Divas (45 page)

Lola was the last person off the ferry, but the openly appreciative stares of the captain and crew, the uniformed man waiting for her to walk down the wide gangplank, showed nothing but approval
for her appearance. On dry land again, she headed up the main street of Bellagio village towards the Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni, where she got the doorman to call her a taxi. Above them, a
helicopter buzzed noisily, flying over the lake to the hills beyond, like a huge dragonfly, so low she could almost see the markings on its undercarriage.

‘Villa Aurora, ’ she said to the driver as he pulled up.

The doorman jumped to open the door for her, and the driver raised his eyebrows, impressed at her destination. The cab swung round the small turning circle outside the elegant frontage of the
Villa Serbelloni, climbing the hill behind the village, describing a few steep curves descending on the far side before taking a narrow, unmarked turn and stopping just a hundred yards later in
front of a high metal security gate set in a hedge so thick that it was quite impossible to know what lay beyond. There was no sign, nothing to indicate that this was indeed the Villa Aurora, but
certainly all the cab drivers from here to Como knew how to find the entrance to one of the grandest and most expensive private residences on the whole of Lake Como.

Lola was already climbing out of the car. Heart in her mouth, she walked up to the intercom button set in the wall next to the gate, pressing it. When it buzzed to life, she said clearly:

‘It’s Lola Fitzgerald. For Mr van der Veer.’

Above her head, a security camera swivelled, angling down, getting a good view of her as she stood there, the fingers of her left hand in her jeans pocket, the index and middle fingers clamped
so tightly together she could barely feel them any more.

There was no answer. No request for her to repeat her name. Just a long, long silence, so prolonged that Lola began to fear that they would just make her stand out there while endless time
passed, while the sun climbed higher in the blue sky, till she realised that she would never be admitted to Villa Aurora.

And then, finally, just as she really was giving up hope, the gate mechanism whirred into motion. Her heart surging in excitement, she stepped back, hoping she hadn’t misheard.

But no, it hadn’t been a mirage. The gates were sliding away from her, opening up.

She was inside.

‘M
amma mia,
’ muttered the driver, who knew where Villa Aurora was, but clearly had never seen it before.

This isn’t even the best part
, Lola reflected.
This is really only the back of the villa. The front gives onto the lake; these houses were all designed to be approached from the
water.

But even the rear of Villa Aurora was enough to take your breath away. As a hotel, it would have been superb; as a private residence, it was stunningly impressive, a Palladian villa. With its
white marble colonnades, its high gracious windows, it was like something out of a fairy tale. The drive was immaculately groomed, the gravel glittering like mica in the sun, bordered by perfectly
clipped hedges and miniature formal Italian gardens on each side. In the centre was a turning circle, its grass sleek with daily watering, and a huge marble fountain, in the centre the goddess
Pomona, pouring out water into a marble basin as big as a bathtub, surrounded by attendant nymphs.

The cab stopped in front of the wide marble staircase that led up to the main door, and the driver was already jumping out with alacrity to open the door for her. She tipped him well, for
luck.

A wrought-iron bell-pull hung beside the big carved door, and she tugged on it, hearing an old-fashioned bell clang dully somewhere deep within the villa. Eventually, she heard footsteps
approaching, and not in any great hurry. One of the double doors swung open gradually, and beyond it stood Villa Aurora’s housekeeper, a middle-aged woman in a black dress, with nicely
groomed hair and very good gold jewellery, staring at Lola with utter and absolute disapproval in her beady dark eyes.

And suddenly, it all came flooding back to Lola. The last time she’d been here, with Jean-Marc. And the time before. Both with groups of friends, all party animals, all determined to live
life to the full, no matter how many drugs they had to take, or how much chaos they created for the staff. Skinny-dipping off the pier, drunken excursions in the speedboats. Chopping up lines in
full view of everyone who worked at the villa, on the polished travertine tables meant only for displaying the exquisite collection of Buhl candelabra that Jean-Marc’s family had assembled
over centuries. Bed-swapping, orgies; Lola hadn’t participated in those, but she’d known about them and laughed at the stories. Roaringly loud music, crates of vintage champagne emptied
in an instant as Jean-Marc yelled for more, glasses smashed everywhere. Some incredibly valuable vase had been broken, she remembered. Two crazy Swiss girls had surfed down the main staircase
naked, sitting on trays, and then had a cat fight in the swimming pool and nearly drowned; hadn’t they had to call a doctor? She knew a doctor had been called for
someone
. . .

