Lily had spent countless hours making sure everything was perfect, and that evening, when she surveyed her domain, she was both exhausted and deliriously happy. Her last gesture, before she fell into bed, was to raise a glass to the star-studded sky in Louis’s memory. Sophie’s last gesture, before she left the next day, was to leave her a cheque. Even her mother promised to come back in a couple of weeks to help out with the first truly paying guests: the Maas would be officially open for business on the first day of June. Her father left with an entire notebook of watercolour sketches with the intention of sending them back framed, to hang in the various offices. Moreover, Stephanie vowed to send her team down in the following couple of days to build a living wall for the spa, complete with a water cascade, something Lily had left blank for her to design and had hoped could be done on time.
Alexandre, Stephanie’s long-time advisor and current boyfriend, had attempted in vain to speak with her before she had abruptly left for Thailand. The handful of conversations they held whilst she was overseas, had been brief and business-like. Above all, Stephanie had longed to avoid further discussion of his earlier proposal, one she had dismissed outright, arguing the timing could not be worse. Alexandre, piqued by her refusal, had nonetheless bided his time. Once she returned home to Amsterdam, he had patiently listened to the tale of their adventures, refraining to comment on the chances the three siblings had taken in their pursuit of the truth. Wishing to anchor her back to reality, he had wanted to discuss the two propositions now pending on her desk, which he had alluded to briefly during his calls.
Indeed, potential investors had pitched for two new MAGIKs to be opened respectively in Milan and Los Angeles, full-blown franchises for which she was only required to lend her name and expertise. At first, the prospect of expansion had enthused Stephanie, until Alexandre, a level-headed financier had firmly opposed them, arguing that if she wished to expand, opening subsidiaries would be commercially much more beneficial, since the operations would remain entirely under their control: all they had to do was come up with the money. Ignorant of her recent inheritance, he did not doubt for a second that the banks he had already approached would happily lend it to her. He had pressed her for a decision. Stephanie though, already destabilised by the events of recent months, quickly resented the pressure to make a decision on the spot, and thus declined to consider any further expansion for the time being, regardless of the shape it might take. Alexandre was furious. Looking after her best interests ever since she first launched MAGIK, he knew the timing was perfect and that the window of opportunity would close in fast. While Stephanie’s initial idea had been brilliant, smaller, less ambitious and less dazzling versions of the same idea had started to pop up everywhere. When he had insisted, Stephanie had stood her ground and finally, to avoid any further argument, had fired him, heralding the end of their relationship as well. Alexandre, hurt and exasperated, had walked out, without a second glance.
Stephanie, never expecting such finality in his reaction had been completely thrown and for weeks she cried herself to sleep. However, pride stood in the way when it came to take back her inexplicable outburst. For weeks, she threw herself into her work, but her heart was not in it. At every turn, she wanted to ask Alexandre for advice, but always stopped short of picking up the phone. She thus worked at perfecting MAGIK so that it would become impossible to copy; she re-invented herself, adding to her mix the sensibility of the Far East she had come to admire. MAGIK had become enormously successful, yet she felt terribly empty. She also suspected that if she asked Alexandre back into her life, she would be required to make a number of concessions, which she was not sure she could make. She had to make a decision she intuited could change her life yet panicked at the mere idea of rattling the status quo.
When one evening, after accepting the first party invitation in months, she ran into him, her heart made a backwards flip. Cool and circumspect at first, by the end of the evening, neither could bear the thought of parting once again. She followed him back to his apartment and there, they made love with a passion she did not know she had. In the reassurance of his embrace, she was finally able to say how sorry she was for reacting with such haste, prompted both by fear and tiredness, admitting finally that he had been right all along. By morning, she asked him to come back and work with her. His firm rebuff left her dumbfounded; she was about to fly off the handle once again when he asked her instead how she felt about him after all those months. When she told him how much she had missed him and how much she really loved him, a fact that she had not admitted to herself until that very minute, he told her that he wanted nothing more than to be part of her life, not as a colleague, but as a life partner. Stephanie smiled at his declaration and the chagrin she had been carrying like a cloak around her heart lifted with it. She swooned into his arms.
