburse you for your trouble. I will expect you to be out of Berlin by six o’clock. I don’t want Anna ever to hear from you again.’
Walther said quietly, ‘Did it ever cross your mind that I might have married Anna because I fell in love with her?’
‘No,’ Anton said acidly. ‘Did it ever cross yours?’
Walther looked at him a moment. ‘Let’s see what my market price is.’ He tore open the envelope and counted the money. He looked up at Anton Roffe again. ‘I value myself at much higher than twenty thousand marks.’
‘It’s all you’re getting. Count yourself lucky.’
‘I do,’ Walther said. ‘If you want to know the truth, I think I am very lucky. Thank you.’ He put the money in his pocket with a careless gesture and a moment later was walking out of the door.
Anton Roffe was relieved. He experienced a slight sense of guilt and distaste for what he had done and yet he knew it had been the only solution. Anna would be unhappy at being deserted by her groom, but it was better to have it happen now than later. He would try to see to it that she met some eligible men of her own age, who would at least respect her if not love her. Someone who would be interested in her and not her money or her name. Someone who would not be bought for twenty thousand marks.
When Anton Roffe arrived home, Anna ran up to greet him, tears in her eyes. He took her in his arms and hugged her, and said, ‘Anna, liebchen, it’s going to be all right. You’ll get over him –’
And Anton looked over her shoulder, and standing in the doorway was Walther Gassner. Anna was holding up her finger, saying, ‘Look what Walther bought me! Isn’t it the most beautiful ring you’ve ever seen? It cost twenty thousand marks.’
In the end, Anna’s parents were forced to accept Walther Gassner. As a wedding gift they bought them a lovely Schinkel manor-house in Wannsee, with French furniture mixed with antiques, comfortable couches and easy chairs, a Roentgen desk in the library, and bookcases lining the walls. The upstairs was furnished with elegant eighteenth-century pieces from Denmark and Sweden.
‘It’s too much,’ Walther told Anna. ‘I don’t want anything from them or from you. I want to be able to buy you beautiful things, liebchen.’ He gave her that boyish grin and said, ‘But I have no money.’
‘Of course you do,’ Anna replied. ‘Everything I have belongs to you.’
Walther smiled at her sweetly and said, ‘Does it?’
At Anna’s insistence – for Walther seemed reluctant to discuss money – she explained her financial situation to him. She had a trust fund that was enough for her to live on comfortably, but the bulk of her fortune was in shares of Roffe and Sons. The shares could not be sold without the unanimous approval of the board of directors.
Anna told him. Walther could not believe it. He made her repeat the sum.
‘And you can’t sell the stock?’
‘No. My cousin Sam won’t let it be sold. He holds the controlling shares. One day …’
Walther expressed an interest in working in the family business. Anton was against it.
‘What can a ski bum contribute to Roffe and Sons?’ he asked.
But in the end he gave in to his daughter, and Walther was given a job in administration with the company. He proved to be excellent at it and advanced rapidly. When Anna’s father died two years later, Walther Gassner was made a member of the board. Anna was so proud of him. He was the perfect husband and lover. He was always bringing her flowers and little gifts, and he seemed content to stay at home with her in the evening, just the two of them. Anna’s happiness was almost too much for her to bear. Ach, danke, lieber Gott, she would say silently.
Anna learned to cook, so that she could make Walther’s favourite dishes. She made choucroute, a bed of crunchy sauerkraut and creamy mashed potatoes heaped with a smoked pork chop, a frankfurter and a Nuremberg sausage. She prepared fillet of pork cooked in beer and flavoured with cumin, and served it with a fat baked apple, cored and peeled, the centre filled with airelles, the little red berries.
‘You’re the best cook in the world, liebchen,’ Walther would say, and Anna would blush with pride.
In the third year of their marriage, Anna became pregnant.
There was a great deal of pain during the first eight months of her pregnancy, but Anna bore that happily. It was something else that worried her.
It started one day after lunch. She had been knitting a sweater for Walther, day-dreaming, and suddenly she heard Walther’s voice, saying, ‘My God, Anna, what are you doing, sitting here in the dark?’
The afternoon had turned to dusk, and she looked down at the sweater in her lap and she had not touched it. Where had the day gone? Where had her mind been? After that, Anna had other similar experiences, and she began to wonder whether this sliding away into nothingness was a portent, an omen that she was going to die. She did not think she was afraid of death, but she could not bear the thought of leaving Walther.
Four weeks before the baby was due, Anna lapsed into one of her day-dreams, missed a step and fell down an entire flight of stairs.
She awakened in the hospital.
Walther was seated on the edge of the bed, holding her hand. ‘You gave me a terrible scare.’
In a sudden panic she thought, The baby! I can’t feel the baby. She reached down. Her stomach was flat. ‘Where is my baby?’
And Walther held her close and hugged her.
The doctor said, ‘You had twins, Mrs Gassner.’
Anna turned to Walther, and his eyes were filled with tears. ‘A boy and a girl, liebchen.’
And she could have died right then of happiness. She felt a sudden, irresistible longing to have them in her arms. She had to see them, feel them, hold them.
‘We’ll talk about that when you’re stronger,’ the doctor said. ‘Not until you’re stronger.’
They assured Anna that she was getting better every day, but she was becoming frightened. Something was happening to her that she did not understand. Walther would arrive and take her hand and say goodbye, and she would look at him in surprise and start to say, ‘But you just got here …’ And then she would see the clock, and three or four hours would have passed.
She had no idea where they had gone.
She had a vague recollection that they had brought the children to her in the night and that she had fallen asleep. She could not remember too clearly, and she was afraid to ask. It did not matter. She would have them to herself when Walther took her home.
The wonderful day finally arrived. Anna left the hospital room in a wheelchair, even though she insisted she was strong enough to walk. She actually felt very weak, but she was so excited that nothing mattered except the fact that she was going to see her babies. Walther carried her into the house, and he started to take her upstairs to their bedroom.
‘No, no!’ she said. ‘Take me to the nursery.’
‘You must rest now, darling. You’re not strong enough to –’
She did not listen to the rest of what he was saying. She slipped out of his arms and ran into the nursery.
The blinds were drawn and the room was dark and it took Anna’s eyes a moment to adjust. She was filled with such excitement that it made her dizzy. She was afraid she was going to faint.
Walther had come in behind her. He was talking to her, trying to explain something, but whatever it was was unimportant.
For there they were. They were both asleep in their cribs, and Anna moved towards them softly, so as not to disturb them, and stood there, staring down at them. They were the most beautiful children she had ever seen. Even now, she could see that the boy would have Walther’s handsome features and his thick blond hair. The girl was like an exquisite doll, with soft, golden hair and a small, triangular face.
Anna turned to Walther and said, her voice choked, ‘They’re beautiful. I – I’m so happy.’
‘Come, Anna,’ Walther whispered. He put his arms around Anna, and held her close, and there was a fierce hunger in him, and she began to feel a stirring within her. They had not made love for such a long time. Walther was right. There would be plenty of time for the children later.
The boy she named Peter and the girl Birgitta. They were two beautiful miracles that she and Walther had made, and Anna would spend hour after hour in the nursery, playing with them, talking to them. Even though they could not understand her yet she knew they could feel her love. Sometimes, in the middle of play, she would turn and Walther would be standing in the doorway, home from the office, and Anna would realize that somehow the whole day had slipped by.
‘Come and join us,’ she would say. ‘We’re playing a game.’
‘Have you fixed dinner yet?’ Walther would ask, and she would suddenly feel guilty. She would resolve to pay more attention to Walther, and less to the children, but the next day the same thing would happen. The twins were like an irresistible magnet that drew her to them. Anna still loved Walther very much, and she tried to assuage her guilt by telling herself that the children were a part of him. Every night, as soon as Walther was asleep, Anna would slip out of bed and creep into the nursery, and sit and stare at the children until dawn started filtering into the room. Then she would turn and hurry back to bed before Walther awoke.
Once, in the middle of the night, Walther walked into the nursery and caught her. ‘What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?’ he said.
‘Nothing, darling. I was just –’
‘Go back to bed!’
He had never spoken to her like that before.
At breakfast Walther said, ‘I think we should take a holiday. It will be good for us to get away.’
‘But Walther, the children are too young to travel.’
‘I’m talking about the two of us.’
She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t leave them.’
He took her hand and said, ‘I want you to forget about the children.’
‘Forget about the children?’ There was shock in her voice.
He looked into her eyes and said, ‘Anna, remember how wonderful it was between us before you were pregnant? What good times we had? How much joy it was to be together, just the two of us, with no one else around to interfere?’
It was then that she understood. Walther was jealous of the children.
The weeks and months passed swiftly. Walther never went near the children now. On their birthdays Anna bought them lovely presents. Walther always managed to be out of town on business. Anna could not go on deceiving herself for ever. The truth was that Walther had no interest in the children at all. Anna felt that perhaps it was her fault, because she was too interested in them. Obsessed was the word Walther had used. He had asked her to consult a doctor about it, and she had gone only to please Walther. But the doctor was a fool. The moment he had started talking to her, Anna had shut him out, letting her mind drift, until she heard him say, ‘Our time is up, Mrs Gassner. Will I see you next week?’
‘Of course.’
