Wicked Beauty

by Susan Lewis

It took almost no time at all to wind up through the wooded hillside, and drive along a much narrower stretch to a set of tall, black iron gates where she asked the driver to stop. Then she waited to see if anyone was watching the security camera. A few moments later the gates swung open, telling her that someone was.

  Slowly they moved along a drive that curved through opulent palms and succulents, immaculate lawns and vivid splashes of colour. The Italianate villa at the end was the colour of sand, with tall blue shutters at the windows and flowering ivy clinging to the walls. There was no sign of anyone.

  When the taxi stopped she got out, waited for the driver to put her luggage on the ground, paid him and watched him drive away. Then turning towards the house, she looked up at the vast, imposing front door. Now she would find out if Franz, like her, was prepared to take the ultimate gamble, and meet her alone.

  ‘So are those cops we just left tighter than clams, or am I just an idiot who doesn’t understand British English?’ Max said, as he and Laurie boarded a Circle Line train at Victoria station.

  ‘The former,’ Laurie answered, forcing her way through an intransigent clutch of people who were blocking a path to the seats. Not that any were vacant, but she’d spotted a couple of straps that would allow them to stand together. ‘Bastards,’ she growled. ‘They’re bound to have spoken to Bombola by now – it’s been four days since we told them he was supposed to have “taken care of things”.’

  ‘What about this Gallagher guy? They must have been checking him out too.’

  ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you, but if they are, they’re not telling us.’

  ‘So do you think the guy’s genuine?’

  ‘Rachel does, but even the toughest woman finds it hard to be objective when her heart’s involved, and though hers might not be fully engaged I can tell you this much, he’s a real charmer. But I suppose it doesn’t seem likely that he’d pass on this kind of information about Bombola if he’s really in bed with Koehler, does it?’

  They continued discussing the frustrating interview they’d just come from with the police, while changing trains at Bank to take the Docklands Light Railway to Laurie’s office.

  ‘So what’s on for the rest of the day?’ Laurie asked, as they finally handed in their tickets at Westferry station.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m flying out of here in –’ he glanced at his watch – ‘about four hours from now.’

  ‘To go where?’ she said, the bruises on her face seeming to stand out more vividly as her natural colour blanched.

  ‘Dubai,’ he said. ‘I told you the other day, something’s cooking over there, and from the rumblings I’m hearing it’s tied in to Phraxos. So at best, it could give us some kind of lead on what’s happened to Elliot, at worst, it’ll be a waste of an air fare. My guess is, it’ll be somewhere in the middle, giving us more information on some strategic links in the supply and demand show our friend Koehler is running, so don’t get your hopes up too much.’

  Laurie’s eyes showed her dismay. ‘How long will you be gone?’ she asked, continuing down the steps to the street.

  ‘Hard to say right now, but you’ve got my number, so if he shows up this end, don’t forget to call.’

  She smiled at the way he’d managed to turn that back on her. Then leaving the station, they began walking along Narrow Street, towards her office.

  ‘So,’ he said, changing the subject, ‘has Rachel heard anything from Katherine Sumner?’

  Laurie slanted him a cynical glance. ‘I don’t think that’s going to happen, do you?’ she said. ‘I think it’s just a ruse on Franz Koehler’s part to stop us trying to find her.’

  ‘Total bullshit,’ he agreed, ‘because I can’t think of a single reason why Katherine Sumner would want to contact, or even see, Rachel Hendon, unless she has a damned good excuse as to why the good minister was in her bed at that hour of the morning, not to mention his semen being all over her sheets. Then there’s the little question of the bullet that ended up in his head … And that’s before we even get started on the four million bucks that managed to turn up in a Swiss bank account bearing the good minister’s name – or number, I believe it was. So, no way do I think Katherine Sumner’s in any hurry to get reacquainted with Mrs Hendon. However, I’ve been known to be wrong before.’

  Laurie’s tone was dry, as she said, ‘But it’s rare that you are, Max. Anyway, the search goes on, though we’re drawing blank after blank with it now. No one’s come up with anything around Europe, and I’ve exhausted all our contacts – mine, Rachel’s, yours, Elliot’s – so much for six degrees of separation, eh?’

