The Guardian

by Christopher Kenworthy

  Luther had dismissed the men from his mind then, but now he focused the binoculars on the two who were doing what he now acknowledged as sentry duty and studied them more closely.

  Their uniform here obviously reflected the uniform they were used to in their former profession. The creases in their trousers were like cast iron, and even where the trousers were tucked into their high boots, the pleats had a uniformity which suggested regulation practice. Their shirts were close fitting and ironed into perfect symmetry.

  They did not chat as civilians would when thrown together by duty, but instead remained like statues in the shade of the gateway, staring apparently at nothing.

  “Wooden tops,” he muttered to himself, impressed by their pure stature, but habitually contemptuous of anybody in uniform.

  As he turned away one of the men in the gateway angled a scar-thickened eyebrow at the tower roof.

  “’E’s gone,” he said without moving his lips, and the two men chuckled quietly. One of their extra duties for the next few days would be to make sure Luther did not leave the Château without permission and an escort. It added a little interest to their normal duties, and they welcomed it.

  Luther’s flat was situated in the right-hand of the two bastions which supported the outer curtain wall, overlooking Bram itself. It was a compact suite of modern rooms fitted into the first floor of the tower. On the inside his window looked into the courtyard while on the outside he looked into the air, a thousand feet up. Below him, approached by a spiral stair from the little hallway, there were more chambers, chopped into the rock with impressive labour. He had not yet explored them, largely because the doors opening off the spiral stair appeared to be locked, and he could find no keyholes on their face.

  Above him the tower accommodated similar suites to his own.

  There were three of them, each self contained, and each opening onto a small landing. The spiral stair climbed past each in turn. Each was equipped after the style of a first class hotel, with wrapped soaps and fluffy towels, sachets of shampoo and bath essence. Each had a colour television in the corner. Each had a refrigerated cabinet for drinks, though Luther found to his fury that, like his own, the drinks contained in them were all non-alcoholic.

  He had not even had a chance to stock up with his normal bottle of duty free liquor. The Learjet had taken off from a small private airfield, and the flight was, naturally, as dry as Sigmund Dark’s living quarters.

  A sound from the courtyard made him lean over between the battlements and from above he watched a group of young girls chatter their way across the cobbles and into the base of the Tour Bleu, where his patron had his own quarters and in which the Great Hall of the castle was situated.

  The Tour Bleu was by far the largest of the three towers. More of a keep than a tower, it shouldered into the courtyard, taking up nearly a third of the space within the enceinte of the fortress.

  It was oblong in plan with one short wall buried in the curtain, and the other facing the gateway across the yard.

  A flight of steps ran from the court to the only entrance visible, which was a disproportionately small door at first floor level.

  In the curtain wall next to the base of the tower a tiny, arched doorway set into a recess and almost obscured by a vast white cylinder admitted the little party of girls and, still chattering happily, they disappeared from Luther’s sight.

  He was preparing to descend and seek out his employer when a shout made him turn. On the roof of the Tour Bleu slightly above his own level, Sigmund Dark was waving down at him.

  “Come on down to the office. I want to talk to you,” called Dark. Luther waved acknowledgement, and walked down the spiral staircase, pausing only to leave the binoculars in his room.

  Dark’s room was characteristically rambling and uncharacteristically light and airy. On the outer side looking through the curtain wall, a vast horizontal slot of window let the owner of the castle watch his own private panorama without ever leaving his chair.

  The desk was a dark oak refectory table ranged along the facing wall. Under it were dark wood filing cabinets and behind it Dark sat in a carved oak high-backed chair which would have engulfed a man of ordinary size. Behind him dark cupboards stood open revealing modern filing cabinets.

  Sigmund Dark was wearing casual clothes which somehow managed to make him look even larger than life. His shirt was of heavy dark blue silk, and his light weight trousers of lighter blue cotton. On his feet he wore black rawhide moccasins with thick rubber soles.

  They squeaked pleasantly against the polished slabs of raw rook, which composed the floor of the room, as he rose from behind the desk and came to greet Luther in the middle of the room and steer him towards the horseshoe of soft leather armchairs grouped in front of a low wooden table against the window.

  “Sit down, sit down,” he said, all genial host and landowner; a pose which he knew put Luther at a resented disadvantage.

  “What do you think of the plane?”

  Luther settled himself in the chair and stared out at the countryside below. He hated it. The land was open and dusty under the sun. He could not work out how the locals managed to grow so many fields of greenery on what looked to him like desert land, and he did not much care.

  Luther’s idea of a place in the sun was a five star hotel with three bars, two swimming pools and an endless supply of poolside tottie, all carrying iced glasses of foaming lager. With English food in the restaurants.

  “Big,” he said briefly. “And dry. Right?”

  Dark’s laugh was as large as his personality.

  “Big is right,” he said. “And I suppose from your point of view it is dry, yes. One of the little foibles you are going to have to learn to tolerate in me, Luther.”

  He reached down beside his chair and produced a glass of orange juice, which he placed on the table.

