Last to Leave

by Clare Curzon

  Stefano crumpled across the bed with a little sighing sound.

  ‘God, I’ve killed him. I never meant …’

  She knelt over him and felt the sticky oozing of blood from the side of his head. Then her fingers found his neck pulse. It was still beating. He gave a small whimper and seemed to make an attempt to push himself up.

  ‘No,’ she ground out. If she let him recover he would tear her apart. She knew it. He had to be restrained.

  She pushed his face back into the bedclothes, reached for her clothes of the day before and found the trousers of her cotton pants-suit. The legs wouldn’t tear free. But she bit into the seam and then the stitching tore apart. She bound his wrists tightly behind and rolled him under the coverlet. Part of her shredded blouse was bundled inside his mouth and secured by a gag from the remaining trouser leg.

  ‘Don’t die on me,’ she whispered fiercely into his upturned face, and in the dimness saw the whites of his eyes reappear.

  Behind the gag he made a furious grunting sound and she knew if he got free he’d have no mercy. So she tore a sheet and tied his legs to the bedposts. If she left him spread-eagled there in her bed they would know what he’d intended. Perhaps it would be enough to delay any organized search after she’d gone. Maybe they’d even understand how desperate she’d been.

  And now there was no choice. She had to go down, fetch the powerboat’s key and steer it through the storm waters across the lagoon. She dressed quickly in warm clothes, stuffing money and any valuables into her shoulder bag. Then, shoes in hand, and with the rest of the torn sheet over one arm she stole down to let herself over the salon balcony, on to the jetty.

  15

  Claudia Dellar stood by the telephone, her mind seething. Gus’s boy Jake was an unmitigated scoundrel. She knew as well as if she’d been listening in, what had prompted him to ring up with his offhand, insolent admission about the petrol.

  It had been Matthew’s doing, exercising his authority over him and knowing exactly the manner in which Jake would comply, aiming to give further offence to herself.

  All these years later, and Matthew couldn’t pass up an occasion to insult her. She could still see the mocking eyes, deep-lidded like a vulture’s, as he listened to Carlton announce his engagement to herself, aware, as they all were, that he’d set it up to unload her now that he’d landed Joanne.

  She had been humiliated, livid that he was in a position to do this to her. She had played into his hands by passionately threatening to make public their affair. Their head of chambers then had been a desiccated puritan who, she realized too late, would automatically ascribe all blame to the woman. She’d have been sacrificed anyway. It had been a question of accepting either the older brother or professional disgrace.

  And Carlton, another of Matthew’s pawns, had played along with his younger brother’s wishes, because he was weak and because, never having any gift for making money, he’d always needed subsidizing. It had suited him over the years to have her tied to him in the same financial dependence.

  But in the end she had succeeded where Matthew had expected her to fall apart. She was the one now with the whip-hand over the pathetic poet. And she had never declared a truce with the man who’d cast her off.

  His time would come, she promised herself. As for the crass and despicable young Jake, she could get at him through what he held most dear, the offensive motorbike he’d fawned over his stepmother to buy. Madeleine, being as stupid as her dead mother, was as easily won round. Otherwise why in middle age marry the womanizing Gus? It was ironic justice for Matthew that Joanne’s fortune would be steadily dwindling away through that pair of wasters.

  On the phone just now Madeleine had said where they were going for a family dinner. Claudia knew the restaurant, always the same one because they assumed they had a right to the very best on offer. Madeleine, Gus and Matthew would go by car, Madeleine driving because she didn’t drink on these occasions. Jake, as always, wouldn’t deign to be transported, insisting on following by motorbike.

  Over the years Matthew’s tastes had become set in stone. On the few occasions when she and Carlton had been included in these outings to Windsor they would arrive at eight, go straight into the restaurant, dine and remain there until the stroke of ten. Then by car straight home to Ascot and lights out at a quarter to eleven. Jake, whatever his condition, was expected to follow on within the hour, wherever he chose to sneak off to after that.

