by Janet Tanner
Otto sighed.
‘No you don’t, Lilli. You are too young to know about love. He fascinates you – that’s his way. He draws you into his web like a spider with a fly. But you don’t love him. At least, I hope to God you don’t, because if you do he’ll hurt you as surely as he hurt your mother, and I won’t allow that to happen.’
Lilli pushed the bangles up her wrist and released them with an impatient little flick.
‘You were telling me about Jorge and my mother.’
‘Yes.’ Otto ran a hand over his. chin, buried his face in it for a moment and then continued: ‘I knew how your mother felt about Jorge. I knew he had hurt her badly. But I thought I could make her forget him. I asked her to marry me and she agreed. We came here – to Madrepora – and for, a while at least I thought I had succeeded. I knew she didn’t feel the same way about me as she had about him but I accepted that. I tried to be patient. I gave her everything she asked for and she seemed content. You were born, and for a little while she settled down to being a wife and mother. But I hadn’t realised the hold he still had over her. When Fernando became unwell Jorge took over this end of the operation. And when he came back into her life it all began again. Jorge couldn’t accept that she was married to me now, he had to prove to himself he could still take her if that was what he wanted. And that is precisely what he did.’
‘You mean they became lovers again?’
‘Yes, right under my nose. And, fool that I was, I let it happen.’
‘Why, Daddy? Why did you let it happen?’
Otto gesticulated impatiently.
‘Does that matter, Lilli? The fact is he wound her round his little finger all over again. He didn’t really want her, of course. Gratification is all Jorge ever wants. When he told her it was over and he was leaving her she was distraught. She couldn’t face losing him a second time She was …’ he paused, his voice breaking, ‘… pregnant with his child, and when she told him he snapped his fingers and told her to get rid of it.’
Lilli began twisting the bangles again, an agitated compulsive movement. She had thought things were bad enough, she had not realised they could get worse.
‘And so she killed herself,’ she said softly.
Otto swallowed hard. ‘Your mother shot herself, here in this room. So you see, Lilli, I couldn’t stand by and see Jorge use you as he used her. I’m sorry, liebling, but there it is. It’s better that you should know what a swine he is than end up like your mother.’
Lilli nodded. Part of her wanted to run to him, throw her arms around him and tell him she was sorry she had resurrected all the painful past, but her own pain was too acute, her emotions too confused.
The door swung open. Ingrid stood there, her face impassive as ever, but when she spoke there was irritation in her voice.
‘Have you finished your tête-á-tête? Dinner has been ready for a long while. Do we have to let Jorge spoil good food as well as everything else?’
Lilli glared at her with loathing. Did Ingrid make Otto happy? She hoped so, but she couldn’t imagine it.
‘I’m sorry, Ingrid, but I am really not hungry,’ she said, pushing past her. Then she ran upstairs to her room, threw herself down on the bed and wept until she had no tears left.
Next day Jorge left for Florida again and at the end of the vacation Lilli returned to school. For a while, thinking of what her father had told her, she was very frightened that she too might be pregnant. But to her immense relief she was not.
Lilli buried herself in her studies, and when the time came for her to leave school she knew she could not bear to return to Madrepora. A friend of a friend worked for a small publishing house in New York, and Lilli had secured herself a job as a public relations assistant with them. Just once she went back to Madrepora, to collect her things and say goodbye to her father. Relations were strained between them; she knew nothing could ever be the same again. When she left she had promised herself it would be forever.
But of course she had been fooling herself. Now she was back and Jorge was here and Lilli was very afraid that the whole horrible cycle was about to begin all over again. Could she resist him any more than her mother had? With all her heart she hoped so, but she really could not be sure.
Chapter Twenty Three
GUY DE SAVIGNY sat on the veranda of his house watching the pineapple palms shivering gently in the warm Caribbean breeze and thinking about Lilli Brandt.
