Crimson Jade

by George B Mair

  The girl paused, studying Grant to see how he was reacting. Her story would be a nonsense to people who knew nothing about Brazil or Amazonia during the thirties or war years and a note of urgency came into her voice. ‘This may sound like fantasy, but you’ve got to remember the times he was living in. It wasn’t difficult in Amazonia, or a place like Manaos, which was only a shanty town built around the opera, to fiddle anything. And Cyp fiddled good. He used his political pull to graft everyone who mattered. And then,’ she said slowly, ‘he made a big mistake. He had always been frightened that a few men who knew what had really happened might talk. So one evening a hand-picked posse of people from up-country, men who had been well treated and owed him everything, killed four who mattered. And Cyp felt safe. Until he remembered that there had been a fifth. He had been living under strain, working under terrific pressure, and been broken up badly when my mother died. So it’s understandable that he didn’t think of them all. But the one man he forgot skipped to safety, and to this day we don’t know where he is. Beyond a clue that he might have got to Argentina and made a new start we didn’t know much until a short time ago.’

  She poured another whisky. And this time Grant figured it was a treble. ‘Then a few weeks ago he got a letter. It said in effect that Cyp had to retire from politics, refuse any other posting, publish a public confession of his early life and admit that I was his daughter. He had also to pay over the estimated original value of my mother’s place plus compound interest to the Villas Boas Brothers who are now doing good work for Indian Protection and so on. This, the letter argued, was to be his punishment for taking part in the Indian killings. But worse was to come. He also had to commit suicide on a named hour on a named day and in a specified place or else I would be kidnapped and taken to a brothel at Santos. I would be safe only if he committed suicide. So whoever wrote the letter had a long-term plan which started to operate when he knew that Cyp had reached the top.’

  ‘His wife?’ said Grant.

  Petra shrugged her shoulders. ‘He married her only nine years ago. She’s the only daughter of a magnate who operates hotels right across the world and very proper. Her family are also immensely rich. Which means powerful. And she married him believing she was his first wife, even if not his first woman. Because after all even she must be a realist and understand that since he was in his middle forties she wasn’t marrying a virgin. But she certainly figured she was marrying a man with a clean past. And officially Cyp’s past is as clean as the sheets on your bed.’

  Grant risked an even more personal question. ‘How does Mikel rate? Does he love you, or is he a kinky psycho who gets kicks out of watching you being permissive? How does he rate?’

  ‘With me?’

  ‘How is your marriage?’ Grant became impatient. ‘You know very well what I mean.’

  ‘Tell me something first. Your arrival has been a kind of bombshell to some people, but Cyp and I need help and you’re the off-beat type who could give it. Though I wouldn’t mind knowing why you really came!’

  ‘To write a book,’ said Grant. ‘I told you so.’

  ‘And the hell with that for a story! A lot of people know your name. Cloak and dagger stuff is washed up! You’re a switched-on intelligence character with no questions asked by the big wigs when you’re on a job, and people like you don’t come to B.A. for kicks. Because there aren’t any. It’s the wrong time of year and the place is dead. There’s better opera in Europe and who wants to read a book about Argentina anyhow? See one estancia and you’ve seen the lot! Hurlingham isn’t all that different from Windsor Park and there are better shops in London or Berlin. So what gives?’

  Grant had long accepted that his days of anonymity were over. Too many people now knew his reputation and enough was guessed about his work to make it a cinch that the department’s mania for secrecy was out of date. Bluff was now his most important secret weapon, but when mixed with fragments of truth bluff could still be deadly and he decided to meet Petra halfway. ‘Okay. Let’s admit for the moment that I’m here on business. What do you want? But don’t forget that I’m not allowed to accept private clients. So think twice before you say too much.’

  She raised her glass. ‘Salud! It’s nice to know that you’re willing to discuss things.’

  ‘I’m willing to listen,’ said Grant. ‘So start when Cyp began to look for his fifth man? In fact run over all the dates which seem to matter.’

