One Way or Another(72)

Of course no one answered. Martha had given him a key, a big old-fashioned iron one that, in fact, he thought suited the house better than brass Yale locks. This key let you into a mansion fit for a king; well, if not a king, then a rich man.

He started with the tall windows in the front hall, then went from room to room doing what he had to. He was an expert and he was fast. Every measurement, complete with description and photo, went on his iPad. He had not been contracted to do any upstairs work but anyhow he walked up to the landing and took a look at the splendid stained-glass window, which he was certain must be the work of Rossetti, the most famous artist in that medium, or at least have been done by a member of his team. There was a clarity to the glass, a gleam of pure color that lit the hall like a medieval castle.

It made him curious about what he might find farther up those stairs. Of course he’d been told not to go there, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t. He didn’t exactly pound up the stairs but he went quickly, nervous because he was doing something forbidden and because the whole place was menacing and he didn’t know what he might find.

The stairs were carpeted in red, patterned in a sort of paisley motif that he knew must have almost brought Martha to tears it was so ugly, but the upper landing was of planked wood with here and there a Turkish-looking rug, again mainly in red. He stopped to take a few pictures on his cell; noted down a few measurements, justifying his presence in a place he was not supposed to be anyway. Then he walked along the upper hall where doors stood open onto bedrooms, mostly with huge dark four-posters plumped with plain white duvets, then on up the next flight to the attics. The steps were narrower here. There were just two doors. Right or left? Being right-handed he chose the one on the right.

A small bed was pushed up against the wall; a tossed-back blanket; a small pile of clothing on the floor; a flowered dress that looked as though it had been dragged through water; a comb thrown aside, a few strands of red hair still clinging to it. There was a small table and on it a tray with a bowl of what had once been soup, a molding crust of bread, and a glass of what looked to be red wine. The repast of a Parisian poet, a prisoner in his garret, Morrie thought. Except this was not Paris, it was Marshmallows and it was in the middle of nowhere and he was scared as hell.

He was out of that room and down those narrow stairs, galloping two at a time down the next flight, tripping on the goddamn awful red patterned carpet and out that f*ckin’ door, not even bothering to turn and slam it. He was out of there and this time he would never return.

He’d quit working for Martha if necessary. And he would warn her not to go to Marshmallows by herself. Something bad was going on, she should not be there alone. Somebody had been kept prisoner and he himself might have been the next.

He looked back before he turned out the gates, remembering the last time when he had seen the light in the attic window. Whoever that “prisoner” was had been alive then. Now he was sure that prisoner was not.

Brixton and the pub drew him like a magnet. He would watch the football on TV, have a pint, a sausage sandwich, be normal, goddammit. And that was final.





52

Ahmet could not bear the sight of Angie, skeletal, bald, seeming sunken into herself. He spent endless hours on deck thinking of her, kept in solitary confinement in a cabin below, which was surely far more luxurious an accommodation than she had ever been used to. He’d deliberately asked Mehitabel to give her the most important guest suite, the one Martha disliked so much with its quilted blue silk walls and golden window shades, which were sufficient, right now, to cut out daylight and also prevent anyone from seeing in. Ahmet was alone on board but for the crew member on duty-watch who kept discreetly out of his way, as did all the crew when their boss was around.

Angie was proving to be a bigger problem than he had anticipated and the reason, he admitted to himself now, was that he needed her. Angie had become his toy, to be played with any way he wanted. Mehitabel was the jailer, taking care of all her needs, telling the crew they had a sick guest on board who was here to rest and must not be disturbed. The crew were trained to be discreet, never to question, not to see what they were not supposed to see. It worked, when you were rich enough and they were paid enough.

Ahmet looked round at his yacht, at the length of gleaming rail that was polished every morning at dawn, at the pristine teak deck, the fresh white paint. Of course the yacht needed Martha’s touch, which it would have soon, in a couple of days’ time, which meant he’d have to get rid of Angie before then. How was the problem that now faced him.

He was not a man who liked bloodshed; he had learned in his brutalized youth there were better ways to achieve what you wanted than a knife to the throat, and anyway that was spectacularly messy, as he also remembered from his Cairo back-alley days when he’d seen a man killed right in front of him. Ahmet had gone to the souk to visit a shop specializing in knives, though what he wanted was simple, a small pearl-handled flick knife he might keep in a pocket, just in case. He never specified to himself what “in case” meant, only that situations existed in the place where he lived and the “boy” he was then had to be prepared if he were to survive to manhood; not a given in those days. Many died young, through violence or disease, or else simply “disappeared.” As Angie must do now. And while he thought about it, the best place was of course the original location where he had almost done the deed but for some reason, pleasure mostly, he guessed, had not been able to finish.