She never returned.
Anna felt that the problem was as much Walther’s as hers. If her fault lay in loving the children too much, then his fault lay in not loving them enough.
Anna learned not to mention the children in Walther’s presence, but she could hardly wait for him to leave for the office, so that she could hurry into the nursery to be with her babies. Except that they were no longer babies. They had had their third birthday, and already Anna could see what they would look like as adults. Peter was tall for his age and his body was strong and athletic like his father’s. Anna would hold him on her lap and croon, ‘Ah, Peter, what are you going to do to the poor fräuleins? Be gentle with them, my darling son. They won’t have a chance.’
And Peter would smile shyly and hug her.
Then Anna would turn to Birgitta. Birgitta grew prettier each day. She looked like neither Anna nor Walther. She had spun-gold hair and skin as delicate as porcelain. Peter had his father’s fiery temper and sometimes it would be necessary for Anna to spank him gently, but Birgitta had the disposition of an angel. When Walther was not around, Anna played records or read to them. Their favourite book was 101 Märchen. They would insist that Anna read them the tales of ogres and goblins and witches over and over again, and at night Anna would put them to bed, singing them a lullaby:
Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf,Der Vater hüt’t die Schaf …
Anna had prayed that time would soften Walther’s attitude, that he would change. He did change, but for the worse. He hated the children. In the beginning Anna had told herself that it was because Walther wanted all of her love for himself, that he was unwilling to share it with anyone else. But slowly she became aware that it had nothing to do with loving her. It had to do with hating her. Her father had been right. Walther had married her for her money. The children were a threat to him. He wanted to get rid of them. More and more he talked to Anna about selling the stock. ‘Sam has no right to stop us! We could take all that money and go away somewhere. Just the two of us.’
She stared at him. ‘What about the children?’
His eyes were feverish. ‘No. Listen to me. For both our sakes we’ve got to get rid of them. We must.’
It was then that Anna began to realize that he was insane. She was terrified. Walther had fired all the domestic help, and except for a cleaning woman who came in once a week, Anna and the children were alone with him, at his mercy. He needed help. Perhaps it was not too late to cure him. In the fifteenth century they gathered the insane and imprisoned them for ever on houseboats, Narrenschiffe, the ships of fools, but today, with modern medicine, she felt there must be something they could do to help Walther.
Now, on this day in September, Anna sat huddled on the floor in her bedroom, where Walther had locked her, waiting for him to return. She knew what she had to do. For his sake, as well as hers and the children’s. Anna rose unsteadily and walked over to the telephone. She hesitated for only an instant, then picked it up and began to dial 110, the police emergency number.
An alien voice in her ear said, ‘Hallo. Hier ist der Notruf der Polizei. Kann ich Ihnen helfen?’
‘Ja, bitte!’ Her voice was choked. ‘Ich –’
A hand came out of nowhere and tore the receiver from her, and slammed it down into the cradle.
Anna backed away. ‘Oh, please,’ she whimpered, ‘don’t hurt me.’
Walther was moving towards her, his eyes bright, his voice so soft that she could hardly make out the words. ‘Liebchen, I’m not going to hurt you. I love you, don’t you know that?’ He touched her, and she could feel her flesh crawl. ‘It’s just that we don’t want the police coming here, do we?’ She shook her head from side to side, too filled with terror to speak. ‘It’s the children that are causing the trouble, Anna. We’re going to get rid of them. I –’
Downstairs the front doorbell rang. Walther stood there, hesitating. It rang again.
‘Stay here,’ he ordered. ‘I’ll be back.’
Anna watched, petrified, as he walked out of the bedroom door. He slammed it behind him and she could hear the click of the key as he locked it.
I’ll be back, he had said.
Walther Gassner hurried down the stairs, walked to the front door and opened it. A man in a grey messenger’s uniform stood there, holding a sealed manila envelope.
‘I have a special delivery for Mr and Mrs Walther Gassner.’
‘Yes,’ Walther said. ‘I will take it.’
He closed the door, looked at the envelope in his hand, then ripped it open. Slowly, he read the message inside.
DEEPLY REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT SAM ROFFE WAS KILLED IN A CLIMBING ACCIDENT. PLEASE BE IN ZURICH FRIDAY NOON FOR AN EMERGENCY MEETING OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS.
It was signed ‘Rhys Williams’.
Chapter Three
Rome Monday, September 7 6 p.m.
Ivo Palazzi stood in the middle of his bedroom, the blood streaming down his face. ‘Mamma mia! Mi hai rovinato!’
‘I haven’t begun to ruin you, you miserable figlio di putana!’ Donatella screamed at him.
They were both naked in the large bedroom of their apartment in Via Montemignaio. Donatella had the most sensuous, exciting body Ivo Palazzi had ever seen, and even now, as his life’s blood poured from his face, from the terrible scratches she had inflicted on him, he felt a familiar stirring in his loins. Dio, she was beautiful. There was an innocent decadence about her that drove him wild. She had the face of a leopard, high cheekbones and slant eyes, full ripe lips, that nibbled him and sucked him and – But he must not think of that now. He picked up a white cloth from a chair to staunch the flow of blood, and too late he realized that it was his shirt. Donatella was standing in the middle of their huge double bed, yelling at him. ‘I hope you bleed to death! When I’ve finished with you, you filthy whoremonger, there won’t be enough left for a gattino to shit on!’
For the hundredth time Ivo Palazzi wondered how he had got himself into this impossible situation. He had always prided himself on being the happiest of men, and all his friends had agreed with him. His friends? Everybody! Because Ivo had no enemies. In his bachelor days he had been a happy-go-lucky Roman without a care in the world, a Don Giovanni who was the envy of half the males in Italy. His philosophy was summed up in the phrase Farst onore con una donna – ‘Honour oneself with a woman.’ It kept Ivo very busy. He was a true romantic. He kept falling in love, and each time he used his new love to help him forget his old love. Ivo adored women, and to him they were all beautiful, from the putane who plied their ancient trade along the Via Appia, to the high-fashion models strutting along the Via Condotti. The only girls Ivo did not care for were the Americans. They were too independent for his tastes. Besides, what could one expect of a nation whose language was so unromantic that they would translate the name of Giuseppe Verdi to Joe Green?
Ivo always managed to have a dozen girls in various states of preparation. There were five stages. In stage one were the girls he had just met. They received daily phone calls, flowers, slim volumes of erotic poetry. In stage two were those to whom he sent little gifts of Gucci scarves and porcelain boxes filled with Perugina chocolates. Those in stage three received jewellery and clothes and were taken to dinner at El Toula, or Taverna Flavia. Those in stage four shared Ivo’s bed and enjoyed his formidable skills as a lover. An assignation with Ivo was a production. His beautifully decorated little apartment on the Via Margutta would be filled with flowers, garofani or papaveri, the music would be opera, classical or rock, according to the chosen girl’s taste. Ivo was a superb cook, and one of his specialities, appropriately enough, was pollo alla cacciatora, the hunter’s chicken. After dinner, a bottle of chilled champagne to drink in bed … Ah, yes, Ivo loved stage four.
But stage five was probably the most delicate of them all. It consisted of a heartbreaking farewell speech, a generous parting gift and a tearful arrivederci.
But all that was in the past. Now Ivo Palazzi took a quick glance at his bleeding, scratched face in the mirror over his bed and was horrified. He looked as though he had been attacked by a mad threshing machine.
‘Look at what you’ve done to me!’ he cried. ‘Cara, I know you didn’t mean it.’
He moved over to the bed to take Donatella in his arms. Her soft arms flew around him and as he started to hug her, she buried her long fingernails in his naked back and clawed him like a wild animal. Ivo yelled with pain.
‘Scream!’ Donatella shouted. ‘If I had a knife, I’d cut off your cazzo and ram it down your miserable throat.’
‘Please!’ Ivo begged. ‘The children will hear you.’
‘Let them!’ she shrieked. ‘It’s time they found out what kind of monster their father is.’
He took a step towards her. ‘Carissima –’
‘Don’t you touch me! I’d give my body to the first drunken syphilitic sailor I met on the streets before I’d ever let you come near me again.’
Ivo drew himself up, his pride offended. ‘That is not the way I expect the mother of my children to talk to me.’
‘You want me to talk nice to you? You want me to stop treating you like the vermin you are?’ Donatella’s voice rose to a scream. ‘Then give me what I want!’
Ivo looked nervously towards the door. ‘Carissima – I can’t. I don’t have it.’
‘Then get it for me!’ she cried. ‘You promised!’
She was beginning to get hysterical again, and Ivo decided the best thing for him to do was to get out of there quickly before the neighbours called the carabinieri again.
‘It will take time to get a million dollars,’ he said soothingly. ‘But I’ll – I’ll find a way.’
He hastily donned his underpants and trousers, and socks and shoes, while Donatella stormed around the room, her magnificent, firm breasts waving in the air, and Ivo thought to himself, My God, what a woman! How I adore her! He reached for his bloodstained shirt. There was no help for it. He put it on, feeling the cold stickiness against his back and chest. He took a last look in the mirror. Small pools of blood were still oozing from the deep gashes where Donatella had raked her fingernails across his face.
‘Carissima,’ Ivo moaned, ‘how am I ever going to explain this to my wife?’