  ‘How did you get on with your Iranian exiles? Did any of them come up with anything on this Xavier character?’

  ‘Tighter than a drum,’ Laurie responded, peering in the office window as they passed. ‘If they know who he is, they’re definitely not going to tell me. Great, Gino’s back, I need him to hold the fort while I’m in Cornwall.’

  As they reached the door Max stopped, and put a hand on her arm. ‘I’m going to leave you here,’ he said, as she turned round in surprise. ‘Ellie’s over at Elliot’s office, so I’m going to pick her up and take her for lunch before I go.’

  Swallowing her emotions, Laurie put her arms round his neck and hugged him tight. ‘You will take care, won’t you?’ she said, her voice muffled by his shoulder.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And call me, if there’s anything to report? Anything at all.’

  ‘I promise.’

  She looked up at him, then forced a smile as he kissed her gently on the forehead, before turning to carry on down Narrow Street.

  Feeling horribly as though she was letting go of a last link to Elliot, she watched him until he’d disappeared through the gap near Rhona’s apartment, where the river path would take him on to Elliot’s office. Then praying hard that he would come back safely, and with Elliot, she pushed the door open and went into the office.

  ‘Shit! What timing!’ Gino cried excitedly. ‘You are so going to want to see this. Look!’ he demanded pointing at the TV. ‘Look who the fuck it is.’

  Laurie frowned at the face in the caption behind the news presenter, then realizing who it was her heart turned over. ‘What are they saying?’ she cried, grabbing the remote to turn up the volume.

  ‘Listen, they’ll tell you,’ Gino said, almost breathlessly.

  As the newscaster continued the story Laurie stared dumbfounded at the screen, so stunned by what she was hearing, she could barely take it in. The instant the report ended and Gino went on line to find out more, she snatched up the phone to call Rachel.

  ‘Oh no!’ she cried, when she got the machine. ‘Rachel! Call me!’ she shouted. ‘Franz Koehler’s been shot. It’s on the news. Oh my God! Call me.’

  Chapter 28

  IT HAD BEEN a long time since Stacey had actually set foot in the cove, and even now she was only on one of the headlands overlooking it, shrouded by drizzle and tousled by a sharp but fitful breeze. Despite the mist created by the rain, she could easily make out the two fishermen winching their boat up on to the beach, and an old woman in a headscarf, scurrying past the pub with her dog, then popping something into the letterbox that was set into the wall of the gig house. Otherwise the place could be deserted, for there was no smoke idling from a chimney stack, or even the glow of a light shining through a set of open curtains. The phone box was empty, the cars seemed abandoned; the thatched roofs looked damp and sad, and the centuries-old stone worn down by too many battles with the sea. Yet even on a dreary day like this, it still managed to emanate the kind of cosiness and charm that inspired poets and painters alike. But not her, for as undeniably picturesque as the cove was, it had always given her the chills, and even now, as she gazed down on it, she was experiencing the uneasy sensation of someone walking over her grave. She knew Chris occasionally experienced it too, but he’d spent a lot of his childhood here, so was less unnerved by the eerie atmosphere than she was
. He wasn’t even put off by the ghosts that everyone, including him, claimed to have seen, on the beach, in the pub, around the headlands, and in the hidden caves of the cliffs. Robert Maxton was right, she thought, there was a taint of wickedness to the beauty of Killian Cove – or was it the other way round?

  As the horse shifted restlessly under her, she looked across to Rachel Hendon’s cottage nestled on the other headland, pretty and perfect with its whitewashed walls and trellises of pink roses. She’d seen the bitch come out a while ago, huddled under an umbrella as she ran awkwardly down the footpath to get into a rusty old car. She’d been too far distant for Stacey to make out the swell of her pregnancy, but it would explain the ungainliness of her run. Just to see it had sent a rush of blood to Stacey’s head. That her husband’s hands had touched that woman, that he’d kissed her, held her and shown her any affection at all, filled her with such a raging jealousy her entire body might explode with it.