  Well, tonight, Claudia vowed, he should pay for his contempt, and at more than the cost of the petrol. She tucked the note with the Kawasaki’s licence number under the base of the phone for use a little later.

  If Kate Dellar still harboured any idea of Stone’s unconcern about Jessica, it was dispelled with the arrival of Roger Beale. He arrived while she was still at tea; a small, dynamic man with darting eyes and an unexpectedly gentle voice.

  Stone’s introduction of him as his man-of-affairs carried unintended irony. He had clearly been instructed to drop all business matters and concentrate on this single problem of Jess’s disappearance.

  The little man slid his briefcase on to a table beside the central window and removed from it two yellow envelope files. Kate, invited to take a seat opposite him and Stone, saw that Jess’s name was on the cover of each. Without her reading glasses she couldn’t read the sub-headings upside-down, but noted they were of differing lengths.

  ‘You keep files on my daughter?’ she queried, offended on Jess’s behalf.

  ‘On all our employees,’ Beale replied evenly.

  ‘I didn’t realize she worked for you, Mr Stone. May I ask for how long?’

  ‘Since the week after she left College. It was a confidential posting, but she would have told you sooner or later, I’m sure.’

  He was trying to let her down lightly. Confidential: what else did that imply but barring her from knowing? It was insufferable. He must have been a party – its instigator most likely – to Jess’s dropping out of university. She had never fully understood why. Did nobody trust her with being told what was going on?

  Kate felt she was blundering blindly in a maze, outside others’ relationships. She’d only recently learnt that Jess was already acquainted with Dr Marion Paige. They had met in Michael’s office at King’s: another association – with her own husband – which she’d been ignorant of. And apparently the meeting had set the two women at odds with each other.

  It seemed that she’d been stumbling blindfold among inter-related strangers, truly the odd one out, as the Dellars had always implied.

  She sat back, unable to cope with more revelations, momentarily unsure whether Jess had invented the story of being Stone’s lover, as an exaggeration of her professional connection with him. Had she, working for him, girlishly been longing for a more intimate relationship?

  Surely not. That wasn’t Jess’s way. Or hadn’t been until now; casual as she’d been about other admirers. Kate was almost sure they were close. The man’s distress over Jess’s disappearance seemed real enough. And when she’d accused him he hadn’t denied Jess was his mistress. She’d been convinced when he said he was in love with her.

  But was she deceived? The man was an enigma. His apparent caring could cover something else: perhaps no more than concern for business secrets at risk if Jess found herself among the wrong people?

  She found she was shaking again. He reached out a hand and touched her arm. ‘Mrs Dellar,’ he said. ‘Kate, would you rather not …’

  ‘I want to know everything,’ she decided suddenly. ‘It’s time everyone was straight with me.’

  The two men exchanged glances and Stone nodded. It was left to Beale to explain.

  ‘We have been making inquiries with everyone known to us who had any connection with her. So far no lead has come up. There have been no sightings, no phone calls. Her credit cards have not been used. Her passport is still in her desk at the office.

  ‘The police have been equally unsuccessful. We’re working
in parallel with them and to some extent sharing investigations. They are about to pass her photograph to the press, asking for witnesses who may have seen her in the past few days.

  ‘Also we are hopeful that your son will soon be well enough to give us some idea of what was in his sister’s mind that night of the fire.’

  ‘The two of them are close,’ Stone said, ‘as twins often are.’ He seemed to be thinking aloud.

  She stared at him with sudden suspicion. ‘You know Eddie too, don’t you?’ It came out as an accusation.

  He nodded, calmly. ‘I have done for several years; from his later school days. It was Eddie who first introduced Jessica and me.’

  Here was yet another extension of the network where everyone was interconnected, except herself. Kate shook her head in denial, eyes closed for fear the tears might squeeze through. This nightmare was developing, growing like some monstrous germ under the microscope, dividing and combining until it filled every corner of her mind.

  She had to make a stand, find some clear path ahead. She drew her hand away from where Stone’s covered it, re-opened her eyes and stared into his sombre face.