They must have left the staff with weeks of work just to clear up after the mess they’d made.

‘Um, Maria?’ Lola began, not even knowing how to apologise for what she’d done.

‘
Marta
, ’ the woman corrected, folding her hands in front of her, her glare intensifying.

‘Marta.
Sorry.
’ Instantly, Lola was wrong-footed.
‘Really
sorry I got your name wrong. And I’m so sorry too for – for all the mess we made when we
visited before—’ Lola attempted.

‘That is your affair, ’ Marta said coldly. ‘It is not my business. My business is to look after the family.’

She gestured beyond her, to the main living-room that led onto the spectacular terrace.

‘Mr Niels is waiting for you, ’ she said.

How could I have forgotten about the parties we threw here?
Lola thought guiltily as she walked across the entrance hall, her shoes echoing on the marble floor.
Because I was off my
face most of the time. Too off my face to wonder why Jean-Marc and I never ended up sleeping together.

Huge, priceless embroidered silk tapestries hung on either side of the hall, depicting Perseus fighting the sea monster to rescue Andromeda; on the left, Perseus was swooping down on the
monster, sword in hand; on the right, he was unchaining Andromeda, who was swooning into his arms, her bosoms falling out of her dress in relief. They were 15th-century, truly priceless, and Lola
had a horrible flash of memory associated with them: some girl at one of the parties grabbing the deep gold silk fringe that hung below each tapestry and trying to swing on them.

And had Lola done anything to stop her? She didn’t think so. She’d probably yelled some laughing encouragement and poured more champagne down the back of her throat.

I must have been loaded the whole time,
she thought in shame.
No wonder Marta made it very clear she didn’t want to let me in.

‘What the
hell
are you doing in Italy?’ Niels demanded the moment she crossed the threshold into the main reception room. ‘I seem to remember us laying down a
considerable sum to guarantee your bail! Five hundred thousand, wasn’t it? And you had to surrender your goddamn passport! What the
hell
are you doing out of America? Do the
authorities know about this?’

God,
nothing
gets past Niels,
Lola realised.
Jean-Marc sorted out my bail. I didn’t even realise Niels was involved. He must check on everything Jean-Marc does
nowadays
. . .

She stood in the doorway, looking at Niels. His back was to the terrace, to the sun, so his face was in shadow, and she couldn’t see his expression. But she didn’t really need to.
She was sure he was glowering at her. He was dressed more casually than she had ever seen him, in jeans and a long-sleeved black T-shirt, rolled up to just below his elbows, revealing his muscled
forearms, while the jeans showed off his slim hips and strong thighs.

She gulped. For some reason, the thought of Niels’s thighs always sent her into temporary paralysis.

‘Hello! Wake up!’ Niels actually snapped his fingers at her, which was so annoying that it did have the effect of bringing her out of her momentary trance. ‘Are you going to
explain yourself, or are you just going to stand there gaping like a goldfish?’

Oh, thank God
. He’d made her angry. At least this way she could talk back to him.

‘I am
not
gaping like a goldfish!’ she said crossly. ‘I’m just trying to get a word in edgewise!’ She cleared her throat. ‘I did jump bail, ’ she
admitted. ‘I’m not supposed to leave the States. But it was for a really good reason. I—’

Niels strode across the room to the terrace, flinging open the doors.

‘
Five million dollars!’
he exploded. ‘You realise that’s what we’ll have to pay for this little exploit of yours? Five million dollars, because you got bored
in New York and thought you wanted to pop over to get a little Italian sunshine! You’re not even a member of the family any more, now that you’re not my brother’s future wife! But
somehow, we’ve ended up covering your legal fees, your living expenses—’

‘Actually,
Jean-Marc
’s doing that, ’ Lola retorted furiously. ‘Out of his trust fund, which has nothing to do with you. And he’s doing it because he’s
my best friend in the world, and also, frankly, because he completely humiliated me by getting engaged to me and sneaking off to have sex with boys in a tranny’s drug den. Which if it had
happened to a sister of yours, you’d be absolutely
furious
about!’

