by Rachel Green
He rubbed his crumpled face. “I was resting my eyes, that’s all.”
“Hmm,” Margot said, unimpressed. She fetched them a bottle of water each from the fridge.
It was a few minutes before Raul was completely with it. Watching him tidy himself up, Margot recalled the scruffily-dressed man she’d accosted on the jetty that day and wondered how many other times he’d spent like this on his way up from Cadiz. Maybe the death of his wife had affected him more than he was willing to admit.
“Is there any particular reason I should have been worried?” he asked once he’d come back to life.
Margot folded her arms. “Promise you won’t be cross.”
Raul sucked thirstily from the bottle of water, the wafer-thin plastic crackling in his hand. “You told me you were going to the library. Why would I be cross?”
“I’ve been doing some research on Enzo Bellucci.”
His sank his cheek onto his fist and sighed wearily. “Go on.”
“I looked up the address of the shipping company he owns. I was thinking I could use it to find out where he lives.”
“Why – so you can go round there and firebomb his house?”
Margot’s face darkened. “That’s not funny.”
He sat back. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive. But really, Margot, when is this going to end?”
“They need to be brought to justice.”
“You can’t fight them.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’re too powerful.”
“That man tried to kill me.”
“Exactly!”
“So you think I should just let him get away with it? Hide away like a frightened little kitten?”
“I never said—”
“I’m not going to sit here and do nothing, Raul. You should know me well enough by now to realise that.”
Raul sighed again. He got up to clear away the mess he’d made and fetched a cloth from the galley. Margot took a deep breath and calmed down. It was nice that he cared but she wasn’t giving up.
“Pierre told me he uses the company as a front for importing drugs. We know he’s got a shipment coming in; all we have to do is find out where and when.”
“Perhaps you could phone him up and ask.”
“Be serious.”
“I am being serious. I can’t understand why you want to go anywhere near these people.”
“I won’t do anything rash. I’ll bide my time, wait for the right opportunity.” She smiled to lighten the mood. “Something will come up, you’ll see.”
Raul tilted his head upwards like he was hoping for divine inspiration. “The cosmic forces will align, yin will meet yang, karma will prevail – is that what you believe?”
“I believe in natural justice, yes. People should get their just deserts.”
Raul took a long time thinking about it but finally he nodded, placated. He came back to the table and sat down, laying his hands on top of hers. “Yes. Okay. Very well. And perhaps with me on your side you might just stand a chance.”
She wasn’t sure whether he was being serious or not but Margot held her smirk, just in case.
***
They needed to stock up on wine so at five o’clock Raul set off to cave Saint Joan with two empty carrier bags. Alone on the yacht for the first time, Margot couldn’t resist having a sneaky look round.
It was even more spacious than she’d previously thought. A door opposite her cabin led to another large space where two bunk beds were folded neatly into the side of the hull. Beside them, a large locker housed wetsuits and diving equipment. A little further along, another door opened onto a small engine room complete with banks of switches and dials. As she made her way back to the salon, Margot ran her fingertips along the smooth wooden panels, marvelled at the discovery of another small toilet tucked away in what she’d initially assumed to be a cupboard. It was all so cleverly designed, like a carriage on the Orient Express. She briefly poked her head up through the companionway to make sure Raul wasn’t on his way back and then had a quick look in his cabin. It was much tidier than she’d expected – the bed neatly made, some family photos on the walls, a guitar on a stand in the corner. The door to his shower room was open revealing a shelfful of Dolce and Gabbana.
She went back to the salon and sat down in the navigator’s seat. When she switched on the console, a chart came up showing their current position. One push of a button brought up a topographical map of the western Mediterranean. She zoomed out until it showed half the globe; all she had to do was pick a spot and let it plot a course. Where would she go if she owned a boat like this: the Greek Islands, the Adriatic? She could winter in west Africa; explore the Norwegian Fjords in summer. At some point she would cross the Atlantic and go through the Panama Canal, spend years exploring the remote islands and tiny atolls of the South Pacific. Sailing around the world was still the ultimate adventure. But to do it all on her own? Margot sat back in the seat and folded her arms. It would be a hard thing combatting loneliness.
She snapped out of the daydream and fetched her laptop from her cabin. She was meant to be doing research.
She typed Enzo’s name into a lesser-known search engine and got back some different results. A page from an architectural journal came up that was full of pictures of an ultra-modern house. It was an incredible piece of engineering – a glass and steel structure seemingly built into the side of a cliff. The plans showed five bedrooms, a cinema room, an underground leisure suite. A separate wing would house a car collection. The infinity pool would be a state-of-the-art construction, projecting directly out of the rock with half of it appearing to hang in mid-air. The article said it was being built on the Mediterranean coast, though it didn’t specify where. The client was Enzo Bellucci, head of EDB Transports Maritimes.
Margot lit a cigarette. It may have been a very big world but some things were the same all over – the rich and powerful exploiting the weak and vulnerable. Sometimes it seemed there was no yin to the yang at all.
