by Penny Jordan
Strange to think how at the beginning of her captivity she would have relished this moment, enjoyed the thought of Nico being sent to prison, deprived of his freedom as she had been deprived of hers. But now ...
As she sat staring into space, events and emotions which had previously been alien and bewildering clicked into space and she stared sightlessly down at the letter as the truth struck her with the force of a blow.
She loved Nico! That was why she had not been able to enjoy her holiday; had spent so many nights lying awake, so many days trying to combat the deep ache inside her. What she had mistakenly thought of as merely sexual desire, a need to experiment before her life was cut short, had in reality been her body's way of urging her towards the truth. Had she merely wanted to experiment she would have turned equally easily to Guido or Piero, surely, but instead she had wanted Nico and only Nico.
She had been halfway to falling in love with him when she saw him on the beach, and the hothouse atmosphere of the farmhouse had forced that love into early and heady flowering.
Suddenly she knew what she must do. It wouldn't be easy, and would undoubtedly shock and hurt her father, but she loved Nico and she was prepared to fight for him no matter what he had done in the past. Surely when she told the authorities how he had saved her life in those desperate minutes, when he had pushed her out of the way of Olivia's gun, they would judge him less harshly? She knew he hadn't been involved in those other kidnappings. But she didn't know what he had been doing, she reminded herself; she didn't even know how he felt about her. But that didn't matter. She wanted to save him with the same intensity with which she had once wanted to see him punished.
If her father found her determination to attend the trial strange, he made no comment about it. Saffron wrote back to the Italian authorities, telling them that she would stand as a witness. She had decided to make her plea for Nico from the witness box; that way it would have more authority, more shock value.
She wasn't entirely stupid, though; she could well imagine the field day the press would have, insinuating that somehow Nico had warped her judgment; and all the past gossip about her would be resurrected, but she no longer cared. Nico knew the truth.
The trial was a month away and there wasn't a day when she didn't think about Nico, nor a night when she didn't dream his arms were round her and she would wake up with her head pillowed against his chest, his body inflaming hers with its proximity.
The beautician who normally looked after her at her favourite beauty salon had been appalled by the state of her nails and skin. The destruction of her hair-style she had been able to correct by opting for a shorter, softer look than she had worn previously. He preferred it, her father had told her, and Saffron couldn't deny that it was softly and flatteringly feminine.
For the court hearing, which had been brought forward because the authorities were worried that any stray members of the gang not rounded up might try and break their friends free, Saffron had chosen a silk outfit in a rich golden yellow that echoed her name and brought out the golden lights in her auburn hair and tawny eyes. It made her look older, or was it simply that she had matured? Sir Richard told her that she looked enchanting, but privately he thought she looked heartbreakingly fragile and vulnerable, and he wished he knew what brought the shadows to her eyes and the droop to her mouth, but he was too wise and understanding to probe; their new relationship too precious to withstand any rough handling.
He had wanted to go to Italy with her, but Saffron had refused, and anyway, a sudden business trip to New York the week the trial started meant that he could not have accompanied her.
The weekend before she was due to leave he returned home early on the Friday night. Saffron had been busy packing—the saffron suit and the other clothes she would need for the first few days of the trial when she would be giving evidence. Her father came up to her room looking tired and anxious.
'I know you're going to object to this,' he began without preamble, 'but I've arranged for someone to go to Rome with you.'
'Not the inestimable Dom?' Saffron said sarcastically. She was a little tired of her father's constant enthusiastic references to his friend, but he ignored her rude comment and shook his head.
'No, one of the men who stormed the farmhouse. He's going to give evidence as well.'
Evidence which might convict Nico! Saffron tensed. This was something she hadn't planned for. This man her father was referring to must be one of the S.A.S. men who had rescued her.
If he was she didn't recognise him, but then she could remember very little about that day. He was both pleasant and polite as he took his seat beside her, and became engrossed in a biography of Winston Churchill once they were airborne.
She hadn't realised how tense she was until the flight was nearly over, when he said quietly to her, 'It must be hard for you to do this ... especially when you lived so closely with them. It's one of the things we learn during training,' he added informatively. 'It goes one of two ways—either a deep and abiding hatred develops in the victim, or an intense sense of dependency.'
He was watching her, and despite his politeness Saffron sensed that he was wondering which applied to her. He would know soon enough, she thought, folding her lips into a tight line. It was true, she was dependent on Nico. Without him life would hold no real meaning, and yet she knew that it was more than likely that he didn't return her feelings. But if she could get him freed, if her father could be persuaded to help, surely then Nico would need her? She moved restlessly in her seat. Was that what she wanted? Cowed gratitude, dependence because there was nothing else for him? Did she really want him reduced to that? Hadn't she loved him because he was proud and independent? Would he really want his freedom at such a price, or would any feelings he might have for her turn to hatred and contempt? Backwards and forwards she argued with herself during the short flight, and was no nearer coming to any conclusion when it was over. All she did know was that she couldn't allow Nico to go to prison without at least trying to save him; what happened or didn't happen after that must be up to him.