  “Help yourself to a drink, then – they are on the table over there.” He watched with a twinkle in his eye while the thin Londoner walked across the room to help himself from the inevitable insulated jugs.

  “It is a curious fact, is it not, that in France, where anybody who wishes can buy alcohol any time he wants it, and consume it where he likes, they find it perfectly socially acceptable to drink mineral water or soft drinks? Whereas in Britain, the lunatic licensing laws imposed on the working class by a corrupt Welsh Prime Minister are fanatically maintained. Alcohol may be legally purchased only within certain ludicrously restricted hours. Even the recent changes in the law favour only rich men eating in restaurants. Yet no man worthy of the name would dream of offering a friend anything but beer or spirits to refresh himself. Odd, is it not, Luther?”

  Luther sipped at his juice and swore inwardly to discover he had chosen grapefruit instead of orange. It was acid and upset his stomach.

  “I don’t understand what you mean,” he said.

  “Lloyd George. Lloyd George, said to own the randiest member of the House in his day, imposed the first licensing laws to keep the munitions workers hard at it in the factories during the First World War. Didn’t you know that, Luther?”

  “No. Typical of the Welsh, though,” said Luther with a snigger. “I bet he didn’t put any licensing hours on screwing, though, did he? Right?”

  Dark threw back his head and laughed delightedly.

  “Bravo, mon vieux! Spoken like the man I took you for! But tell me, Luther, the deprivation of the bottle does not seriously bother you, does it?”

  Luther pulled himself out of the chair. It was uncomfortably sticky in the heat of the castle, though he had to admit that this particular room was pleasantly cool.

  “Bother me? No,” he shrugged. “I can take it or leave it, but I don’t like being told I can’t. Right?”

  “And that is one of the little foibles I can see I am going to have to get used to.” Dark seemed suddenly to tire of his conversation and turned his head to stare out at the countryside.

&n
bsp; “If it truly bothers you, get one of the men to drive you down to Bram, or over to Montreal. Or even down into Carcassonne, if you need something a little more sophisticated. But do not bring any back here. Not ever, you understand me?”

  His eyes were suddenly like polished brass. Luther, who was no coward, found himself nodding emphatically.

  “Good. And as you value your life do not allow your driver to drink while he is away from the castle. These men are from a desert force, a regime of frightening discipline. When they let off the controls they become dangerously hard to handle. A drunken Legionnaire is fractionally more deadly than a rabid leopard. And much harder to predict.”

  He sipped from his own glass and then snapped his fingers without moving.

  Luther twitched with shock as a shadow fell across the low table. Standing beside Dark’s chair was a woman. She had moved so silently that he was unaware of her presence until she came between him and the window.

  “This is ... well, you may call her Yasmin. You would have trouble with her real name. She will see to all your needs while you are here. All your needs.” He lingered over the last few words and Luther’s stomach warmed at the implication.

  “You will enjoy her. She has many skills,” said Dark with a ghost of a smile. “She can cook for you and bring you any dish you could desire from the cuisine of five different countries including Turkey, which is where she was born. If your taste runs to music she can play six instruments expertly. Conversation? No, I think in your case Yasmin will not be called upon to exercise her gifts in discourse and disputation. Though should you wish to experiment she can speak ten languages fluently and six more well enough to carry on limited conversation. Like all my girls she is also expert in the language of the deaf and dumb. Outside these walls, but only, alas, outside these walls, she could rival the talents of the barman of the most sophisticated bar in the world. Her inventiveness with the cocktail shaker, I am assured, is rivaled only by her inventiveness in the bedroom. A different kind of cock, shall we say? Most certainly a different kind of tail.”

  He shot Luther a look composed half of calculation and half of contempt. But the man was looking at his new acquisition and his thoughts were only too plain.

  “Two things only: she will do whatever you wish, and do it with enthusiasm and delight. But she must not be marked.”

  He spoke a word in a guttural language which Luther did not understand, and the girl raised her arms to her neck and removed a pin. Instantly the dark silk draperies fell away from her body into a whispering pool about her feet.

  Luther, expert on women flesh that he was, caught his breath.

  She was perfect. A living statue in smoked ivory, each curve and plane blending into the next, each muscle rolling smoothly under the satin skin.

  From her came a scent which caught in his throat. Used to the flowery fragrances of Europe, Luther was unprepared for the musky scents of Africa.

  “Well?”

  “Not bad,” said Luther, dragging back something of his self possession and trying not to let his tongue loll quite so obviously. “Not bad at all.”

  “A possession of great price,” said Dark softly. “Her headprice, Luther, would buy the penthouse in London, which you admire so much. Take her, Luther, but mark what I say. One mark on her skin and you will pay for it for the rest of your life. You must learn that there are women, and there are works of art. Abuse a woman if you must. But works of art cost money. Treat her like fine porcelain. You will not regret it.”

  He watched as the girl knelt by Luther’s chair and took up his glass, balancing it on the palm of her hand and holding it ready for him. Luther’s eyes were almost glazed with lust. Dark nodded with satisfaction.

  “So far, Luther, you have known only the British end of our operation. It is time for you to make yourself familiar with the European end.”

