Secret Souls (5 page)

Andrew Coggs Senior and the firm understood the position she was taking and in some ways agreed with her even though they would have preferred her to take an interest in what she was up against. In other ways Coggs Senior felt as she did: that she had earned the right to her newfound freedom, to be alone to grieve for Hannibal who had been her whole life, and to find a new place and new life for herself in a world where hitherto she had only known Hannibal’s way of living and loving.

There was a faint knock on the door. It opened and in walked Bill Ogden, Diana’s husband. The men rose from their chairs and shook hands with him and, after kissing the top of his wife’s head and smiling at her, he took her hand and sat down next to her.

Diana seemed suddenly less tense, she was always more relaxed when she was with Bill. A tall, slender man, he was handsome and well-dressed as a Park Avenue doctor, a paediatrician, would be. He had a manner that was kindly, instantly winning. Dr Bill Ogden was a man very much in love with his wife. That was why he was here and the only reason. He was against the adversarial position his wife and brother-in-law were taking against Chadwick.

Bill was a positive influence in Diana’s life but he could do nothing to convince her that Hannibal’s love for Chadwick, and nothing more sinister than that, was what made him change his will in sole favour of his wife. Bill believed that Chadwick would never have done anything to harm Hannibal; indeed, quite the opposite, she would have laid down her life for him. Diana listened to and ignored his opinion.

Andrew Coggs Junior had always had a soft spot in his heart for Diana. He, as a good friend of Warren’s, had seen a great deal of her as they were growing up. He looked at her now, happy at last with the right man. The forty-two-year-old Diana was, he believed, truly happy married to Bill who was six years younger in age, but ten years older in maturity. He therefore could not understand why she was pitting herself against Chadwick, knowing very well that she loved the step-mother who had been
so good to her. They had been kind to each other, had had a close relationship until her father’s death.

Diana did not look like a woman who had had several marriages and children before she met Bill Ogden, but that had been the case. Andrew had always thought those unhappy marriages had a great deal to do with her relationship with her father. Diana idolised him. She was obsessive about him and had an uneasy relationship with Hannibal. It had always been Chadwick who had smoothed out the problems between father and daughter.

Andrew, as friend and lawyer, had seen her develop from an adolescent into a volatile, spoilt woman, frighteningly beautiful, elegant, and moving in a very chic circles. Living with Bill Ogden, raising her children and being successful in her own right as a private art dealer specialising in Matisse, she was at last content with herself and her life. Of all the things Diana was or was not, paranoid and vindictive did not figure in her psychological make-up. She
did
actually believe her father’s death was not a natural one, that he was too family-orientated to have discarded his only son and daughter by cutting them out of his will.

Andrew watched and listened to Warren, Bill and Diana who were talking among themselves. Warren was saying, ‘Thanks for coming in on this meeting, Bill. It’s especially appreciated by Diana and I. We know you disapprove of our actions but thank you for not allowing it to cause a falling out between the three of us. You’ve asked us to think this through carefully. We have, and Diana and I are holding to the position we’ve taken.’

The voice of reason. Bill, still holding his wife’s hand, raised it to his lips and kissed her finger. Carefully he replied: ‘It has occurred to me that Diana never really understood the complex relationship between Hannibal and Chadwick, but you, Warren – I somehow thought you did.’

Andrew Junior leaned back in his chair and stroked his chin. Warren was very close to both Chadwick and his father. They were the most important people in his life, more so even than his own wife and children. His was an unhappy marriage that
contrasted painfully with his father’s, but he put up with it, was stoic about it, for the sake of his children. He never discussed his unhappy home life but Andrew as a close friend sensed it. For as long as they’d known each other, Warren had loved two people as no other: Chadwick and his father. He had never confessed that to Andrew, who had arrived at that deduction from years of knowing Warren and listening to him. Andrew was convinced that Warren had both a deep and abiding love for the luscious Chadwick and sometimes a resentment of the power she had over his father.

Warren Chase was a very wealthy man but nevertheless shocked that the family fortune should have been left solely to Chadwick. Andrew, as both his attorney and friend, believed that when Hannibal died, Warren lost his best friend; they were in fact each other’s best friend, the two men had been confidants. Although Warren had never come straight out and said so, Andrew agreed with Bill when he’s said that only Warren understood the complex relationship between his father and Chadwick. He had been aware of what others could only surmise: that lust had governed his father’s love for Chadwick. Warren in as many words had told Andrew that he had always feared for the relationship between Chadwick and Hannibal because of the sexual strain Hannibal placed upon her. Only now did Andrew wonder what that sexual strain might have been.

