The Hotel Riviera (16 page)

They were sitting together on the deck, the dog stretched out beside them, snoring gently. The inky sky was bright with stars and a half-moon that looked as though someone had pinned it up there. The sea rippled silkily, rocking the small boat, and a soft wind rattled in the halyards.

“Have you ever slept on the deck of a boat?” Jack asked.

She turned to look at him. He was lying on his back, his hands under his head, gazing at the stars. “No.”

“It's the best. It's just you and the sky and the breeze. When the sun comes up it touches your eyelids, warm as a kiss.”

She rolled over onto her stomach, chin propped in her hand, looking down at him. “It really does that?”

“Yup.”

She rolled back again. “I want the sun to kiss my eyelids,” she sighed. “I want to feel that kiss.”

“And so you shall, Cinderella,” he said, and went off to fetch blankets and pillows. He arranged the pillows under her head, and put the blanket over her, then knelt beside her.

“It was Giselle,” she said. “I'm certain of it. She was jealous of me because of Patrick.”

“More likely she got her friend to do it,” Jack said.

“Don't go away.” She clutched his hand.

“I'm staying right here.”

“Good,” she whispered, closing her eyes.

When he was sure she was sleeping, Jack walked to the bow. He stared out over the dark sea, worrying about what might happen next.

After a while, he poured himself a brandy, then went back and sat beside Lola. He thought, with that little stab of tenderness again, she looked the way she must have as a child.

He lay down beside her, liking the feel of the breeze on his skin and the familiar slap of the sea on the sloop's hull. He thought of Sugar and all the girls before her, and of how he'd enjoyed their company a board the
Bad Dog.
But he had never felt like this before.

He was awake before the sun kissed Lola's eyelids. He sat up and looked at her in the soft gray light. She was still sleeping. He got up quietly, went down the steps to the cabin, took a quick shower, and put on the coffee. She was just stirring when he came back. The sun was peeking over the horizon and her eyes were still closed, but she was smiling. “I felt it,” she said. “I felt the sun kiss me.”

“How was it?”

“Good. It made me feel…good.”

“Now you know why I like being on a boat.”

She sat up and ran her hands through her tousled hair. “Don't look at me, I'm a mess,” she said, knowing it was true.

“I'm not looking,” he said. “I'm just the room-service guy.”

Lola looked at the tray he was carrying. A pot of coffee, two mismatched mugs, two boiled eggs propped up in shot glasses, a paper plate with toast, cut into “soldiers” and oozing butter. She looked back up at Jack.

“It'll make you feel better,” Jack said.

She nodded, smiling. “It will,” she said. “I promise.”

Miss N

Miss Nightingale rather enjoyed the tiny Fiat she'd rented for her trip up the coast. It reminded her of her own Mini Cooper, though her little car was a daring red, not the everlasting silver like this one. She hadn't hesitated about the color when she'd bought her car a year ago, though she'd imagined Tom saying, now why do you want to get red, you'll catch the eye of every cop from Blakelys to London, and with your speeding, Mollie, you'll have more tickets than a theater kiosk. But of course Tom had not been thereto caution her, and anyhow she rarely went to London anymore. When she did she took the train from Oxford to Paddington. It was so much easier than trying to park in the city these days.

So, red it was, a nice flashy scarlet that everybody in the village recognized. They waved to her, smiling the way they used to when she roared past on the back of Tom's turquoise Harley, probably showing more leg than was proper for her age, though her face was hidden by the safety helmet that always gave her claustrophobia. She hadn't been able to bear to get rid of the Harley; she polished its chrome every week until it looked as though it belonged on the showroom floor and not in her own little stone garage that had once been a gardener's shed.

She was thinking of Lola though, not Tom, as she drove along the autoroute toward Cap-Ferrat, where she planned to take another look at the old Leonie Bahri villa, abandoned and almost lost under an invasion of clambering vines. There was a “Private, Keep Out” notice tacked to the big iron gates but Miss N ignored it in the belief that no one could accuse a woman of her years of planning on stealing anything, other than a cutting or two from some of the plants that still flourished in the chaotic gardens. She made no attempt to get inside the villa; that would have been wrong. And since the windows were dirty and obscured by vines she couldn't even see in.