Ivo Palazzi’s wife was Simonetta Roffe, an heiress of the Italian branch of the Roffe family. Ivo had been a young architect when he had met Simonetta. His firm had sent him to supervise some changes in the Roffe villa at Porto Ercole. The instant Simonetta had set eyes on Ivo, his bachelor days were numbered. Ivo had got to the fourth stage with her on the first night, and found himself married to her a short time later. Simonetta was as determined as she was lovely, and she knew what she wanted: she wanted Ivo Palazzi. Thus it was that Ivo found himself transformed from a carefree bachelor to the husband of a beautiful young heiress. He gave up his architectural aspirations with no regrets and joined Roffe and Sons, with a magnificent office in EUR, the section of Rome started with such high hopes by the late, ill-fated Duce.
Ivo was a success with the firm from the beginning. He was intelligent, learned quickly and everyone adored him. It was impossible not to adore Ivo. He was always smiling, always charming. His friends envied him his wonderful disposition and wondered how he did it. The answer was simple. Ivo kept the dark side of his nature buried. In fact, he was a deeply emotional man, capable of great volatile hatreds, capable of killing.
Ivo’s marriage with Simonetta thrived. At first, he had feared that marriage would prove to be a bondage that would strangle his manhood to death, but his fears proved to be unfounded. He simply put himself on an austerity programme, reducing the number of his girl friends, and everything went on as before.
Simonetta’s father bought them a beautiful home in Olgiata, a large private estate twenty-five kilometres north of Rome, guarded by closed gates and manned by uniformed guards.
Simonetta was a wonderful wife. She loved Ivo and treated him like a king, which was no more than he felt he deserved. There was just one tiny flaw in Simonetta. When she became jealous, she turned into a savage. She had once suspected Ivo of taking a female buyer on a trip to Brazil. He was righteously indignant at the accusation. Before the argument was over, their entire house was a shambles. Not one dish or piece of furniture was left intact, and much of it had been broken over Ivo’s head. Simonetta had gone after him with a butcher’s knife, threatening to kill him and then herself, and it had taken all of Ivo’s strength to wrest the knife from her. They had wound up fighting on the floor, and Ivo had finally torn off her clothes and made her forget her anger. But after that incident Ivo became very discreet. He had told the buyer he could not take any more trips with her, and he was careful never to let the faintest breath of suspicion touch him. He knew that he was the luckiest man in the world. Simonetta was young and beautiful and intelligent and rich. They enjoyed the same things and the same people. It was a perfect marriage, and Ivo sometimes found himself wondering, as he transferred a girl from stage two to stage three, and another from stage four to stage five, why he kept on being unfaithful. Then he would shrug philosophically and say to himself, Someone has to make these women happy.
Ivo and Simonetta had been married for three years when Ivo met Donatella Spolini on a business trip to Sicily. It was more of an explosion than a meeting, two planets coming together and colliding. Where Simonetta had the slender, sweet body of a young woman sculpted by Manzù, Donatella had the sensuous, ripe body of a Rubens. Her face was exquisite and her green, smouldering eyes set Ivo aflame. They were in bed one hour after they had met, and Ivo, who had always prided himself on his prowess as a lover, found that he was the pupil and Donatella the teacher. She made him rise to heights he had never achieved before, and her body did things to his that he had never dreamed possible. She was an endless cornucopia of pleasure, and as Ivo lay in bed, his eyes closed, savouring incredible sensations, he knew he would be a fool to let Donatella go.
And so Donatella had become Ivo’s mistress. The only condition she imposed was that he had to get rid of all the other women in his life, except his wife. Ivo had happily agreed. That had been eight years ago, and in all that time Ivo had never been unfaithful to either his wife or his mistress. Satisfying two hungry women would have been enough to exhaust an ordinary man, but in Ivo’s case it was exactly the opposite. When he made love to Simonetta he thought about Donatella and her ripe, full body, and he was filled with lust. And when he made love to Donatella, he thought of Simonetta’s sweet young breasts and tiny culo and he performed like a wild man. No matter which woman he was with, he felt that he was cheating the other. It added enormously to his pleasure.
Ivo bought Donatella a beautiful apartment in Via Montemignaio, and he was with her every moment that he could manage. He would arrange to be away on a sudden business trip and, instead of leaving, he would spend the time in bed with Donatella. He would stop by to see her on his way to the office, and he would spend his afternoon siestas with her. Once, when Ivo sailed to New York on the QE 2 with Simonetta, he installed Donatella in a cabin one deck below. They were the five most stimulating days of Ivo’s life.
On the evening that Simonetta announced to Ivo that she was pregnant, Ivo was filled with an indescribable joy. A week later Donatella informed Ivo that she was pregnant, and Ivo’s cup ran over. Why, he asked himself, are the gods so good to me? In all humility, Ivo sometimes felt that he did not deserve all the great pleasures that were being bestowed upon him.
In due course Simonetta gave birth to a girl and a week later Donatella gave birth to a boy. What more could any man ask? But the gods were not finished with Ivo. A short time later, Donatella informed Ivo that she was pregnant again, and the following week Simonetta also became pregnant. Nine months later, Donatella gave Ivo another son and Simonetta presented her husband with another daughter. Four months later, both women were pregnant again and this time they gave birth on the same day. Ivo frantically raced from the Salvator Mundi, where Simonetta was ensconced, to the Santa Chiera Clinic where Ivo had taken Donatella. He sped from hospital to hospital, driving on the Raccordo Anulare, waving to the girls sitting in front of their little tents along the sides of the road, under pink umbrellas, waiting for customers. Ivo was driving too fast to see their faces, but he loved them all and wished them well.
Donatella gave birth to another boy and Simonetta to another girl.
Sometimes Ivo wished it had been the other way round. It was ironical that his wife had borne him daughters and his mistress had borne him sons, for he would have liked male heirs to carry on his name. Still, he was a contented man. He had three children with outdoor plumbing, and three children with indoor plumbing. He adored them and he was wonderful to them, remembering their birthdays, their saints’ days, and their names. The girls were called Isabella and Benedetta and Camilla. The boys were Francesco and Carlo and Luca.
As the children grew older, life began to get more complicated for Ivo. Including his wife, his mistress and his six children, Ivo had to cope with eight birthdays, eight saints’ days, and two of every holiday. He made sure that the children’s schools were well separated. The girls were sent to Saint Dominique, the French convent on the Via Cassia, and the boys to Massimo, the Jesuit school in EUR. Ivo met and charmed all their teachers, helped the children with their homework, played with them, fixed their broken toys. It taxed all of Ivo’s ingenuity to handle two families and keep them apart, but he managed. He was truly an exemplary father, husband and lover. On Christmas Day he stayed home with Simonetta, Isabella, Benedetta and Camilla. On Befana, the sixth of January, Ivo dressed up as the Befana, the witch, and handed out presents and carbone, the black rock candy prized by children, to Francesco, Carlo and Luca.
Ivo’s wife and his mistress were lovely, and his children were bright and beautiful, and he was proud of them all. Life was wonderful.
And then the gods spat in Ivo Palazzi’s face.
As in the case of most major disasters, this one struck without any warning.
Ivo had made love to Simonetta that morning before breakfast, and then had gone directly to his office, where he did a profitable morning’s work. At one o’clock he told his secretary – male, at Simonetta’s insistence – that he would be at a meeting the rest of the afternoon.
Smiling at the thought of the pleasures that lay ahead of him, Ivo circled the construction that blocked the street along the Lungo Tevere, where they had been building a subway for the past seventeen years, crossed the bridge to the Corso Francia, and thirty minutes later was driving into his garage at Via Montemignaio. The instant Ivo opened the door of the apartment, he knew something was terribly wrong. Francesco, Carlo and Luca were clustered around Donatella, sobbing, and as Ivo walked towards Donatella, she looked at him with an expression of such hatred on her face that for a moment Ivo thought he must have entered the wrong apartment.
‘Stronzo!’ she screamed at him.
Ivo looked around him, bewildered. ‘Carissima – children – what’s wrong? What have I done?’
Donatella rose to her feet. ‘Here’s what you’ve done!’ She threw a copy of the magazine Oggi in his face. ‘Look at it!’
Bewildered, Ivo reached down and picked up the magazine. Staring out from the cover was a photograph of himself, Simonetta and their three daughters. The caption read: Padre di Famiglia.
Dio! He had forgotten all about it. Months before, the magazine had asked permission to do a story about him and he had foolishly agreed. But Ivo had never dreamed that it would be given this prominence. He looked over at his sobbing mistress and children, and said, ‘I can explain this …’
‘Their schoolmates have already explained it,’ Donatella shrieked. ‘My children came home crying because everybody at school is calling them bastards!’
‘Cara, I –’
‘My landlord and the neighbours have treated us like lepers. We can’t hold up our heads any more. I have to get them out of here.’
Ivo stared at her, shocked. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m leaving Rome, and I’m taking my sons with me.’
‘They’re mine too,’ he shouted. ‘You can’t do it.’
‘Try to stop me and I’ll kill you!’
It was a nightmare. Ivo stood there, watching his three sons and his beloved mistress in hysterics, and he thought, This can’t be happening to me.