Warren had spent years standing in the sidelines of his father and Chadwick’s life, acting as their closest friend, travelling with them, being very much a part of their marriage – and loving Chadwick, wanting her for his own. His father had loved Chadwick first as a daughter and then as a wife: Warren had loved her first as a sister and then wanted her for a wife. Resigned to the fact that Chadwick would never be his, he loved her the best way he could, from day to day, as his father’s happiness. Andrew knew that to be the case since once, many years before, they had somewhat vaguely discussed it.

Andrew looked down the mahogany conference table at his friend and thought, Poor bastard. Hannibal’s death has traumatised him: the loss of a father whom he loved and respected and the
reality that Chadwick is now free to begin another life, a new life, with any man she chooses, that’s what this is all about in the guise of suspecting an unnatural death and contesting a will. But did Diana and Warren have any idea what a can of worms they might be opening once that detective entered the room and took on this case? He doubted it.

Chapter 3

Sailing the coast of Crete, with a stopover at Chania, had all gone so well. Chadwick felt incredibly happy and excited until dusk fell and night closed in around the
Black Narcissus,
still at sea, still sailing in a good strong wind towards its destination, Livakia, and Chadwick’s new life.

It is incredible what love can do, lust can conjure up. Chadwick already felt like one of the pleasure seekers, Crete her Elysian fields: the place of Greek mythology on the banks of the River Oceanus where those favoured by the gods live in eternal happiness. It seemed the most natural thing for her to be sailing round the island to Livakia, she was merely going home. She had half-expected a call to the schooner from Manoussos. To say what? He had arrived safely? He was waiting for her? He loved her, missed her wanted her? Maybe merely to hear her voice, reassure himself of her love? Any reason would do. But no call came. She slipped back to that other world that she had left behind when she told herself, ‘Hannibal would have called, and not once but several times, to say all those things.’

She pulled herself back from the past and pushed it from her mind. She realised that she was having to learn how to love a stranger as much as she had loved Hannibal. How to relate to a man as a mature woman should, without the guidance of Hannibal Chase, was the order of the day.

She rose from the settee and went to the dining room where her dinner was being served: a lobster bisque freshly made by the
Black Narcissus
’s Greek chef who had been trained by M. Robuchon in Paris. He produced for the main course a succulent
dish of rabbit with a mustard sauce and served it with French green beans and candied carrots. The pudding was a pear poached in red wine and cinnamon and served with dribbles of thick white cream and a hot caramel sauce. Adonis the chef came with the rental of the schooner, and over a demitasse of delicious coffee, Chadwick wondered how she had ever lived without him or the yacht.

For some time after dinner, she listened to music and around midnight called the captain’s cabin to say that she was going up on deck for some fresh air. Safety measures on board the yacht demanded the captain be notified of after-dark visits to the deck, he wanted no disappearances. It was cold on deck and after several brisk turns around it Chadwick bade the captain good night. She was in her room for only a short time when she sensed Manoussos’s presence. He seemed to be everywhere and to generate a warmth she had not sensed in the stateroom before he had visited it. His scent: she actually believed that his scent was still there, on the pillows and the sheets, in the very air she breathed. She walked to the full-length pier mirror hanging on the walnut-panelled wall and looked at her reflection.

Chadwick wrapped her arms round herself and sighed. She hardly knew this vibrant, beautiful woman in the mirror. All those years when people had remarked on her erotic beauty, her seductive charm, how had she never seen it as they had seen it, as she was seeing it now? How had she not loved herself for being the woman reflected in the mirror as she did now? She unwound her arms and raised them to run her fingers through her hair, shook it out, and slowly undressed in front of the mirror. Only now did she realise that she had never really looked at herself as a beautiful lustful creature, never had she caressed her breasts before, nor enjoyed the excitement those caressings caused her. Sin of sins, the new Chadwick that Manoussos had fallen in love with was committing the one that stated, ‘Thou shalt not fall in love with thyself’. That realisation, of not merely liking but loving herself, was one of the more divine moments of Chadwick’s life. Now she
really
believed she had something to give her magnificent lover.

