The Siren's Sting (11 page)

Stevie imagined Josie consulting her mental file for Stevie Margaret Duveen, noting the extreme stubbornness, weighing up the options with a specimen such as she.

Josie gave a pained sigh. ‘There are rumours of the existence of a small automatic pistol made entirely of ceramic material. The bullets are also ceramic and the magazine is loaded into the handle. The spring driving the bolt/slide mechanism is supposedly made of plastic.'

‘I know they've had some success with plastic guns. Wasn't there a furore over—'

‘That was the Glock 17.' Josie clicked her tongue impatiently. ‘Component parts made of plastic, including the grip and the trigger guard, but still at around eighty per cent metal if you're going by weight—more than enough to set off a magnetometer. No, Stevie, this is something completely different—if indeed it is what you think. These guns would be completely invisible to a metal detector.'

Josie continued, warming to her subject. ‘The problem with glass guns has always been that the pressure in the chamber is so strong it causes them to explode when fired, to literally blow up in your face. Apparently this has been resolved by igniting the propellant in two stages, which keeps the chamber pressure low. The bullet operates almost like a cannonball with a charge of powder behind it.

‘According to the rumours, it has been developed in a secret CIA lab, but all queries have elicited a ‘no comment' from the Agency. If the crew aboard the
Hercules
are carrying ceramic automatics, it means your man either has weapons labs that are on a par—if not more sophisticated—than the CIA's, or he has some pretty extraordinary connections.' Josie let the pause hang a moment too long then said, ‘Do I need to repeat myself, Stevie?'

‘I know, Josie. I won't do anything reckless. I am staying firmly on the reservation this time. I don't think I could go through another adventure like . . .'

‘You don't have the strength, Stevie.' Josie's voice was stern. ‘You were lucky to make it out of the Swiss Alps alive, and you know as well as I do that your Russian friends could still be looking for you. We're counting on their short attention spans—not a very sure gamble.'

Stevie felt a chill of fear touch the back of her neck.

That's all over. It's time to forget.

‘Ahoy there!' Stevie looked up and saw Clémence on one of the upper decks of the
Hercules
, waving a thin arm now covered in silver bangles. ‘Stevie, darling! Come up for a cocktail.'

‘Who's that?' Simone hissed, her hand on Stevie's arm.

Stevie called back, ‘We were just on our way home.' She took an ignoble pleasure in denying Simone the satisfaction. Call it payback for hoping Didi would die. ‘Some other time, though, I'll accept with pleasure,' she added.

Stevie felt Simone's nails dig in.

‘Are you sure you can't stay for dinner, darling?' Clémence replied. ‘Plenty of room for all of you aboard.'

As the nails dug harder, Stevie wondered if Simone's desire would leave scars. She shook her head. ‘Thank you, though, and please thank your husband for today.'

Clémence gave another regal wave and disappeared.

Simone's disappointment manifested itself first in manic questioning:
who why what where when . . . how much?
She scurried along, her claw still on Stevie's arm. When Stevie claimed to have forgotten the woman's name, or her husband's, or anything else about the boat or the owners—‘so absent-minded, it's awful'—the mania gave way to a petulant silence. Stevie wasn't at all unhappy about the silence.

Back at the house, Stevie
prepared a simple risotto with saffron; the night was so still they could have their dinner on the roof. She had begun to feel a little sorry for Simone, stewing in her thwarted desires, and decided to put a bottle of champagne on ice. That was sure to cheer her up, and by tomorrow, the girl might have mellowed.

By now, they had missed the flute player and night had fallen. Steve lit candles on the roof and their reflections danced on the worn white walls.

‘I almost forgot,' Stevie said as they sat down at the rickety wooden table, the risotto steaming in the middle, ‘I have a surprise. Wait here.' She flew downstairs and grabbed the bottle, three flutes, and emerged triumphant back on the roof.

‘
Voilà!'

Simone looked up from her plate. Her mouth flattened sourly, her eyebrows arched in disdain. ‘Is that the surprise?'

