Wicked Beauty

by Susan Lewis

  ‘Please, don’t be afraid,’ Katherine said, seeming to read her expression. ‘I’m sorry to barge in like this. I was afraid you wouldn’t see me … I just want to talk. I swear, I’m not here to hurt you.’

  Laurie was watching her closely. ‘Why should she think you’d want to hurt her?’ she challenged, unable for the moment to detect anything more menacing than the voluminous coat – which could, in fact, be hiding anything. ‘I’d have thought it was you who had more to fear.’

  Katherine’s eyes moved from Rachel to Laurie. ‘I do,’ she said simply. Then turning back to Rachel she said, ‘I didn’t know you were pregnant. No one told me …’ She stopped, briefly seeming to lose her composure. Then in a level tone, she said, ‘It’s hard to find the right words to tell you how sorry I am. It’ll never make up for what’s happened, I know that, but –’

  ‘Stop!’ Rachel cried, putting a hand to her head. ‘Just stop. I don’t want to hear how sorry you are, I don’t even care how sorry you are, all I want to know is why? Why did you do it? What did you get him involved in?’ Tears were suddenly starting from her eyes, as emotion choked off her words.

  Laurie moved to her side and put a steadying hand on her shoulder.

  ‘It’s OK, I’m fine,’ Rachel said pulling herself together. But her legs were buckling and she sank into the armchair behind her.

  Katherine was still watching her, seeming to understand her confusion, and that she needed some time to adjust, so she said no more until Rachel finally looked up at her again. ‘I don’t know how much you’ve managed to piece together for yourself,’ she said, ‘but I’m sure you know about Phraxos, and Franz Koehler …’

  ‘What I don’t know is why Tim was murdered,’ Rachel said through her teeth. ‘Or how you’ve got the gall to come here now.’

  ‘I’d have come before,’ Katherine said. ‘I wanted to, but I’d have put your life in danger if Franz thought, even for a minute, that I’d told you what he was doing and who was involved.’

  ‘Is that why Tim was murdered?’ Rachel broke in. ‘Because you told him your odious secrets?’

  Katherine shook her head. ‘No,’ she answered bleakly. ‘That’s not why it happened.’

  Rachel’s heart sank, as the brief glimmer of hope that he hadn’t been any more involved than that was extinguished. She wished, desperately, that this didn’t have to go any further, that she could live the rest of her life without ever knowing what he’d done, but looking at Katherine again, she said, in a voice that was as cold as she could make it, ‘You’d better come in.’

  Katherine glanced at Laurie as she stepped down into the sitting room. No one had invited her to take off her coat, which had left a small puddle on the kitchen floor, so she kept it on, and went to perch on the edge of a dining chair, while Laurie sat on the arm of Rachel’s chair.

  ‘You understand, don’t you,’ Rachel said, ‘that whatever you tell me now will go straight to the police. I don’t intend to get involved in any of your secrets.’

  ‘It’s why I’m here,’ Katherine assured her. ‘I know you’ll do the right thing, and I know what it’ll mean for me. But I’ve come to terms with it. I just want to make sure that the truth is delivered into the right hands, before I face the consequences of what I’ve done.’ She looked at Laurie. ‘I’m sorry, we’ve never met. Obviously you know who I am …’

  ‘Laurie’s a friend,’ Rachel said, ‘and a reporter who’s been helping me piece this together. She knows as much as I do. There are no secrets.’

  Katherine’s eyes widened a little. ‘Laurie Forbes? The Ashby case?’ she said.

  Laurie nodded.

  Katherine murmured quietly under her breath, and gave an incredulous shake of her head. ‘Well at least you managed to get a few of the infamous billionaire syndicate behind bars,’ she said. ‘Marcus Gatling, Abe Kleinstein … There were a lot, as I recall, but no one ever managed to make the connection to Franz. He’s just too smart. He knows how to take advantage of every complex business stratagem …’

  ‘Just tell me about Tim,’ Rachel cut in.