With the armed guard that met them at the airport and surrounded her hotel came the realisation of how seriously the authorities were taking the trial and how little chance she had of actually helping Nico. The Italian Government was out for blood, and with Saffron's help they intended to get it, she realised that on the first day of the trial, when she was invited to take the witness stand and tell the jury how she had come to be kidnapped.
In the stand she could see Olivia, staring sullenly at her; Guido and Piero at her side, and behind them others whom she did not recognise, but Nico's face was not among them. Fear and panic began to build up inside her. Where was he?
The questions continued to come, and she forced herself to answer them as best she could, always without implicating Nico, her tension growing second by second as she searched the courtroom for him. Had he escaped? There had been nothing in the papers.
At one point where she was forced to disclose how Guido had attacked her, the room started to spin hazily round her and her voice became husky and strained. The judge was kind and fatherly. A glass of watered wine was brought to her and she was offered a chair.
'And at this point you were saved by another member of the gang?' the judge questioned, reading from the statement Saffron had given just after she was rescued. 'This man ... is he here with the others?'
Someone walked over to the judge and whispered something in his ear. He nodded slowly. 'Ah yes,' he smiled at Saffron, 'I was forgetting—the man in question was shot during the fighting when you were rescued and is now beyond human justice.'
The courtroom swayed and tilted, spinning crazily round her. Nico was dead ... dead ... Sound encroached and receded in heavy waves; someone at the back of the courtroom was shouting; the man who had travelled with her on the plane was running towards her, a gun in his hand. Suddenly violence erupted in the small courtroom. Someone screamed and Saffron was pushed to the floor, just
as a knife whistled past her ear. Shots rang out, and when at last Saffron raised her head, all she could see was Guido's sprawled, motionless body, and Olivia's contorted bitter face.
Just for a moment the scene changed and it was Nico's body lying where Guido was; Nico's arms outflung, body devoid of life, and the searing intensity of her loss outweighed every other emotion.
Over her head she heard her S.A.S. guard curse; and then he was turning to her, asking if she was all right. 'Dom warned me to expect something like this,' he muttered, but the remark had no meaning for Saffron. Nico was dead.
But she couldn't leave it there. After what had happened to her there was no question of her giving further evidence, but she refused to leave the court until she had learned the full circumstances surrounding Nico's death.
There was pity and compassion in her guard's eyes, when she told him that he would have to carry her out bodily and that she wasn't leaving until she knew everything. There was another emotion she couldn't give a name to as well, an almost guilty look.
She saw it again when she eventually managed to talk to one of the officials, a dapper, grim-faced Italian who spoke perfect English and who apologised profusely for what had so nearly happened. 'Bastardi! These animals are not fit to live,' he said bitterly. 'They want to tear down the very fabric of civilisation, even to the extent of murdering His Holiness. They do not deserve to live.'
A pleading glance at her guard had him interrupting the man's monologue to ask the questions Saffron found she could not now frame.
'Miss Wykeham is concerned about the man Nico. He was shot and killed, I believe, during her rescue.'
Was it her imagination or did some silent message pass between the two men?
After the merest hesitation, the Italian agreed, 'Yes, that is so.'
'He died at the farmhouse?' Something was driving her to learn the truth, no matter how painful. She had to know—she must know how Nico had died.
'Yes. He was shot by one of your rescuers ‑'
'One of his own gang.'
The two explanations came simultaneously, and a frown touched Saffron's forehead, but before she could query the apparent discrepancy in their explanations the Italian apologised smoothly, 'Yes, of course, you are right—I am mistaken, he was shot by one of your rescuers.'
Nico dead! She could not take it in. He had been so magnificently alive, so inviolate and armoured in his strength of will. Hysterical sobs shook her body. Her S.A.S. guard looked uncomfortable, as did the Italian.
'Signorina, please .. .'
'What happened to his body?'
Silence.
'He ... he has been buried.'
'And his grave?'
'Unmarked, as befits such a criminal,' the Italian told her, and it seemed to be the final blow. Nico was gone as though he had never been and there wasn't even a grave to mark his time on earth.
The S.A.S. man seemed anxious to get her away from the court, and she had the distinct impression that he was anxious for her not to ask any more questions, almost as though something were being hidden from her, but what?
Her father was waiting for her when their plane touched down at Heathrow, but when he saw her remote, shuttered face, and the way she moved, slowly and painfully as though she were about to shatter into a million tiny fragments, he made no move to touch her. Without giving her the opportunity to protest he arranged for them to go down to Surrey. Saffron couldn't remember the last time they had spent time together in the country, but although she tried to force herself to respond to her father's mood, it was impossible.
Nico haunted her. Only in losing him did she realise the intensity of her love for him; so much so that every conscious minute without him was a physical pain, and worse than everything else, the fact that she didn't know where his body lay; that she couldn't go there and find some comfort in being there.
