'You were nothing of the kind!' Mia was indignant and then she smiled reminiscently. 'Remember how you used to slap the boys who pulled my hair?'
'Vividly,' Hester chuckled. 'I've a shrewd suspicion I always liked chucking my weight about—the number of times Flo's tanned me, but it never did much good—and speaking of Flo, shall I go in and see her now?'
'She'll be crawling out here on her hands and knees if you don't,' Mia smiled ruefully. 'Your coming is the high spot of her day except when the woman across the way comes in to feed the plants. They have a right old natter.'
Flo Marsh was sitting up in bed, supported by a great many pillows—a small, sparrowlike woman, pale and almost bloodless, but her eyes were bright and sharp, they softened when she looked at Hester.
'Oh, you shouldn't have, you bad girl, wasting your money like this!' but she seized on the flowers and buried her nose in the blossoms. The sleeves of her bedjacket fell back to disclose thin, sticklike arms and her hands were no more than skin and bone. 'You're late,' she said severely.
Hester's heart squeezed painfully, but she knew better than to mention Flo's illness—that wasn't allowed. 'You've had Mia to bully in the interval, so what are you complaining about?' She sat down on the side of the bed and produced a box of sweets. 'Don't tell Mia, she'll confiscate them to stop you from getting fat. As a matter of fact, I was delayed by a man—he just wouldn't let me get away from him,' she teased. 'I was tempted to give him a bit of encouragement, what do you think? After all, I'm getting on…'
'Don't talk such nonsense!' Her foster-mother gazed at her fondly. 'And like I've told you before, you want to be careful, especially if he looks well-to-do and with a car and all. There's too many of that sort hanging about and they've an eye for the girls. Trouble for you, but they think nothing of it—it's a bit of fun for them. He's not like that, I hope.'
'Not a bit,' Hester chuckled. 'He looked like being the persistent type, but I think I made a bad impression on him.' She delved into her capacious shoulder-bag and extracted a bloodthirsty-looking paperback, the sort that her foster-mother adored, and stayed talking for another hour, until at last they came to Mia.
'I've told her,' Flo was vehement, 'there's no need for her to stay with me all the time—'tisn't good for her. She ought to be out and about, enjoying herself. There's that woman in the flat opposite, she'll come and stay with me in the evenings any time, she said so. You talk to Mia, Hester.'
'And a lot of good that will do,' Hester grimaced. 'You know Mia, you should by now—she's your own niece, and she won't leave you while you're ill. When you're better, we'll all have a holiday together. I'll go and tell her you're ready for your medicine, so goodnight, my love—sleep well, and I'll see you tomorrow evening.'
'Is that medicine doing her any good?' she asked Mia, who was in the kitchen, pouring tea and counting out tablets.
'Not much, but at least she sleeps when she's had it.' Mia was still looking worried. 'Hes, I still don't think you should be doing this, asking for money from a stranger. Flo wouldn't like it a bit, and I have to keep biting my tongue to stop from telling her, she asks so many questions.'
'Bite it a bit longer,' Hester advised. 'When the money comes, she's off to that Swiss clinic and you're going with her, so what's the use of worrying now— it's far too late for that. I reckon my mother owes Flo and I'm going to see she pays if I have to beat every penny out of her!'
'But you could get into trouble.' Mia refused to be comforted. 'If she's as wealthy as you say, she's bound to have a bit of pull and she could easily get you the sack. It's such a lot of money!'
'No more than's needed and not even half what Vilma can afford,' Hester snorted. 'Come on, kid, don't get cold feet now. So long as I get the money, I don't care how many jobs I lose or what sort of a job I wind up in. We've had all this out before, don't let's go through it all again.'
'But it might all be for nothing…'
'Look on the bright side, for heaven's sake,' Hester was astringent. 'Does it matter? If the Swiss man can work a miracle, all well and good. If he can't, Flo will have had the best treatment available, a year in his clinic, which is better than a bed on the National Health, isn't it? She'll have you with her on the journey, which will be a comfort for her, you know how she likes company, so stop making mountains out of molehills. Feed Flo her tablets and then we'll have a cup of tea and a sandwich before I get back to my bedsit.'