Quietly, without fanfare or public announcement, Alexandre moved in. By common accord, they decided to live in her terrace, which was not only spacious enough for two people, but so hands-on with work as well. By then, Stephanie had come around the idea of a second MAGIK, and they both agreed that Los Angeles was the more propitious of the two proposed locations. When they unexpectedly received Paul Newman’s financial backing to open it in Aspen instead, they had not hesitated. The Colorado township of Aspen was so charming that Stephanie immediately fell in love with it. The backing of Hollywood stars ensured the immediate success of MAGIK2: it had opened just a couple of few weeks prior to receiving the invitation to come and spend a weekend in Camargue. On grand opening night, Alexandre renewed his marriage proposal, yet Stephanie, taken aback, requested a bit more time.
She decided Sophie was the best person in whom to confide and on the spur of the moment asked her to fly to Amsterdam before attending her meetings in the South of France; then they could talk. Stephanie looked forward to her sibling’s visit: making such a decision without the tacit approval of those she loved was inconceivable. She already knew Sophie loved MAGIK, and everything it stood for, and thus felt that her sister’s advice, whatever it might turn out to be, would be well intentioned. On the night of her arrival, Alexandre, after chilling a bottle of wine and lightening candles around the living room, thoughtfully pretexted a dinner with friends to leave the two sisters alone. After his departure though, Stephanie refused the glass Sophie had just poured and complained about the scent of the burning candles around them. The latter raised an inquisitive eyebrow, but did not delve into the matter. For the next half hour, Stephanie explained how she had put Alexandre’s marriage proposal on hold just two days earlier. She had barely finished her story, when, turning a light shade of green, she precipitously left the couch on which they were sitting to run to the nearest bathroom. Her abrupt departure confirmed Sophie’s suspicions.
“How far along are you?” she asked when she returned, gently looking at her sister with undisguised tenderness.
“I’m not pregnant! What are you talking about? I just ate something at lunch that didn’t agree with me, that’s all.”
“And what would that be?” queried Sophie, slightly sarcastically, knowing that her sister was likely to have skipped lunch all together.
“Oh, I don’t know…” replied Stephanie lamely.
“When did you have your last periods?”
“I’m not sure really…”
“Well, I guess we can find out tomorrow? Do you want to start with an EPT test or go straight to your gynaecologist?” replied Sophie gaily.
Stephanie succumbed by doubts, shook her head.
“That would really be the worst possible thing!” she said petulantly. “It would put me in a tight spot! If you’re right and I now agree to Alexandre’s marriage proposal, he’ll think I’ll only be doing it for the baby and I don’t want that. It has to be for its own sake. What a mess!”
“I take that if you turn out to be pregnant, you’ll be keeping the child, right? If that’s the case, do you want a baby growing up without a father who will adore it as much
as he adores you? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” added Sophie knowing that her sister’s initial reaction to any potential change to her routine was likely to be negative.
“I can’t believe this is happening to me! It comes at the worst possible time! I can’t possibly deal with two issues at once, such as a potential wedding and a childbirth!” whined Stephanie, still shocked at the possibility.
“They are one and the same, darling. You just won’t benefit from a nine months lull in between, that’s all. I’m surprised though; you aren’t usually this conventional! You aren’t a child after all and you’re financially independent. It isn’t as if you got pregnant to trap him into marriage! And you can get married after the child is born. Who cares, really?”
“His parents for once and ours,” fixated Stephanie.
“You never told me: have you met his parents yet?” inquired Sophie, curious.
“A few times. They are really charming,” replied Stephanie with a smile. “And they love me. His father is a professor of antique literature at the University Henri IV and his mother is a life coach. She is half Greek, lively and fun.”