Realising she was smoking below deck, she quickly stubbed out her cigarette and fanned the air with a towel. The clock on the wall showed six-thirty. Raul had been gone for over an hour yet Cave St Joan was only a ten-minute walk away. She went up on deck to look out for him, and five minutes later heard the clink-clink-clink of bottles being carried in a bag. Raul’s familiar outline appeared on the jetty.
“You were gone a long time.”
“Did you miss me?”
He came up the steps at the stern and presented her with a bunch of flowers. “The florist was shut. I had to walk all the way up to the supermarket at the top of Rue Voltaire.”
Margot frowned at the flowers, white freesias and lavender. They were lovely, but she didn’t take them.
“I never did say how sorry I was for almost running into you,” Raul explained.
Margot felt a glow on her insides but still didn’t take them. “There’s really no need.”
“Please.” He raised them a little higher, a sprig of lavender almost touching her nose. “If only to make me feel better.”
She conceded a small nod. “All right. Thank you.”
They went below and Margot sorted out a vase.
He unpacked the food he’d bought for dinner while Margot put away the wine. He’d bought a 2015 Pinot Gris, three bottles of a local Sauvignon, a bottle of Louis Roederer. Flowers and a bottle of champagne – it had been a long time since she’d last felt so pampered. She took the Sauvignon over to the table and half-filled two glasses.
“I take it you’ve been doing some more ‘research’,” Raul said, gesturing at the laptop with a packet of chicken thighs.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t get very far.” Margot sat down and clicked back to the article from the architectural magazine. “This came up.” He left the shopping and came to sit beside her. Margot turned the computer so he could see. “This is what drug money can buy you. It says the build cost was over two million euros, neve
r mind the price of the land.”
Raul pulled the laptop a little closer and stared at the screen, his brow crumpling up. He scrolled down the page, taking rather more interest than Margot had expected. Intrigued, she watched him closely. As the silence lengthened she felt like giving him a nudge. “What is it?”
“I know this place.”
“You do? How?”
“I passed it on the way up. It’s a little bit further down the Côte Vermeille.”
Margot turned her eyes back to the screen, her mind starting to race. She had a short sip of wine. The Côte Vermeille wasn’t very far away, just a few kilometres down the coast, close to the border with Spain. “Are you sure it’s the same one?”
“Yes. I remember these terraces, and these big metal rings – look.”
There were some photos of the garden in progress, one of them showing a line of large bronze ring sculptures.
“Did it look like it was lived in?”
“I didn’t pay that much attention. But it certainly looked finished.”
Margot checked the date of the article – it had been published eleven months ago, the house was surely complete by now. Her heart started to beat a little more quickly as she looked into Raul’s eyes.
“How long would it take us to get there?”
“In Carpe Diem?”
She nodded.
He narrowed his eyes with suspicion. “Why would you want to go there?”
“Curiosity.”
“I thought you got seasick.”
“You said you had some pills.”
“The pills that don’t work on you, you mean?”
Margot sucked in her cheeks and pouted, but Raul was having none of it. He pushed the laptop away. “You seriously expect me to sail you down the coast to spy on the house of a gangland boss? Now I know you’re out of your mind.”
He got back up and went to finish his unpacking, but just then there was a thud from outside. Margot cocked her head, and their eyes locked again. “Did you hear that?”
They both listened. The wind had picked up and things on the boat had started to creak. Margot leaned over the back of the sofa and raised the blind on the nearest window. Outside was one dark sheet of water.
“It’ll be nothing,” Raul said. “But stay here.” He opened the hatch doors and went up.
Margot waited anxiously. It would surely be nothing. No one knew she was here apart from Pierre and Captain Bouchard, and she’d been careful not to be seen every time she’d come back. For the longest time the hatch stayed empty and all she could see was a rectangle of dark black sky. She briefly had a vision of something terrible happening out there, but then Raul came back down the steps, closing the hatch doors behind him.
“What was it?”
“Just a buoy come loose.”
“Are you sure?”
He came over and rubbed her shoulder reassuringly. “There’s no one out there, Margot.”
For now, they said nothing more about a trip down the coast.
Chapter 23
Enzo stepped out through his front door and beamed at his Mercedes while it was still winding its way down the drive. He strode across the gravel and signalled to Mutt to pull up. When Paolo emerged from the back seat, scowling at the midday sun, Enzo opened his arms for a hug.
“Hey, Paolo!”
The brothers hugged, though it was heavily one-sided.
“You okay?”
Paolo nodded.
“Mutt, take my brother’s things up to the guest suite.” He patted Paolo’s chest. “Come on in. I’ll show you around. You won’t believe what they’ve done with the place.”
It was the first time Paolo had seen the house, the first time in years he’d agreed to see Enzo at home. Enzo took him in through the hall and straight over to the glazed wall that ran the full length of the house’s top floor. On the other side of the glass, a fifty-mile panorama of sparkling blue sea opened up to them. Enzo watched his brother’s face, hoping for at least a spark of appreciation.