  Katherine swallowed, but though her face was pale, and showed the strain she was under, her eyes remained steady as she said, ‘I didn’t kill him. I just need you to know that I didn’t kill him.’ She cast a quick glance at Laurie, then to Rachel she said, ‘I believe it was someone by the name of Gustave Basim who did it. I was there when it happened, but I didn’t actually see …’ She took a breath. ‘It was a mistake. It was me he was supposed to kill, not Tim.’

  Rachel went very still, then abruptly she sat forward. Her mind was refusing to accept what she’d just heard: it was unthinkable. It couldn’t be true, because if it were then there was no justice, no reason, no anything that made sense any more. ‘Are you telling me,’ she said, her voice shaking with horror, ‘that his only crime was fucking you! That if he hadn’t been there, this would never have happened?’

  ‘I had no idea …’ Katherine said.

  ‘I don’t believe this!’ Rachel cried, clasping her hands to her head. ‘I just can’t make myself accept that he’s lost his life for something you did. This hell I’ve been putting myself through, this terror of what we were going to turn up, and now you tell me that it’s you who should be dead. So why the hell aren’t you?’

  Laurie’s hand was on her back, trying to soothe her, but she started shouting again.

  ‘But that’s not the whole truth, is it?’ she spat. ‘It can’t be, because there’s the four million dollars that turned up in a Swiss bank account. So what was that about? How did he get it, if he was so innocent and you so guilty! I thought you were here to tell me the truth,’ she screamed, ‘and you’re just fucking with my mind!’

  ‘No, I swear that’s not true,’ Katherine cried, earnestly. ‘I can explain everything. If you’ll just hear me out …’

  Laurie’s hand tightened on Rachel’s shoulder, as though lending her strength, while Rachel, knowing she had to pull herself together, took several breaths in an effort to calm down. It was just so hard trying to deal with this rationally when she was so emotionally, and even physically, involved, for it was Tim’s baby that was kicking inside her, and Tim’s house they were all sitting in now, while he never would again. She felt so aware of his photograph on the table next to the lamp, and all at once she wanted to sob and scream, and beg him with all her heart to come back and turn this around so that none of it had happened. He couldn’t have died as a mistake. He just couldn’t.

  But in the end her eyes only fell away, as a dull, chilling numbness crept over her heart. He was dead. For whatever reason, he would never be coming back, and now all she could do, for herself and the baby, was listen to why he’d been taken from them.

  Katherine’s eyes were troubled as she watched her, seeming to understand how hard this must be for her, but there was nothing she could do to make it easier. It had all happened the way it had, and now all she could offer was the truth.

  ‘The four million dollars,’ she said. ‘I don’t even know if Tim knew it existed, because it had only been there for a few days by the time he was killed. Franz, or someone from Phraxos, had set up the account as an incentive to Tim to join the Group. No one had actually got to the point yet of inviting him in – he and Franz had only met once, and it wasn’t really a success, but first meetings often weren’t. In Tim’s case it was different, because I’d already told him all about the secret Phraxos project to create a demand for arms and military action. Naturally Franz wasn’t aware I’d told him, he just thought Tim was going to need some of the normal persuasion, so he was starting to put the irresistibles in place. And if, in the end, Tim decided not to play ball and threatened to expose anything about the project, or the incentive, Franz and his lawyers had already drawn up paperwork to show that Tim had a shareholding in Phraxos, and that the four million dollars was an accumulation of profits, bonuses and dividends. It was normal practice to have all this prepared, in case a subject proved d
ifficult, because the fact that the money actually existed, combined with the documents … Well, it would make it very hard for Tim to prove he wasn’t involved in the Group, and even if he succeeded, the scandal alone would ruin him politically.’

  Laurie was stupefied. ‘So whichever way he turned, he’d have no choice?’ she said.

  Katherine looked at her. ‘That’s generally the way it’s set up,’ she answered. ‘But it’s rarely needed. People are very easily seduced by such large sums of money.’

  ‘And you act as the bait to lure them in?’ Rachel said.

