The Eden Inheritance

by Janet Tanner

  It was not until years later, when she was sixteen years old, that Jorge had come back into her life and it had all begun again.

  Now, flying home to Madrepora, Lilli wondered if this hiatus would be any different to the last. The parting four years ago had seemed to be final and, though her heart had been breaking, she had been determined that never again would she allow him to dominate her life and manipulate her emotions.

  But for all that she could not be certain that it would be so. She was not at all sure that she would be able to trust herself to keep the vow she had made the day she had left. Jorge was her weakness, he always had been and Lilli was very much afraid he always would be.

  If he was there and he wanted her, would she be able to resist?

  Lilli hoped very much he would not be there.

  Chapter Twenty

  GUY DE SAVIGNY stood in the transit lounge at Barbados International Airport watching the flow of passengers who had just arrived from New York. Most had the appearance of holidaymakers, dressed in jogging suits or casual wear, carrying the parkas they had needed in wintry New York and struggling with suitcases, holdalls and cameras. A few, already suitably attired for the Caribbean sunshine in brightly coloured short-sleeved shirts, were, he guessed, locals returning from a trip abroad. But so far he had seen no one remotely resembling the passenger he was waiting for. She would be a woman alone, about his own age, he imagined, and probably instantly recognisable as a German with the fair hair and blue eyes of a typical Aryan.

  The rush thinned to a trickle. Guy fiddled with his sunglasses, beginning to wonder if Otto’s daughter had been on the flight after all and feeling a fatalistic disappointment creeping in to take the place of anticipation. He’d thought a chance like this was too good to be true – lucky breaks like this didn’t often come his way. Perhaps Fräulein Lilli Brandt had missed the flight or changed her plans too late for them to stop him leaving. But the jumbo must have already taken off from New York before he left Madrepora so there would have been no reason for Frau Brandt not to have called the airstrip and cancelled the taxi – unless of course she had, and Manuel had taken the call and forgotten to tell him.

  Manuel had been busy this morning with one of his freight runs for Jorge Sanchez. Maybe it had slipped his mind – or, more likely, he’d taken malicious pleasure in letting Guy make the trip, knowing it would turn out to be a fool’s errand. Manuel had seemed annoyed that Guy had taken the booking from Frau Brandt the previous afternoon, though he had no one to blame but himself for forcing Guy to answer the telephone. But Manuel seemed to look upon anything connected with the Brandts or Jorge Sanchez as his own personal responsibility – which of course it usually was – and Guy found himself wondering, as he had done at the time, why Frau Brandt should have asked him to meet her stepdaughter. Since Jorge generally flew the family in his private plane or got Manuel to cover for him, that would have seemed the most likely arrangement in this case too.

  Guy sighed, on the point of turning away, when a young woman caught his eye, stirring his interest for quite a different reason. Slim, dark, probably of Spanish South American descent, dressed simply but strikingly in a lemon-yellow trouser suit and carrying only an Yves St Laurent purse and an expensive-looking Italian leather tote bag. One step behind her a local porter lumbered along with a suitcase – also labelled with the YSL logo. He was grinning with pleasure, yet somehow, following behind her like that, he resembled nothing so much as a native bearer on an expedition. If he had suddenly shifted the suitcase on to his head Guy would not have been surprised.

  What a beauty! Guy thought – and still failed to make the connection. It was only when she came towards him, smiling faintly, that he realised the truth.

  ‘Air Perpetua?’ she said in a low, sweet voice. ‘I am Lilli Brandt. I think you are taking me to Madrepora.’

  The moment she had stepped off the plane Lilli had smelled the Caribbean. No – even before that. The warm scented air had come rushing in as soon as the doors were thrown open and a wave of emotion had engulfed her, conjuring up not the traumas of her last months on the island but all the other, happier days. As she breathed in the perfume of the islands Lilli forgot that her father was dying, forgot Jorge, forgot everything except that she was home. Or almost home. This was where she belonged. For the moment nothing else mattered.