“What a view, huh?” he prompted. “They used a hundred square metres of glazing in this place. Can you believe that? They had to bring the bigger sections in by helicopter.”
Enzo waited, but Paolo’s face stayed blank. He shuffled his feet. Perhaps he was expecting too much. A reconciliation like this would take time. Baby steps, that’s what were needed. He forced the smile back onto his face. “Come on, let’s go down and see Marielle.”
It was an upside-down house. From the entrance on the top level, four more floors stepped down the face of the cliff to the basement level which was still sixty metres above the sea. They took the elevator to the lowest level where the main living room, kitchen and dining room combined into one giant space. Another glass wall separated it from the terrace and they went out through an opening into a blaze of sunshine, the infinity pool jutting out before them like something from an Escher illusion. Enzo walked him right out to the edge where they gazed down the cliff-face to the beach tucked away at the bottom. There was no more impressive location on this whole stretch of coast but Paolo remained stony-faced. Enzo balled his fists in his pockets. What the hell was wrong with this kid?
“Hi, Paolo.”
They turned to see Marielle waving from a sun lounger at the far end of the terrace. “Long time no see.”
She put on a beach sarong and came over. The chiffon was so flimsy it only served to emphasise her curves but at least it made Paolo crack a smile.
“Hi, Marielle.”
“Good to see you.”
“You too.”
They smiled into each other’s eyes.
Enzo cleared his throat, feeling like a third wheel. She and Paolo had always got on. Years ago, she’d posed for him: they’d broken into an abandoned aerodrome and shot some pictures on a plane carcass, Paolo’s usual weird stuff. She probably still had the pictures tucked away in a drawer somewhere. But Enzo wasn’t jealous. If Marielle could loosen him up that was all well and good.
He left them chatting while he went to fetch the champagne and found them still head-to-head when he got back. Finally, there was something a little more human on Paolo’s face as Enzo handed out the glasses. He waited for his wife to take a sip and then cocked his head. “Is that dinner I can smell cooking?”
Marielle gave him the evil eye. He would pay for it later but being a third wheel didn’t suit him.
“Sorry, Paolo. Duty calls.” She scowled as she handed him back the glass
Enzo slapped his brother on the back. “Come on. Let’s talk.”
He led Paolo across the terrace and into the garden on the far side of the seating area. They climbed a short set of steps and then took the path to the summer house perched high on the promontory. Enzo stood right on the edge as he sipped his champagne, nothing but cliffs and blue sky surrounding them. Beside him, Paolo at last seemed to be enjoying the view. It would be nice to think there would come a day when they could stand together like this and talk about something other than business, but maybe not just yet. Enzo stepped back into the summer house and sat down in the shade.
“I take it everything got sorted?”
Paolo nodded as he came to join him. Enzo lit a cigar.
“You need to lay low for a while. Stay here for a few days. Then we’ll sell the garage, get you somewhere smart to live.”
“And we all live happily ever after?”
Enzo looked him in the eye. “You might not think it right now but some good will come of this.”
“It didn’t turn out so good for Etienne.”
“He shouldn’t have screwed up.”
Paolo narrowed his eyes. “What did you say to him?”
“It doesn’t matter what I said to him. It worked, didn’t it? Anyway, he’s an idiot. The dumb ass didn’t even get rid of the boat. Did you hear about that?”
“It cost him a lot of money. He didn’t want part with it.”
“And look at the price he’s had to pay for it
now?”
Paolo couldn’t argue with that. Enzo sat up in his seat.
“Look. Forget about Etienne. All that matters now is you and me. And I need your help.”
“You, need my help?”
“Let’s not play games. My shipment’s coming in soon. I need eyes and ears on the ground. You come in with me now and you’ll have more money than you know what to do with. But once you’re in, you’re in. You understand what I’m saying?”
It took a while but Paolo finally conceded a small nod. Enzo extended his arm, and they shook hands.
“We’ll go over the finer points later. Why don’t you go upstairs and wash up? I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”
In the kitchen, Enzo helped make dinner. He squeezed lemons for the dessert while Marielle stood at the counter with her nose in a recipe book, but he was crushing rather than squeezing them and Marielle took the juicer off him when she saw what a mess he was making. Enzo came away from the counter, drying his hands on a towel.
“Why won’t he talk to me? He’ll spend all day yakking to you yet he’ll barely say two words to me.”
“You’re trying too hard.”
“It’s important. He looks at me like I’m something he picked up on his shoe.”
Enzo watched from the other side of the island as Marielle did something with a chicken.
“What do you expect?”
“A little gratitude.”
Marielle shook her head, that pitying look on her face.
“The only thing your brother has ever asked you for is to stay out of his life. What makes you think anything’s changed now?”
“I just saved his ass, didn’t I? If it wasn’t for me he’d be looking at twenty years inside right now.”
“He hates you and everything you represent. I thought you would have got that into your head by now.”
Enzo curled his lip, and turned away. His wife had this annoying habit of telling him uncomfortable truths at times. Maybe he should return the favour someday. But she didn’t know everything. They’d been close once, as kids. He would find a way.