“That would explain the name,” laughed Sophie. “Are there any reasons for them to react badly to either news?”
“I guess not,” admitted Stephanie. “So what do I tell him? He will be home soon.”
Sophie did not blink at the implication that Alexandre was obviously living there since Stephanie had carefully omitted to share the information so far with any of them. She carefully measured her answer instead.
“Let’s wait until tomorrow. I’ll come with you to the doctor and then upon confirmation, you can then tell him. Don’t worry: I’ll make myself scarce. I’ve no idea how you will now tell him you accept his proposal, and simultaneously announce that he will celebrate father’s day this year, without linking one to the other, but I’m sure you’ll find the right words when the time comes. You do love him, don’t you?”
“I do.”
The next day, when Stephanie shared the happy news, Alexandre was nothing but thrilled. As soon as she confirmed that she was already three months pregnant, he had immediately renewed his marriage proposal and this time, there had been no hesitation. He had poured her a glass of champagne to celebrate, but she could not even stomach the smell of it: Alexandre and Sophie, watching her sprint to the nearest toilet once again, had laughed happily, clinking their glasses. They decided to announce it to the rest of the family on the following weekend while in Camargue, since Lily had extended the invite to them both. However, when Stephanie came to understand it was Lily’s revelations day, refusing to upstage her sister’s unveiling, she waited another month before she found the right occasion to tell her parents; immediately, her mother had been overwhelmed by the idea of planning for a birth and a wedding at the same time. Stephanie though remained adamant that she would only get married after the birth: she refused to have wedding photos displaying an enormous belly. It was too cliché for her taste. So that the child wouldn’t be born outside of wedlock, they would have a quiet civil ceremony in September, with the religious ceremony postponed to the spring of the following year. She begged Sophie to organise the wedding, but the latter declined, guessing how much their mother would enjoy the planning of it, and she refused to take that joy away from her. Sophie though had assured her that she will give advice whenever required, but would not steal her mother’s thunder under any circumstances: her younger siblings could not keep absconding their plans from their mother with the latter desperately needing to feel useful, her son’s premature death weighing heavily on her.
Sophie was proud of her sisters and the radical and positive changes they had made to their lives in such a short time: she had warmly congratulated Lily for finding the courage to switch careers and chase after her dreams and Stephanie for finally taking the famous bull of her sign by the horns by deciding to get married. They both appeared so much happier that it was difficult not to look at Louis’s death as the ultimate catalyst for both of them to finally take chances. Sophie though wondered if she lacked her sisters’ ambition in their relentless quest for their peers’ accolades and family’s approval. Indeed, when she returned to Sydney, she could not sit still. She missed her sisters terribly and in her heart there was a hole where Louis had once been. She began to call her parents more often. Most times, her father answered and thus she came to renew a daily communication, where conversation flowed freely. It was then that Sophie came to realise the depth of her father’s despair. Overwhelming guilt, dating back to his son’s first stint in rehab, was eating him alive. Over the course of a few weeks, he admitted to her that from the very beginning he had not quite known how to handle the drug issue, and felt irrationally responsible for prompting his son’s demise by insisting he travel to Thailand. Sophie, who strongly believed in fate and destiny, spent many hours trying to assuage his conscience. On the other hand, whenever she talked to her mother, who kept blaming her son’s fall from grace on everything but his own free will, she always returned the phone to the cradle, feeling both empty and impotent. Faced with her parents’ misery, each one walled within their individual pain, which they could not manage to share with one another, she did not quite know whether to let bygones be bygones.