  Too able to picture them together, she turned her eyes towards a horizon that had become blurred and purpled by cloud. Everything was so bleak and belligerent. She hated these cliffs, and the waves that boiled around them. She felt threatened here, as though the seething undertow of a past, riddled with disaster, could at any moment suck her into its invisible inferno. She was always cold here, no matter the weather, yet the moment she rode back across the moorland, to a point where the cove could no longer be seen, she invariably became warm again, despite the wind and rain.

  Turning the horse around she spurred her to a canter and began heading back to the house. It was strange being there alone, with no one to talk to, except Anna Maxton, who was still calling for the poems – and Chris, though most of that was inside her head. He had been in touch though, a quick check to make sure she was OK. She hadn’t told him where she was, or asked where he was either, she’d just accused him, bitterly, waspishly, of hiding out with Rachel Hendon, or being on the phone to the bitch morning, noon and night. She couldn’t help herself, it just came blurting out of her, like venom. Of course he denied it but she didn’t believe him, and just to think of that woman, daring to trespass on her life, made her want to smash up everything around her, most of all the bitch who had no damned right to her husband, just because she’d lost her own.

  Instead of returning to the house, she circled back, and broke into a fierce gallop down towards the southern tip of the Lizard. The grass was soft and springy underfoot, the thistles dulled by the rain. The wind felt stronger when she rode like this, but not so strong that it could restrain, or even distract her. Soon the sea was visible either side of the peninsula, spreading like the huge leaden wings of a mythical beast. As she galloped along its spine tears of rage mingled with the rain on her cheeks, while steel and purpose blotted the fear from her heart. Spotting the small barn up ahead, she reined the horse in, and sat looking at it, afraid to go any further, yet not ready to turn back.

  Nick had told her about it only last night, though she’d seen it plenty of times before, while out riding, or even from one of the guest bedroom windows at the back of the house. But this was the first time she’d ever taken the time to pause and look at the seemingly innocuous, half-dilapidated structure that she’d now learned was locally referred to as the Hatch. She wouldn’t go any closer, she’d merely sit here and imagine, from the few details Nick had given her, what it was like inside. Damp and mouldy, he’d said. Full of old junk, like rusted fish wire and damaged buoys, and crushed, fraying crab pots. Half of the roof was missing, and apparently there was an abandoned set of wheels too, that had once been used to tow a small boat. Most significant was the trapdoor that gave the barn its name, ‘because it’s that little trapdoor’, Nick had told her, ‘that covers the entrance to the tunnel we used to play in as boys, and that leads all the way down through the cliffs to a cave that no one can see, not even if they’re out on a boat.’

  Being so nervous of the sea herself, Stacey didn’t envy Katherine the journey she would be making tomorrow, across this widest stretch of the Channel from France. She should arrive here some time after midnight, having been transferred from the French boat into Nick’s some seven or so miles offshore, then he and Zac would bring her in, under the cover of what they’d said was going to be a moonless night. The only part she, Stacey, would play in the transfer would be to lend Nick the Range Rover, to drive his smuggled cargo from the Hatch across country to the house.

  Her heart was thudding with apprehension at the thoughts in her head. Wheels within wheels, mysterious ways, cause and effect – call it what you will: as far as she was concerned there had to be some divine, or universal, power at work to have brought her this opportunity at a time when she so desperately needed it. So she had no misgivings about what she was doing, only a vague and occasionally disturbing flutter of conscience, but that was soon trampled by images of his trip to a Caribbean island, his eagerness to get down here in spite of his wife’s protests, him saying that he might change his mind about leaving her, his brutal pronouncement that the house wasn’t hers, but his; his hands on a pregnant belly …

  Turning her horse, she started back towards the misted outline of the house. Did he have any idea how much he had hurt her, when he’d said that the house was his, not hers? Surely he must have, for he’d never been in any doubt about how much of their marriage, and love, she felt to be wrapped up in the place. She had reconstructed every wall, every room, every staircase, every nook and cranny, with as much love as she felt for the man who had provided it. He’d said he wasn’t intending to move Rachel in, but she knew he was lying. She could already see them there, making love on her bed, throwing parties on her terrace, lighting a fire in her hearth, decorating a tree at Christmas, inviting people into her home as though she’d never even existed. She could hear his stories of Picasso’s disdain for Matisse, of Modigliani’s tragic wife. She could feel his passion, smell his skin, see his eyes, turbulent, troubled and heart-rendingly tender. To live without him would be like a musician having to survive without ears; an artist without eyes, or an actor without words. Her life would be incomplete, inconsequential, impossible – which was why it simply wasn’t going to happen.