  The euphoria lasted as she collected her luggage and went with her as the pilot who had come to meet her escorted her across the apron to where the Twin Otter in the blue-and-gold livery of Air Perpetua stood parked and waiting. He was a stranger to her, dark and strikingly good-looking in his black trousers and white uniform shirt with the captain’s insignia gleaming on the epaulettes, but she liked him instantly, an easy rapport which reflected her new happy mood. He settled her into the seat immediately behind his and stowed her luggage whilst she waited, bursting with a new impatience. ‘The longest mile is the last mile, home.’ The words of the old song came into her mind and the departure checks and clearance seemed to her to take forever. Then they were airborne, skimming out over the sparkling blue and silver of the sea, skimming with a careless ease the airliner that had brought her from New York had lacked, rising and falling gently on the air currents so that she felt as if she might be riding on the back of a seabird rather than flying in a man-made machine.

  ‘Have you been here long?’ Lilli asked.

  He half turned his head, looking at her quizzically, and Lilli laughed at her own foolishness. Of course he couldn’t hear what she said – he was wearing a headset and only the voices of the radio controllers would be clear to him. She waved a hand apologetically in front of her face, indicating that she understood, and settled back, but a moment later she noticed him fumbling under the control panel, plugging contacts into sockets, and with a grin he passed a headset similar to his own back to her.

  ‘Oh – thanks,’ Lilli mouthed.

  She had worn a headset before – flying with Jorge – but that was a long time ago and it took her a minute to two to get it on, tucking her long dark hair behind her ears so that the muffs fitted snugly and twisting the mouthpiece into position.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘I forgot you couldn’t hear me. All I said was – have you been here long?’

  ‘No – I’m a new boy. Less than three weeks.’ The microphone added extra resonance to his already deep voice.

  ‘I thought I hadn’t seen you before. Do you like it here?’

  ‘Sun, sea and deserted beaches? How could I not like it! This is your home, I take it?’

  ‘I was born here, yes. I live in New York now.’

  ‘Some difference!’

  ‘You could say. It’s real winter there.’

  ‘I was in England just three weeks ago. It’s pretty cold there too. I’m not surprised you wanted to come home for some sunshine.’

  ‘Oh – it’s not that,’ Lilli said, and broke off as a small sharp barb of reality pricked at the bubble of euphoria.

  ‘What do you do in New York?’ he asked, unaware of her sudden discomfort.

  ‘I’m in publishing. Public relations. It can be quite good fun but very tiring. All those business lunches and champagne receptions.’

  ‘Tough!’ he said with a laugh.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Lillie said ruefully. ‘I’m spoiled.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re not. That’s the trouble with jobs like yours and mine. They seem very glamorous to everyone but the person doing them. The reality can be very different.’

  ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘That’s it exactly. They don’t see me dead tired, wanting nothing but a quiet evening with my feet up in front of the television and a cup of cocoa to drink.’

  ‘But we put up with it.’

  ‘Yes,’ she laughed. ‘We put up with it.’

  The crackle of the radio ended their conversation and Lilli realised that the pilot was busy now with preparations to land. She turned to look out of the window and with a little lurch of excitement saw M
adrepora almost immediately beneath them, a tiny speck of land in the blue of the sea taking shape as the plane descended and overflew. So many times before Lilli had seen it, yet the sight never failed to thrill her – the wooded hillsides and white sandy beaches, the hotel and marina, well stocked with yachts, the corrugated tin roofs of the shacks that comprised the shanty town where Josie and the other locals lived the half-dozen houses dotted amongst the trees, and the villa, with its manicured lawns and swimming pool. Her father’s villa. Her home. Once again Lilli’s stomach twisted with an emotion that was part pleasure, part pain. Then the plane was skimming in low, too low to see anything but the tiny airstrip and the trees that lined the ridge to the east. She braced herself, slightly nervous as always at landing, but the plane touched down sweetly, wheels almost kissing tarmac, and slowed to a gentle taxi.

  ‘Well done,’ Lilli said. ‘I’m told this is a very difficult strip to land on.’

  ‘What I’m trained to do,’ he said lightly.