Leonie's villa intrigued her almost as much as did the disappearance of Patrick Laforêt, though of course, without the ominous present-day consequences of what might have happened to Lola's husband. Leonie Bahri was part of the past, but her story had been written up in the local newspapers and preserved in their morgue for any researcher to read. There were even pictures, soft focus and too old and blurry to make out very clearly, other than that Leonie was a tall woman with a torrent of blond hair rippling to her waist, like the women in Dante Gabriel Rossetti's paintings. Some pictures showed her dressed in what must have been the latest Paris fashions, hatted and gloved but still somehow looking like the “wild child” of her reputation.

Leonie's villa had once been La Vieille Auberge, white, foursquare and green-shuttered, set amid a riotous garden on a rocky olive-studded slope leading to the sea. Now it was abandoned, pillars crumbling, roof tiles missing and no doubt letting in the winter rains.

Still, there was something magical about this place, Miss Nightingale thought, as she wandered the half-hidden paths through the once spectacular terraced gardens. It was a place of peace and silence, its secrets hidden forever.

She knew that Leonie had planted these gardens herself. She had also transformed the old place into a charming hotel just the way Lola had; and Leonie had been abandoned by her lover, the way Lola had. Were there more similarities between the two women? Miss Nightingale wished she knew more about Leonie's story than just the ones in the local papers, that said Leonie had been a star of the musical stage, a woman with a reputation, a woman with a powerful lover; a woman who had loved too often and too unwisely.

No matter, she put all thoughts of Leonie out of her head, swept the clutter of dried leaves from an old stone bench, and took a seat in the shade of an old flowering jacaranda tree. The only sounds were of birds and the faint thud of the sea against the rocky shore. She closed her eyes, at peace with the world.

When Miss Nightingale awoke the sky had changed from early morning gold to the hard bright blue of a hot afternoon. Refreshed, she got to her feet, not without a creak or two of the knees. Goodness, she thought, it must be lunchtime and you know how the French are. If you're not there by ten minutes to two they'll refuse to serve you. Going off to have their own lunch, she supposed. Still, perhaps she'd be a little more adventurous today, press on over the border into Italy. It wasn't a long drive and nobody ever refused a woman a meal in Italy, regardless of the time.

As she turned to leave, she caught sight of a small marble slab beneath the jacaranda tree. Getting onto her creaky knees, she dusted it off with her linen handkerchief and put on her glasses.

A little cat was carved into the marble. Small and slender with pointed ears and a triangular face, it lay, half-curled on its back, paws akimbo, head coquettishly to one side. It was so charming it made her smile. She leaned closer to read the inscription. “Bébé,” it said. “Always in my heart.”

Bébé must have been Leonie's cat, and in truth the animal had a look of the woman in the photos: the pointed face, the grace, the pose of the eternal coquette. So, Leonie had buried her “baby,” for that was the cat's name, under this very tree where they'd probably sat together, just the way she had today, looking out to sea and dreaming away the afternoon.

Miss Nightingale gave the little stone cat a goodbye pat, then wandered back through the garden to the quiet road. She closed the rusting iron gates carefully behind her, not wanting others to discover her private place, then she got back into the car and returned to the autoroute, heading east.

“Italy,” she said to herself, smiling, “what an adventure.”

The little Fiat chugged up the steep curves of the sea road, skimming round hairpin bends with views that, if you lost concentration for a split second, were literally to die for. Miss Nightingale had no such qualms, she could have driven roads like this all day, and possibly all night, without flinching at the sight of the sheer drop on her right and the huge trucks roaring past on her left. The drive was longer than she had thought, though, and she pressed her foot to the metal, urging the small car on.

When she finally crossed the border at Ventimiglia she realized it was too late to go any farther. Heading for the seafront, she slid the Fiat into a too small parking space, congratulating herself on her excellent driving. She found a small clean-looking café and ordered lasagna and a glass of lemonade.

Nothing like ice-cold lemonade on a hot afternoon, she thought, glancing around at her neighbors. No tourists here, just local workingmen hunched over a game of chess and a couple of grandmotherly types, like herself, she supposed, except they had the luxury of taking care of their grandchildren for the afternoon. Ah well, she'd had “her girls” at Queen Wilhelmina's for all those years and their memories took the place of grandchildren in her life.