  Katherine’s eyes moved back to her. ‘When I talked to Tim about Franz Koehler and Phraxos,’ she said, ‘it was to ask for his help in exposing what was really going on. Believe me, by then I was as guilty as everyone else, I’d conspired and profited and helped set up numerous senators or Pentagon insiders. I had my reasons for doing it, but then … September 11th was like, well like some kind of an epiphany for me … I started to see how blind and insanely dangerous I had become. I had a lot of anger left over from my childhood, a resentment towards my own Government. Basically, I was trying to punish the world for what had been done to me and my family.’ Her eyes dropped. ‘But then I was made to realize that it had gone too far. I was making the wrong people pay, so somehow I needed to make it stop. It was already too late in many ways, but if I left America I could at least lessen the chance of making it any worse. Franz couldn’t keep using me for introductions the way I’d encouraged him to in the past.’ She looked at Rachel again. ‘I’d already made plans to come to Europe, I think you knew that when you invited me to run Tim’s campaign. Franz immediately saw it as a golden opportunity to start tying the Brits into the Phraxos Special Project too. Of course a lot of British arms manufacturers have links to Phraxos already, it’s too big an industry investor for them not to, but I don’t think any of them are actively engaged in the project to create demand for their own product. Certainly there’s no top-level government involvement, which was why Franz was keen to reel Tim in. Believe me, Franz was unshakeable in his belief that every man has his price, and though he might be right, I’m not convinced that Tim would ever have gone for it, had he been given the chance. But he never was, because instead of making the approach Franz wanted, I went to Tim and asked for his help in getting me out of it.’ Her eyes were fully on Rachel’s now as she said, ‘Tim was the first politician I’d ever worked for that I felt comfortable about trusting, and I’d wanted out of Phraxos for a very long time. The trouble was I knew too much. Franz was never going to let me go, and there were so many powerful people involved in the US that I didn’t dare to trust anyone there.’

  ‘What about the media?’ Laurie said. ‘Didn’t you think of going to them?’

  ‘Of course, but Patrick Landen, an ex-senator …’

  ‘We know who he is,’ Laurie said.

  ‘Then you know we had an affair, and you know how the media treats women who have affairs with politicians. They’re ridiculed and verbally abused in a way that totally shoots any credibility they might have. And that’s the spin it would have got, I know that, because I know the men I’d have been going up against, and they’d have made sure it did.’ She turned back to Rachel. ‘To me, Tim and his integrity seemed to offer a way out. I knew it was a risk, that I could be wrong about him and find that he too would be willing to be seduced by the incredible sums of money, but I’ve got to tell you that not once did he ever show an interest in becoming involved. His only concern was to help me get out of it, then do whatever it took to expose, or bring down, the entire operation. He started by agreeing to meet with Franz, and one of his senior field associates, a man by the name of Patrice Bombola. They were to discuss the opportunities, the benefits – political and financial – the various manufacturers Franz wanted an introduction to, the kind of government documentation that would be required to set the specialized arms shipments on their way, and so on. Basically, Tim wanted to hear it all for himself, which he did, then he ended the meeting by saying he’d go away and think about it. It was the answer he’d already told me he’d give, and Franz wouldn’t have expected any more, because these things don’t happen overnight. But he was already making his contingency plans, with the four million bucks, while Tim and I, in total secrecy, were putting together as much as we could for Tim to take to the Prime Minister, who Tim was utterly convinced we could trust. In the end, he never got that far, but I still have all the documents …’ Her eyes were burning sincerity into Rachel’s. ‘You’re the only person I know who has direct access to the PM, and who I can trust to make sure the documents get there.’

  Rachel stared back at her, assimilating all she’d heard, and feeling the utter frustration and tragedy of the fact that Tim clearly hadn’t been informed that an intelligence unit was already looking into the Phraxos Group’s covert operations. The PM must have known, though, which would be why he had distanced himself after Tim’s death, afraid that his friend, and trusted colleague, was going to turn out to be in bed with the Group. Indeed, the very fact that Tim had hired someone so close to the Group’s chairman to run his campaign had probably already put him under close observation, if not outright investigation.

  ‘So why did Franz order you killed?’ Laurie said. ‘Did he know about these documents?’

