The Siren's Sting (22 page)

‘I think she rather enjoyed you too, little Stevie. Certainly enough to take your welfare to heart.'

Stevie said nothing for a while. The notes of Al-Nassar's court minstrels danced about on deck. Finally, ‘Well, now that you are here, Henning, you may as well make yourself useful and—' But Stevie's plotting was interrupted by the sound of a motor launch. It seemed to be going quite fast for such a dangerous approach, and in the dark. Krok's crew moved like ghosts to the edge of the boat, hands on holsters, staring into the darkness. Stevie saw Marlena move swiftly to Megrahi's side and say something in his ear before moving away towards the stern. A navy blue Wally chase boat pulled up alongside and a dark figure in a dinner jacket jumped onto the stern platform without waiting for the speedboat to dock. The boat took off again into the night, as quickly as it had appeared.

The new arrival was a young man with dark curls and black eyes. He made his way towards the party with confidence bordering on arrogance, completely sure of himself, of his power. In that, he reminded Stevie of someone . . . Ignoring all the other guests, he made straight for Marlena, like a bull in the ring. She watched him approach, then let the man take her into his arms and kiss her. There was a murmur in the crowd, before people turned back to their conversations. Many eyes, however, remained subtly turned the couple's way. It was hard not to be curious, thought Stevie. She caught sight of Skorpios, standing with Krok, and immediately saw the similarity. Henning said quietly, ‘Aristotle Skorpios, son of Socrates.'

‘Lover of Marlena, so it seems,' added Stevie.

‘It's a new affair, but Aristo is apparently very taken with her. Possibly all the more so because his father can't stand it.'

A loud clanging interrupted their conversation a second time. Krok was ringing an old-fashioned ship's bell with great vigour. The chief steward stepped forward. ‘Dinner is served.'

A more wicked collection of people would have been hard to find around the dinner tables of the Mediterranean that evening, and the atmosphere was electric. Like the moments before a bush-fire crests the nearest hill, everything carried on as usual, but every gesture crackled with sparks and life and menace. It was getting harder and harder to breathe.

Krok was drinking straight whisky with his dinner, growing dangerously drunk, his small red-rimmed eyes glittering with malice as he glanced around the table, looking for a victim. Clémence, at the opposite end, eyed him nervously, hands fidgeting with her hairpiece. Marlena sat next to Aristo, who smouldered like a hot coal. He darted glances at his father, thunderbolts, while Marlena herself appeared utterly unfazed and as cool as marble.

Stevie was rather fascinated by the magnetism of the couple. Then she sensed eyes on her and turned: Iris was watching her from across the table. She felt uncomfortable, but smiled, hoping it didn't show. She also hoped Iris wouldn't make some comment about her and Henning—he was just to Stevie's right and dangerously within hearing. When Skorpios—seated on Stevie's left—excused himself to take a phone call, Iris inclined her head a little and said softly, ‘Apparently Skorpios threatened to dispose of Marlena, unless Aristo did so himself.' She took a small sip of her champagne. ‘But Aristo won't do that. He's madly in love with her.'

‘Do you think Skorpios would really hurt Marlena?' Stevie asked in a low voice.

‘It's a credible threat,' replied Iris, raising an eyebrow. ‘It was never going to make for harmonious relations between father and son.'

When Skorpios returned he ignored his son and lavished attention on Angelina, who had surfaced resplendent with fury from her chrysalis. She had caught her lover trying to lure Princess Loli into an empty stateroom that afternoon and the injury had still not been redressed. Fortunately they spoke in French, not Greek—a language that Angelina said made her feel passionless. Stevie could hear Skorpios's chocolate tones saying, ‘Angelina, I am an animal. Only you can tame me. What is a flirtation compared to what we have together? A pebble before Vesuvius.
Rien!'

Angelina flicked her head imperiously but Stevie knew her well enough to see she had been conquered. She rose from the table—ostensibly to powder her nose.

Skorpios turned his attention to Stevie. He must have known she had been listening.

‘Men and women can only ever be making love, or making war. There is nothing in between.'

‘That's a rather exhausting idea.'

‘It is the truth. Beautiful women cannot bear moderation; they must have an inexhaustible excess of everything.' He drank his whisky. ‘And Angelina is very beautiful. She has a very passionate soul. She has already forgiven me.
Tout passe
.'

