One Way or Another(63)
He stood for a minute, wondering who might have left this house and all its valuables open to any passerby who, like him, might just try the door. Why did Ahmet not have guards? Why had Martha not arranged for that?
It was getting darker now as night approached. He opened the door, praying an alarm would not go off and leave him stranded, waiting for the police to arrive and arrest him. Of course he could talk his way out of that but all he wanted right now was to get back to Brixton, head for the pub and his mates and that oh so welcome pint, and f*ck all this Marshmallows stuff. Fuck these marshes where tiny white lights now flickered, like ghost lanterns, on then off again, randomly, eerily.
This place was creepy by day; at night it could really get to you. He told himself he’d just get his file and get out of there, f*ck the cops, and Ahmet and his Marshmallows. He could keep it. Well, not exactly, and he had to get his file so he could keep up with the work on the yacht, the party, the planned ball. All his freakin’ life was in that file.
He stepped inside, walked quickly to the staircase. His file was not there. He stood for a moment, stunned. He had left it there, he was sure of it. Where else could he have put it? He had not so much as set foot upstairs; the only other place was the kitchen.
Reluctantly, he walked the length of the hallway to the very back, where the kitchen was located. He pushed open the door, and took a step inside before he saw her. Mehitabel. Lit by a single light bulb over the counter.
Holding a tray with a bowl of soup, a crust of baguette, a linen napkin, utensils, and a glass of red wine. He might have thought she was going to have a simple supper alone except she was wearing a slinky long green satin evening dress and more jewels than he had ever seen on a woman before. She looked, he thought, absolutely stunning. Or at least she would have, had she not been staring so malevolently at him he actually felt frightened of her.
“Well?” she asked, stopping him dead in his tracks.
“Er, oh, well, I mean, it’s me, Morrie, the decorator, I left my contact book, my notes. On the … well I thought on the stairs.”
“They are on the table.”
Her eyes moved to where they were. He followed her gaze, transfixed, went and retrieved them, turned abruptly, thanked her and quickly walked to the door. He felt her eyes on him all the way, boring into him. It was as though she were touching him, he thought with a shudder. He was glad to get out of Marshmallows, climb back in his car, swing round the driveway, gravel spitting from his tires as he took off. It was only when he glanced back that he noticed a light in the house. He thought it must be coming from the attic, right under where the herons nested. He didn’t stop to think about it, but later, when he did, thought it must be Mehitabel’s room. He just got the hell out of there before darkness settled over the marshes and life disappeared.
44
The next evening Ahmet was at Marshmallows again, alone in the room he called his library simply because two walls were lined with shelves containing a “bought-in” selection of leather-bound books of the “quick and easy kind” a cheap decorator might purchase for effect and certainly not for reading. In fact Ahmet’s personal choice of reading matter, oddly, was Agatha Christie’s mystery novels, which he kept in an old Vuitton trunk, used now as a side table topped with a squat dark-shaded bronze lamp. Ahmet liked his lighting dim; bright light hurt his eyes and whenever he was out or in overlit areas he wore the dark glasses that had become his signature.
Now, though, he lay back in his red leather wing chair, eyes uncovered but half closed, contemplating the future and what he was about to do to Angie, and what he wanted to do to Lucy, and how he might achieve both those goals without leaving a body to be found, and persuading a young woman to become his wife. His treasure. A jewel he might show off so they could say lucky Ahmet, he’s surely the man with everything … all the money in the world, a grand yacht, a mansion, the giver of sumptuous parties, everybody’s friend—and now the possessor of a young and lovely wife. For Lucy would be lovely when he had finished with her. No, that was wrong, he was never going to “finish” with Lucy, he would marry her, they would be together forever; he’d see that she was dressed by the finest Paris couturiers; shoes would be made specially for her plump girly feet, her blond hair tamed by the best London stylist. And of course, any jewel she wanted would be hers.
He thought about all this, sitting there, the inevitable glass of good wine in front of him. A valuable Picasso plate that in any other collector’s hands might have been displayed in pride of place on a wall, but here merely sat on the Vuitton trunk, contained the usual thin slivers of toast dabbed with the good paté made by the eighty-year-old woman in Aix-en-Provence. Which reminded him, he must have a check sent to her; she would be needing help again by now; she was getting older and the farm where she lived was falling into rack and ruin, he’d get someone over there to take a look at it, fix it up for her. Poor old girl. He thought for a while of the old woman, living alone, thought how sad it was; still she had lived a good life, never married, devoted only to her animals and the quality of the product she so carefully sold to those who appreciated it. He had helped; gotten her into Harrods and Fortnum’s, in a small way, of course, but that only made it more exclusive. She was able to live out her life in comfort, and he was glad because she had brought him pleasure. He always appreciated “pleasure.”