  She took off the headset, passing it back to him, and unbuckled her seatbelt, stretching comfortably and smoothing her cool-wool lemon trousers over her knees.

  Home. Home! In spite of everything it felt so good.

  And then she looked out across the grassy apron and saw it, and instantly her happy mood was dissipated. A small white aeroplane gleaming in the sun. Jorge’s aeroplane. So – he was here. Lilli felt her heart begin to pound uncomfortably, sending echoes through each and every pulse point.

  The pilot was running expertly through his shut-down checks, opening the hatch to let some air into the cabin, climbing out, helping her down. The panic was tightening her throat and she wanted, suddenly, to cling to this pleasant, attractive, efficient man who seemed oddly to be the last bastion of stability before she had to face all kinds of problems and emotional traumas.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That was wonderful. You must come over for drinks sometime.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ he said but she could see he was surprised. The daughter of the house inviting the taxi driver for drinks – unheard of!

  ‘I meant it,’ she said. ‘ That’s not just a pleasantry. Only I don’t know your name.’

  ‘Guy de Savigny.’

  ‘Do I call you Captain de Savigny or Guy?’

  ‘Guy will do nicely.’

  The exchange had made her feel better. She felt she had an ally. She was almost calm again as he unloaded her luggage, watched her father’s driver collect it and stow it in the Mercedes which stood waiting at the edge of the airstrip.

  ‘Thanks again,’ she said.

  And then she looked out to sea. The sun had begun to dip and quite suddenly the sky and water, clear and blue only minutes ago, were streaked with scarlet, and again Lilli’s heart began to pound Scarlet. She hated scarlet. It resurrected memories she wanted only to forget. Memories before Jorge and yet all bound up with him. Even safe in New York the colour could turn her spine to water. Here in the Caribbean the significance was magnified so that it coloured her every emotion with foreboding and the chill of fear.

  She turned back and saw that Guy was striding away towards the little hut that comprised the airstrip office. With the scarlet sea still staining her vision Lilli felt totally bereft.

  In his small white-roofed office overlooking the airstrip, some two to three hundred yards from the hut that was the headquarters of Air Perpetua, Jorge Sanchez was entertaining Enrique Garcia, the carabinier responsible for Madrepora.

  The office was no bigger than the one that housed Air Perpetua but it was far better appointed. Though Jorge conducted most of his business from his house, set high amongst the trees, he also needed a base within easy reach of the airstrip and the marina, and since he had begun to spend more and more time on the island he had made it a priority to equip the office with all the trappings necessary for his comfort. Jorge was used to luxury; raised in a family of wealthy landowners he had grown up not simply expecting the best but spurning anything that fell short of those standards. He drank too much – the slightly raddled look of his dark swarthy face bore witness to that – but he drank only the finest wines and spirits. He smoked only hand-rolled cigars, dark and slim. His shirts were handmade, his suits and the bleached cotton jodphurs he so often wore were tailored by the most expensive establishment in Caracas. Anything less offended his natural arrogance, for it narrowed the great divide which separated his kind – the Venezuelan meritocracy – from the masses, the labourers, the servants and the unemployed who occupied the hillside shanty towns and begged in the streets.

  It was also important, Jorge believed, to impress business associates – and Enrique Garcia was numbered amongst those. An officer of the law he might be; his goodwill was vital to ensure the smooth running of Jorge’s enterprises. Whenever Garcia called at Madrepora Jorge entertained him with lavish hospitality, greeting him as an old friend and spending as much time as was necessary to create a cordial atmosphere and make the customary handing over of the sweetener more of an arrangement between friends and less of what it really was – a bribe to ensure that the report that went back to Garcia’s superiors made no mention of Jorge’s business dealings.

  Jorge did not like Garcia – he liked very few of those who were in his pay – but he was careful not to let his disdain show. He had spent the last hour yarning with Garcia and plying him with planter’s punch, watching the intermittent activity on the airstrip whilst pretending to be utterly absorbed in Garcia’s rambling account of how he had caught out the owner of a sevenry-five-foot yacht who had been contravening regulations in the marina on one of the islands under his control. Jorge hoped that no one here on Madrepora would be foolish enough to do anything to draw attention to ‘the Firm’s’ activities whilst Garcia was actually on the island. Garcia might be aware there were illegal goings-on; not to parade them under his nose was one of the rules of the game.