But Donatella was not finished with him. ‘Before we go,’ she announced, ‘I want one million dollars. In cash.’
It was so ridiculous that Ivo started to laugh. ‘A million –’
‘Either that, or I telephone your wife.’
That had happened six months earlier. Donatella had not carried out her threat – not yet – but Ivo knew she would. Each week she had increased the pressure. She would telephone him at the office and say, ‘I don’t care how you get the money. Do it!’
There was only one way that Ivo could possibly obtain such a huge sum. He had to be able to sell the stock in Roffe and Sons. It was Sam Roffe who was blocking the sale, Sam who was jeopardizing Ivo’s marriage, his future. He had to be stopped. If one knew the right people, anything could be done.
What hurt Ivo more than anything was that Donatella – his darling, passionate mistress – would not let him touch her. Ivo was permitted to visit the children every day, but the bedroom was off limits.
‘After you give me the money,’ Donatella promised, ‘then I will let you make love to me.’
It was out of desperation that Ivo telephoned Donatella one afternoon and said, ‘I’m coming right over. The money is arranged.’
He would make love to her first and placate her later. It had to work out that way. He had managed to undress her, and when they were both naked, he had told her the truth. ‘I don’t have the money yet, cara, but one day soon –’
It was then that she had attacked him like a wild animal.
Ivo was thinking of these things now, as he drove away from Donatella’s apartment (as he now thought of it) and turned north on to the crowded Via Cassia, towards his home at Olgiata. He glanced at his face in the rearview mirror. The bleeding had lessened, but the scratches were raw-looking and discoloured. He looked down at his shirt, stained with blood. How was he going to explain to Simonetta the scratches on his face and his back? For one reckless moment Ivo actually considered telling her the truth, but he dismissed the thought as quickly as it came into his head. He might – just might – have been able to confess to Simonetta that in a moment of mental aberration he had gone to bed with a girl and got her pregnant, and he might – he just might – have got away with a whole skin. But three children? Over a period of three years? His life would not be worth a five-lire piece. There was no way he could avoid going home now, for they were expecting guests for dinner, and Simonetta would be waiting for him. Ivo was trapped. His marriage was finished. Only San Genaro, the patron saint of miracles, could help him. Ivo’s eye was caught by a sign at the side of the Via Cassia. He suddenly slammed on the brakes, turned off the highway and brought the car to a stop.
Thirty minutes later, Ivo drove through the gates of Olgiata. Ignoring the stares of the guards as they saw his torn face and bloodstained shirt, Ivo drove along the winding roads, came to the turn that led to his driveway, and pulled up in front of his house. He parked the car, opened the front door of the house and walked into the living-room. Simonetta and Isabella, their eldest daughter, were in the room. A look of shock came over Simonetta’s face as she saw her husband.
‘Ivo! What happened?’
Ivo smiled awkwardly, trying to ignore the pain it cost, and admitted sheepishly, ‘I’m afraid I did something stupid, cara –’
Simonetta was moving closer, studying the scratches on his face, and Ivo could see her eyes begin to narrow. When she spoke, her voice was frosty. ‘Who scratched your face?’
‘Tiberio,’ Ivo announced. From behind his back he produced a large, spitting, ugly grey cat that leaped out of his arms and raced off. ‘I bought it for Isabella, but the damned thing attacked me while I was trying to put it in its basket.’
‘Povero amore mio!’ Instantly, Simonetta was at his side. ‘Angelo mio! Come upstairs and lie down. I’ll get the doctor. I’ll get some iodine. I’ll –’
‘No, no! I’m fine,’ Ivo said bravely. He winced as she put her arms around him. ‘Careful! I’m afraid he’s clawed my back, too.’
‘Amore! How you must be suffering!’
‘No, really,’ Ivo said. ‘I feel good.’ And he meant it.
The front doorbell rang.
‘I’ll go,’ Simonetta said.
‘No, I’ll go,’ Ivo said quickly. ‘I – I’m expecting some important papers from the office.’
He hurried to the front door and opened it.
‘Signor Palazzi?’
‘Sì.’
A messenger, dressed in a grey uniform, handed him an envelope. Inside was a teletype from Rhys Williams. Ivo read the message rapidly. He stood there for a long, long time.
Then he took a deep breath and went upstairs to get ready for his guests.
Chapter Four
Buenos Aires Monday, September 7 3 p.m.
The Buenos Aires autodrome on the dusty outskirts of Argentina’s capital city was crammed with fifty thousand spectators who had come to watch the championship classic. It was a 115-lap race over the almost four-mile circuit. The race had been running for nearly five hours, under a hot, punishing sun, and out of a starting field of thirty cars only a handful remained. The crowd was seeing history being made. There had never been such a race before, and perhaps never would be again. All the names that had become legend were on the track this day: Chris Amon from New Zealand, and Brian Redman from Lancashire. There was the Italian Andrea di Adamici, in an Alfa-Romeo Tipo 33, and Carlos Maco of Brazil, in a March Formula 1. The prize-winning Belgian Jacky Ickx was there, and Sweden’s Reine Wisell in a BRM.
The track looked like a rainbow gone mad, filled with the swirling reds and greens and black and white and golds of the Ferraris and Brabhams and McLaren M19-As and Lotus Formula 3s.
As lap after gruelling lap went by, the giants began to fall. Chris Amon was in fourth place when his throttle jammed open. He sideswiped Brian Redman’s Cooper before he brought his own car under control by cutting the ignition, but both cars were finished. Reine Wisell was in first position, with Jacky Ickx close behind the BRM. On the far turn, the BRM gearbox disintegrated and the battery and electrical equipment caught fire. The car started spinning, and Jacky Ickx’s Ferrari was caught in the vortex.
The crowd was in a frenzy.
Three cars were outpacing the rest of the field, Jorje Amandaris from Argentina, driving a Surtees; Nils Nilsson from Sweden in a Matra; and a Ferrari 312 B-2, driven by Martel of France. They were driving brilliantly, daring the straight track, challenging the curves, moving up.
Jorje Amandaris was in the lead, and because he was one of them, the Argentinians cheered him madly. Close behind Amandaris was Nils Nilsson, at the wheel of a red and white Matra, and behind him the black and gold Ferrari, driven by Martel of France.
The French car had gone almost unnoticed until the last five minutes, when it had started gaining on the field. It had reached tenth position, then seventh, then fifth. And it was coming on strongly. The crowd was watching now as the French driver started moving up on number two, driven by Nilsson. The three cars were travelling at speeds in excess of 180 miles an hour. That was dangerous enough at carefully contoured race tracks like Brands Hatch or Watkins Glen, but on the cruder Argentine track it was suicide. A red-coated referee stood at the side of the track, holding up a sign: FIVE LAPS.
The French black and gold Ferrari attempted to pass Nilsson’s Matra on the outside, and Nilsson inched over, blocking the French car’s way. They were lapping a German car on the inside track, moving up on it fast. Now it was opposite Nilsson’s car. The French car dropped back and edged over so that it was positioned in the tight space behind the German car and Nilsson’s Matra. With a quick burst of acceleration the French driver made for the narrow slot, forcing the two cars out of its way and shooting ahead into the number two spot. The crowd, which had been holding its breath, roared its approval. It had been a brilliant, dangerous manoeuvre.
It was Amandaris in the lead now, Martel second and Nilsson in third position, with three laps remaining. Amandaris had seen the move. The French driver is good, Amandaris told himself, but not good enough to beat me. Amandaris intended to win this race. Ahead of him he saw the sign being flashed – TWO LAPS. The race was almost over, and it was his. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the black and gold Ferrari trying to pull up alongside him. He got a glimpse of the driver’s goggled, dirt-streaked face, tight and determined. Amandaris gave an inward sigh. He regretted what he was about to do, but he had no choice. Racing was not a game for sportsmen, it was a game for winners.
The two cars were approaching the north end of the oval, where there was a high banking turn, the most dangerous in the track, the scene of a dozen crashes. Amandaris shot another quick look at the French driver of the Ferrari and then tightened his grip on the wheel. As the two cars started to approach the curve, Amandaris imperceptibly lifted his foot from the accelerator, so that the Ferrari began to pull ahead. He saw the driver give him a quick, speculative look. Then the driver was abreast of him, falling into his trap. The crowd was screaming. Jorje Amandaris waited until the black and gold Ferrari was fully committed to passing him on the outside. At that moment Amandaris opened his throttles wide and started to move towards the right, cutting the French driver’s path to the straight, so that the only choice was to head up the embankment.
Amandaris saw the sudden, dismayed expression on the French driver’s face and silently said, Salaud! At that instant the driver of the French car turned the wheel directly into Amandaris’s Surtees. Amandaris could not believe it. The Ferrari was on a crash course with him. They were only three feet apart and at that speed Amandaris had to make a split-second decision. How could anyone have known that the French driver was completely loco? In a swift, reflex action, Amandaris swung the wheel sharply to the left, trying to avoid the thousand pounds of metal hurtling at him, and braked hard, so that the French car missed him by a fraction of an inch, and shot past him towards the finish line. For a moment Jorje Amandaris’s car fishtailed, then went out of control into a spin, flinging itself wildly across the track, rolling over and over until it burst into a tower of red and black flames.
