Milady E-Book

Bernard Murphy

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 459

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

The lust for money and fame spurred Bella on into the charmed circle of Scandinavia's most eccentric billionaire, whose business empire was, however, about to be taken over by a motley crowd of conmen and crooks.

Leseprobe

Contents

Prologue

Having learnt my lesson, I slunk homeward …

Five years ago, before I’d learnt my lesson …

Here endeth the lesson …

Prologue

Alfonsin had chartered Robert’s plane for some ‘island hopping,’ as he called it. What the island hopping was in aid of Robert didn’t know, nor did he care. Some of the islands had a hotel; some didn’t. All had a bar of sorts. When they had landed and taxied to whatever passed as a terminal, Alfonsin would shoot off, leaving Robert waiting in the plane ready for takeoff. Alfonsin usually returned after about twenty minutes. They would then fly on to the next destination or, if it was late and the place was habitable, stay for a drink and a meal and a bed. Alfonsin’s schedule was fluid, but Robert didn’t care as long as he was being paid.

It was at one of these habitable watering holes, a thatched tavern nestling in a coconut grove at the edge of an ivory beach, that they happened upon Carina.

“There she is,” Alfonsin said. “I knew she was scouting the Caribbean.”

She was having dinner with a drab female companion, who nodded, and murmured, and took notes.

Alfonsin and Robert were enjoying a nightcap on a veranda hidden by bamboo curtains. The drab woman went to bed, leaving Carina, who was unknown to Robert at the time, to finish her coffee and liqueur.

“There’s your mark. Turn on your aristocratic charm,” Alfonsin whispered in Robert’s ear. “Gain her confidence. Make her introduce you to her employer. He’s the real target. I’ll make it worth your while. One more thing: don’t mention my name or our business.”

He downed his nightcap and merged into the night like a discreet pimp.

Carina turned out to be an attractive young woman. She had been charged with finding new holiday destinations for her travel agency, she said. Sailing around the Caribbean in a glorified motorboat had been a drag and she was tired, but not tired enough to reject the advances of a personable young stud like Robert.

“I’m not surprised you’re exhausted,” Robert said. “Why don’t you charter a plane?”

“I’m on a tight budget.”

“I’ve got nothing to do. I’ve got my own private air charter company. I’ll fly you wherever you want to go … no cure no pay.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You don’t pay for the charter unless you salvage some new destinations out of your quest for business.”

“That’s about the only decent offer I’ve had so far. Let me buy you dinner.”

That was a nice touch, Robert thought. She must know I’m broke.

“I’ve got an island your boss might like to rent,” Robert had said after their first night in bed together.

She tilted her head and smiled.

“Don’t let’s get ahead of ourselves.”

That was a start—a tentative start. She’d let him put his foot in the door.

Robert didn’t like Alfonsin, but he couldn’t help liking Carina, despite her being a bit of a bitch businesswoman. He decided that, given the choice, he would be on her side.

Having learnt my lesson, I slunk homeward …

My lip curled when I saw what they had done to the place. No doubt the fake mahogany and the shining artificial leather were meant to be an improvement, but I preferred the scratched table tops and the beat-up chairs of old. The clientele hadn’t changed much, though. Mostly professional men escaped from their offices for the weekend and hoping to get laid. Fat chance … not by me.

Bella Habermas was too good for that kind of thing.

They couldn’t hold a candle to Robert, anyway. I wish he’d walk through the door. But that’s not going to happen. I had watched him fly off forever over the vined jungles and glittering rivers of Venezuela. Did he ever really care for me? Obviously not, and he had paid for it. Perhaps I should have told him about my background, which was every bit as good as his, but I was bound by a secret not of my making … a promise made to the family lawyer never to mention my grandmother, Countess Veronica Haber-Habermaschen, or the circumstances of her demise. “You owe it to your parents,” he had said.

I didn’t remember mourning her, or my parents, because I didn’t know her at all and I hardly knew them and I mustn’t mourn Robert, whom I knew all too well. Whatever ... That’s what I’ve decided. That’s why I’m here, coming back into the world, making another try at celebrity. If only I hadn’t jumped on the wrong bandwagon … Robert’s. Oh well … It was my fault.

What to order? Something ladylike—vin rosé with a couple of cubes of ice topped up with deliciously bubbly Danish water (seltzer to you) to shoot the booze into the bloodstream. A couple of those should do it.

The barman, who looked like somebody out of the bone house, served my drink and took my money with nary a smile. Fuck him. Or perhaps he deserved sympathy: the afternoon shift on a Friday couldn’t have been much fun.

Some creep was reaching over me to get the barman’s attention. I pushed away his arm and gave him a really scornful look but he was too thick to appreciate it.

“Hello,” he said, smiling vacantly. “Haven’t we met somewhere before?”

How original! He must have seen the contempt in my eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “I meet so many people it becomes a blur. A surfeit of visages, so to speak. Facial-recognition overload.”

I softened in the presence of such erudite self-deprecation. “You do look slightly familiar,” I conceded out of my innate sense of fairness, although I’d barely given him a glance and had my back to him more or less.

“Oh, that’ll be the gogglebox,” he said as he tried to push his face into my line of sight. “I used to be on the panel before they kicked me into management because the bastard insisted he couldn’t sing without me holding his hand. You a fan of Nordic Talent? Did you see the season before last?”

“No I’m not, so I can’t say I did.”

Six months ago I was still living in Venezuela, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. I didn’t want to give him an excuse for continuing the conversation. But it seemed he didn’t need one.

“It’s great to be downing a couple of beers in my favourite haunt after a murderous six-month tour of Oz managing Nordic Talent’s only really big discovery, singing sensation … and screaming nutcase … Perry Palermo. That’s not his real name. Two hundred-odd gigs in every corrugated outback fleapit on the Australian Continent, including the Sydney Opera House, is what I had to put up with. It almost snapped my wires.”