He could scarcely believe the luck which had presented him with an opportunity to meet one of the members of the family of the elusive German whom he was now almost certain was Otto von Rheinhardt, and also an invitation which, if it materialised, would give him access to the villa and the chance to see for himself the treasures. Bill had described. But that was not the only reason he was thinking about Lilli. In fact, since the previous afternoon when he had flown her in he had thought of little else.
He couldn’t for the life of him imagine why she kept popping into his thoughts no matter how often he pushed her away, and he found the invasion oddly disturbing. She was a very pretty girl, of course, but he had known plenty of girls just as pretty and their faces had not haunted him as hers did now, distracting him so that it was an effort to concentrate on what bad become for these last weeks almost an obsession.
He was on Madrepora for a very specific reason, he reminded himself, and that reason was finding and flushing out the Nazi who had murdered his father and stolen his heritage. There would be other Lillis, there was only one Otto von Rheinhardt – and he wanted him far more than he wanted a pretty girl with a soft voice and a smile to break your heart. He wanted him for his father and his grandfather, for his uncle, and all the others who had suffered at his hands, and if this German was indeed von Rheinhardt then the time left to Guy to bring him to justice might be very short. Rumour had it that Otto Brandt was dying and the realisation of it fired Guy with renewed fervour. Perhaps nature was about to take its course and rid the world of a monster, but be didn’t see why it should be easy for him. He hadn’t made it easy on the others, those whose deaths he had ordered. They would have given a great deal for the luxury of dying in their beds, no doubt. And he hadn’t cared either for the families and friends left behind. Why, then, should he expect mercy now?
But for all his determined heart-hardening Guy could not help thinking again of Lilli and the pain it would cause her, and he experienced another pang of something like regret.
And the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children, he thought, unusually philosophical, and this mood too was new enough to him to cause him surprise. He grinned wryly and shifted in his seat, propping his feat on the veranda rail and easing himself into a more comfortable position.
As he did so a movement on the road which wound around the valley immediately beneath his veranda caught his eye. The truck used for ferrying supplies from the airstrip to the villa and hotel was moving slowly along the road. As he watched, it disappeared behind the thick fringe of jacaranda and magnolia, jolting back into view some distance along. Guy’s eyes narrowed, watching its erratic progress. He had never seen a vehicle on that road before – not that there were many vehicles on Madrepora, only Otto and Jorge’s cars and a few motorcycles that sounded like sewing machines on wheels – and he found himself wondering where the truck was going. To the shanty town on the south-east corner? Perhaps, though he could not imagine why it should be. But before it disappeared completely from sight he was almost sure the truck turned north and his curiosity grew.
As far as he was aware there was nothing on that corner of the island. From his little map it looked wild, with only the merest stretch of beach bordered by the closest thing to a cliff that existed on Madrepora, and flying in he had never noticed anything to make him revise that view. For that reason he had never bothered to explore it. Now, with the day stretching before him – the time off he was due in lieu of having worked yesterday – he wondered if it might be worth a visit, if only to familiarise hims
elf with the lay-out of the island.
He went into the house, changed his linen slacks for a pair of Bermuda shorts and got out the bicycle which he used for getting to and from the airstrip. It was an old-fashioned upright machine, circa 1950, he guessed, with a big wicker basket on the front, and in the three weeks he had been here he had grown quite attached to it. Until he had come here it had been years since he had ridden a bicycle, and then it had been a bright-green sports model which had been his pride and joy, bur there was something curiously relaxing about pedalling sedately along on the old Hercules, especially at this time of day before the sun had reached its zenith and the breeze coming off the sea cooled the fragrant air.
Guy freewheeled down the slope from his house, then rode steadily north-east, following the route the truck had taken. For a while the sea was hidden from view by the tall scarlet-leafed crotons and sweet-scented frangipani that lined the road, then suddenly it appeared beneath him again, periwinkle blue merging to soft dark grey on the horizon and white-flecked where it broke over the occasional boulder or reef. The road began to slope down again then, curving gently around the rise at this, the island’s most elevated corner, and heading indirectly towards the sea.