Without a word, Stevie set the bottle on the table. She peeled back the foil, twisted the wire helmet open, softly popped the cork into her hand and poured three full glasses. She handed one to Simone and one to Mark; she took the third glass in her left hand, the champagne bottle in her right, then turned and walked away.

The garden was dark and trilling with cicadas. Stevie headed for the fig trees by the back wall. There, she topped up her glass, tied the bottom of her kaftan into a knot above her knees, and climbed up into the oldest of the trees. The scent of the fig leaves was strong around her and Stevie knew she would be safe.

While at first she had tried to consider the possibility that she might even be glad of the company of Simone and Mark . . .

‘. . . I now find myself considering the possibility that I might push Simone off the roof.' This idea pleased her and she said it aloud, liking the sound of the words in the night air.

‘It would of course look like an accident,' she continued. ‘Heels too high, masonry too old, a little too much to drink . . .' She sipped her champagne and plucked a fig from the tree. They were tiny and green and wonderfully sweet.

‘I may have to stay up here tonight,' she said to the tree. ‘I'm not sure I could face Simone or my dear cousin without resorting to physical violence.' She sighed deeply.

‘All I can say is, Oh dear.'

A chuckle came out of the darkness and Stevie almost fell out of her tree in fright.

‘Your grandmother Didi could be very fierce when crossed. I fear for your cousins.'

Stevie sat as still as a fig.

‘Are they really that bad?' asked the voice in the night.

Stevie debated whether to acknowledge the voice.

‘Is that why you are hiding up a tree,' it asked, ‘in the dark, plotting murder?'

With as much dignity as she could muster in the situation, Stevie answered, ‘I'm having a glass of champagne, in private. It was the only safe place.'

‘Oh dear.' Another chuckle.

Stevie peered into the blackness but could see no one. There was no moon and the starlight was blocked by the fig leaves. The voice seemed to be coming from the roof of the garage next door— but that was impossible. The roof, Stevie knew from daylight, was made of thin slats of bamboo. They couldn't bear the weight of a man, and it was a man's voice speaking.

‘You may mock,' she added, her indignance growing, ‘but you haven't met Simone.'

‘What's so terrible about her?'

Stevie took a steadying breath. ‘The girl lacks any trace of elegance— of manner, of mind, of character. And she's praying Didi dies soon so her husband-to-be, my cousin, will come into some money.'

‘Ah.'

‘Exactly.' Stevie took a sip of champagne. ‘The trouble is, they're staying put. I don't know how to get rid of them, short of something desperately messy.'

From the house, the noise of a woman swearing.

There was a pause in the conversation as the man stopped to listen. Then came the low remark, ‘Yes, I think I see . . . Perhaps you could concentrate on the things that you find charming, on the things this woman can't ruin for you. She is a speck of dust in the blissful whole. Now, you can choose to focus on the speck, or you can see it for what it really is, insignificant in the universal scheme.'

Stevie raised her glass. She was feeling a little tipsy, but it could have just been the odd situation up the tree. ‘In principle, I would agree. If Simone were a work assignment, it would be nothing— I've handled worse, believe me. But in my heart all I want to do is slap her.'

This time, a belly laugh from the darkness.

‘She's on your turf . . . Have you suggested a charming little
pensione
up the hill?'

‘Of course!' Stevie replied. ‘And I know Issa would make room for them at the Pietra Niedda, no matter how full he was, if I begged him to. But she wants to save the money for shoes.'

That maddening laugh again.

‘I can see you're finding this hilarious—whoever you are.' Stevie was beginning to feel quite cross. ‘Perhaps
you
should take them in.'

‘It does all seem funny—you should see it that way too. If you can see this woman's antics as amusing rather than infuriating, the whole thing will become playful. You won't even have to make an effort.'

There was more swearing, then the sound of a door slamming. Hopefully it was the bedroom door, thought Stevie, and she could return to the house in safety.

The voice in the darkness was right. It was the only way to deal with Simone. She would begin tomorrow. ‘Would you care for a glass of champagne?' she asked tentatively, but the night made no reply.