While I was wondering whether I should ditch him immediately or give him time to trip himself up and reap the embarrassment and scorn of being exposed as a conman, we were both distracted.

“Redmond, ain’t it? Could you spare a drink for an old mate?”

The conman with the improbable name of Redmond turned to face the distraction. I caught a glimpse of a shiny bald head, except for a bright ginger crest, and flamboyantly punk attire that I was pretty sure would not sit well with the management of that particular high-class watering hole.

“Well, if it isn’t old PC of PC and the Hackers, What’s this with the mohican haircut? What happened to the tuxedo? Gin and tonic, isn’t it?”

“Double.”

Redmond turned and whispered in my ear with disconcerting intimacy. “I first set eyes on PC … he uses his initials because his real name doesn’t have schwung … when I was scouting for the show. He did a terrible stand-up act. Not that being terrible excludes you from Nordic Talent. We like at least one humiliating bomber to give the audience somebody to ridicule. Unfortunately, his material was a bit too scatological for family viewing and as for his tuxedo … well, you’ve got to think of the youth segment.”

The PC person seemed thoroughly down at the mouth, more than slightly pissed, and destitute.

“To what do we owe this scintillating transformation?” Redmond quipped in what I presumed was his attempt to instil some cheer.

“I got the idea of turning some of my comedy routines into rhythm-and-blues rap. You got to have the right threads to be a rapper … and the right persona,” PC said, pointing to his shaven head. “I made it to the big time. I topped the charts.”

“You’re kidding!”

“Where’ve you been, mate?”

“Australia.”

PC was staring listlessly into his already empty gin glass. Redmond signalled to the barman to pour another double. That set PC off again.

“I’d never performed outside the studio. But one night I got sloshed and did a few of my routines in some pub. Somebody put it on YouTube. Everybody could see I was no fucking good. Without the electronic echo and the woofer booster and all that other studio crap, I was rotten. Last month I was famous and everybody wanted to buy me a drink or snort my angel dust. Now look at me!”

“That's show business,” Redmond said. “Do you need an agent? I can give you the name of an agent.”

“I need a place to crash.”

“Can’t help you there, PC,” Redmond said, leering at me. “I’ve got no spare beds tonight.” (Who did he think he was? If he thought he was getting me in the sack he had another thing coming.) “I can, however, fix a room at the hotel just round the corner. Come with me and I’ll have a word with the concierge.”

He tapped me on the shoulder.

“See you around,” he said.

Not if I see you first, I thought to myself.

Peachy Carnehan, to give PC his proper name, produced the handbag with a flourish and emptied the contents onto the table in the corner of the hotel lobby.

Redmond Kipling, just plain Red to his friends, winced. “Hide it, you idiot.”

“Relax. They’ll think I’m a handbag-toting weirdo. It goes with the hair.”

“What have we got?”

Peachy rummaged through the pile. “Credit cards, a wad of cash, a couple of visiting cards, her address, I think …”

“Any reference to Robert van Palanz?”

Peachy shook his head.

“Make a note of the lot, especially the credit card numbers, and put it all back, especially the money.”

“Can’t I keep just one little banknote?”

“Piss off,” said Kipling as he rose to go.

He changed his mind and sat down again. “I can’t believe she didn’t recognise me. I can understand her not knowing who you were in your former life. You don’t look much like a bosun in that get-up, and you were on the fringes anyway. But I was Robert’s right-hand man, and he used to hump her something rotten. I was always in the way and she hated me. You don’t forget people you hate.”

“You seem to have forgotten the face jobs you and Dojay got done in Cartagena,” said Peachy.

“We were embarking on new careers in show business.”

“And simple-minded me thought you were dodging the associates of a certain Dr Alfonsin.”

“Not so much… I figured them to be rational businessmen. Don Salvatore’s mates were the ones that gave me the shits.”

“You’re right there,” said Peachy.

“Never mind that. Concentrate on the job in hand. The easiest way to make her think I’m a nice guy is to do her an unexpected favour.”

I had just ordered another drink and was groping for my handbag on the hook under the bar. It wasn’t there. My eyes searched the floor. The handbag wasn’t there either. I appealed to the barman. “Some bastard’s pinched my handbag with all my money.” He looked back at me, tired and indifferent, his tongue licking the fur off his teeth.

“Call the police.”

He smiled for the first time. “They’ve got better things to do, darling.”

“Allow me to pay for this one,” said a voice.

That Redmond person had returned just in time to save me embarrassment. I smiled slightly. It was the least I could do.

“I've got something I think belongs to you,” he said, producing my handbag from behind his back. “PC’s a bit of a kleptomaniac, especially when he’s desperate for money. He became less desperate when I told him the hotel room was on me. I bought back your handbag with a loan to tide him over.”

Surprise must have immobilised me. He held out the bag. “Come on. Take it. It’s yours.”

What a kind thing to do, I thought, if his story was true and not just an elaborate line. I’d met plenty of conmen in my time. Robert had always attracted conmen, and they’d come in all varieties, and now I attracted them, it seemed. At least this one didn’t look as if he posed a physical threat like that horrible greaseball Robert had been obliged to shoot to save me from being raped.

I checked the contents of the bag. Nothing was missing— not even the cash.

“It’s all there,” he said. “I made sure.”

I felt foolish as I murmured my thanks.

He ordered an expensive double whisky and ginger for himself. “Yeah, that Perry Palermo was a real pain in the arse,” he said to me as he took his change from the barman. “So much so that I’m going to chuck it in unless they find him another manager and put me back in front of the camera where I belong. I’ve got a great idea for a new show about Danish celebrities.”

He was trying to make out he was some kind of television presenter. It wasn’t going to cut any ice.

“I hate celebrities. I used to be one myself … well almost.”

I didn't tell him that I had been angling for the fame and fortune that should have been my birthright when Robert had betrayed me.