‘Perhaps,' replied Stevie softly, ‘but it leaves scars on the heart. How much can one organ bear?'

Skorpios leant back and pulled out a cigar, eyes still on Stevie. ‘You have been wounded and now you are afraid to love.' He lit the cigar and puffed with satisfaction. ‘Only because you have not met the right lover,' he continued. ‘The right man will make you forget everything, all the past, all the tears. And what is pain for? It tells us we are truly alive. How can we be truly happy if we have never truly suffered?'

Stevie glanced over at Henning—she couldn't help herself. Was he listening? She hoped not. She turned back to Skorpios. ‘Have you ever truly suffered—I mean, for love?' Stevie doubted it. The man was a tiger.

He looked at her for a long moment. ‘I am a great romantic.' He smiled. ‘You pine for Iris' son.' He had noticed the glance. ‘He's not for you. He has looks and charm, but he will break your heart. He will not make a good husband. I think—' he gave her a trader's appraising look ‘—that you can do better. You are elegant and frail. Many men like that—the delicate quality. I myself have had occasion to fall for its charms. You could go far.'

Stevie swallowed the first two replies that came to mind and settled for a milder, ‘I'm happy where I am, Mr Skorpios, and I don't pine for anyone.' But the man with the toffee-lenses had guessed too much already.

‘Everyone pines for someone. The heart abhors a vacuum.'

‘I thought it was power . . .'

‘Love is power, is it not? Make someone love you and you have power over them.'

Stevie struggled to keep her voice even. ‘That's rather a horrible way to look at it.'

‘Miss Duveen, you live in a fairytale. Can you really believe the things you are telling me? Is this a faux naivety for my benefit, or have you really not seen enough of life to know?' His eyes narrowed. ‘I could teach you many things.'

Skorpios poured Stevie a fresh glass of champagne, his fingers unexpectedly gentle around the crystal stem, the golden scorpion gleaming on his signet ring.

‘I prefer my women experienced,' he continued, ‘with that faint tinge of scandal about them. Women like that understand men like me.'

‘Women like Angelina?' Stevie stared right at the dark lenses, hoping she had found his eyes. ‘Why do you torture her? You seem to do it on purpose. Why not let her go if you don't love her. Leave her to the man who does.'

‘Zorfanelli?' Skorpios laughed. ‘He is nothing.'

‘And what are you, that you are so proud of yourself? Are you any better than these other men?' Stevie couldn't stop the words coming out of her mouth.

Skorpios' face darkened and she braced herself for a tempest. ‘Yes, I'm a disgrace. I'm a murderer. I'm a thief . . . But I am also a billionaire, and powerful. I will never give up Angelina, and I will use whatever means necessary to keep her. Everything else can go to hell.'

Suddenly it was as if the air had been sucked out of the space around them. Stevie was afraid to move. Had she made a terrible enemy?

I'm a murderer.

Angelina's lacquered nails landed lightly on Skorpios' shoulder, breaking the spell. Stevie looked away in relief and caught Marlena staring at her. She gave the woman a small smile that Marlena did not return.

Aristo was smoking a cigarette and as he turned, the profile of his proud nose and heavy brows stark against his white shirt, Stevie was struck by the resemblance to his father. There was no doubt that Aristo had a charisma all his own, quite aside from the draw of his father's money. Although few would call him handsome, he was strong and graceful and proud—if a little arrogant. She could see what attracted Marlena to him, even though he was twenty years younger, only just out of his teens.

Skorpios was also now watching Aristo, and Stevie felt his silent regard flow like poison. Angelina noticed it too.

‘Is it because you want her too?' she asked him, her eyes glittering dangerously.

Skorpios dismissed her provocation with a wave of his hand. ‘Women like Marlena are a necessary education.'

‘You are jealous of Aristo, of your own son. I would have thought he would make you proud by taking a lover like Marlena.'

‘She is a whore.'

Angelina laughed. ‘Because she won't sleep with you?' The diva leant across the table seductively, her pale skin reflecting the candlelight, the dancing shadows accentuating every curve. The woman was a phenomenon. ‘Aristo, tell your father he must marry me.'