She toyed with the lasagna. It was the first time she'd eaten a bad meal in Italy, though she'd stayed at
pensiones
and
albergos
throughout that land for many years. Even the lemonade was bad, sharp and acidic and not cold enough. Her little adventure had turned out to be not such an adventure after all, and now she had to face the long drive back. Sighing, she paid her bill, leaving an adequate tip even though they didn't deserve it. She decided to stretch her legs before driving on.

The new Ducati 748S parked near the café caught her eye immediately. She thought how Tom would have loved it. Slim, sleek, powerful, the epitome of motorcycle design. “Ducatis cost a small fortune,” he'd told her, “sort of the Ferrari of the biker set.”

Miss Nightingale walked in little circles, admiring the gray Ducati with bright red wheels from every angle. She wondered whom it belonged to. Then, smiling to herself, she walked on. A brisk ten-minute stroll and she would be on her way.

Tying the ribbons of her straw hat firmly under her chin, she stared around the square looking for something to admire: a statue, a store, an old carved doorway, but there was nothing and she wandered back to the parking area.

The owner of the Ducati straddled the bike. Miss Nightingale paused to look. Actually, her feet just stopped moving. She was frozen to the spot.

The Ducati owner put on his helmet. He looked right and left, checked behind. For a brief second he glanced Miss Nightingale's way, then he roared down the street and was gone.

Miss Nightingale's nostrils narrowed like a hound sniffing the scent. She took off her glasses and polished them. She put them back on her nose and stared down the cobbled street as though expecting him to return. She took a little leather notebook from her handbag and wrote down the motorcycle's number. She had learned a thing or two from her Tom, after all.

And the man on the expensive Ducati was Patrick Laforêt or she'd eat her straw hat.

Patrick

Something Patrick Laforêt loved almost as much as he loved women was speed. Especially on a machine like the one between his knees right now, with the exhaust pipes under the seat roaring like a jet at takeoff.

The Ducati 748S was a beauty, sleek as a stealth fighter-jet with its matte-gray paint job and red magnesium wheels. There was nothing to beat it, except maybe his Porsche. He regretted losing that Porsche but Evgenia had said it had to go. It was too easy to trace to him. She was right, of course. Evgenia was always right. She seemed to know about these things, the way other women know how to look after a baby.

He revved the engine as he drove onto the autoroute, streaking past the competition, leaving them in his dust like the ordinary people they were. Ordinary meaning poor. Patrick knew what it felt like to be poor and it was not a good feeling. Being broke did not make him happy; he was a man who enjoyed the finer things in life and the respect that money brings. He'd struggled with that problem for a long time, sometimes up and sometimes down, but now the future was all set to be up.

He patted the envelope tucked into the inner pocket of his denim jacket, feeling its edges hard against his chest. Evgenia had done it again; their nest egg was growing, but not fast enough for her. She was as ambitious as he was and twice as ruthless. For instance, he could never have come up with the plan she had devised, never in a million years. Maybe you had to be Russian, or a woman, or both, to come up with a scheme like that. Or maybe you just had to be beautiful enough to get away with it.

It was her beauty that had taken his eye, of course, the first time he'd seen her, lunching at Club 55. Le Cinquantacinque was the glitterati's favorite afternoon beach rendezvous. Everyone who was anyone and who was in Saint-Tropez or on their yacht came to the Cinquantacinque's terrace for lunch. There were flowers on the tables and champagne in silver coolers, and the best bodies clad in the best designer bikinis and shirts and sandals you'd see any where in the world.

It was a year ago. Patrick was sitting at a table under the white canvas awning, alone for once, since the guy who was supposed to meet him, and whom he was about to ask for a serious loan, had not shown up. Probably gotten wind of what was to come, he thought, gloomily sipping a beer.

Now he was stuck with having to pay for his own lunch, and though they knew him well here, they were not happy to have him taking up an important table that could be turned over more profitably. He understood. The season was short, everyone had to make their money while they could.