Again Guy wondered why the truck should have been headed for this remote spot. It had not passed him coming back and he was fairly sure that the track he was on would come to a dead end when it reached the sea. Then, as he rounded a curve, his suspicion was confirmed. The truck was there below him, parked on a narrow strip of beach, pebblier and rougher than the smooth white sand of the beaches on the south and west of the island. The driver, a local, judging by his dark skin and brightly coloured singlet and shorts, was standing beside it, and to Guy’s astonishment he appeared to be unloading something on to a trolley manned by another local.
Guy stopped, leaning the bicycle over so that his foot balanced him on the rough dirt track whilst he remained sitting on the saddle, shading his eyes against the sun which reflected from the water to make bright prisms on his Raybans. The packages were large, square and white; three easily stacked the trolley high and the local manhandling it manoeuvred it round on its little wheels and disappeared from Guy’s view behind the overhanging crotons. After a moment a similar trolley appeared, wheeled by yet another local. It, too, was loaded, and went the way of the first.
Fascinated, Guy watched. He could not imagine where the packages were being taken unless it was to some kind of cave beneath the overhanging rock, and he wished he dared cycle on down the path to find out if he was right. But intuition was warning him very strongly not to proceed down the path to the cove. Everything about this operation smacked of secrecy and even with his scanty knowledge of the Caribbean Guy could hazard a pretty good guess at what those packages contained. If he was right, then a great deal of money was at stake here, and those who stood to gain from it would not take kindly to an outsider discovering what they were up to. Perhaps, he thought, he would come back when the place was deserted and have a closer look. For now, he was going to let discretion be the better part of valour.
He let the bicycle fall a little closer to the ground and swung his leg over the saddle to dismount. He’d have to push the bicycle for a bit – he certainly wasn’t going to struggle to ride back up the incline in this heat. He stood for a moment longer, leaning on the handlebars and watching the operation below him.
He had thought the locals were too engrossed in what they were doing to notice his presence. But as he stood there he heard the sound of an aircraft approaching and the man on the beach heard it too. He looked up suddenly, his eyes searching the sky and in so doing raking the cliff above him.
Guy cursed silently as he realised that the worker could not have failed to see him standing there and watching.
Lilli was having breakfast in the salon when Ingrid came in.
‘You are up early, Lilli. I thought you’d want a lie-in after your journey.’
‘I’ve been up for ages.’ Lilli swallowed a chunk of ripe mango, relishing the taste and thinking that nowhere on earth did the fruit taste as good as it did here on the island where it was grown.
When she had eventually fallen asleep she had slept soundly for the first time since receiving Josie’s letter, exhaustion finally getting the better of her, but she had woken early and been unable to doze off again. At last, giving up the struggle, she had dressed and walked through the grounds as the sun rose, shedding the first warm rays on the hibiscus and frangipani and gaining strength with a swiftness which equalled the suddenness of the tropical sunsets. When she had returned to the villa one of the maids had made her breakfast and eating it in the familiar surroundings she had felt her own strength returning, and with it her resolve to refuse to allow Jorge to upset her any more. She had been dismayed when he had turned up last night uninvited, but at least that first meeting was over now and she had told him in no uncertain terms that she wanted nothing more to do with him. Perhaps one telling would be enough for him; she doubted it, but at least now she had outfaced him once she could do me same again if the need arose. The knowledge gave her courage for what lay ahead.
‘How is Daddy?’ she asked.
Ingrid did not answer for a moment, continuing to ladle fresh fruit salad from a deep bowl on the dresser.
‘He didn’t have a very good night,’ she said, carrying her dish to the table and sitting down opposite Lilli. ‘My honest opinion, for what it’s worth, is that he is failing fast.’