  Petra scribbled on a tear sheet from the phone pad, re-read to check and then handed it over.

  1.

  Cyp Clemente Moreiro: born Manaos.

  1914

  2.

  Death of parents in air crash.

  1934

  3.

  Killing of two Indians by Cyp.

  1937

  4.

  Fusion of the Moreiro and Pedro Bosca estates.

  1938

  5.

  Suicide of Pedro Bosca.

  1939

  6.

  Discovery of minerals on Moreiro-Bosca ground.

  1939

  7.

  Beginning of Cyp’s affair with Maria Teresa Bosca.

  1940

  8.

  Birth of Petra Moreiro (myself).

  1942

  9.

  Entry of Cyp into politics.

  1942

  10.

  Murder of four men in Manaos who knew the facts of Petra’s birth and family air crash.

  1942

  11.

  Cyp’s nervous breakdown after the death of his mistress and birth of Petra.

  1942

  12.

  Cyp’s first memory that a fifth man who knew the facts was still alive.

  1942

  13.

  Beginning of search for the fifth man.

  1942

  14.

  First rumour that he had been seen in Argentina.

  1944

  15.

  Cyp’s first posting to an embassy.

  1960

  16.

  Cyp’s marriage.

  1962

  17.

  Petra Moreiro’s marriage to Mikel Brandt.

  1966

  18.

  First rumour that Cyp might be a mid-seventies candidate for the presidency.

  1971

  19.

  First threatening letter ordering him to retire from politics.

  1971

  20.

  Letter threatening kidnap of Petra Brandt.

  1971

  21.

  Arrival of David Grant.

  Grant slipped the paper into a pocket. ‘You’ve got a good memory.’

  ‘Only for some things: like ideas about how to survive! But Cyp and I have been over all this so often that the dates are firm in my mind.’

  ‘Though you haven’t said much to your husband?’

  ‘To be frank,’ said Petra, ‘Mikel was also conned, because he still believes I’m Cyp’s sister. You’re slipping up, David. Or had you forgotten that dates figure even on Argentine marriage licences? Amended dates of Cyp’s parents’ deaths had to be given to some registrar or other and neither Cyp nor me thought it was a good idea to let anyone know the facts. Neither of us could ever forget this fifth man and we weren’t keen to let anybody know too much about the old days. They had been and gone and we had become respectable. Anyone can go up and down the Amazon main stream these days in a hovercraft or live in plush hotels built where Indians chewed mandioca even when I was born. Now—people doing Brazil get into dinner jackets where Indians wandered naked only thirty years ago. Things have completely changed, so what good could come from raking up a lot of dirt? Especially since it was dirt shared by every other man of Cyp’s age who was born in any Brazilian backwood dump where settlers lived with a gun at their hip. People, even people like you, keep forgetting that Amazonia and death meant much the same thing until after the second war.’

  ‘A gun at your hip is one thin
g,’ said Grant, ‘but using half-breed Indians for target practice is another.’

  ‘Well, it still goes on, even today,’ said Petra bluntly. ‘So less of the holier-than-thou stuff! I could show you villages where people have been literally wiped out, either by knifings or guns or bacteria, within the last few months. There are still places away from the main river where life is pretty raw and Indians are being murdered by men who get invitations to the Governor’s Ball. So Cyp deserves credit for changing. What he did as a young man was part of the times he lived his youth in and how do you know that you would have been any different?’

  The woman had flushed with anger and Grant saw that she meant what she said. The tragedy was that mostly it was true. ‘We’ll not argue. Points all taken, so back to square one. Mikel married you thinking you were Cyp’s little sister and I’d like to know how the marriage has worked out?’

  ‘We adjusted.’

  ‘Such as how?’

  Petra lit another small cigar. ‘Mikel is rich. But he wanted to open up spheres of influence in Brazil. Argentina has been fairly well developed and ground here isn’t always fantastically dear even today, but really easy money booms have gone. And gone for good! Though if you know the right people in Brazil a capable business man can become a multi-millionaire in a few years.’