But the crowd’s attention was riveted on the French Ferrari, roaring across the finishing line to victory. There were wild screams from the spectators as they ran towards the car, surrounding it, cheering. The driver slowly stood up and took off the racing goggles and helmet.
She had wheat-coloured hair, cut short, and her face was sculptured with strong, firm features. There was a classic cold beauty about her. Her body was trembling, not with exhaustion, but with excitement, the memory of the moment when she had looked into Jorje Amandaris’s eyes as she sent him to his death. Over the loudspeaker the announcer was excitedly yelling, ‘The winner is Hélène Roffe-Martel, from France, driving a Ferrari.’
Two hours later, Hélène and her husband, Charles, were in their suite in the Ritz Hotel in downtown Buenos Aires, lying on the rug in front of the fireplace, and Hélène was naked on top of him in the classic position of la diligence de Lyon, and Charles was saying, ‘Oh, Christ! Please don’t do that to me! Please!’
And his begging increased her excitement and she began to put on more pressure, hurting him, watching the tears come to his eyes. I’m being punished for no reason, Charles thought. He dreaded to think what Hélène would do to him if she ever found out about the crime he had committed.
Charles Martel had married Hélène Roffe for her name and for her money. After the ceremony she had kept her name, along with his, and she had kept her money. By the time Charles found out he had made a bad bargain, it was too late.
Charles Martel was a junior attorney in a large Paris law firm when he first met Hélène Roffe. He had been asked to bring some documents into the conference room, where a meeting was taking place. In the room were the four senior partners in the firm, and Hélène. Charles had heard of her. Everyone in Europe had. She was an heiress to the Roffe pharmaceutical fortune. She was wild and unconventional, and the newspapers and magazines adored her. She was a champion skier; flew her own Learjet, had led a mountain-climbing expedition in Nepal, raced cars and horses, and changed men as casually as she changed her wardrobe. Her photograph was constantly appearing in Paris-Match and Jours de France. She was in the law office now because the firm was handling her divorce. Her fourth or fifth, Charles Martel was not sure which, nor was he interested. The Roffes of the world were out of his reach.
Charles handed the papers to his superior, nervous, not because Hélène Roffe was in the room – he hardly glanced at her – but because of the presence of the four senior partners. They represented Authority, and Charles Martel respected Authority. He was basically a retiring man, content to make a modest living, reside in a little apartment in Passy and tend to his small stamp collection.
Charles Martel was not a brilliant attorney, but he was a competent one, thorough and reliable. He had a stiff petsec dignity about him. He was in his early forties and his physical appearance, while not unattractive, was certainly far from prepossessing. Someone had once said that he had the personality of wet sand, and the description was not an unjust one. It was with a good deal of surprise, therefore, that the day after he had met Hélène Roffe, Charles Martel received a summons to go to the office of M. Michel Sachard, the senior partner, where he was told, ‘Hélène Roffe wishes you to assume personal charge of her divorce case. You will take over at once.’
Charles Martel was stunned. He asked, ‘Why me, Monsieur Sachard?’
Sachard looked him in the eye and replied, ‘I can’t imagine. See that you service her well.’
Being in charge of Hélène’s divorce action made it necessary for Charles to see her frequently. Too frequently, he felt. She would telephone him and invite him to dinner at her villa in Le Vésinet to discuss the case, and to the opera and to her house in Deauville. Charles kept trying to explain to her that it was a simple case, that there would be no problem in obtaining the divorce, but Hélène – she insisted that he call her Hélène, to his acute embarrassment – told him she needed his constant reassurance. Later he was to think back on that with bitter amusement.
During the weeks that followed their first meeting, Charles began to suspect that Hélène Roffe was interested in him romantically. He could not believe it. He was a nobody, and she was a member of one of the great families, but Hélène left him in no doubt as to her intentions. ‘I’m going to marry you, Charles.’
He had never thought of getting married. He was not comfortable with women. Besides, he did not love Hélène. He was not even certain he liked her. The fuss and attention that attended her wherever they went discomfited him. He was caught in the limelight of her celebrity and it was a role he was not accustomed to. He was also painfully aware of the contrast between them. Her flamboyance was an irritant to his conservative nature. She set fashion styles and was the epitome of glamour, while he – well, he was a simple, ordinary, middle-aged lawyer. He could not understand what Hélène Roffe saw in him. Nor could anyone else. Because of her well-publicized participation in dangerous sports that were normally the exclusive province of men, there were rumours that Hélène Roffe was an advocate of the women’s liberation movement. In fact, she despised the movement, and had only contempt for its concept of equality. She saw no reason why men should be allowed to become the equal of women. Men were handy to have around, when required. They were not particularly intelligent, but they could be taught to fetch and light cigarettes, run errands, open doors and give satisfaction in bed. They made excellent pets, dressed and bathed themselves and were toilet-trained. An amusing species.
Hélène Roffe had had the playboys, the daredevils, the tycoons, the glamour boys. She had never had a Charles Martel. She knew exactly what he was: Nothing. A piece of blank clay. And that was precisely the challenge. She intended to take him over, mould him, see what she could make of him. Once Hélène Roffe made up her mind, Charles Martel never had a chance.
They were married in Neuilly and they honeymooned in Monte Carlo, where Charles lost his virginity and his illusions. He had planned to return to the law firm.
‘Don’t be a fool,’ his bride said. ‘Do you think I want to be married to a law clerk? You’ll go into the family business. One day you’ll be running it. We’ll be running it.’
Hélène arranged for Charles to work in the Paris branch of Roffe and Sons. He reported to her on everything that went on and she guided him, helped him, gave him suggestions to make. Charles’s advancement was rapid. He was soon in charge of the French operation, and a member of the board of directors. Hélène Roffe had changed him from an obscure lawyer to an executive of one of the largest corporations in the world. He should have been ecstatic. He was miserable. From the first moment of their marriage Charles found himself totally dominated by his wife. She chose his tailor, his shoemaker and his shirtmaker. She got him into the exclusive Jockey Club. Hélène treated Charles like a gigolo. His salary went directly to her, and she gave him an embarrassingly small allowance. If Charles needed any extra money, he had to ask Hélène for it. She made him account for every moment of his time, and he was at her constant beck and call. She seemed to enjoy humiliating him. She would telephone him at the office and order him to come home immediately with a jar of massage cream, or something equally stupid. When he arrived, she would be in the bedroom, naked, waiting for him. She was insatiable, an animal. Charles had lived with his mother until he was thirty-two, when she had died of cancer. She had been an invalid for as long as Charles could remember, and he had taken care of her. There had been no time to think about going out with girls or getting married. His mother had been a burden and when she died, Charles thought he would feel a sense of freedom. Instead, he felt a sense of loss. He had no interest in women or sex. He had, in a naïve burst of candour, explained his feelings to Hélène when she had first mentioned marriage. ‘My – my libido is not very strong,’ he had said.
Hélène had smiled. ‘Poor Charles. Don’t worry about sex. I promise you, you’ll like it.’
He hated it. That only seemed to add to Hélène’s pleasure. She would laugh at him for his weakness, and force him to do disgusting things that made Charles feel degraded and sick. The sex act was debasing enough. But Hélène was interested in experimenting. Charles never knew what to expect. Once, at the moment he was having an orgasm, she had put crushed ice on his testicles, and another time she had shoved an electric prod up his anus. Charles was terrified of Hélène. She made him feel that she was the male and he was the female. He tried to salvage his pride but, alas, he could find no area in which Hélène was not superior to him. She had a brilliant mind. She knew as much about the law as he did, and much more about business. She spent hour after hour discussing the company with him. She never tired of it. ‘Think of all that power, Charles! Roffe and Sons can make or break more than half the countries in the world. I should be running the company. My great-grandfather founded it. It’s part of me.’
After one of these outbursts Hélène would be sexually insatiable, and Charles was forced to satisfy her in ways that did not bear thinking about. He came to despise her. His one dream was to get away from her, to escape. But for that he needed money.
One day, over lunch, a friend of his, René Duchamps, told Charles about an opportunity to make a fortune.
‘An uncle of mine who owned a large vineyard in Burgundy has just died. The vineyard is going to be put up for sale – ten thousand acres of first-class Appelation d’origine contrôlée. I have the inside track,’ René Duchamps continued, ‘because it’s my family. I don’t have enough to swing the deal by myself, but if you came in with me, we could double our money in one year. At least, come and look at it.’
Because Charles could not bear to admit to his friend that he was penniless, he went to the rolling red slopes of Burgundy to view the land. He was deeply impressed.
René Duchamps said, ‘We’ll each put in two million francs. In a year we’ll each have four million.’
Four million francs! It would mean freedom, escape. He could go away to some place where Hélène could never find him.
‘I’ll think about it,’ Charles promised his friend.
And he did. Day and night. It was the chance of a life-time. But how? Charles knew that it would be impossible for him to try to borrow money without Hélène immediately learning about it. Everything was in her name, the houses, the paintings, the cars, the jewellery. The jewellery … those beautiful, useless ornaments she kept locked up in the safe in the bedroom. Gradually, the idea was born. If he could get hold of her jewellery, a little at a time, he could replace the pieces with copies and borrow money on the real jewellery. After he had made his killing in the vineyard, he would simply return the jewels. And have enough money to disappear for ever.