“Wait a minute,” he said, suddenly wide-eyed. “I know where I’ve seen you. You were the landscape gardener. Whatever happened to Robert?”

It was then I recognised him. Red Kipling. He’d lost the shaggy-dog look, and his face looked thinner. He’d definitely had a nose job. He used to call me Milady, half in jest, but mostly because Robert had provided his livelihood and it was Robert’s orders. Now I was back to being the landscape gardener. What a bloody cheek!

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “We all know what happened to Robert.”

Five years ago, before I’d learnt my lesson …

It didn’t really take me by surprise. Carina always wanted something. The thing was whether I should make an excuse to get out of it. She’d already paid for the landscaping, thank God, so I didn’t need to humour her. And I was still feeling miffed at all her half-brained suggestions about so-called improvements to my layout. But she knew so many idiots with money to burn who might want their gardens done. Besides, she would be less inclined to complain about my overcharging her if I did her this little favour.

We were sitting on the steps leading down to her lawn, and I watched the shadows cast by the rhododendrons dancing across her dainty face. I prolonged the agony.

“Whatever were you thinking of … giving him the run of the house?”

“I wasn’t planning to leave him on his own,” she moaned. “But that bastard Simon’s insisting I fly to the Costa del Sol tonight to sort out the mess personally. He says it’s my responsibility. It might take weeks.”

“I suppose I could pretend to water the plants and do a bit of weeding,” I said, “but he must know I’ve got people for that. He’s not going to fall for it. He’ll know I’m spying.”

She leaned forward to top up the glasses. “More champagne?”

That was a typical ploy—trying to bribe me with drink. As usual, I let her. “All right,” I said feigning reluctance. “I’ll keep an eye on the place.”

“Oh, thank you,” she cooed, hugging her knees. “Just make sure he doesn’t try to sell it or burn it down during some wild orgy.”

“He seems too nice for that,” I said, not knowing any better at the time. “Anyway, doesn’t the fact that Simon’s invited him to the Happy Partnership Seminar vouch for him? Simon’s got a reputation for only doing business with the best and the brightest.”

She moved closer. “That’s the thing. Simon’s never met him. Robert’s here on my personal recommendation.”

“What are his qualifications? What’s his track record?”

She shrugged and peered into her glass to avoid looking me in the eye.

That was Carina’s trouble: she believed she could pick winners by virtue of her peerless intuition. But she couldn’t tell Simon that if, or probably when, Robert van Palanz turned out to be a dud.

“I chartered him to fly me round the islands when I was scouting for hotels in the Caribbean. He was great fun in bed, and he could drink like there was no tomorrow.”

“It’s the only way to fly,” I said.

Clearly, she wasn’t going to admit that her protégé was an irresponsible chancer. I would enjoy gloating when Simon Bibersen discovered Robert van Palanz was a bummer, a fraud and a fake.

“I don’t really know much at all about Robert,” she said. “I’m having second thoughts.”

“Don’t you worry about a thing, “I said as I got up to leave. “I’ll look in tomorrow to see what he’s up to.”

I told her I could show myself out so that I could pocket one of the Royal Copenhagen figurines in the alcove in the hall as I left. I reckoned that in her rush to pack she wouldn’t notice it was gone and, when she eventually did, the Robert person could take the blame.

Carina’s house was on the outskirts of a little town that had been founded in the days of Christian II to accommodate a bunch of farmers invited from the Netherlands to produce food for his gluttonous entourage. The quaint 16th century thatched and half-timbered dwellings had been preserved for posterity and were now occupied by the rich and beautiful (at least in the eyes of their stylists). It was to their enchanted circle Carina liked to think she belonged.

I’d had the fantastic idea of building a maze at the end of Carina’s garden—which sloped down into a hollow from the coast road—to shield it from the curious eyes of day-trippers and tourists. My maze was made of thick bamboo hedges of the species Melocanna bambusoides, which I had bought cheap because it was due to flower pretty soon. Mass flowering of most bamboo species takes place worldwide at intervals of up to a hundred and thirty years. When a bamboo flowers, it dies, but I hadn’t of course mentioned this to Carina, who had paid for her maze through her pretty nose.

The wrought-iron gate opened smoothly to my touch on hinges that seemed as well-oiled as they were on the day the workmen had installed the gate under my supervision. I tiptoed through the maze. Why was I tiptoeing? To avoid discovery of course, but I had no idea how close it was until I peeped through the hedge at the open shirt and hairy chest of a man who was looking straight up into the air the way men do when taking an illicit leak.

I must have jumped back in alarm, thus betraying my presence.

“Hello,” he said without embarrassment as he began to splash the leaves. “I was admiring the flowers when I suddenly felt the irresistible call of nature.”

I stepped out from behind the hedge with as much poise as I could muster; he didn’t bother to turn his back while he shook off the drops. He smiled at me provocatively.

“Hello,” he said. “I’m Robert van Palanz, the current house guest. Carina’s not home.”

“She had to leave urgently on a job,” I said. “My name’s Bella Habermas.”

“Why didn’t you use the front door?”

“I’m not here to see anybody. I’ve just come to water the plants and supervise the garden.”

He zipped up his trousers. “Come and meet Red. He’s my co-pilot and best mate. Join us for lunch.”

“No thank you,” I said. “I’m on a tight schedule.”

I cursed myself for not having had the foresight to bring something to back up my story.

“I’ve left my tools in the van,” I said, waving imprecisely at something behind my back.

“Suit yourself,” he said while I turned and marched as briskly as I could back through the maze.

When I returned a few minutes later he was gone.

I snipped, and weeded, and trowelled for a while for the sake of appearances, figuring that if I pretended to tend about a quarter of the garden, I would have an excuse to come back tomorrow or the next day or the day after that.

I was packing my stuff together when I heard talking. Robert van Palanz had come out on the veranda with a young man wearing more hair than Jesus. They were drinking beer from cans.