  Grant knew that the word ‘capable’ could mean ‘ruthless’. ‘I thought he was already a millionaire.’

  ‘One thing about millions,’ said Petra gently, ‘is that the more you have the more you want. Mikel had a lot and still has, but he wants more. And he also wants power of a different kind. Not only in Argentina, but in Brazil. Because that’s where the really enormous money of the future is going to be made.’

  Grant had begun to get the picture. ‘So he married you because Cyp has political pull and might, even in 1966, have rated as a worth-while long-term bet for the presidency. Then as a second string he aimed to marry into a family which was up to the neck in land speculation and had contacts who mattered. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And what did you get out of it?’

  ‘I don’t want to sound corny,’ said Petra, ‘but I would do just about anything for my father. He’s been generous and he’s got guts. He would do what that letter ordered if it kept me out of trouble. He’s handsome in a crinkly he-man sort of way and he makes me laugh. He’s got a lot of sex appeal. And he’s clever. In fact he’s got just about everything.’

  Her eyes narrowed and Grant sensed the tension in her voice. ‘Cyp matters,’ she said. ‘He matters to Brazil and he matters to myself. In fact I’d kill anyone who tried to hurt him. He protected me when I was a kid in the old days and he’s given me everything any girl could ever have wanted. So now I want to repay a few debts. Which is why I’m turning to you. Do what we want and you can name your price.’

  ‘Keeping to facts,’ said Grant, ‘it seems that Cyp must have given you the all-clear to shack up with Mikel. So that makes two of you who opted for the wedding bells. What magic did Mikel Brandt have and does he still have it?’

  The girl hesitated and Grant felt that she was looking for an angle which would sound convincing. ‘A lot of Argentines go to St. Moritz for the winter sports and I first saw him competing in the ski jumps. Now jumping takes nerve, and he looked like some sort of bird man, but if that sounds crazy just remember I was only about twenty and not all that experienced. There was also a sort of efficiency about everything he did which seemed important. Even with his dancing. We did a tango one night at a party and a girl hasn’t lived until she’s danced the tango with an Argentine. I felt like sweet seventeen after her first kiss! After that we met in various houses out here, because I always spend part of the season in B.A. for the Opera. Mauriac had begun to be important and apart from her singing I liked her company. So I sometimes met Mikel at the Colon, and during the next winter we hit it up in Switzerland. He hired guides and got me up the Matterhorn. Which was a big thrill! Then he took me to Pitz Palu and dragged me across a lot of ice on skis. Fiona threw a party in Lugano and Mikel took me along. He seemed to know most of the Almanach de Gotha, and I enjoyed hearing him call princes or dukes by their first name. We had a shopping weekend in Rome and met some film people who introduced me to Brigitte. Then we had dinner with Gary in London and came home via New York and Vegas where I found that he even knew Frank and some of the old gang. So I guess I was just carried away! He was the first real cosmopolitan I had ever met and Cyp played along when he saw what I wanted.’

  ‘Which was marriage?’ Grant sounded sceptical. ‘Or weren’t all these weekends in London and nights in Switzerland enough?’

  Petra stubbed out her cigar. ‘You got things wrong. A woman like me might allow herself to be laid by a man for kicks, but not if she was aiming at marriage. South Americans are funny that way and Mikel only tried once. It was during early days, but he got the message and after that he played it by the book.’

  ‘Then how did it work out?’

  ‘Are you a voyeur after all, or is this relevant?’

  ‘Strictly. I want to know the set up.’

  The girl lit a Sobranie cigarette and poured Grant more wine. ‘A woman like me doesn’t have affairs unless her marriage has lost out. We got married in the Gloria Church and had our first night in the Bucsky at Nova Friburgo. Well, it was a disaster! Mikel told me straight that he had no time for women, that his so-called pass had only been to see how I’d react and that our marriage was only one of convenience. From his side! I had been caught, and he banked on the fact that divorce in our circles is strictly not on, that we had a good old-fashioned marriage contract, and that, in any case, I wouldn’t want any scandal. He told me that I would have total personal freedom so long as I was discreet about my men and did nothing to upset his relationship with Cyp.’ She paused. ‘David Grant. I was so mad you wouldn’t believe it. But I knew that he had me cold and that I would have to co-operate or else there would be trouble.