  ‘It cost him a lost of money,’ Garcia said gleefully. ‘But then, he can afford it. That yacht was the latest thing. Brand new, global-positioning system, every mod con, oh, he could afford it.’

  Jorge nodded, concealing his dislike. Garcia had grown rich on the backs of just those whose activities he was employed to police, but that did not stop him from being fat, stupid and uncouth. Jorge hoped he had had enough planter’s punch to make him fall in the harbour when he tried to go back aboard his launch. A wetting was no more than he deserved – so long as he didn’t drown. It would not suit Jorge’s purpose to have to cultivate a new carabinier who might be more scrupulous and less amenable to his inducements.

  ‘Another drink?’ he asked pleasantly.

  Garcia belched loudly, patted his chest with a pudgy hand and swung his chair up on to its back legs.

  ‘Don’t mind if I do.’

  Jorge rose, a tall, strongly built man with a casual raddled elegance, and crossed to the drinks cabinet. As he was refilling Garcia’s glass he heard the purr of twin engines almost overhead and descending; a light aircraft on final approach. He took his own glass over to the window, thrown wide open to the cooling breeze off the sea, and watched it come into view – as he had expected it was the Twin Otter in the livery of Air Perpetua, being flown, no doubt, by the new pilot.

  Jorge’s eyes narrowed, watching it descend and touch down whilst Garcia burbled on. The new pilot was an expert flier, not a doubt of it, the way he had landed on the tiny difficult strip was proof of that, but all the same Jorge was beginning to have serious doubts about him.

  ‘He asks too many questions,’ Manuel, the senior pilot, whom he trusted implicitly, had said. ‘I think you should keep an eye on him.’

  Jorge intended to do just that. He didn’t like people who asked too many questions, especially before they had demonstrated their credentials. It smacked of a troublemaker at best and a snooper – perhaps a professional snooper – at worst, and the last thing he wanted was a professional snooper disturbing the smooth running of his operations. He hadn’t engaged the new
pilot himself, he’d been too busy with other, more important matters, and he’d left what had seemed like a routine appointment to his brother Fabio. Dammit, couldn’t the fool get anything right? Had he unwittingly engaged someone who would be a danger to them? Well if he had, the new pilot would come to a sticky end, just as anyone who tried to interfere or get too clever did.

  The Twin Otter had come to a stop, the hatches were open and the new pilot was emerging Jorge eyed him up critically, wondering idly who the passenger was this time. A guest for the hotel, he imagined. They flew in from South America like a flock of wild geese – ageing Germans with the sort of war records that had turned South America and its immediate surrounds into a prison as surely as if they had been brought before the courts at Nuremberg and sentenced to a life behind bars for the rest of their days. But they did not concern him. The hotel was simply a sideline. Running it had been Otto’s responsibility – let him be the one to look after his compatriots – and now that he was no longer able to do it, overall management would pass to Fabio. Unless he could persuade his father to close it down. There had always been a measure of dissent within the Firm regarding the hotel – Jorge felt it posed an unnecessary security risk, whilst Fernando, his father, believed it provided a useful coyer blind. At present Fernando had his way. He was still head of the Firm. But Otto’s illness had reminded Jorge of his own father’s mortality. One day in the not-too-distant future, control would pass to him and then he would do as he thought fit.

  A smile of satisfaction curved his cruel mouth, then froze. A young woman in a lemon trouser suit was emerging from the Twin Otter, her dark hair blowing in the stiff breeze off the sea.

  Lilli.

  Though it was four years now since he had seen her, he knew instantly that it was she.

  Lilli – the living image of her mother at the same age, slender, graceful, beautiful beyond belief, but with all the freshness of youth that he had seen fade in Magdalene as the passage of the years took their toll.