  ‘Nothing matters,’ she said wearily, ‘except to find out what has happened to my daughter. I want her back.’ And Eddie, she breathed silently; and Michael.

  ‘Wherever she is,’ Stone promised, ‘we will find her.’

  It wasn’t until they were through Padua on the Strada Statale 16 that Jess dared to feel safe. The arduous night had exhausted her physically and she longed for sleep although her mind was nervously alerted to everything around her. She was still anxious that the blow to Stefano’s head might prove fatal.

  Two of the intended four had dropped out. The truck’s main body, covered by heavy canvas stretched over a frame of tubular metal, was roomy enough for the three girls, and anyway Goldie had elected to go up front in the driver’s cab. There were bales of woven material to lie on, which partly compensated for the vehicle’s primitive suspension. With the back canvas rolled up to allow air in, Jess watched the sun’s slow rising, and colour seep into the pearly sky. Held by its calm beauty, it took her a moment to realize they must be heading almost due west.

  ‘Where did he say he was making for?’ she demanded of Carla. ‘We’re turning inland.’

  ‘He said Bari. That’s the far south, isn’t it?’

  It struck Jess that her own scanty knowledge of Italian geography wasn’t to be of much use. She forced herself to relax and eventually the sun removed itself from their view of the outside world, sliding properly round to their right as they continued staring out. From up front she could hear the usual stabs of conversation you get between two people ignorant of each other’s language, then argument, the voices shouting to get above the engine as they roared uphill.

  Eventually the pair must have reached a compromise because Goldie turned in her seat and shouted through the cab’s sliding rear window, ‘Breakfast in five minutes.’

  ‘Dové?’ Jess shouted to the driver.

  The man’s rumbled reply sounded like Monsélice. At least she’d heard of that town. Perhaps it was large enough for her to buy a map there.

  Last night, when she had rifled the kitchen cupboard for the motorboat’s key, she had come on the First Aid box. One of the packages in it contained a roll of wide elastic bandage, the sort once used to support painful varicose veins. With a silent apology to Rosalba’s swollen legs and a hope she’d not have urgent cause to need it, Jess had stuffed it in her shoulder-bag.

  In the dark, before she’d set a course across the stormy lagoon she had stripped off her sweatshirt and wound the bandage round her waist, slipping the large denomination notes inside. Now her only money that anyone might glimpse was small stuff, enough to cover costs of the journey. If she’d underestimated, then she’d miss out on a meal, to keep cash for necessities.

  Already they were in narrow town streets with ancient, crowded buildings. The truck rattled over an uneven surface like large cobbles or a cattle grid, ran on another fifty feet and pulled up. The girls heard the two cab doors slam and then Giorgio’s face came over the tailgate. ‘You and me,’ he said, pointing at them both. ‘Andiamo, si?’

  They got out and Carla looked round in disgust. ‘Where’s the sea, Goldie? You said we’d skinny dip.’

  They were high among hills in the sort of ancient fortress town that tourists would flock to for the architecture and churches. Not a glimpse of sea, but to reach a trattoria terrace they had to pass a bookshop on the corner. ‘Order for me,’ Jess said. ‘I’ll only be a moment.’

  They chose coffee and frittatas for which Giorgio paid, impressively flexing his muscular arms to make his snake tattoo writhe as he chucked out his sweaty chest in its dingy string vest. Goldie snuggled up to him, required to demonstrate their joint gratitude. Her sideways glance at Carla had sly understanding in it. Carla smirked back, giggled and switched her mocking gaze to Jess.

  They were up to something involving herself, Jess guessed. Somewhere along the way she was going to be stripped of her belongings and dumped. The only way to counter that was to drop off unexpectedly first. But not here, without reach of the sea.

  ‘Mare?’ she demanded of Giorgio and spread her hands hopelessly.

  ‘Si, si. Piu tardi,’ he said impatiently, and followed it with a voluble flow of Italian, waving an arm to embrace the town around them, the little café, the sky, the sun. She was expected to enjoy what was on present offer.