7

Stevie awoke early the next
morning, absolutely famished, having only managed three figs and the greater part of a bottle of champagne for dinner. She slipped on her swimming costume and padded in bare feet down the stone path to the little beach below. The bay was washed in a soft pink light that turned the coarse sand gold and the water a silvery mauve. No one was about: the Biedermeier doors were still closed, the Liptons next door were quiet, and the two Olivetti houses—built by the famous Italian industralist brothers in the 1960s—were dark.

The first Olivetti house now belonged to a British fashion designer and his wife; the second remained empty. Years ago, one of the Olivettis had been kidnapped and held for months in a cave not that far away. When he had finally been returned, the coast had lost its magic for his family and they sold their pair of small, curved, stone and glass houses.

Stevie slid into the water and swam briskly out to the farthest buoy. She clung to the rubber ring on the top and looked back up the valley. The shutters were open at the Villa Goliath and there were
giardinieri
in green moving on the terrace. Stevie remembered that Clémence had said her husband liked to rise early.

A man in his line of work would certainly attract enemies—most likely rivals, and unsavoury ones at that—but it took a lot of energy and risk to go after a man as well-protected and connected as Krok. It didn't make much sense. Surely he had confidence in his own systems, his own security? Was Clémence right about the paranoia? Or was Krok deliberately keeping his wife imprisoned in fear?

Stevie shivered. The water felt cold now that she was no longer moving. It didn't seem to her that Clémence had any intention of crossing her husband, nor of fleeing. Clémence had mentioned Emile and her concern for him. Perhaps they had clashed over the boy and Krok was punishing her? It was an unpleasant thought for such a beautiful morning.

Stevie dived underwater, then struck out for the shore.

She couldn't risk breakfast at home so she threw on her old denim shorts, a worn shirt that had belonged to her father, a pair of white plimsols, pearls, Rolex and Ray-Bans, and set off for Bar Spinnaker, which was frequented mainly by locals and the yachties off the sailing boats in the marina. There you could buy newspapers in six languages at the tiny newsagent next door and the coffee was good. In the evening, a little restaurant opened in the courtyard and they served salt-crusted fish and squid-ink pasta. Stevie wanted a word with Sauro, the owner of Spinnaker and a tremendous source of local gossip, but it was still reasonably quiet and he didn't seem to be about.

Stevie stood at the bar and ordered a black coffee and chose a
cornetto
, still piping hot from the café's oven and filled with apricot jam, then went and sat at one of the small marble-topped tables.

The papers brought news of an earthquake in China, people killed because local developers had skimped on the proper foundations, not believing that the laws of nature applied to their buildings—or possibly not caring.

The colour supplement blew open at the social pages—a party given in Venice two weeks ago at the Palazzo Guggenheim. There was a photo of Clémence looking rather serpentine in silver lamé, Krok close beside her scowling, stocky and pink.

A convoy of black Range Rovers with mirror-tinted windows roared past at high speed.

Krok's men
.

The numberplates were even personalised: storm.

Stevie frowned behind her dark glasses. Vaughan Krok was a man who ought to know better. The most effective way to avoid unwanted attention was to preserve as much privacy and anonymity as possible. This meant simple things such as unlisted phone numbers and addresses, avoiding flashy watches, jewellery, clothing and luggage; it meant getting rid of personalised numberplates and very noticeable vehicles. It also meant entertaining more modestly and staying out of the social pages.

While Krok was certainly not the flashiest billionaire Stevie had come across—not by a long shot—he seemed to take a certain pleasure in doing things very much his own way and this attracted notice.
Hercules
was the talk of the boating world; Clémence's jewels inspired equivalent chat among a certain set of women. There were the STORM cars tearing about, the parties, the highly visible security detail in their set-designed uniforms . . . such ostentation was not the mark of a man who was afraid.

‘
Hai visto?
' Sauro flicked his chin at the passing motorcade and pulled out a chair at Stevie's table. He was a good-looking man, tall, with a mop of dark hair and kind brown eyes. ‘Every morning is the same.'

He kissed Stevie fondly on both cheeks, pinched one of them. ‘You look a bit thin.'