Lilli swallowed hard at the lump that rose in her throat. It was no more than she had been able to see for herself, but hearing Ingrid pnt it so baldly made it all the more real.
‘How can you be so calm about it, Ingrid?’
‘There’s no point being anything else. Getting hysterical is not. going to change anything. Besides, it’s not my way.’ Ingrid smiled, almost apologetically. ‘Sometimes, Lilli, I think it might be easier for me if it was. Perhaps you and I would understand one another better.’
‘Why should we? I’m not a hysterical person either.’
‘Not hysterical, no, but your emotions are there on the surface for everyone to see. I think you mistrust me because mine are not. Sometimes I think you doubt I have them at all.’
Lilli flushed faintly. What Ingrid had said was marginally too close to the truth for comfort.
‘Just because I don’t show my feelings doesn’t mean I don’t have any,’ Ingrid continued, toying with her piece of mango, but eating nothing. ‘ I know it wasn’t easy for you to have me invade, your world. I tried to tell you I knew how you felt but you were never willing to listen to me. Perhaps you don’t want to listen now, but with your father close to death I think it is important, for his sake if nothing else, that you should at least try.’
Lilli’s mouth set in a hard line. Irrationally she was resentful of the conversation which seemed to her to be shutting her father out, almost as if he were dead already.
‘Why does it matter in the least what I think about you?’ she asked.
Ingrid leaned forward. Her spoon chinked as she set it down in the dish, elbows on the table, eyes seeking Lilli’s.
‘Because I love your lather and he loves me. We loved one another long ago, before he met your mother, before you were born. We go back a very long way, and that sort of bond is very special. I helped him to be happy again.’
The unspoken rider hung in the air between them – ‘I helped him to get over your mother who had betrayed him with Jorge.’ Lilli felt a spurt of anger. She didn’t need this. She had come to see her father one last time, not to be dragged into this sort of heart-to-heart with a woman she would never be able to like, no matter how good the reasons why she should. It didn’t work that way, human emotions were capricious, and they did not respond to reason. And besides, knowingly or unknowingly, Ingrid was pouring salt into wounds that were already too raw for comfort.
‘Daddy has us both here,’ she said. ‘I think that is all that really matters to him.’
/> Ingrid moved forward as if she was on the point of saying something more, then her lips closed in a tight inverted smile and she sighed.
‘Very well, Lilli, if that’s the way you want it. I wish it could be different since very soon all we will have left of him will be one another.’
Lilli rose swiftly, refilling her dish with mango and pineapple, though she was no longer hungry, to give herself a chance to hide the sudden uprush of bitter emotion.
‘Is Daddy getting up today?’ she asked steadily after a moment.
‘He’ll want to.’ Ingrid, too, was making an effort at normality; the confidences of a few moments ago might never have been. ‘I’m not sure, though, if he will be well enough – for a while, at any rate. Sometimes he regains a little strength as the day goes by.’
‘Is he awake?’
‘Oh, he’s awake.’ Ingrid did not add that she thought Otto had scarcely slept all night.
‘I’ll go and see him then.’ Lilli pushed back the dish, untouched, and left the salon.
Otto was lying propped up against the pillows. Basil had raised the mosquito netting and tied it aside so Lilli had a clear view of him as soon as she entered the room, and Otto managed to raisea weak smile of greeting.
She crossed to the bed, bending over to kiss him.
‘How do you feel today?’
‘As well, I expect, as I am ever going to feel again.’
‘Don’t say that! I won’t allow it!’
‘My dear child, we have to face the truth!’ He raised his hand, indicating she should take it. ‘ Oh Lilli, Lilli, I wanted to spare you all this. You shouldn’t have come.’
‘I came because I wanted to. I’m here with you – that’s as it should be.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘There’s no more to be said on that subject – right?’
He sighed.
‘I suppose not, I’m an old man now who can’t even argue with his own little girl. But now that you are here there are other things that need to be said. Things I can no longer keep from you under the circumstances.’