  ‘Our marriage contract had a few built-in clauses which were traditional, and Cyp hadn’t worried because we felt that Mikel had simply been pleasing his circle by following tradition and so on: that they didn’t matter, in fact. But I found on the very first night that they did matter and that he had both Cyp and I by the short hairs. Though apart from anything else pride would have kept me from telling anyone. In fact you’re the first and I’m giving you the truth. I still don’t know whether Mikel understands how much I love Cyp, but he bet on the fact that at least I wouldn’t want to bring him any big worry, so we flew to Greece for a yachting holiday and I decided to make the best of things.’

  ‘You had never suspected how Mikel ticked?’

  ‘Not at the time, though thinking back I remember how he always seemed to have a few men friends around. He was thick as thieves with a ski-instructor at St. Moritz and a theatrical producer in London. He was also pretty far in with some way-out film people in Rome and I had actually been stupid enough to feel smug when he hadn’t reacted even towards Brigitte. So I too was conned. And conned good.’

  ‘But you’ve both settled down. He winks at whatever you happen to be doing in private and you play the dutiful wife in public. Right?’

  ‘I’ve got my suite and staff and he’s got his. Twice or three times a week he comes along and has drinks after his bath and before bed.’

  ‘When you talk about what?’

  ‘Brazil. The price of land. Dividends from the latest hotel. What sort of car I’ll buy. Whether I can have flying lessons or just passenger-it in the family jet. Who to invite for our next party. Whether we’ll have Holy Week in Rio or Seville. He’s quite proud of the show we put up and we might argue about whether my next gown should be designed by Dior or Quant. It isn’t so bad really, and I’ve got used to it. There have been no scenes if that’s what you mean. At least not since the so-called honeymoon.’

  ‘One thing,’ said Grant abruptly. ‘You hinted that my arrival had been made into a “thing”. W
ho was talking?’

  ‘That American interviewer doesn’t miss a trick and he figured you had been sent out to get some angles on recent kidnappings. Then the World Bank man told me after dinner that NATO was worried in case Latin America went red, that some gun-running was going on from Bolivia into Argentina and that you might have been sent to deal with the receiving end. Sureen, the President’s wife, believes that someone’s got word about a possible revolution in her own country but organised across the border from the Argentine and that you’ve come to chop the ringleaders.’ She laughed. ‘And this will send you! That little Swedish girl swears she saw you at a party in Hamburg where her father is building some sort of nuclear-powered ship with a lot of gimmicks. So she thinks you’re going to lay her and try to get some of her father’s secrets while she’s unwinding.’

  Grant found himself vaguely irritated and with a throbbing noise in his ears. ‘What the hell’s so funny about that? She’s a good-looking girl and I might be interested at that.’

  ‘She’s about nineteen.’ Petra stubbed out her cigarette. ‘Don’t tell me that an experienced type like David Grant is a baby-snatcher!’ She stood up and unhitched her skirt. She was wearing sleek tan-coloured pantie-hose which were one shade darker than her own skin, and her taut tiny briefs were, he suspected, cut from emerald-green Thai silk. She stroked her thighs and leaned back slightly. Her breasts silhouetted against the shadowy white of the walls and as she loosened a clip near the back of her neck her deeply black hair slithered down over her shoulders. ‘I want you, David Grant,’ she said. ‘You can have your Swedish baby doll next year, or maybe next month. But not until I’ve finished.’

  Grant had met several women who were ready to say what they wanted and fight to get it, but he had never met one with such an unexpected and direct approach. ‘You forget,’ he said carefully. ‘I’ve got a woman already.’