She confided as much in her father, hoping that he might have enough influence to discover where Nico was buried, but to her dismay he seemed strangely reluctant to help. 'It will only make it harder for you,' was his explanation, but Saffron had a peculiar conviction that this was not his real reason, and once again the thought floated elusively through her mind that she was not being told the full truth. But what more could there be?
Even her desperate wish that she might have conceived Nico's child was denied her. Her father urged her to try and take up the threads of life again, but she felt no urge to do so. Four days after they had arrived at the house, to please her father, she agreed to his suggestion that they lunch out. He drove them himself to a small pub, well patronised by locals, and ordered a meal for them both.
The pate which was served with mouth-watering homemade bread was coarse-grained and appetising, but Saffron had barely taken a mouthful when she saw a man standing up at the far end of the room, dark hair curling into his collar, his movements fluid and sure. She only had the merest glimpse of a back view of him, but it was enough to drive the colour from her face, Nico's name falling achingly from her lips. Her father's reactions were swift, as he moved to shield Saffron's pale face and shaking body from the other diners.
'It couldn't have been Nico, Saffron,' he told her quietly, but there was a look in his eyes Saffron found it hard to analyse, compounded of guilt and anger. When he was sure she had fully recovered he told her that he had just remembered a phone call he should have made before leaving the house.
Watching him disappear towards the telephone, Saffron tried to pull herself together. Her father seemed to be gone for a long time, and when he returned he looked thoughtful and preoccupied.
They left the pub almost immediately, but it wasn't until they were back at the house that he said softly, 'I know you've already given me the basics of what happened when you were held prisoner—I know how you feel about Nico, but you've kept so much to yourself, Saffron. Would it help to talk about it?'
'Oh, Daddy!' She flung herself into his arms, her fragile composure cracking completely, as she sobbed out her story and he listened in silence.
When she came to the end he looked very grave, and very much older. 'My poor darling girl,' he said sadly, 'what can I say? You talk of love for this man, are you sure it isn't simply infatuation— intensified by the fact that you know he's unattainable? Even if he had survived…'
'Would he have wanted me?' she asked soberly. 'Daddy, I don't know. I only know that I love him, and without him life is simply existence.' Her fingers rested lightly on her stomach, and he followed the gesture before saying softly, 'You were lovers, weren't you?'
She nodded, slow tears spilling down her cheeks.
'Yes, and believe it not, he was the first. He didn't want to, but I insisted, and I'm glad,' she cried desperately. 'At least I've had that. And don't tell me that I'm young and there'll be someone else; there never will—not someone like Nico.'
'Oh, my poor girl! What can I say? That time heals? It does, you know. When I first lost your mother ...' He sighed, and seem to age even more. 'Saffron, I've misjudged you, and worse ...'
'Because you didn't think I was capable of such love?' she asked sadly. 'Or perhaps because I said Nico was the first? I can't blame you, Daddy, my press hasn't been good.'
'What can I say? You're too old to be fed platitudes, and too young to accept that eventually they prove to be correct.'
But nevertheless Saffron knew he watched her with growing sadness when they returned to London. She worked doggedly in the office, and even enrolled on a course for secretarial work, but work was the only means of exhausting herself enough to sleep at night, and she needed her sleep because in her dreams Nico was always there, always loving, always warm and alive.
Christmas came and went. Her hair had started to grow long again. She was too thin, brittle and fragile as glass. The pain was getting worse, not better.
In the New Year her father had to go to New York again. The week before his trip he seemed on edge and unusually nervous. When Saffron tackled him with it, h
e said that it was because he didn't like the thought of leaving her alone. 'I've asked Dom to call round and see that everything's okay,' he told her, avoiding her eyes. 'He's in Sweden at the moment on business, but he'll be back next week. He's got a key to the penthouse.'
They were back in London and Saffron wanted to tell him that she didn't need keeping an eye on as though she were a witless child, but he looked so grave and careworn that she didn't have the heart.
'Saffron, I.. .' he began when she didn't demur, breaking off to say unevenly, 'May God forgive me for what I've done to you, because I can't forgive myself. If I'd known ...'
Thinking he was referring to the fact that but for having a wealthy father she would never have been kidnapped, never have met Nico, she said softly,
'Daddy, there's nothing to forgive, just the opposite. What happened with Nico is more precious to me than anything else in life, and even though I'll never see him or touch him again my life is richer because of what happened. Perhaps you're right and it's better this way; at least I can pretend that he might have felt something for me ...'
'Of course he did,' her father interrupted explosively. 'Saffron, I. ..'
Knowing that he was trying to ease her pain, she managed a shaky laugh. 'What do you mean, "of course he did"—why should he? Because I'm your daughter?' she teased.
He left the following afternoon. Saffron drove him to the airport, driving the heavy Rolls with skill. Afterwards instead of returning to the penthouse she drove to the office, engrossing herself in work, until she was so tired that she could have slept at her desk.
For several days she was at work by eight in the morning, not leaving until eight at night, when she returned to the penthouse, too exhausted even to eat, but gradually her body adapted to the punishing pace, and sleep became more elusive.