Robert pointed at me and nodded, and they both laughed.

I was furious but I couldn’t afford to show it, so I smiled politely, but distantly, as I swung my bag of gardening implements over my shoulder and prepared to leave.

My eyes began to sting on my return the following day. There was a nasty smell of burning newspaper. My hands parted the bamboo hedge and I peered through. The veranda was enveloped in a dirty mist. Light-hearted curses trailed off into bouts of coughing.

I strode forth, hankie covering my mouth, intent on giving a right bollocking to a pair of prize twits.

When I reached the veranda, Robert and his hirsute mate were trying to waft away the smoke belching from Carina’s barbecue. I threw aside the flowers in the vase on the table and resolutely poured the water over the flames. There was a hiss of steam and the smoke immediately began to disperse.

“What do you idiots think you’re playing at?”

Robert van Palanz, eyes watering, arms still wafting away, coughing like crazy, managed to laugh.

He bent double, rose to his full height, and slapped himself sharply on both cheeks.

“I’m rehearsing,” he said and then, seeing from my demeanour that further explanation was called for, he brazenly announced that he intended to throw a barbecue party for his network.

“What network?”

His eyebrows arched upwards. “Do I detect a breath of scorn, a smidgeon of disbelief? You want to come?”

Carina would do her nut. I could already hear muffled shouts of complaint about the smoke from neighbours on either side.

“Barbecue’s out of the question,” I said, determined to extricate myself from blame for not averting a catastrophe.

Robert smiled in an overbearing way. “That’s none of your business,” he said. I was tempted to reveal Carina’s instructions, but I wasn’t sure she would want me to tip her hand so soon. I was boiling with frustration and it must have shown.

“Don’t get upset,” he said. “The barbecue’s there to be used. Red’s never lit one before, that’s all.”

I glared at Red.

“Newspaper and firewood,” he said in answer to my unspoken question about his modus operandi.

“What?”

“Why don’t you go and get us a couple of cold beers,” Robert said, jerking his head in the direction of the kitchen.

“I met Red in a pub in Finchley Road,” he said when Red was gone as though that was some sort of justification for the presence of a twit. “He wants to be an artist. He’s supposed to be attending an art school in London, though he’s a bit vague about it.”

“Why do you call him Red? His hair’s a shitty colour, and it would still look shitty if he washed it.”

“Red’s very clean, although his shoes do need fumigating. His name’s Redmond—Red for short.”

Robert took my hand and held it before his face as though about to kiss it. I looked him devastatingly in the eye, but he just smiled. I hadn’t noticed how white his teeth looked against the suntanned face. He had a cleft chin, thin lips and deep-set eyes, none of which would have appeared on my checklist for handsome. But I noticed for the first time how his face was enlivened by a quiet, predatory confidence. I realised that I might, at some favourable point, find him attractive.

He led me to the swing settee on the veranda overlooking the garden, and we sat down.

“This is all new to me,” he said. “This is my first time in Europe ever. I don’t know what’s expected.”

I was surprised; I knew he lived in the West Indies, but I had assumed he’d acquired his public-school accent further afield.

“I’m descended from a long line of Dutch sugar-cane planters,” he said somewhat mournfully, “but the business has been going downhill since they abolished slavery.”

My attention turned to the hanging baskets of bougainvillea and the elephant grass framing the tinkling fountain of Swedish granite that I’d had such trouble finding; I didn’t know whether he was serious and I needed a distraction to stop me having to decide.

Red returned with two armfuls of beer cans and manoeuvred all eight into an upright position on the table.

“You’re learning,” said Robert. “Fetch a couple of glasses. We’re drinking with a lady.”

Red ambled off with a knowing smirk as though he and Robert were sharing a secret.

Leaning towards me, Robert peered into my eyes and whispered a question: “What’s this Simon Bibersen like?”

I answered sharply, the way I tend to do when I’m taken by surprise. “I don’t bloody know. I’ve only met him once … briefly at a party they threw when Carina was promoted.”

“But you must know of him … of his reputation.”

That was something altogether different. Simon Bibersen of the squeaky voice and patriarchal beard that must have been false, some said, to have been worn by so relatively young a man. The newspapers had carried stories about him practically every week for years.

“He’s highly eccentric,” I said. “For instance, every new year’s day, he picks a dozen or so young girls from the staff and offers to make them his so-called morning dieticians. Their sole duty is to travel the world with him and take turns to make his breakfast, which always consists of a glass of orange juice, a cup of coffee and a croissant.”

“That doesn’t sound too onerous.”

“After a year, they’re given a bonus and fired, and he picks another dozen.”

“Don’t you have laws against unfair dismissal in this country?”

“It’s a very generous bonus.”

“And that’s all they have to do … make his breakfast?”

It was a superfluous question that didn’t even warrant a knowing look.

“You realise what he’s doing?” I said. “He doesn’t have a huge advertising budget like most companies in his line of business. He doesn’t need one: he’s making headlines all the time on account of his deliberately scandalous behaviour.”

By now, Red had returned with the glasses. “Do me a favour, mate, and pour,” Robert said over his shoulder as though he only had eyes for me and couldn’t take them away.

Red complied and handed him a glass, which he carefully guided to his lips. He sucked in the foam as though he expected it to have some aphrodisiacal effect, closing his eyes as he savoured the moment.

“I’ve invited the team from Happy Partnership to the barbecue,” he said dreamily, “and Simon Bibersen’s promised to put in an appearance.”

That caught my attention.

In the end, I stayed there all day. If I’d left the arrangements to Robert van Palanz and his mate, the barbecue would have been a catastrophe: Simon Bibersen would have been miffed, and some of their incompetence would have rubbed off on me. Not a good start if I wanted to slip my proboscis into his money tank.