Charles telephoned René Duchamps and said, his heart pounding with excitement, ‘I’ve decided to go in with you.’
The first part of the plan filled Charles with terror. He had to get into the safe and steal Hélène’s jewellery.
The anticipation of the terrible thing he was about to do made Charles so nervous that he was barely able to function. He went through each day like an automaton, neither seeing nor hearing what was happening around him. Every time Charles saw Hélène he began to sweat. His hands would tremble at odd times. Hélène was concerned about him, as she would have been concerned about any pet. She had the doctor examine Charles, but the doctor could find nothing wrong. ‘He seems a bit tense. A day or two in bed, perhaps.’
Hélène looked long at Charles, lying in bed, naked, and smiled. ‘Thank you, doctor.’
The moment the doctor left, Hélène began getting undressed. ‘I – I’m not feeling very strong,’ Charles protested.
‘I am,’ Hélène replied.
He had never hated her more.
Charles’s opportunity came the following week. Hélène was going to Garmisch-Partenkirchen to ski with some friends. She decided to leave Charles in Paris.
‘I want you home every night,’ Hélène told him. ‘I’ll telephone you.’
Charles watched her speed away, at the wheel of her red Jensen, and the moment she was out of sight he hurried to the wall safe. He had watched her open it often, and he knew most of the combination. It took him an hour to figure out the rest of it. With trembling fingers he pulled the safe open. There, in velvet-lined boxes, sparkling like miniature stars, lay his freedom. He had already located a jeweller, one Pierre Richaud, who was a master at duplicating jewellery. Charles had begun a long, nervous explanation about why he wanted the jewels copied, but Richaud said, matter-of-factly, ‘Monsieur, I am making copies for everyone. No-one with any sense wears real jewellery on the streets these days.’
Charles gave him one piece at a time to work on, and when the copy was ready, he substituted it for the real piece. He borrowed money on the real jewellery from the Crédit Municipal, the state-owned pawnshop.
The operation took longer than Charles had anticipated. He could only get into the safe when Hélène was out of the house, and there were unforeseen delays in copying the pieces. But finally the day came when Charles was able to say to René Duchamps, ‘I’ll have all the money for you tomorrow.’
He had accomplished it. He was half-owner of a great vineyard. And Hélène had not the slightest suspicion of what he had done.
Charles had secretly begun to read up on the growing of vines. And why not? Was he not a vintner now? He learned about the different vines: cabernet sauvignon was the principal vine used, but others were planted alongside it: gros cabernet, merlot, malbec, petit verdot. The desk drawers of Charles’s office were filled with pamphlets on soil and wine pressing. He learned about fermentation and pruning and grafting. And that the worldwide demand for wine kept growing.
He met regularly with his partner. ‘It’s going to be even better than I thought,’ René told Charles. ‘Prices for wine are sky-rocketing. We should get three hundred thousand francs a tonneau for the first pressings.’
More than Charles had dreamed! The grapes were red gold. Charles began to buy travel pamphlets on the South Sea Islands and Venezuela and Brazil. The very names had a magic about them. The only problem was that there were few places in the world where Roffe and Sons did not have offices, where Hélène could not find him. And if she found him, she would kill him. He knew that, with an absolute certainty. Unless he killed her first. It was one of his favourite fantasies. He murdered Hélène over and over again, in a thousand delicious ways.
Perversely, Charles now began to enjoy Hélène’s abuse. All the time she was forcing him to do unspeakable things to her, he was thinking, I’ll be gone soon, you convasse. I’ll be rich on your money and there’s nothing you can do about it.
And she would command, ‘Faster now,’ or ‘Harder,’ or ‘Don’t stop!’ and he would meekly obey her.
And smile inside.
In vine-growing, Charles knew the crucial months were in the spring and summer, for the grapes were picked in September and they had to have a carefully balanced season of sun and rain. Too much sun would burn the flavour, just as too much rain would drown it. The month of June began splendidly. Charles checked the weather in Burgundy once, then twice a day. He was in a fever of impatience, only weeks away from the fulfilment of his dream. He had decided on Montego Bay. Roffe and Sons had no office in Jamaica. It would be easy to lose himself there. He would not go near Round Hill or Ocho Rios, where any of Hélène’s friends might see him. He would buy a small house in the hills. Life was cheap on the island. He could afford servants, and fine food, and in his own small way live in luxury.
And so in those first days of June, Charles Martel was a very happy man. His present life was an ignominy, but he was not living in the present: he was living in the future, on a tropical, sunbathed, wind-caressed island in the Caribbean.
The June weather seemed to get better each day. There was sun, and there was rain. Perfect for the tender little grapes. And as the grapes grew, so did Charles’s fortune.
On the fifteenth day of June it began to drizzle in the Burgundy region. Then it began to rain harder. It rained day after day, and week after week, until Charles could no longer bring himself to check the weather reports.
René Duchamps telephoned. ‘If it stops by the middle of July, the crop can still be saved.’
July turned out to be the rainiest month in the history of the French weather bureau. By the first of August, Charles Martel had lost every centime of the money he had stolen. He was filled with a fear such as he had never known.
‘We’re flying to Argentina next month,’ Hélène had informed Charles. ‘I’ve entered a car race there.’
He had watched her speeding round the track in the Ferrari, and he could not help thinking: If she crashes, I’m free.
But she was Hélène Roffe-Martel. Life had cast her in the role of a winner, just as it had cast him in the role of a loser.
Winning the race had excited Hélène even more than usual. They had returned to their hotel suite in Buenos Aires, and she had made Charles get undressed and lie on the rug, on his stomach. When he saw what she had in her hand as she straddled him, he said, ‘Please, no!’
There was a knock on the door.
‘Merde!’ Hélène said. She waited, silent, but the knocking was repeated.
A voice called, ‘Señor Martel?’
‘Stay here!’ Hélène commanded. She got up, whipped a heavy silk robe about her slim, firm body, walked over to the door and pulled it open. A man in a grey messenger’s uniform stood there, holding a sealed manila envelope.
‘I have a special delivery for Señor and Señora Martel.’
She took the envelope and closed the door.
She tore the envelope open and read the message inside, then slowly read it again.
‘What is it?’ Charles asked.
‘Sam Roffe is dead,’ she said. She was smiling.
Chapter Five
London Monday, September 7 2 p.m.
White’s Club was situated at the top of St James’s Street, near Piccadilly. Built as a gambling club in the eighteenth century, White’s was one of the oldest clubs in England, and the most exclusive. Members put their sons’ names down for membership at birth, for there was a thirty-year waiting list.
The façade of White’s was the epitome of discretion. The wide bow-windows looking out on St James’s Street were meant to accommodate those within rather than to satisfy the curiosity of the outsiders passing by. A short flight of steps led to the entrance but, aside from members and their guests, few people ever got past the door. The rooms in the club were large and impressive, burnished with the dark, rich patina of time. The furniture was old and comfortable – leather couches, newspaper racks, priceless antique tables and deep, stuffed armchairs that had held the posteriors of half a dozen Prime Ministers. There was a backgammon room with a large, open fireplace behind a bronze-covered rail, and a formal curved staircase led to the dining-room upstairs. The dining-room ran across the entire breadth of the house, and contained one huge mahogany table which seated thirty persons, and five side tables. At any luncheon or dinner the room contained some of the most influential men in the world.
Sir Alec Nichols, Member of Parliament, was seated at one of the small corner tables, having lunch with a guest, Jon Swinton. Sir Alec’s father had been a baronet, and his father and grandfather before him. They had all belonged to White’s. Sir Alec was a thin, pale man in his late forties, with a sensitive aristocratic face and an engaging smile. He had just motored in from his country estate in Gloucestershire, and was dressed in a tweed sports jacket and slacks, with loafers. His guest wore a pin-stripe suit with a loud, checked shirt and a red tie, and seemed out of place in this quiet, rich atmosphere.
‘They really do you proud here,’ Jon Swinton said, his mouth full, as he chewed the remains of a large veal chop on his plate.
Sir Alec nodded. ‘Yes. Things have changed since Voltaire said, “The British have a hundred religions and only one sauce.”’
Jon Swinton looked up. ‘Who’s Voltaire?’
Sir Alec said, embarrassed, ‘A – a French chap.’
‘Oh.’ Jon Swinton washed his food down with a swallow of wine. He laid down his knife and fork and wiped a napkin across his mouth. ‘Well, now, Sir Alec. Time for you and I to talk a little business.’
Alec Nichols said softly, ‘I told you two weeks ago I’m working everything out, Mr Swinton. I need a bit more time.’
A waiter walked over to the table, balancing a high stack of wooden cigar boxes. He skilfully set them down on the table.
‘Don’t mind if I do,’ Jon Swinton said. He examined the labels on the boxes, whistled in admiration, pulled out several cigars which he put in his breast-pocket, then lit one. Neither the waiter nor Sir Alec showed any reaction to this breach of manners. The waiter nodded to Sir Alec, and carried the cigars to another table.
‘My employers have been very lenient with you, Sir Alec. Now, I’m afraid, they’ve got impatient.’ He picked up the burned match, leaned forward and dropped it into Sir Alec’s glass of wine. ‘Between you and I, they’re not nice people when they’re upset. You don’t want to get them down on you, you know what I mean?’