In this the same bed where Manoussos and she discovered the carnal side of their love for each other, she slept through the night naked and in a deep, dreamless sleep induced by her own caresses, several orgasms, and thrilling sexual fantasies. The sun was high in the sky and pouring delectably warm through the portholes and across the rumpled white linen-covered bed when she opened her eyes. Still naked, she stood in a spotlight of sun, warming herself by it while the
Black Narcissus
made short shrift of a rough sea. Watching the coastline unfold, Chadwick was mesmerised by the power and beauty of this, the more rugged and less commercial side of Crete.

She bathed and dressed in blue jeans, a cashmere jumper, a long double-breasted jacket of navy blue wool with bone buttons. She wore white sneakers and wound around her neck several times a white silk damask scarf. She went directly up on deck. It was a glorious morning of wind and a warming sun, an autumnal nip in the air, the sky blue and cloudless. And the Aegean Sea: today an inky dark blue sparkling in the sun, its aroma of salt water like some exotic perfume, the undulating waves sending up sprays as the
Black Narcissus
cut deftly, swiftly, through them. The thrill of adventure, new horizons, the sea and sails, new discoveries, and love waiting for her. Had she ever been happier?

It was half-past eleven, Chadwick and Captain Dimitri were in the dining room breakfasting together when the first fax from Manoussos came through. ‘Where are you? Notify estimated time of arrival?’ The second fax read, ‘The port has been advised of your arrival and has been made ready to accommodate the
Black Narcissus.
Moor her at the port entrance below D’Arcy Montesque’s hanging gardens.’ The third was for Chadwick: ‘And so she came to us, the daughter of Zeus, the greatest of the Greek gods, and Dione. She sprang from the foam of the sea that gathered about the severed member of Uranus when Cronos mutilated him. She was called Aphrodite and was the Greek goddess of love. Welcome home, Chadwick.’

She looked up from the fax she had just read to see a beaming Captain Dimitri who had not had the grace to give her the privacy she needed to recover from such a romantic message. ‘I feel I’m
living in a dream, and if that should be the case, I hope I never awaken.’

‘I did tell you that Manoussos was not your ordinary policeman.’

‘So you did, Captain, so you did.’ And she too began to laugh.

Several hours later Chadwick was on deck in the prow of the
Black Narcissus
which was riding at full sail as she rounded the point of mountainous cliffs that plunged steeply into the sea. The wind was whipping her long luscious hair away from her face and clothes so that her stunning figure was outlined against the sea and sky. Dimitri watched her and listened to his thoughts: How right Manoussos was, and lucky, to have found this mysterious and stunningly sensual woman.

Dimitri Cronos had been smitten by her the moment she had boarded the yacht in Sounion on the mainland. He had watched her, the effect she had on him and his crew. She made him itch with desire even when Chadwick had done nothing, said nothing, deliberately to entice. Her sensuality was all there in the face, the body, the essence of her soul. He felt not so much frustrated that he would never have her as privileged that he would at least have served her well; that she was for some brief time here to grace his life.

There were so many things about her face that he would always remember. The ruby red lips and their shape, they would remain in his memory forever; the proud nose; the eyes, so large and holding secrets that intrigued him. The way she shook her hair from her face, that hint of a cleft in her chin. He tried to pull his gaze away from her face but it lingered. Dimitri had never seen her as she was now. She had somehow metamorphosed herself; become even more than she had been before they arrived in Crete. She seemed suddenly a younger woman, ready to grasp the world with both hands. That sadness that lurked behind her eyes … he had always thought this odyssey she was on had something to do with that. He wondered if he would still know her when she had rid herself of that sadness?

She seemed to sense him and turned and waved. She looked incredibly happy. He waved back and then spun the wheel hard to starboard. Livakia slowly inched into view. Since leaving Iraklion, Chadwick had seen many white villages in many small harbours, some set on this rugged mountainous side of the island, but she had never seen anything as enchanting, beautiful, strangely ethereal and peaceful as Livakia basking in the sun.

The white houses and walls, patches of courtyard against a barren landscape of buff-coloured cliffs, the odd twenty-foot-high scrawny palm tree poking up into the sky, rose up steeply from the port, higher and higher among ruins: falling down houses, some roofless, others mere walls; tall and slender shapes running at angles into one another or standing solitary, as if having risen from the stony ground like so many contemporary sculptures. Proud and mysterious, their stories of life and passion were buried deep within their art. Livakia was a large and romantic amphitheatre of a white on white village, with no roads only narrow donkey paths of cobblestone steps radiating out from the port.