I had been trying to get near him for months. It was the prime reason I had cultivated Carina (if cultivated isn’t too much of a pun for a girl in my profession). But apart from that one cocktail-party invitation, she had not let me near the great man. I suspected she knew what I wanted and enjoyed keeping me dangling. Enjoy away, darling. You might find enjoyment comes at a price.

I had explained to Robert that there was a trolley in the rustic garden shed that had been specially imported from Norway and contained absolutely everything needed to start a barbecue, and he had explained it to his mate.

“Tell the idiot not to light it until an hour before the guests are due to arrive,” I said. “And make sure he’s got a couple of bags of charcoal on hand to keep the fire going.”

“Keep your voice down,” Robert whispered. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”

That was of course the whole point—establishing a pecking order. I’d be polite and sweet when I talked to Red to his face, if I talked to him at all, but he would know deep down that I was a horrible bitch with no qualms about humbling him. Robert I would play by ear until he exposed his weaknesses.

Carina, forever ready to slip into the role of impromptu hostess, had a freezer full of expensive food, which at that particular time happened to include several boxes of prime Argentinian beef tenderloin—a cut which could be sliced into succulent steaks in sufficient quantities to satisfy the evening’s guests. Robert, having reconnoitred, was aware of this and was chuffed at the prospect of being magnanimous at Carina’s expense. Unfortunately, clever Robert had outschemed himself as, I was later to find, he often did. He had forgotten to instruct his mate to remove the tenderloin from the freezer the day before.

“You’ve got to help me out,” he said on my return the next day as he led me by the hand to the kitchen where his mate was prodding gingerly at a brick-hard length of cow’s muscle that was so frozen he hadn’t even been able to extract it from its plastic wrapping.

“I’ll get the saw,” his mate volunteered.

“Don’t be idiotic,” I said as politely as I could. “You can’t barbecue frozen meat. You’ll have to go to the butcher’s.”

Robert’s eyes glazed over in a second’s worth of panic before darting craftily from left to right and settling finally on me. He smiled cajolingly. “I know it’s asking a lot, but could you drop me off at a really good butcher’s shop.”

My first instinct was to tell him to sod off until I realised that he might have to cancel the party, which meant I would forgo the opportunity of buttering up to Simon Bibersen and his millions.

“All right,” I said. “But it’ll cost a bomb. Are you sure you can afford it?”

The purpose of the question was to make it clear that I wasn’t an easy touch, although I had the queasy feeling I might have to leave myself open to negotiation if he pleaded penury.

Anyway, if a really good butcher’s shop was what he wanted, a really good butcher’s shop he would get. So I took him to Copenhagen’s most exclusive, Boucherie Henri.

Robert got on Monsieur Henri’s wavelength immediately. It might have had something to do with his, for me, unexpected command of French. It was vexing not to be able to understand what they were talking about, especially since Robert seemed at ease discussing the relative merits of various cuts. I couldn’t have done that in English, which, at the time, was my second language.

They amiably agreed on a suitable prime cut for Robert’s party, and I watched in alarm as Henri slapped one handful of steaks on top of another (I might, after all, be expected to pay).

Monsieur Henri made some joke in French and Robert, while still laughing, produced a credit card with a flourish and slipped it into the terminal. “Come and do your stuff,” he said, turning to me.

He must have noticed my look of suspicion for he whispered: “I can’t read the lingo. The code’s nine seven zero one.”

“Don’t be silly,” I whispered back for no good reason. “One terminal’s much the same as another and this one’s bilingual anyway.”

“I’m not wearing my contacts.”

I punched in the code and stepped back, half expecting the card to be rejected, but it wasn’t.

“Au revoir, Henri,” Robert said as he took the receipt and card and handed them to me while he took the carrier bag with all the meat.

I glanced at the card. It was Carina’s. Cheeky sod, I thought. But clever, though. If Monsieur Henri had checked the name on the card, he would have seen it belonged to a woman and would have thought it was mine.

It was foolish of Carina to give him her credit card, I thought —if that’s what she’d done. Christ! I might be a party to creditcard fraud. I had to confirm my suspicions.

“How do you know her code?”

“She once bought me dinner.”

I had usurped the position of hostess. It gave me some control of events and an excuse for flitting from one guest to another, which had the double advantage of allowing me to ditch bores quickly or pump potential marks at leisure.

The Happy Partnership crew was motley to say the least: they were all male, all colours and sizes, and one of them, apart from being aged, was unable or unwilling to speak, perhaps because his mouth was fully occupied with the free food and drink.

Young females abounded—younger than me, but I was pushing twenty-six. Most of the ones I subtly questioned seemed to have been chatted up by Robert during the short time he’d been in Denmark, and they had eagerly turned over their names and telephone numbers on the promise of a party invitation. Careless, I thought: charming and witty foreigners can also be rapists or serial killers. Robert didn’t look the part, but I suppose they never do.

Simon Bibersen was accompanied by his morning dieticians, who were at the ready if he needed his grapes to be peeled. All in all, the women outnumbered the men, so even the aged dummy was set to get lucky.

I ordered Robert’s hirsute mate to keep the booze freely flowing, and waited for an opportunity to insinuate myself into the group flocking around Simon Bibersen. Robert, who was delighted at the way I had taken charge because it saved him a lot of trouble, rewarded me with a summons to a cluster of sofas where Simon was listening to the aged gentleman who, far from being bereft of speech, was holding forth in an unintelligible tongue loudly lubricated by akvavit and beer chasers.

“The old geezer’s from Lithuania,” Robert said as I squeezed in between him and one of Simon’s floozies. “He only speaks Russian. Simon’s bought a lake from him and wants to build some holiday homes. There seems to be some difference of opinion about the terms.”

“Simon’s not usually lost for words,” I said. “Does he understand Russian properly?”

“He says he can speak nine languages fluently, so I guess he does. The old geezer seems to think so.”