‘Angelina, I can't do that.' Skorpios' voice was sharp. ‘This is a user pays arrangement.'

The diva jerked back as if she had been slapped. She stared at her lover with her huge eyes. ‘Skorpios . . .' Her incredible voice trembled. ‘You are a monster.'

Slowly she stood, as if unable to trust her legs to hold her, and left the table.

Stevie struggled between the impulse to go after her, and her desire not to get involved in the love affairs of others. She realised she felt very tired. For now, she would wait.

Stevie looked to one side and saw Skorpios, a man who refused to stay with one woman; at the other end of the spectrum was Krok, a man who refused to let one go. Did these two men represent the choices in love? Did love exist in a straight line, with two opposite points—Krok and Skorpios—between which some accommodation had to be found?

The thought depressed her and she turned her gaze up to the few stars that were visible beyond the lights; darkness forever. The suggestion of eternity comforted her, she didn't know why. Actually, she did know why—it was that the very word ‘eternity' was filled with the breath of freedom. It was the opposite of being trapped, confined, locked up, owned and beholden. It was a state of complete and perfect liberty.

Would she one day meet a person who made her want to change that—take the gloss off her utter independence? Unlikely.

She hoped any man she fell in love with wouldn't demand that of her . . . or was surrender a pre-condition to true love?

Did people simply attract what they themselves put out to the universe, like to like? Clémence had learnt how to trap a man and keep him—now she was kept in a vice of iron; Angelina thrived on the drama of passion and she had met a man who would keep her swinging from ecstasy to despair. Stevie couldn't live like either of them. And then there was Henning: what might he demand of her if she let him get too close? The thought frightened her. A winter love affair was one thing; one that stretched to two—even three—seasons, quite another. Stevie did not feel ready for what that might lead to.

Henning caught her gaze and smiled; he was dangerously charming, Stevie thought, and too real to sustain her fantasy of him. Best exit. If she let him have her heart, she would be at his mercy. She would end up like Angelina.

The diva was weeping hysterically
in her cabin.

‘Angelina . . .' Stevie stood by the door for a moment, waiting for the sobs to lessen. When finally she raised her head from the pillow, the woman's face was swollen and contorted with pain.

‘Angelina, why do you stay with him?'

Angelina gulped. ‘Will you pour me a drink, Stevie, darling?'

Stevie handed her an inch of vodka from the room's bar.

The diva swallowed it and it seemed to calm her. She shook her head. ‘When slur follows slur, and insults pile upon insults, the love that is left makes no sense, but it is also indestructible.' She turned to look at Stevie. ‘It is a madness of sorts, and nobody chooses to be mad.'

Her false eyelashes had come unglued and fallen in front of her eyes like drunken spiders—she did indeed look a little demented. Stevie reached into Angelina's purse, pulled out her compact and held the mirror up to her.

‘Tell me, Angelina,' she said softly. ‘Is any man—any love— worth this?'

Angelina took the mirror, stared at her deformed face, and began weeping afresh. Stevie closed the cabin door quietly and left her to her tears.

She was halfway up the stairs when she heard voices in the main saloon. ‘Damn that bitch, I could—' The end of the sentence was swallowed by a burst of collective laughter from the deck. Stevie recognised the voice of Skorpios. Then another voice spoke—Dado Falcone?

‘You tried, but you did not succeed.'

‘Who says I won't try again?'

‘It's an unnecessary risk. You don't—'

Their conversation was interrupted by a woman's scream, high, loud and as clear as crystal.

Angelina!

When Stevie reached the cabin door, she found the diva attempting to commit suicide with a letter opener. Fortunately, the letter opener was not as sharp as it looked and, as anyone who has tried knows, it is actually quite difficult to stab oneself with enough conviction to cause a serious injury. Angelina had managed a small—though no doubt painful—flesh wound that would not do any lasting damage. She refused to let Stevie touch her.

When Skorpios and Falcone appeared in the cabin door a moment later, they were treated to a dramatic tableau: the diva was sitting on the edge of her bed; her black dress had slipped off the shoulder exposing her milky left breast. Her head was thrown back, exposing her long and famous throat, and a trickle of bright blood crept towards her cleavage. In her fist she clutched the letter opener like Cleopatra's asp. She gave a small moan.