  ‘So, unlike his role model, Maurice Conchis,’ Rachel was saying, as she and Laurie climbed up the sodden, narrow trail that snaked to the top of the opposite headland, ‘Franz Koehler appears to have been outsmarted.’ She lifted a branch to clear the path. ‘You know, even though I never met the man, it still seems incredible to think of him dead. He was shot, how many times?’

  ‘Three, they said,’ Laurie answered, wiping the drizzle from her face. ‘Once in the head, twice in the chest. The chauffeur found him, apparently, when he went to pick him up to take him to the airport. They’re questioning him now, but I think they’re more interested in finding the blonde woman who took taxis to and from the house around the time of the murder.’

  Rachel felt a jolt of unease. ‘Do you really think it was Katherine?’ she said.

  ‘Don’t you?’

  Rachel nodded. ‘I just can’t work out where that takes us. Is she some kind of mad vigilante going round ridding the world of corrupt men in high places, or is she … Is she what? Why would she do it?’

  ‘To clear the field, so that she can see you without Franz Koehler being a threat to either of you?’ Laurie suggested.

  ‘But why would it be so important to see me?’

  ‘We can only guess at that,’ Laurie replied, ‘but we’re pretty certain Franz Koehler didn’t want it to happen. The question is, does she pose some kind of threat to you too?’

  Sobered by the prospect, Rachel said, ‘Do they have any idea where she is now? No, obviously not, or they wouldn’t be saying they want to question her.’

  ‘Gino and Dan are over there at the moment,’ Laurie said. ‘We’ll know more when we speak to them later.’

  Rachel slipped in the mud and slithered back a couple of steps.

  Catching her and pushing her gently on, Laurie sai
d, ‘If she does get in touch, don’t, whatever you do, agree to see her alone, will you?’

  Rachel started to answer, but then deciding not to voice what she was thinking, she pushed open a five-barred gate and led the way through. ‘You know, you’re extremely tolerant,’ she said, changing the subject, ‘to indulge a hormonal woman’s whim like this, especially in this weather.’

  ‘It’s only drizzle,’ Laurie responded, ‘and I came prepared.’

  Rachel turned to give her a quick once-over. ‘Barbour and Wellies, typical London garb for the country,’ she commented. ‘Just don’t try it here, by the coast, in December and January.’

  ‘It’s a promise.’

  Rachel smiled, then walking on she suddenly clenched her fists and gave a howl of frustration. ‘I feel so … gullible,’ she cried. ‘But honestly, I really believed him when we were together. It all seemed to make sense then, but now …’ She shook her head in annoyance. ‘I just don’t know what to believe.’

  ‘Well, if we keep his father in the equation, it’s definitely plausible,’ Laurie reminded her. ‘So I don’t know why you’re giving yourself such a hard time over it.’

  ‘But do you believe he’s an informant? Some kind of mole?’ Rachel challenged, turning to look at her from the depths of a cavernous rain hood.

  ‘I was the one who thought so in the first place,’ Laurie laughed. ‘But I have to admit, I’d be happier if he’d told you that he’s working for the Government, rather than the other way round. Except, he wouldn’t tell you, because he can’t, so that just gets us back where we started.’

  ‘Or this plucky little expedition does,’ Rachel said, gingerly pushing aside another bramble.

  As they pressed on up the trail, Laurie said, ‘I suppose you’d have told me if you’d heard from him again.’

  ‘Of course,’ Rachel replied. Then realizing Laurie’s real reason for asking she felt a pang of guilt, for though she’d repeated what Chris had said about Patrice Bombola, she hadn’t added how pessimistic Chris had been when she’d asked if he thought Elliot was still alive.