I had to be impressed by the rapport Robert seemed to have struck up with Simon on such short acquaintance: he was already privy to his business deals and linguistic capabilities.

“Simon’s a very clever bloke,” Robert continued, rubbing it in. “He’s got university degrees in psychology and economics, but I suppose you know that.”

I didn’t know that, but I wasn’t going to admit it. I could see by the way Robert smiled that my silence was admission in itself.

Robert lowered his voice for my ears only. “He’s got himself into a bind in La Linea de la Concepción. The Spanish are going to close the border with Gibraltar again, so he won’t be able to finish building the hotel.”

“Really,” I said, trying to look concerned although I had no idea what he was talking about.

“That’s why he’s sent Carina down there, but you know that too, you being such close friends. She’ll have to try to renegotiate the guarantees.”

I suppose I could have gone on bluffing indefinitely, but I was saved by an unexpected interruption.

“Your name’s Bella, isn’t it?” said Simon Bibersen’s squeaky voice. “My new friend Robert tells me you can help refurbish my headquarters.”

Empire of the Sun was the name of Simon Bibersen’s travel agency, which was located in a hotel of the same name.

A corner of the vast lobby was devoted to the reception desk, but the rest of the space was designed to overwhelm visiting suckers dreaming of a life—or a fortnight anyway—in various holiday paradises.

I had a clever knack of sensing individual predilections, so for Simon Bibersen’s emporium of page girls and pamphlets, bellhops and brochures, I had created a jungle of potted palms, papyrus, indoor beech, diverse cactuses, and aspidistras. He loved it and, having let me persuade him of the allure of fresh foliage, he had agreed to a two-year contract under which I would undertake to send my man Paco to tend the plants every week. I was going to rake it in and had a prestigious showcase for shafting other rich clients.

But the real money-spinner and maker of reputations, Robert assured me while he was coaxing me into taking the assignment (not that I needed coaxing), was the penthouse.

“It’s a separate building on top of the hotel with its own lift and everything. Simon uses it as his private knocking shop, and I’ve convinced him he should give it a more seductive feel. He’s commissioned me and Red to give the place a makeover.”

Robert gave me that cheeky look of his, like a stand-upper who’d just fired off a gag too subtle for the audience to understand.

“I’ve seen some great interior decorating along the length and breadth of the Caribbean so I’ve got plenty of ideas, and Red’s come up with a fabulous concept for a work of art … a wall-sized stained-glass window depicting travel across the seas to exotic destinations, except that it won’t be stained glass but something more state-of-the-art as befits a progressive company like Empire of the Sun. If you can think up some real kinky plants as a finishing touch we’ll be laughing kitbags.”

“But you’ve never done a job like this before,” I said.

“You’ve got to start somewhere.” He swiped the card through the terminal to open Simon’s private lift.

It was absurd. He would be exposed as the chancer he was when he botched the job. What were laughing kitbags anyway? I was supposed to have kept an eye on him while Carina was away. I thought I was just doing her a small self-serving favour, but he was encroaching on my life.

We ascended in silent intimacy. How had it come to that? The intimacy, I mean. Let me explain.

I had woken up beside Robert on the morning after the barbecue. My mouth felt like … you don’t want to know. Normally, I would have been horrified that I couldn't remember whether he’d bonked me or not, but I couldn’t be bothered at that moment in time.

We were lying on a pile of cushions. My garments were strewn across the floor. I slipped from beneath the blanket and gathered up my clothes before tiptoeing into the bathroom. My eyes were red and puffy and my hair looked like yellow string. I took a quick shower and dressed. It was embarrassing, and I had no other thought than to get away.

As I crept down the stairs, I could see the devastation that had been wrought on Carina’s house. Normally, I would have gone about tidying up, but not that day. I was as washed out as a used dish cloth. I opened the front door and stole outside.

I was easing the door shut when a voice behind me said: “Hello! You’re up early. I’m Arnbitter Bendtsen … at least that’s what my editor calls me.”

I spun round. “Arnbitter’s a drink.”

“I know,” he said. “It’s great for hangovers … Arne Bendtsen actually … my real name, I mean.”

“What do you want? Whatever it is, go away.”

He didn’t look as if he was going to go away.

It didn’t need acute powers of observation to realise he was a reporter: the polished shaved head and the seaman’s sweater, not to mention the generally crumpled look, were a dead giveaway and he’d deliberately tipped his hand by mentioning he was the sort of person to have an editor.

I wasn’t going to be intimidated or flattered or duped by false friendliness into telling him anything, so I swept past him down the driveway to where my van was parked; I could hear his feet scuttling along the gravel behind me. He caught me up as I was getting into the van.

“No comment,” I said as he was about to open his mouth, but he was a persistent bastard.

“Are you sure you don’t want to comment on this?”

He pushed his tablet into my face displaying the front page of the sleazy magazine he apparently worked for.

It was the next English edition. Drug orgies at Will o’ the Wisp was the big black headline. I wasn’t any the wiser until I saw the accompanying picture of Simon Bibersen lying like a naked satyr between two of his equally naked morning dieticians and, in a smaller snapshot, Robert van Palanz, slobbering over a dishevelled female resembling me.

“What’s this rubbish?” I snapped, going on the attack to conceal how fucking mortified I was.

“Don’t get your piss on the boil,” he said. “Simon Bibersen invited me over himself to take pictures and do a story. He loves this kind of stuff.”

“Will o’ the Wisp,” I said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Look at the name of this street: Lygtemandens Allé. My editor thought an English translation of Lygtemand would appeal to an English-speaking audience.

The reporter was looking pretty smug. He knew I couldn’t just drive away. He produced a hip flask and held it out. I took a swig and coughed. It was Arnbitter … a divine fusion, he explained, of cardamom, cloves, saffron and licorice root suspended in fifty per cent alcohol by volume. It seems he was an addict.