‘I simply don’t have the money right now.’
Jon Swinton laughed loudly. ‘Come off it, chum. Your mum was a Roffe, right? You’ve got a thousand-acre farm, a posh town house in Knightsbridge, a Rolls-Royce and a bloody Bentley. You’re not exactly on the dole then, are you?’
Sir Alec looked around, pained, and said quietly, ‘None of them is a liquid asset. I can’t –’
Swinton winked and said, ‘I’ll bet that sweet little wife of yours, Vivian, is a liquid asset, eh? She’s got a great pair of Bristols.’
Sir Alec flushed. Vivian’s name on this man’s lips was a sacrilege. Alec thought of Vivian as he had left her that morning, still sweetly asleep. They had separate bedrooms, and one of Alec Nichols’s great joys was to go into Vivian’s room for one of his ‘visits’. Some times, when Alec awakened early, he would walk into Vivian’s bedroom while she was asleep and simply stare at her. Awake or asleep, she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She slept in the nude, and her soft, curved body would be half exposed as she curled into the sheets. She was blonde, with wide, pale blue eyes and skin like cream. Vivian had been a minor actress when Sir Alec had first met her at a charity ball. He had been enchanted by her looks, but what had drawn him to her was her easy, outgoing personality. She was twenty years younger than Alec, and filled with a zest for living. Where Alec was shy and introverted, Vivian was gregarious and vivacious. Alec had been unable to get her out of his mind, but it had taken him two weeks to summon up nerve enough to telephone her. To his surprise and delight Vivian had accepted his invitation. Alec had taken her to a play at the Old Vic, and then to dinner at the Mirabelle. Vivian lived in a dreary little basement flat in Notting Hill, and when Alec had brought her home, she had said, ‘Would you like to come in then?’ He had stayed the night, and it had changed his whole life. It was the first time that any woman had been able to bring him to a climax. He had never experienced anything like Vivian. She was velvet tongue and trailing golden hair and moist, pulsing, demanding depths that Alec explored until he was drained. He could become aroused simply thinking about her.
There was something else. She made him laugh, she made him come alive. She poked fun at Alec because he was shy and a bit stodgy, and he adored it. He was with her as often as Vivian would permit it. When Alec took Vivian to a party, she was always the centre of attention. Alec was proud of that, but jealous of the young men gathered around her, and he could not help wondering how many of them she had been to bed with.
On the nights when Vivian could not see him because she had another engagement, Alec was frantic with jealousy. He would drive to her flat and park down the block, to see what time she came home, and whom she was with. Alec knew that he was behaving like a fool, and yet he could not help himself. He was in the grip of something too strong to break.
He realized that Vivian was wrong for him, that it was out of the question for him to marry her. He was a respected Member of Parliament, with a brilliant future. He was part of the Roffe dynasty, on the board of directors of the company. Vivian had no background to help her cope with Alec’s world. Her mother and father had been second-rate music-hall artists, playing the provincial circuit. Vivian had had no education except for what she had picked up in the streets, or backstage. Alec knew that she was promiscuous and superficial. She was shrewd but not particularly intelligent. And yet Alec was obsessed with her. He fought it. He tried to stop seeing her, but it was no use. He was happy when he was with her, and he was miserable when he was without her. In the end he proposed to her because he had to, and when Vivian accepted, Sir Alec Nichols was ecstatic.
His new bride moved into the family home, a beautiful old Robert Adam house in Gloucestershire, a Georgian mansion with Doric columns and a long sweeping driveway. It was set amid the green of a thousand acres of lush farmland, with its own private shooting, and running streams to fish. At the back of the house was a park that had been laid out by ‘Capability Brown’.
The interior of the house was stunning. The large front hall had a stone floor and walls of painted wood. There were pairs of old lanterns and marble-topped Adam gilt-wood tables and mahogany chairs. The library had original eighteenth-century built-in bookcases, and a pair of pedestal tables by Henry Holland, and chairs designed by Thomas Hope. The drawing-room was a mixture of Hepplewhite and Chippendale, with a Wilton carpet, and a pair of Waterford glass chandeliers. There was a huge dining-room that could seat forty guests, and a smoking-room. On the second floor were six bedrooms, each with an Adam fireplace, and on the third floor were the servants’ quarters.
Six weeks after she had moved into the house, Vivian said, ‘Let’s get out of this place. Alec.’
He looked at her, puzzled. ‘You mean you’d like to go up to London for a few days?’
‘I mean I want to move back to London.’
Alec looked out of the window at the emerald-green meadows, where he had played as a child, and at the giant sycamore and oak trees, and he said hesitantly, ‘Vivian, it’s so peaceful here. I –’
And she said, ‘I know, luv. That’s what I can’t stand – the fucking peace!’
They moved to London the following week.
Alec had an elegant four-storey town house in Wilton Crescent, off Knightsbridge, with a lovely drawing-room, a study, a large dining-room, and at the back of the house, a picture window that overlooked a grotto, with a waterfall and statues and white benches set amid a beautiful formal garden. Upstairs were a magnificent master suite and four smaller bedrooms.
Vivian and Alec shared the master suite for two weeks, until one morning Vivian said, ‘I love you, Alec, but you do snore, you know.’ Alec had not known. ‘I really must sleep alone, luv. You don’t mind, do you?’
Alec minded deeply. He loved the feel of her soft body in bed, warm against him. But deep inside, Alec knew that he did not excite Vivian sexually the way other men excited her. That was why she did not want him in her bed. So now he said, ‘Of course I understand, darling.’
At Alec’s insistence, Vivian kept the master suite, and he moved into one of the small guest bedrooms.
In the beginning, Vivian had gone to the House of Commons and had sat in the Visitors’ Gallery on days when Alec was to speak. He would look up at her and be filled with a deep, ineffable pride. She was undoubtedly the most beautiful woman there. And then came the day when Alec finished his speech and looking up for Vivian’s approval, saw only an empty seat.
Alec blamed himself for the fact that Vivian was restless. His friends were older than Vivian, too conservative for her. He encouraged her to invite her young companions to the house, and brought them together with his friends. The results were disastrous.
Alec kept telling himself that when Vivian had a child, she would settle down and change. But one day, somehow – and Alec could not bear to know how – she picked up a vaginal infection and had to have a hysterectomy. Alec had longed for a son. The news had shattered him, but Vivian was unperturbed.
‘Don’t worry, luv,’ she said, smiling. ‘They took out the nursery, but they left in the playpen.’
He looked at her for a long moment, then turned and walked away.
Vivian loved to go on buying sprees. She spent money indiscriminately, recklessly, on clothes and jewellery and cars, and Alec did not have the heart to stop her. He told himself that she had grown up in poverty, hungry for beautiful things. He wanted to buy them for her. Unfortunately, he could not afford it. His salary was consumed by taxes. His fortune lay in his shares of stock in Roffe and Sons but those shares were restricted. He tried to explain that to Vivian but she was not interested. Business discussions bored her. And so Alec let her carry on.
He had first learned of her gambling when Tod Michaels, the owner of Tod’s Club, a disreputable gambling place in Soho, had dropped in to see him.
‘I have your wife’s IOUs here for a thousand pounds, Sir Alec. She had a rotten run at roulette.’
Alec had been shocked. He had paid off the IOUs and had had a confrontation with Vivian that evening. ‘We simply can’t afford it,’ he had told her. ‘You’re spending more than I’m making.’
She had been very contrite. ‘I’m sorry, angel. Baby’s been bad.’
And she had walked over to him and put her arms around him and pressed her body against his, and he had forgotten his anger.
Alec had spent a memorable night in her bed. He was sure now that there would be no more problems.
Two weeks later Tod Michaels had come to visit Alec again. This time Vivian’s IOUs were five thousand pounds. Alec was furious. ‘Why did you let her have credit?’ he demanded.
‘She’s your wife, Sir Alec,’ Michaels had replied blandly. ‘How would it look if we refused her?’
‘I’ll – I’ll have to get the money,’ Alec had said. ‘I don’t have that much cash at the moment.’
‘Please! Consider it a loan. Pay it back when you can.’
Alec had been greatly relieved. ‘That’s very generous of you, Mr Michaels.’
It was not until a month later that Alec learned that Vivian had gambled away another twenty-five thousand pounds, and that he was being charged interest at the rate of ten per cent a week. He was horrified. There was no way he could raise that much cash. There was nothing that he could even sell. The houses, the beautiful antiques, the cars, all belonged to Roffe and Sons. His anger frightened Vivian enough so that she promised not to gamble any more. But it was too late. Alec found himself in the hands of loan sharks. No matter how much Alec gave them, he could not manage to pay off the debt. It kept mounting each month, instead of getting smaller, and it had been going on for almost a year.
When Tod Michael’s hoodlums first began to press him for the money, Alec had threatened to go to the police commissioner. ‘I have connections in the highest quarters,’ Alec had said.
The man had grinned. ‘I got connections in the lowest.’ Now Sir Alec found himself sitting here at White’s with this dreadful man, having to contain his pride, and beg for a little more time.
‘I’ve already paid them back more than the money I borrowed. They can’t –’
Swinton replied, ‘That was just on the interest, Sir Alec. You still haven’t paid the principal.’