  Ah yes, the sun. It still glared pitilessly down. Last night’s storm had done nothing to ease the temperature. Jess sweated and itched under the crepe bandaging. She didn’t intend swimming when the others did, and leave her belongings unguarded.

  She pressed open a page of the little Italian road map to find where they were. Giorgio, peering over her shoulder, planted a thick forefinger on the place name, leaving a smudge of sweat as he traced the route south. ‘Grazie,’ she said sweetly.

  While he made a delivery and picked up three sizable crates of ceramics, the girls were free to window-shop. Jess found some foreign newspapers but the British ones were dated three days back and she didn’t want old news, being more uneasy at present about the situation she’d just walked out on.

  There was no way Stefano could guess which direction she’d taken. If they recovered the motorboat it could be anywhere east of San Marco, even of Murano by the time the fuel ran out. She hadn’t been happy about turning it loose with the choke wedged full open. A hazard to shipping, at least it had its front spotlight on. She hoped it could be avoided as it crossed the marked lanes, and not end as pulped fibreglass.

  Their journey resumed unbroken until Comacchio, just short of Ravenna, where Giorgio had further stock to pick up. It was there Jess decided to disappear. The farther south they went the wider the crossing of the Adriatic, and she wasn’t sure just what territory was opposite. Yugoslavia was split up now and Croatia still sounded like dangerous country, although some bold tourists had started returning to the west-facing coast.

  According to notes in the map book, on Comacchio’s Venetian-style canals the fishermen could sail down to open sea at Porto Garibaldi. After that, international navigation by the limp little tourist guide would be optimistic in the extreme. Columbus had had less to go on, she consoled herself; but then America was big enough not to be missed.

  She slid over the tailgate, telling Carla she’d go for Coke and cream cakes; anything to make the journey pass more quickly. The other girl shrugged, impatient to move on to somewhere they could swim from.

  Jess’s priority was to get herself a solid meal as prelude to any imposed fasting on the next stage of her journey. She made her way towards the lagoon and picked on a small cafe close to where fishing boats were moored. Scanning the faces round her as she waited for her order to be made up, she wondered if any of these men were involved in the steady trade in illegal immigrants. If she happened on the right one, chances were that he’d even prefer to take hu
man cargo in the opposite direction.

  She didn’t want to stay here overnight, but was prepared to be patient until the right kind of face suggested a likely accomplice: needy enough to be tempted by a few hundred euros, but not venal enough to take everything she had and drop her overboard to save himself fuel.

  I’m crazy, she admitted: travelling farther from home; banking all hopes on a totally unknown, war-ravaged country still fired by age-old enmities. This time she’d gone too far. For a brief instant she feared she might not make it. ‘Except,’ she said aloud, ‘that I have to.’

  That evening, in Ascot, a slight but significant spat broke out between Madeleine and her husband. It was Gus’s appointed duty to check on the stable-yard when the girls had left after watering the horses for the night. He was supposed to pick up the keys, padlock all gates and hang the keys in Madeleine’s office. She, fussily double-checking since they’d be going out for dinner, couldn’t find them and had to chase him to the bathroom.

  ‘Try my trousers’ pockets,’ he shouted from under the shower, but didn’t apologize.

  They weren’t to hand because his clothes were already in the laundry basket. Ruffled at having to search through dirty linen, Madeleine was even less enchanted to discover a number of betting slips alongside the truant keys.

  Gus could get away with a lot, but this time he’d chosen a bad moment to display his ineptitude. She burst in on him again as he towelled down, and read the riot act. At which he, already looking for some excuse to avoid the family dining-out, took umbrage and shouted back that he’d get himself something to eat at the local pub instead.

  It upset Maddie, accustomed to mediating as pig-in-the-middle between him and her father. She couldn’t recall just what had made Matthew so irritable tonight, but he had already been hatefully sarcastic to Gus, implying he was a worthless hanger-on and his job as an estate agent mere face-saving.