We had a long talk. I played hard to get to the point of being bellicose, but niggling at the back of my mind was the thought that he might delve into my family past if I didn’t cooperate. You see, Habermas was not my real name. If he found out about my ancestry, I would be on the front page of his filthy rag for weeks … or months.

In the end, we made a deal: he would keep my picture out of the next issue of his magazine; and I would provide him with the gossip that was the lifeblood of his rag since I belonged to Simon Bibersen’s inner circle and therefore came into contact with the rich and famous.

The first person I mentioned as being of possible interest was the man in the picture, Robert van Palanz, descendant of Dutch planters and owner of a Caribbean island.

Now I was riding up with that same Dutch descendant in the lift, which had untidy workmen’s dirty footprints all over the floor. It was a forewarning. The doors opened and I just stood there dumbfounded. It was worse than my worst fears.

“Is this supposed to be ready by the weekend?”

A carpenter, singing noisily about conservation time for the elephants, was sawing away at a plank. A bricklayer was demolishing a wall with a sledgehammer, while a plasterer was smoothing over the wall next to it. Two paperhangers were grumbling, just as noisily as the carpenter was singing, at the plasterer’s time-consuming insistence on taking pride in his job; they were waiting to slap up a swathe of velvet brocade as soon as the plasterer moved on.

Everything—the ceiling, the floor, the brocaded walls— was in hideous pink.

Robert, who immediately began surveying the room with the quick head movements of a meerkat, turned to me and shouted above the racket: “Can you get hold of some pink flowers—roses perhaps?”

I shrugged in a non-committal way. I had no intention of contributing to this visual barbarism, but I’d have to go through the motions to keep him sweet.

“I think you’re overdoing the pink,” I said. “A bright red Lilli Marlene, which is popular among rose connoisseurs, might break the monotony.”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head,” he said, no doubt aware of the belittling cliché. “The light passing through Red’s window will create wonderful nuances when it blends with the pink. Come and look at this.”

He led me to a table in an adjoining room. On it was a scale model of the finished penthouse. Red’s window was in raw primary colours. It depicted a windswept sailing ship bounding across the sea with a good likeness of Simon Bibersen standing at the helm.

“He’s making the window in sections in a garage I’ve rented. The frame’s made of brushed steel, and the actual window panes will be made of resin, which will have to be cured first, but he says he can start putting it up the day after tomorrow.”

Red’s window, which would fill an entire wall, might just work in creating a colour scheme beyond mere pink. But I had my doubts.

“It’s been tough on Red,” Robert said. He turned towards me and flashed his pearly whites. “I’m sure he’ll come through, though.”

“I’m sure he will,” I said, cementing Robert’s doubts with my lack of enthusiasm.

Robert was outwardly undeterred. He pressed a button at the back of the model. A platform bordered with pink carpeting arose from the floor. It was a circular bed which, in full scale, would be spacious enough to accommodate Simon Bibersen and his complete harem.

“This is your centrepiece,” Robert said proudly. “I want you to turn this penthouse into the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.”

“That was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World,” I said. “I’m touched by your faith in me.”

“Was it really? But you can do it, can’t you?”

“We’ll have to run over budget.”

Robert flapped his wrist like some kind of faggot.

“Do it,” which was easy for him to say, seeing it wasn’t his money I would be spending.

I intended to create a spectacular floral display. My star would rise in Simon Bibersen’s estimation, especially since plants always instilled feelings of gratitude.

I would fill every lonely space with blossoms of every hue, yellow, red and blue, and esoteric vegetation of fleshy green that would suck pollutants from the air. No blame would be attached to me when Robert’s refurbishment turned into a disaster, as it undoubtedly would.

Robert and I were standing beside the door waiting for Simon Bibersen to make his entrance on the day of the grand opening of his refurbished penthouse.

Arnbitter Bendtsen was weaselling his way around the room. The news had quickly spread that he was a reporter from a disreputable magazine, so conversation tended to fade as soon as he appeared, leaving him with nothing to misrepresent. He wasn’t on the initial guest list, but I had wangled him an invitation on the expectation that he might hear something of interest and pass it on to me. It didn’t look as if that was going to happen, but there were other things worth looking forward to.

The major event sharpening everyone’s tenterhooks was the great unveiling. A white curtain from ceiling to floor and from wall to wall concealed Simon Bibersen’s latest caprice from curious and eager eyes. It was rumoured to be a work of art by a rising international star whose name, Simon Bibersen had decreed, would remain secret until the unveiling ceremony, as would the nature of the work.

It was also rumoured that Simon Bibersen had acquired Guernica, although Picasso could hardly be called a rising star —more of a supernova since he was well and truly dead. Others had it on good authority that the curtain would reveal an installation of bent neon tubes and wire mobiles. Most plumped for a conventional painting of the sort that hung on every rich bugger’s wall, with the difference that this rich bugger could afford something over three metres high and ten metres long.

“Where’s Red?” I asked. “Shouldn’t he be part of the welcoming committee?”

“I haven’t seen him since early this morning. He’s been working all night putting up you-know-what. He looked exhausted and he kind of slunk away to get some kip.”

“Have you seen it?”

Robert looked askance. “Do me a favour! I daren’t.”

“What do you mean, you daren’t?”

“He’s using a completely new technique.”

“What about the model? It looks all right on the model.”

“He’s never tried it before on this scale.”

I could sense he had the sinking feeling his venture into the unknown territory of interior decoration was about to be scuppered by Red’s artistic incompetence. You couldn’t tell by looking at him, though. In fact, he positively beamed a welcome when the door to Simon Bibersen’s private lift hissed open and two of the maestro’s floozies pas de deuxed into the room.

They turned and curtseyed, and the maestro stepped forward, handing one of them his cane and the other the leash of his fox terrier. He bestowed a nod and a warm smile on me, and held out his hand to Robert, who looked as if he didn’t know whether to kiss it or shake it.