‘It’s extortion,’ Alec said.
Swinton’s eyes darkened. ‘I’ll give the boss your message.’ He started to rise.
Alec said quickly, ‘No! Sit down. Please.’
Slowly Swinton sat down again. ‘Don’t use words like that,’ he warned. ‘The last chap who talked like that had both his knees nailed to the floor.’
Alec had read about it. The Kray brothers had invented the punishment for their victims. And the people Alec was dealing with were just as bad, just as ruthless. He could feel the bile rising in his throat. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ Alec said. ‘It’s just that I – I don’t have any more cash.’
Swinton flicked the ash from his cigar into Alec’s glass of wine, and said, ‘You have a big bundle of stock in Roffe and Sons, don’t you, Alec baby?’
‘Yes,’ Alec replied, ‘but it’s non-saleable and non-transferable. It’s no good to anyone unless Roffe and Sons goes public.’
Swinton took a puff on his cigar. ‘And is it going public?’
‘That’s up to Sam Roffe. I’ve – I’ve been trying to persuade him.’
‘Try harder.’
‘Tell Mr Michaels he’ll get his money,’ Alec said. ‘But please stop hounding me.’
Swinton stared. ‘Hounding you? Why, Sir Alec, you little cocksucker, you’ll know when we start hounding you. Your fucking stables will burn down, and you’ll be eating roast horsemeat. Then your house will burn. And maybe your wife.’ He smiled, and Alec wished he had not. ‘Have you ever eaten cooked pussy?’
Alec had turned pale. ‘For God’s sake –’
Swinton said soothingly, ‘I’m kidding. Tod Michaels is your friend. And friends help each other, right? We were talking about you at our meeting this morning. And do you know what the boss said? He said, “Sir Alec’s a good sort. If he hasn’t got the money, I’m sure he’ll think of some other way to take care of us.”’
Alec frowned. ‘What other way?’
‘Well, it’s not hard for a bright chap like you to work something out, is it? You’re running a big drug company, right? You make things like cocaine, for example. Just between you and I, who’d ever know if you happened to accidentally misplace a few shipments here and there?’
Alec stared at him. ‘You’re insane,’ he said. ‘I – I couldn’t do that.’
‘It’s amazing what people can do when they have to,’ Swinton said genially. He rose to his feet. ‘You either have our money for us, or we’ll tell you where to deliver the merchandise.’
He ground his cigar out on Alec’s butter plate. ‘Give my regards to Vivian, Sir Alec. Ta.’
And Jon Swinton was gone.
Sir Alec sat there alone, unseeing, surrounded by all the familiar, comfortable things that were so much a part of his past life, that were now threatened. The only alien thing was the obscene, wet, cigar butt on the plate. How had he ever allowed them to come into his life? He had permitted himself to be manoeuvred into a position where he was in the hands of the underworld. And now he knew that they wanted more than money from him. The money was merely the bait with which they had trapped him. They were after his connections with the drug company. They were going to try to force him to work with them. If it became known he was in their power, the Opposition would not hesitate to make capital of it. His own party would probably ask him to resign. It would be done tactfully and quietly. They would probably exert pressure on him to apply for the Chiltern Hundreds, a post that paid a nominal salary of a hundred pounds a year from the Crown. The one barrier to being an MP was that you could not be in receipt of pay from the Crown or the Government. So Alec would no longer be allowed to serve in Parliament. The reason could not be kept secret, of course. He would be in disgrace. Unless he could come up with a large sum of money. He had talked to Sam Roffe again and again, asking him to let the company go public, to let the shares of stock be marketed.
‘Forget it,’ Sam had told him. ‘The minute we let outsiders in, we have a lot of strangers telling us how to run our business. Before you know it, they’ll take over the board, and then the company. What’s the difference to you, Alec? You have a big salary, an unlimited expense account. You don’t need the money.’
For a moment Alec had been tempted to tell Sam how desperately he needed it. But he knew it would do no good. Sam Roffe was a company man, a man without compassion. If he knew that Alec had in any way compromised Roffe and Sons, he would have dismissed him without a moment’s hesitation. No, Sam Roffe was the last person to whom he could turn.
Alec was facing ruin.
The reception porter at White’s walked towards Sir Alec’s table with a man dressed in a messenger’s uniform, carrying a sealed manila envelope.
‘Excuse me, Sir Alec,’ the porter apologized, ‘but this man insists that he has instructions to deliver something to you personally.’
‘Thank you,’ Sir Alec said. The messenger handed him the envelope, and the porter led him back to the door.
Alec sat there a long time before he reached for the envelope and opened it. He read the message through three times, then he slowly crumpled the paper in his fist, and his eyes began to fill with tears.
Chapter Six
New York Monday, September 7 11 a.m.
The private Boeing 707–320 was making its final approach to Kennedy Airport, gliding out of the stacked-up traffic pattern. It had been a long, tedious flight and Rhys Williams was exhausted, but he had been unable to sleep during the night. He had ridden in this plane too often with Sam Roffe. His presence still filled it.
Elizabeth Roffe was expecting him. Rhys had sent her a cable from Istanbul, merely announcing that he would arrive the following day. He could have broken the news of her father’s death over the telephone but she deserved more than that.
The plane was on the ground now, taxiing towards the terminal. Rhys carried very little luggage, and he was quickly ushered through Customs. Outside, the sky was grey and bleak, a foretaste of the winter to come. A limousine was waiting at the side entrance to drive him to Sam Roffe’s Long Island estate, where Elizabeth would be waiting.
During the drive Rhys tried to rehearse the words that he would say to her to try to soften the blow, but the moment Elizabeth opened the front door to greet him the words flew out of his head. Each time Rhys saw Elizabeth her beauty caught him by surprise. She had inherited her mother’s looks, the same patrician features, midnight black eyes framed by long, heavy lashes. Her skin was white and soft, her hair a shiny black. Her figure was rich and firm. She was wearing an open-necked, creamy silk blouse and a pleated grey-flannel skirt and fawn-coloured pumps. There was no sign of the awkward little girl Rhys had first met nine years earlier. She had become a woman, intelligent and warm and completely unselfconscious about her beauty. She was smiling at him now, pleased to see him. She took his hand and said, ‘Come in, Rhys,’ and led him into the large oak-panelled library. ‘Did Sam fly in with you?’
There was no way to break it gently. Rhys took a deep breath and said, ‘Sam had a bad accident, Liz.’ He watched the colour drain from her face. She waited for him to go on. ‘He was killed.’
She stood there frozen. When she finally spoke, Rhys could barely hear her. ‘What – what happened?’
‘We don’t have any of the details yet. He was climbing Mont Blanc. A rope broke. He fell into a crevasse.’
‘Did they find –’
She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them.
‘A bottomless crevasse.’
Her face had turned white. Rhys felt a quick sense of alarm. ‘Are you all right?’
She smiled brightly, and said, ‘Of course. I’m fine, thank you. Would you like some tea or something to eat?’
He looked at her in surprise and started to speak, and then he understood. She was in shock. She was rattling on, making no sense, her eyes unnaturally bright, her smile fixed.
‘Sam was such a great athlete,’ Elizabeth was saying. ‘You’ve seen his trophies. He always won, didn’t he? Did you know he climbed Mont Blanc before?’
‘Liz –’
‘Of course you did. You went with him once, didn’t you, Rhys?’
Rhys let her talk, anaesthetizing herself against the pain, trying to build an armour of words to ward off the moment when she would have to face her own anguish. For an instant, as he listened to her, he was reminded of the vulnerable little girl he had first known, too sensitive and shy to have any protection against brutal reality. She was dangerously wound up now, tense and brittle, and there was a fragility about her that worried Rhys.
‘Let me call a doctor,’ he said. ‘He can give you something to –’
‘Oh, no. I’m really quite all right. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll lie down for a while. I’m feeling a bit tired.’
‘Would you like me to stay?’
‘Thank you. That won’t be necessary.’
She walked him to the door, and as he started to get into the car Elizabeth called, ‘Rhys!’
He turned.
‘Thank you for coming.’
Jesus Christ.
Long hours after Rhys Williams had gone, Elizabeth Roffe lay in her bed, staring at the ceiling, watching the shifting patterns painted by the pale September sun.
And the pain came. She had not taken a sedative, because she wanted the pain. She owed that to Sam. She would be able to bear it, because she was his daughter. And so she lay there, all day and all night, thinking of nothing, thinking of everything, remembering, feeling. She laughed, and she cried, and she supposed that she was in a state of hysteria. It did not matter. There was no one to hear her. In the middle of the night, she suddenly became ravenously hungry and went down into the kitchen and devoured a large sandwich and then threw it up. She felt no better. Nothing could ease the pain that filled her. Her mind kept going back, back over the years with her father. Through her bedroom window she watched the sun rise. Some time later, one of the servants knocked at the door, and Elizabeth sent her away. Once the phone rang, and her heart leaped and she reached for it, thinking, It’s Sam! Then she remembered, and snatched her hand away.
He would never call her again. She would never hear his voice again. She would never see him again.
A bottomless crevasse.
Bottomless.
Elizabeth lay there, letting the past wash over her, remembering, remembering it all.
Ücretsiz ön izlemeyi tamamladınız.