He finished his beer and was contemplating moving on, lunch less, when he spotted the windblown blonde standing at the front of the motor launch cutting through the water, heading for the club. The boat was a Riva, slim as a cigarette, enameled a bright yellow that matched the blonde's bikini. She was as tall as any Las Vegas showgirl. And diamond studded. And knockout gorgeous.

“Rich girl” was written all over her but that was just an extra added attraction. She stalked past his table, following the maître d'.” Like a hound rising to the scent, Patrick's sexual antennae reached out to her. She stopped dead and looked into his eyes.

“Is this seat taken?” she asked, with her hand on the back of the chair.

He shook his head. “I'm alone.”

“I'm Evgenia,” she said, in a voice like slow-poured cream, as electricity flickered between them. “And who are you?”

They didn't bother with lunch after all. They slipped out of the beach club and into his Porsche and to a little pied-à-terre he kept in the hills above town for just such moments as this. Electricity played no part in their “lovemaking.” An earthier word would have been more suitable for their mating, for their hungry cries and her passionate screams. Patrick had never had a woman like her; Evgenia had never had a man like him. And she wanted to keep him. Forever.

They had been lovers for three months when the plan evolved in the aftermath of their love-play. They were lying on the crumpled sheets, she smoking her everlasting Gitanes filters, he stretched out, arms behind his head, still wet with sweat and sex.

“It's very simple,” she said in that throaty whisper with an accent that sometimes sounded almost comic in its Russianness, as though she were playing the beautiful spy in a Hollywood spoof. And then she explained how simple it was. Patrick would get his land back and his hotel. She knew this was important to him because he'd told her so, endlessly. She could manipulate Solis; he would do anything at this point, he was so besotted with her. But not for much longer, not when he found out, as he would soon, that she had been selling jewels and cars and furs and stashing the money. “I'll just have to get rid of Solis,” she said.

Patrick laughed, not taking her seriously. She'd thought it all out, though. She and Solis would go for a late-evening cruise along the coast, as they often did. The
Agamemnon
crew always went to their own quarters early. Solis liked to be left alone with her on deck. She would choose a moonless night, perhaps lure him to the rail—to look at the dolphins, she'd say. She'd make sure he drank a lot, add a little extra something to his drink…he was an old man, and even though he was big, she was stronger, and besides she'd catch him off guard. Just one big push and it would be over. And she would be free. It would be easy.

“And then,” she said, crouching over Patrick and staring into his eyes, “you will get rid of your wife.”

Shocked out of this dream of lust and money, Patrick paced the floor, naked and angry, demanding to know what kind of creature she was, how could she even think of such a thing. He would divorce Lola, never
kill
her.

But Evgenia had learned long ago always to watch her back. “Look at it from my point of view, darling Patrick,” she coaxed. “If I run off with you, I'll get nothing. And trust me, darling, I'm not a woman who can be poor. I have to kill Solis.”

He groaned and she pushed him away. “Don't pretend, we're alike, you and I, Patrick,” she said. “Think about this. I leave Solis, I have no money. You divorce Lola, it'll take years in the courts and she'll take you to the cleaners. We would be
poor,
Patrick. And how long do you suppose our ‘love' would last then? A year, six months, a week?”

He buried his face in the pillow and she knelt to whisper in his ear.

“It's time to get real, sweetheart. If I kill Solis, you'll be the only one who knows about it. Someday, who knows, maybe you'll get jealous. We'll have a fight and you'll tell the police what I did. You'll accuse me of murder. Hah! I'm not stupid enough to allow that, my darling Patrick. Oh no, it's tit for tat. I kill, you kill. I can never tell on you, you can never tell on me. And
we
get all the money.”

She lay next to him, stroking his back, dropping soft wet kisses on the muscles of his shoulders. “Right, Patrick?”

“I can't do it.”

She flung herself from the bed and began throwing on her clothes. “If you think I'm going to waste my life being a married man's mistress, Patrick, then you are mistaken.”

She paused at the door, looked back at him, eyes burning. “You'll never see me again.”

Patrick thought fleetingly of Lola. “I'll think about it,” he agreed, stalling for time. He couldn't bear to lose Evgenia. She had him under her spell, the way certain women have with men from the beginning of time. He belonged to her.