Lying in bed that night, Hester worked it all out again in her mind. Some people might think her reasoning warped, but she couldn't see it that way. Flo had fostered her from a small baby—admittedly she'd been paid by the local authorities for doing it, a payment which her real mother wouldn't have received, but no amount of money could compensate for all the love and care she had received from the perky little cockney woman whom she still called 'mum'. There had been good times and bad, money had never been plentiful, but they'd always been happy.
Her lips curved tenderly in the darkness as she remembered Flo's frequent economy drives to pay for a week at Margate, school uniform, a tennis racquet, a hockey stick and, later on, her apprenticeship to hairdressing. She, Hester, had been a big drain on the slender resources of the Marsh family, especially after Flo's husband had died. Things had been really tough then until Flo went back to work as a furrier, managing to combine motherhood and a full-time job so that neither Hester nor Mia had ever been or felt neglected.
And Flo had always been strict, there was nothing even faintly permissive about her. Everything was a definite black or white with no confusing grey areas either in behaviour or morals. 'You know right from wrong,' Flo would say—and that was what was bothering Hester now more than anything else. What she was doing was wrong by Flo's standards and she could only thank God that her own were a little more elastic—that she was less of an idealist than Flo.
So she could look at the situation in a practical way—her foster-mother was owed every penny, in fact, twenty thousand pounds was really a small price to pay to get rid of an unwanted child, a child who could have been an embarrassment. And it hadn't cost Vilma a penny—Hester, the daughter of a woman who was wealthy in her own right and who had increased that wealth by two profitable marriages—Hester hadn't cost her mother a brass farthing so far. For nearly twenty-five years she'd been ignored, probably forgotten by the woman who had brought her into the world so carelessly, but now was the time of reckoning.
Spurred into action by the welter of her thoughts, she switched on her bedside lamp and leapt out of bed. On the table was the letter which her landlady had given her when she came back from Flo's.
'Delivered by hand,' the landlady had almost smirked. 'I thought you'd want it straight away and I stayed up special to give it to you when you came in.'
Hester had nodded her thanks and climbed the stairs, determined to leave the wretched thing unopened until morning—she could guess who it was from. She had set it aside in case whatever was in it would disturb her night's rest, but it was disturbing her even more just by being there unopened.
Maybe it was good news, maybe not, but she knew she wouldn't sleep until she'd read the contents. Her fingers trembled a little as she slit open the thick white envelope and extracted the sheet of equally thick white paper. The writing was bold, black and decisive, and she scanned it swiftly. 'Dear Hester'—that was an impertinence for a start—she hadn't granted him the right to use her given name!
The letter was quite brief, merely saying that a further meeting would be to their mutual advantage and that it would be better if it was conducted on neutral ground—he had felt at some disadvantage in her small flat. Had he indeed! He hadn't showed it!— and he felt sure she would feel at an equal disadvantage in his office. Instead he suggested a well known Greek restaurant off Shaftesbury Avenue and he would call for her at half past seven the following evening. After that, he remained hers, sincerely, Demetrios Thalassis.
Hester sniffed. Disadvantage—was that what he called acting a
s though he owned the place and hadn't felt too proud of it! All the same, a public eatery had its advantages; he could hardly come the heavy among a crowd of diners—added to which, she thought he spelled danger for her. She wasn't sure what the danger was, but she was almost sure it existed.
For a moment, a very brief moment, she felt inclined to stop the whole affair. She wasn't a criminal by nature and if it hadn't been for Flo's condition, which was steadily worsening, Hester would have given up there and then—but no! She knew now that she had to go on, no matter what the consequences.
Yes, of course she would go on. Her soft mouth hardened as she tucked the sheet of paper back into the envelope. She owed it to Flo. Vilma would try to wriggle out of paying and Demetrios Thalassis would undoubtedly give her mother every assistance in that wriggling, but she, Hester, wouldn't be beaten, not so easily. And tomorrow evening she would be cool and businesslike and not let any appeals to her better nature divert her from her purpose by one iota.