“It’s a lot pinker than it looks in the model,” Simon Bibersen warbled as he disengaged his hand and began to stroll around the penthouse followed by his full entourage of morning dieticians. “But I do like your plants, Bella, especially this bower suspended from the ceiling where the bed comes through the floor.”

I smiled graciously. Nothing I could have done, save providing plants made of polyvinyl chloride, wouldn’t have looked better than good against the background of Robert’s amateurism.

Simon ended his stroll, as we all knew he would, at the curtain.

“Is this the work of art?”

Robert nodded.

Simon Bibersen made a sign whereupon his currently favourite morning dietician hurried forward to haul up the curtain.

She stepped back and snickered, as well she might. An epic feeling of schadenfreude enveloped me. The vibrant colours of the window depicted in Red’s model had dissolved into watery pastels hardly distinguishable from one another, and the forceful lines of the ship, the sails and the rigging looked as if they had fallen victim to the shaking hand of a draughtsman in the throes of delirium tremens. Simon Bibersen’s face, which Red had managed to transform into a drooping gargoyle in the manner of Salvador Dali on a day technique had deserted him, was disastrously recognisable in the image of the captain at the helm.

Simon Bibersen turned to Robert. He was cold-eyed and unsmiling.

“It’s not much like the model.”

Robert put on a brave face. “Improvisation,” he said. “One has to allow for some artistic licence.”

Simon Bibersen turned to me me. “I am reminded of the words of Tom Kristensen. I’m sure you’re familiar with him.”

“Most definitely.”

Simon Bibersen, now facing the assembled guests, declaimed in his squeaky voice.

“I have longed for maritime disasters and for havoc and sudden death.”

Robert tugged at my sleeve.

“What’s he on about?”

“Tom Kristensen … a famous Danish poet and author,” I said. “He was known as the poet of anxiety ... one of his best known poems is Angst, a bit of which appeared in the novel Havoc … that’s what he’s quoting from.”

“You’re very erudite.”

“Not at all. I went to a Danish school, that’s all.”

“Then everybody knows this poem?”

I shrugged. Of course they didn’t, except as a dim memory of some boring lesson about Danish literature. But for Robert, apparently, a shrug meant ‘yes’.

“Bravo!” he shouted and began to clap enthusiastically.

The sound echoed from the pink-brocaded walls of the silent penthouse with such solitary persistence that one of the exclusive guests felt compelled to relieve the embarrassment by joining in. And then, after a self-conscious five seconds or so, they were all at it, clapping like crazy.

“Well worth the money,” I heard Simon Bibersen murmur.

At that moment, my estimation of Robert van Palanz’s ability to fuck people over rose no end.

I had placed Arnbitter Bendtsen’s listening devices in the reservoirs that kept my plants moist. It was a deliberate act of sabotage on my part that might or might not pay dividends at some point in the future.

We had agreed to rendezvous in one of those greasy brown hangouts favoured by boozy journalists.

“My bugs don’t seem to be working,” he said. “You know anything about that?”

“I did just as you said. I’m sure I did. Honest.”

“Did you or didn't you? You don’t sound too confident.”

“Of course I did. You must be getting some reception.”

My earnestness seemed to placate him. Of course he was getting some reception—the sort a goldfish in a bowl might.

“Well, I am getting a little bit of info … short snatches of conversation and the odd word. Simon Bibersen isn’t pleased with the news from Spain,. You might be able to help me out.”

He put his palms together beseechingly as through helping him out was no big deal, but I wasn’t born yesterday. He would as likely as not want something that would upset Simon Bibersen. Upsetting my new patron was the last thing I wanted. On the other hand, I didn’t want compromising pictures of myself on the front page of Arnbitter’s disgusting mag or, worse still, circulating the web—accompanied by my family history.

“What do you have in mind?”

He edged closer. “You have access to the penthouse. Break open his desk and filing cabinets. Look for memos, contracts, anything.”

“What century are you in? This is the information age … the age of the computer. Nobody writes anything down on paper anymore.”

Arnbitter’s eyes narrowed to a crafty slit. “Simon Bibersen does. He keeps electronic communication to a minimum because he knows … we all know … that everything is monitored and anything can be hacked. Hacking … that’s how I know he’s not pleased.”

“You’re not making sense. If he puts everything on paper, what was there for you to hack?”

He seemed determined to annoy me with his clever-bastard smirk. “Not him … I hacked your friend Carina Hesselbach. She’s careless with her cell-phone encryption. It seems she can’t persuade a Spanish bank to do something or other involving a building consortium.”

“She must have said more than that. She talks like a waterfall.”

“She just said: the courier leaves tonight. That’s the point: she uses a courier, who commutes back and forth with reports and instructions written on the backs of envelopes for all I know. That’s where you come in. You’ve got to get them for me.”

I assumed an anxious expression. “That’s illegal. I won’t do anything illegal.”

“Now you wouldn’t want me to publish Drug orgies at Will o' the Wisp, would you?”

It would have been uplifting to condemn Arnbitter for blackmailing me, except that a bit of breaking and entering didn’t bother me much, or at all really, as long as I didn’t get caught. But I couldn’t let him know that because if he understood my mind-set, there would be no end to the preposterousness of his demands.

He thought he had me by the nipples, and I tried to make it look as if he had by pretending dismay, but I was just as curious as he was about Simon Bibersen’s affairs, and I would have the advantage of controlling the flow of information.

It wasn’t strictly speaking breaking and entering since Paco, my trusted expert on cacti and semi-tropical plants, had a swipe card to Simon Bibersen’s penthouse. I went along on the pretence of showing him the ropes on his first day of tending the plants at the Empire of the Sun building.

I had observed there was a key-safe by the lift, and I asked Paco to open it, which he did without demur. I took any keys that looked as if they might fit desk drawers or cabinets. So far, so good.