  Luther nodded, but the whole of his mind was not on the issue at hand. He could feel the warmth of the girl’s naked body through his thin trousers, and his own body was responding to it with embarrassing forcefulness.

  “We make a good income from our operations in London and Edinburgh. But compared with our income here, it is petty cash,” said Dark. Now, he had Luther’s attention. The man had been awed when he saw the income from Dark’s vice operation in Britain. He was not sure if Luther had the imagination to cope with the figures he was about to show him.

  However, it was necessary for Luther to understand what was at stake and what the income could be before he was fully introduced to the nature and scope of the business.

  Luther was the third British manager Dark had attempted to introduce to the business that he ran in Europe, and Dark had been surprised and angered by the reactions of the previous two.

  So surprised and angered that their bodies lay in the secret hole in the depths of the castle dungeons.

  Dark was amazed at the revulsion of feeling shown by men who were perfectly prepared to prostitute both boy and girls, to maim, mutilate and even kill in London, when introduced to the reality of pure, chattel slavery.

  He passed Luther the top sheet from the open file before him.

  “That is the income from the London operation which you have run for the last year,” he said.

  Luther ran his eye over the figures in the neat resume and nodded. He was familiar with the staggering profits it was possible to wring from the prostrate bodies of boys and women of every age.

  “You have been a good supervisor and manager. A little brutal with your methods, but thorough and a hard working.”

  “Gets results, right?” grunted Luther. The thrill he always felt at the sight of the figures was considerably blunted by the presence of the girl.

  “Indeed. But it also causes other problems. You cannot brutalise people into loyalty.”

  “Who cares? They learn their lessons quicker; my way. Nobody lets me down twice. They know better,” said Luther with a grin.

  “I would prefer it if nobody let you down once,” said Dark quietly. “However, I recognise the difficulty in persuading a leopard to wear stripes. It serves.”

  He leaned forward, and placed another sheet on Luther’s lap.

  “It will not, however, serve in this operation. I will give you a moment to read the figures.”

  For a long minute, Luther’s eyes ran down the page, and as he read, so his eyes became rounder and rounder.

  “Jesus fuckin’ Christ!”

  He stared at Dark with rank disbelief.

  “All this, just from transporting whores across the Channel? I don’t believe it!”

  Dark rose to his feet and walked to the window. Standing against the light, his feet slightly spread, and his back to the glory of the Mediterranean noon, he made a dominating figure.

  He needed to dominate, for experience told him this was the moment of truth.

  “Not whores, Luther. Slaves.”

  “Yeah. And whores and discipline teachers, right?”

  “Wrong. Slaves. Good, old fashioned, chained hand-and-foot slaves. Slaves like the Romans had. Slaves like the ones who used to work de plantations for ol’ massa in de deep south. Chattels. Beasts of burden. Persons fully and wholly owned by another person. Slaves.”

  He pointed. Yasmin immediately fell forehead on the floor.

  “Slaves like her.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Carver sat back in his chair and let the golden fire of Armagnac slide down his throat and warm his stomach.

  This was the first time he had relaxed in a long and frustrating day, and he felt he had earned the luxury of a good dinner. Which was exactly what he had just enjoyed.

  Without turning his head he checked the doorway of the restaurant. By pure chance he had been shown to a table which gave him a clear view of the door through the floor to ceiling mirrors lining the walls. If chance had not put him there he would have discovered a draught or some other excuse to move to one in the right p
osition.

  Tonight was his last evening in Paris, and like any good soldier he was taking the chance to relax and eat while it was available. Carver, who had served – briefly – in more armies than he cared to put a name to, deeply believed in the adage that a good soldier never ran when he could walk, walked when he could rest, stood when he could sit or sat when he could lie down.

  Or starve when he could eat.

  He flicked another glance at the mirror and sat upright again.

  Amy Varzon was just coming through the door, looking around expectantly and avoiding the eye of the head waiter. She saw Carver and made her way to him without bothering to wave.

  Despite her purposeful tread, the waiter was there before her, pulling out the chair, passing her a menu and lingering expectantly for her drink order.

  Amy was, once again, impeccable. She was wearing a combination of gold thread and supple black leather which would have looked spectacularly tarty on a film star and on Amy merely looked spectacular. A good deal of Amy was visible in the gaps between the gold and the black, which helped.

  “I have found the man you are looking for,” she said in the time it took the waiter fill her order and bring it, brimming, back to the table. He was obviously as smitten by the outfit as was Carver.

  Carver nodded, trying not to look impressed. Here was efficiency indeed.

  After the failed attack at the Sacré-Coeur, he had spent the day with Amy trying to run down the controller of the group of tiny pickpockets whose gang they had seen at work in Montmartre.

  There was no sign of either controller or pickpockets, and eventually Carver was reduced to cruising around Paris in a taxi, looking out for familiar faces. The quarry had, however, gone to ground.

  “Who is he?” asked Carver. Amy shook her head, and sipped delicately at her drink. It was a kir royal, the champagne bubbles twinkling in the pink depths of the glass.