Having arrived at this decision, she went back to bed and slept like a baby.
That evening she dressed with care. Her wardrobe wasn't large and she dismissed the black skirt she usually wore for evenings out. A meal at a restaurant hardly warranted a long skirt, especially in the company of Demetrios Thalassis—she didn't have to charm him, and she wasn't in a particularly charming mood to start with.
She inspected the dress she had chosen, a slim-fitting black sheath with a scooped-out neckline. It was a go-anywhere dress, but it needed livening up, so she made up her face nicely so that her eyes were large and mysterious and added a necklace of near-gold leaves so that at half past seven she was ready, and she took a final look in the mirror to comfort herself and to help dispel the queasiness in her stomach. It was no use denying, even to herself, that she wasn't nervous— All day she'd gone over what she would say and do if he refused her the money, and she had been filled with a bitter envy of her mother who could probably go out to a party secure in the knowledge that there was some man to do her dirty work for her. Hester didn't much care for doing her own dirty work, but it had to be done, and she had no man to fall back on.
She had also primed herself with everything she knew and could discover about Greeks, but the sum total wasn't comforting. They were family-conscious, the man was always the head of the house and family, the females looked to him for care and protection—it was a patriarchal society—marriages were still arranged in country areas and among the more wealthy.
Therefore Demetrios, whatever his relationship to Vilma's husband, would probably follow the family line and try to protect her—and the Thalassis family was very wealthy, owning hotels in every tourist centre around the Mediterranean. Hester gave a bitter little laugh. In the silence of her room it sounded thin and forced—she'd envisaged fighting Vilma, not a wealthy conglomerate!
Demetrios was dead on time, his buzz on the bell was one long one, and she pulled herself together and went to open the door.
'You're ready!' He seemed surprised and his eyes flicked over her with a gleam of appreciation in their dark depths. The gleam offended her, it made her think of slave markets—as though she was on sale, and she snapped upright, her chin in the air.
'Quite ready, unless you've brought the money—in which case you'll have to wait while I count it.'
'But I wasn't bringing it tonight,' he objected, and she suspected he was laughing at her, not taking her seriously enough—perhaps even delaying things a bit. His next words confirmed her suspicions.
'We're merely going one stage further in our negotiations,' he murmured. 'A quiet dinner, that's all. You'd be surprised how many deals are concluded amicably over a good meal and a bottle of wine. This is your coat?' And he reached for her tweed which was hanging on a peg in the hallway.
His car, parked at the kerb, was an example of restrained magnificence and Hester swiftly rearranged her ideas about him. This was no mere errand boy to the Thalassis empire—no very junior executive, even if he was a doer of jobs which others preferred to stay out of. His petrol bill for a week would pay her wages at the salon and leave a lot of spending- money over—and errand boys didn't get issued with Rolls-Royces on the firm.
It suddenly dawned on her that he must be rather important in the scheme of things, and she felt the muscles of her stomach twitch with fear—but she covered her nervousness with an expressionless face, although her body wouldn't obey her mind so easily. It insisted on remaining stiff, try as she would to relax, and he was quick on the uptake—he sensed her fear.
'Relax!' Once again she caught a thread of humour. 'I'm not going to bite yet. That will come later, when you refuse my final offer.'
'Big of you!' The words left her mouth with a delicate, female snarl. 'But do be careful, I might bite back.'
In the dimness of the car she heard his chuckle and caught the gleam of his teeth as his lips parted in a smile. He definitely wasn't taking her seriously, he was treating her and her demand as one big joke. Her lips firmed and her eyes hardened—she would show him she was no joke!
The restaurant was a well known one. Hester had heard of it but never been there, and she discovered that it was assumed all the patrons could at least read Greek. There was very little English on the menu and she couldn't make head or tail of it, so she handed it back to Demetrios with a shrug.