In the end, Sophie had returned to Thailand two months after she had parted with her sisters at Suvarnabhumi International Airport. Whereas her sisters no longer suffered from recurring nightmares, hers continued unabated. They were longer, more elaborate scenarios now, and the scattered pieces of the puzzle clashed in her head, night after night. She remained convinced that the answers were still floating out there, and intellectually she needed to tie up all loose ends before leaving the matter to rest. Charles, who had been looking for a plausible excuse to stay in contact with her, had been delighted to see her again. To keep her close, he agreed to help her further their initial investigation, as long as it took place in Bangkok. Sophie had booked the same hotel as before and even though she had opted for a smaller room this time, she had been automatically upgraded. Her first order of business after unpacking was to ask Charles to obtain a copy of the police report regarding the young boy, who had been found murdered in Koh Samui after a couple of drinks with them. She also requested as much information as possible on the private charter flights operating in and out of the island.
When a couple of days later Charles showed her the police report on the dead boy and patiently translated it for her, they both discovered that the investigation had been closed rather quickly. They were only mildly surprised to find an affidavit, signed by no other than Paul Patek, stating that the young man, who had been in his employ as a houseboy for the past two years, had been in reality quite unstable and had sustained a history of violent relationships. The alleged boyfriend had been arrested and subsequently released for lack of evidence; he had claimed his innocence all along and had vainly tried to allay suspicions by asking the police to investigate his boyfriend’s employer instead. The local police had then immediately closed the case.
On the night in question, when Cam had left the compound to go into town for a drink or two to think things over, Paul in fact had him followed: indeed, after Louis’s departure, the young man had started to ask too many questions. In his opinion, something was afoot. He had shared a strong bond and a real connection with Louis: there was absolutely no way his friend would have left Thailand without telling him where he was going. For days, he had badgered Jade to figure out where he had gone but to no avail, the young woman remaining close-lipped. Moreover, when a few weeks later, a new boy, of Swiss origins, had shown up on the hills, another young man caught in Paul’s and Jade’s web, Cam had inadvertently witnessed, in the middle of the night, the transfer of burlap sacks from the labs to the back of Paul’s jeep. Stealthily approaching the car, he looked at the 7 bags clearly stencilled with the man’s name; it took only seconds to slice one of the bag open to see it was packed with Infinity pills. The boy had confide
d earlier that night that he had taken Paul’s offer to go and live in a paradise of his choice. Cam then put two and two together: somehow the drugs took the place of the guests invited to disappear. Despite all the pretence, Paul was nothing more than a drug dealer and Cam had been shocked. When he tried to discuss his misgivings with Jade, she had dismissed them outright, but had nonetheless felt obligated to relay the conversation. Paul had not hesitated: the man he had hired to silence Cam had been a professional. Conveniently he also happened to be the nephew of the Police Chief.
When a search into the corporation, which owned the chartered helicopter flights flying from the mainland to the island, turned up Paul Patek’s name as principal owner, Sophie and Charles began to take the real measure of the man’s wealth and far-reaching tentacles. When Charles called in favours to have Paul’s companies and activities investigated, he met with a wall of silence. Off the record though, some of his friends at the Court de Cassation in Paris told him that both Interpol and the FBI had had Paul under surveillance for some time, but that so far no charges had been brought against him: it was, however, no secret that Jade Inc., Paul Patek’s pharmaceutical company, was a remarkably clever front for international drug trafficking, yet no one had been able to penetrate its impregnable façade. Every mole either agency had tried to place inside his organisation had been found dead sooner or later, and, in each murder case, Paul’s alibis had always proved bulletproof. Moreover, the man seemed to own body and soul everyone who ever worked for him, and thus infiltrators had never succeeded in turning anyone against him. The ongoing investigation into his activities had proved very frustrating for all concerned authorities. What so far had defied everyone’s intendment was how the drugs were transported across borders: on the other hand, they had traced the little jade coloured pills, which flooded the party circuit everywhere, back to Jade Inc. Repeated raids on his pharmacies had likewise proved fruitless, with local police often hindering the investigations, only paying lip service to a spirit of cooperation. The exact location of the drug’s manufacturing had likewise eluded them.
The Samui Conspiracy Page 30