Chadwick shielded her eyes from the sun the better to see and was able to pick out a church’s bell tower several houses back from the harbour, and higher up, nestling into the cliffs, another small solitary white-domed church. On the opposite side of the village in an even more precarious position, very nearly hanging over the sea, there was yet another. Into view came several large and impressive island houses with wooden shutters painted royal blue, black or a rich dove grey, whose floors and arched open loggias with large and small enclosed patches of courtyard, proffering hundreds of terracotta pots containing trees and bushes, climbed one above the other up the stony terrain. Chadwick could imagine summer flowers in bloom, bougainvillaea and trumpet vines draped over the white-washed walls surrounding them.

From that distance she could just make out the fishing boats at anchor in the crescent-shaped port, shop fronts on the quay, people lazily walking about, others sitting at café tables and dining in the sun.

The crew was now fully occupied with bringing the
Black Narcissus
into port, fast under full sail. The captain shouted to Chadwick, ‘Our mooring.’ Having caught her attention he pointed to a large, beautiful house, a hanging garden of tier upon tier dropping down the cliffs to a footpath. At the other side of the path the cliff plunged into the sea. ‘I’m going to bring you home in style, Madam Chase.’

Chadwick knew very well what that meant. Captain Dimitri knew just how magnificent his schooner was, especially in full sail. He would bring her into dock by tacking across the harbour several times and dropping her sails at the very last minute to avoid crashing into the quay. No easy task but a thrilling show for the Livakians, and a test of skill and bravado for the captain and his crew. A gift to his passenger: an entrance into her new world that neither she nor anyone else would forget.

Dimitri had sounded the yacht’s horn, several long and mournful blasts, before the yacht had rounded the point, signalling their arrival to Manoussos. Now he gave two more blasts to warn the boatmen to keep the harbour clear. The schooner started her first tack towards the harbour entrance. The sea was already flattening when the wind gave the
Black Narcissus
an extra burst of speed and the crew were hard at it, winching flat every sail. People rose from their chairs, left the shops, some came down from their houses or watched from them.

Most of the expatriates and several of their house guests, a few Greeks, some from Athens, and several Cretans who lived in Livakia, were lingering at a long table over the last of the Kavouria’s house wine, empty platters and plates before them. It had not been any more or less amusing a lunch than usual but as always it had been interesting and fun. Fun was the operative word among the expatriate community: fun, interesting conversation, love affairs, passionate friendships, the hows and whys and wherefores of seeking their pleasures. For some like Mark Obermann, a modestly successful writer, Tom Plum, a famous painter, and Rachel al Hacq, a would-be poet, who were at the long table, it was their work, their ambitions and dreams, and above all seeking their pleasure, that kept them there. Others like
Max de Bonn, D’Arcy Montesque and Laurence Hart, successful in their chosen work, were past striving. They played with what working life they had as they played with life in general: by living it to the full as and when it came. For them all Livakia was paradise, their home, the heart and hearth of their libertine lives, their pleasure seeking.

From the long table Elefherakis Khaliadakis watched the black schooner with its rust-coloured sails swoop into the harbour. He had sailed on the
Black Narcissus
with its owner and friends many times. Elefherakis was independently wealthy, a prominent Greek scholar, a handsome reprobate of a man of fifty-odd years, a dilettante who had spent his entire life reading and admiring beauty. An old Eton and Oxford man of utter charm and sophistication, he was a gentleman known for his generosity, wit and debauchery in his younger days; a libertine par excellence in his mature years. He remained famous in certain international social circles for his fascinating personality, brilliant intelligence, and especially because he was in all things subtle and discreet. He was, by his very nature, always the perfect host, entertaining the people he gathered around him in his large and beautiful house in Livakia.

The rich, famous and interesting from all walks of life who wanted to visit Crete and Livakia could usually be found staying there or in one of the other foreigner’s houses because there was no hotel in the village, no
pension,
just a few Livakians who would let out a bed for a night or two. Mr Average Tourist rarely turned up in this coastal village which was too remote, difficult to get to, too closed a society, and very Cretan. This paradise and the people lounging round the table were lost to the package holiday visitor but graciously embraced any traveller on a voyage of discovery, poets and dreamers, and most especially if they were pleasure seekers ready to play for a few days. The residents of Livakia, both Cretan and foreign, by the very nature of the way they lived and loved, automatically dispelled any unwanted intruder.