'It's all beyond me, double Dutch, but I think I'd like some of those things on skewers,' she flicked a glance at an adjoining table. 'People seem to be enjoying them.'
'Souvlaka,' he supplied the name, 'and wine?'
'Water,' she corrected, 'or perhaps lemonade. I'm not negotiating through an alcoholic haze.' She was curt and determined—this man was too sure of himself and he had all the advantages—she should have stipulated an ordinary English restaurant. 'When do we talk business?'
'Any time you wish, but no raised voices, please. I'm quite well known here.'
'Then I think we should start now.' Her mouth was firm and her eyes direct. 'Has Vilma agreed?'
There was a slight pause as he gave the waiter their order and she waited impatiently through it, but when the waiter had gone and they were once more alone, the answer was disappointing.
'What do you think?' He was sardonic. 'You said yourself she hates parting with money…'
'She has to,' Hester began stormily, then lowered her voice as she became aware of some curious glances from the adjacent table. 'I don't see that she has any option.' She gave Demetrios a glance of pure hatred across the table. 'I suppose you agree with her—the family sticking together and all that?'
'I think money should be earned,' he gave her partial agreement. 'I don't subscribe to donating to causes, no matter how worthy, not unless they've made some effort to help themselves.'
'Oh, hell!' she muttered under her breath as she made way for the waiter and then gazed down at the plate he had put in front of her. She felt sick with disappointment and the food looked revolting. Automatically, she gathered up her bag and made to rise. 'It seems, Mr Thalassis, you've been wasting my time. I'd better get in touch with my mother straight away, her time's running out.'
'Sit down and don't start losing your temper,' he advised calmly in a low voice, and his hand found her wrist across the table and squeezed it mercilessly. 'Don't make a scene.' His voice was low, but there was a threat in his eyes. 'I haven't said you won't have the money, merely that I think it should be earned and not just given to you because of who you are.'
Hester relaxed and put down her bag. 'I could hardly ask for it if I wasn't who I am,' she pointed out sweetly.
'And of course, I have to make sure that you won't make a habit of demanding money from your—er— natural mother.' He ignored her remark as though she hadn't spoken. 'That's a very important point.'
'You don't have to worry about that,' she interrupted. 'This one big payment guarantees a complete loss of memory on my part.'
'But as I said, money should be earned. Are you willing to work for it?'
This was all a game and Hester decided to treat it as such. She shrugged gracefully and applied herself to succulent pieces of lamb and mushroom. 'Provided the work's not too arduous,' she murmured. 'I have to think of my health. What's your proposition?' she demanded. 'And you'd better make it believable, because I'm not a fool and I shan't fall for a con. There's no way I know of earning that amount of money by the weekend, but if you've come up with a bright idea, I'll consider it. I'm open to suggestions and if it's that good, I might even take it up full-time.'
'You still cling to the time limit?' Hester once more had the feeling she was being a source of amusement to him, that he wasn't taking her seriously enough, and her voice sharpened until it gained almost the strident cockney tones of her childhood.
'Of course, it's the done thing among us blackmailers. What's the use of a nebulous threat? It's not forceful enough.' She became aware of his frown and lowered her voice to a husky murmur. 'I work to a timetable—Mrs X this month, Mrs Y next month. I'm a deep-dyed villainess!'
'You're a very charming liar…'
'… And you're wasting my time,' she interrupted forcefully.
'But aren't you ashamed of what you're doing?'
'Me? Ashamed? Now why should I be that?' she marvelled at his lack of understanding. 'If somebody's willing to pay to keep their affairs quiet, it's because they're ashamed, not me! Vilma's afraid she might lose her entree to the upper circles, and having a lot of money, clothes and all the jewellery she needs doesn't mean a thing unless she can show them off in all the right places and to all the right company—go to Cannes, Nice and Monte Carlo on all the right people's yachts…'
'But the right people, as you call them, also have their little secrets,' he pointed out. 'Nobody's without something to remind them of a mistake they once made.'
The Daughter of Night Page 3