  ‘Not exactly, but I know he’d sensed for a long time that I wasn’t with him any more. And if you’re not with Franz …’ She shook her head. ‘Knowing him as I did, he’d have found the idea of having me killed at a time when I’d become so close to the British Establishment an extremely pleasurable experience. He despises the British, and would relish nothing more than to see them squirm – which would have happened if someone so close to a senior Cabinet member was murdered. So I think he’d hoped to make Basim’s mission look like some kind of burglary, or just one of those mysteries that never gets solved. I can only begin to imagine what a shock it must have been when he found out that Basim had managed to make such a monumental mistake.’

  Hardly able to believe the sheer cruelty of a fate that had chosen its victim so randomly, so utterly pitilessly, or the blinding arrogance of a man who had set it all in motion, Rachel could only feel glad that he had lost his own life now, even though it seemed a very small price to pay for the one he had taken away. ‘So the phone calls, during the buildup to the election?’ she said. ‘The accented voice, was that Franz Koehler?’

  ‘Sometimes. And sometimes it was Xavier, an old friend of my father’s. He’s been helping me. I wouldn’t be alive now, if it weren’t for him.’

  ‘We’ve been trying to track him down,’ Laurie confessed.

  ‘You wouldn’t be able to. Xavier’s a name only I use. No one else knows him as that. But please stop looking for him. He’s a good man, and if you should happen to find him you’ll only put him in danger, not so much from this, but from his own government.’

  Rachel and Laurie looked at each other, clearly both thinking the same thoughts: that if Xavier Lachère was Iranian, and a one-time supporter of the Shah or Amir Hoveyda, then that wasn’t so hard to believe.

  ‘What about the four million dollars?’ Rachel said, looking at Katherine again. ‘Was it him who called my lawyer about it?’

  Katherine frowned. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That would more likely have been Franz. He’d have wanted it out of there before I could tell you, or anyone else, how it had got there.’

  ‘And the tip-off about Gustave Basim?’ Laurie said.

  ‘That was me. I knew about Basim because Franz had used him before. It was pure chance that I happened to catch the story in a local paper in France, otherwise I’d never have known he was dead. In fact, I had no idea if it was the right man, but when I saw the name, and the manner of his death … The coincidence was enough to make me pick up the phone.’

  ‘So how can you be so certain,’ Rachel said, ‘that it was you he should have killed, when obviously Tim posed a threat too, knowing what he did?’

&
nbsp; Katherine’s eyes were unblinkingly earnest as she said, ‘First of all, they didn’t know that Tim knew as much as he did, and secondly, there was absolutely no way anyone could have known that he was going to be at my apartment that morning. Even we didn’t know until it happened, and the killer was already there, though we didn’t know that when we went in. Besides, I can’t believe even Franz would order the killing of someone in such a high position as Tim. It would be insane, the risk too great, because the investigation, the publicity, would all be much too intense, and there were already too many roads that could lead to Franz.’ She shrugged. ‘You only have to look at how things have unfolded to see how much focus Tim’s death has put on Phraxos, and believe me they won’t be enjoying it, particularly now the share price has started to suffer.’

  Laurie was regarding her closely. ‘It’s also cost Franz Koehler his life,’ she said bluntly.

  Katherine didn’t even flinch. ‘I had to do it,’ she said, ‘or he’d have killed me, and then it would just have gone on and on, because there would have been no one to stop him. He’s too well connected, too protected to be reached, and even if anyone could, he’s played the system so brilliantly that there would never be any question of bringing him down. There are too many others who stand to fall with him, so they just won’t let it happen.’

  ‘So how did you manage to do it?’

  ‘He was a consummate gambler,’ she answered, ‘a game-player, a puppet-master, a stager of events, a manipulator. He believed himself indestructible, so when I threw him a challenge to meet me alone, in typical Franz style he treated it like some kind of contest, a kind of Russian roulette. As it turned out, I held the gun, and he … didn’t.’

  Rachel’s eyes went down as the scene played itself out all too clearly in her head, while she was painfully aware that Tim’s death was an event she still couldn’t picture, nor was she entirely sure she ever wanted to. But there was nothing to be gained from shying away any longer, so steeling herself, she said, ‘I’d like to hear the details of how my husband died.’