Niels stood with his back to her, staring out over Lake Como, his shoulders bunched with tension.

‘You and Jean-Marc, ’ he muttered. ‘I don’t understand it. I don’t understand why you got engaged. I don’t understand how you could possibly have considered
marrying each other.’

‘It seemed like a good idea at the time, ’ Lola said rather feebly.

‘So are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?’ he asked eventually, still not turning to look at her. ‘How did you even know how to
find
me, for God’s
sake! I only arrived half an hour ago myself!’

‘I rang your office and said I was calling from Cascabel, Jean-Marc’s rehab centre, ’ Lola admitted. ‘I said I needed to talk to you when you were in a private setting,
not the office or travelling, and eventually they gave me this number and said you’d be here after nine, and I worked out it was the area code for Como. So I knew you must be coming here, to
the villa.’

‘Very super-spy, ’ Niels said sarcastically. ‘Well, at least I don’t have to worry about that call I was expecting from Cascabel any longer. Why didn’t you just say
who you were, instead of going through that elaborate pretence?’

‘Because, ’ she said frankly, ‘I didn’t think you’d want your office to give me any information about where you were. I thought you’d have told them to hang
up on me if I said who I was.’

Niels raised a hand and rubbed his forehead as if he were trying to get rid of a headache. Then he stepped outside, onto the terrace. Lola watched him walk away, admiring his strong, muscled
back, his firm buttocks taut in the faded jeans. God, ever since she’d met Niels – or, to be honest, had sex with Niels – she’d turned into some sort of sex addict.

No!
she told herself firmly.
No no no! I mustn’t think about having sex with Niels when I’m talking to him
. . .
I’ll get all embarrassed and distracted and
forget what I need to say
. . .

Niels was leaning on the balustrade of the terrace, looking over the waters of the three lakes below. Villa Aurora was exceptionally placed, high up at the tip of the Bellagio promontory,
affording it panoramic, sweeping views over the lake. Beyond, high wooded hills rose steeply on each side of the water, rich and lush.

‘So, ’ Niels said finally, still not looking round at her.

He’s barely looked at me since I came in,
Lola thought forlornly.
He must really hate me
.

‘You’d better tell me what’s going on, ’ he continued. ‘Obviously something is, and obviously I’m not going to get away without hearing it. So let’s get
it over with, eh?’

It wasn’t a promising start, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. As succinctly as she could, Lola told him everything, in the way she had been rehearsing on the whole long train and
boat journey up from Rome. The story of what had happened the day of her father’s death, how Joe had manoeuvred her into touching the syringe and the insulin. His accusation, which had caused
her arrest. Her lawyers’ concern that with the fingerprint evidence and his testimony, she was in real danger of being convicted for a crime she hadn’t committed – the murder of
her father, no less.

And her own determination to track down Joe and confront him, to plead with him and convince him to tell the truth.

There was a wrought-iron table on the terrace, four matching chairs around it, padded linen covers tied over them, a big parasol standing in the centre, its white canvas umbrella opened already
to provide shade from the morning sun. Lola walked over to the table and set her bag down, pulling out from it the contract that Joe had signed, anchoring it under her phone so that it
wouldn’t blow away in the light breeze.

‘There it is, ’ she said. ‘Read it. You’ll see.’

Niels turned around at last, resting his arms along the balustrade. The breeze caught his dark-blond hair, ruffling it up, and she thought he looked as if he had been somewhere hot in the past
couple of weeks: his skin was tanned, the golden hairs on his arms glinting in the sun.

I must
not
stare at his forearms,
Lola told herself firmly.
I must
not.

‘Lola, ’ he said wearily, ‘all that contract proves is that you paid some corrupt little man a lot of money, and agreed to pay him a small fortune if he lies for you on the
witness stand.’