LONDON ALERT

by Christopher Bartlett

  ‘I feel a new man. The hotel was out of this world, but it’s your boat and relaxing in your company that is the icing on the cake. You are making us so welcome. By the way, how did you get to know Consuela?’

  ‘She’s like our daughter. We don’t have children, and have known her from way back – although, sadly, when she needed us most, we had temporarily lost touch, due to my being so wrapped up in the business. But in the end it was we who introduced her to her liberator, now her husband. That, in one way or another, solved a lot of her problems.’

  ‘She did tell me how she had a hard time with her step-parents as a young girl, and later with some dreadful man.’

  ‘Yes, but her success, if one can put it that way, was not only thanks to her looks but to her genuinely nice character. Beautiful women who have found themselves in the money through no merit of their own can be horrible – like that American hotel heiress who said taxes are only for the little people. Unfortunately, she was partly right. Just look at all these luxury yachts registered in tax havens. You can see Georgetown – that’s the one in the Cayman Islands, not Malaysia or Washington DC – on many of the sterns.’

  ‘I find Consuela such great company. She’s so natural,’ said Holt in reply.

  ‘Although,’ continued Jonathan, ‘she can put on a very superior air to discourage overfamiliarity at the fundraisers and receptions she and her husband host, she’s actually very unpretentious. The only thing she can’t bear is stupid stuck‑up people. She said you appeal to her because you are highly intelligent.’

  ‘People think I am clever, but that does not mean I am satisfied with what I am doing. I want to find something meaningful before it’s too late. I envy you.’

  Although he was pretty sure Jonathan had nothing to do with the Owl and was simply a friend of Consuela from way back, he could not be sure and wanted to give the impression he really was on the lookout for something new.

  ‘I can understand you feeling like that, though in my case I was lucky in that I was hooked on the idea that subsequently made my fortune – if you can call what I have a fortune compared with what these billionaire yacht owners have.’

  ‘It’s not really my business, and don’t answer if you do not want to, but what’s her husband like? She does not say much about him.’

  ‘Driven. Ambitious but open-minded and generous. He does a lot for charity, as I said, and not only for the tax breaks. He’s got a great sense of humour and gives Consuela a free rein, but that does not mean she sleeps around. Quite the contrary. She always seems to be giving pursuers their marching orders. She adores rather than loves her husband. They make a good couple. Neither can bear fools. He is very powerful. Not someone to be trifled with. I wouldn’t like to get on the wrong side of him.’

  This left Holt again wondering just how much chance had to do with Consuela’s ex’s fiery end in that car accident.

  They were rounding another headland and dropping anchor off the beach that Consuela had pointed out the evening before.

  ‘We’re here,’ called out Jonathan, even though Amanda and Consuela could hardly have failed to hear the clanking of the anchor being lowered.

  ‘Let’s go to the beach, Jeremy, darling,’ said Consuela on coming up to join them.

  ‘I’ll get William to take you in the launch,’ interjected Jonathan. ‘As we’re a big boat, we’ve had to drop anchor rather far out. To get to the beach, you would have to swim between the smaller craft further in and risk getting chopped up by one of their propellers. Not worth the risk, slight though it is.’

  The tiny crane lifted the dinghy from the upper afterdeck and lowered it into the azure sea. The ‘captain’ jumped in, followed by the two of them. In a couple of minutes, they were through the pack of other boats further in.

  Looking great, this time in her swimsuit, Consuela turned to Holt.

  ‘Do you think you can make it to the beach from here?’

  ‘Sure,’ replied Holt, trying to look more confident than he really was.

  With the buoyant salty water at such an agreeable temperature, it was finally no problem making it to the shore. Even so, they lay panting on the sand, as Consuela had swum very fast.

  ‘Reminds me of when I was young,’ she said excitedly. ‘Had such a great time here. It was nice of them to let us come on our own, thinking we would prefer privacy. Your presence makes me feel young again. Let’s go and have a pancake at the café over there, in the cheap place with the ordinary folk.’

  The atmosphere at the unpretentious café was relaxing, though it did not have loungers, like the more sophisticated ones further along the beach. The sight of the children playing nearby in the water gave a greater holiday feeling than at the hotel. All too soon it was time to go back, and Consuela called Jonathan on the waterproof mobile phone he had lent her to ask him to send the dinghy to pick them up.

  Back on the yacht, they went down to the cabin to change into something more suitable than bathing costumes for dinner, albeit in the open air under the awning.

  Veronica in her uniform, consisting of a beige skirt and a white blouse hinting at her young breasts, busied herself at the specially designed barbeque that fitted neatly along the coaming. When she left, Holt remarked how nice she looked and asked Jonathan what it took to be a crew member.

  ‘Everyone believes the men have to be tall, dark, and handsome, and the girls have to be blonde with legs up to their armpits. In fact, the people with enough money to have a decent boat are quite capable of finding their own beauties for entertaining to suit the occasion. What they are seeking for crew are people who present well, have a nice personality, and are willing to buckle down to almost any task without complaining. And above all, are trustworthy and discreet. No selling of titbits to the gossip columns.’

  ‘I see. What about Veronica?’

  ‘Actually, she’s an exception. She’s William’s cousin, which makes everything easier all round, as we are like family. In the old days, everything on boats, even smallish ones like this, was very formal; now it’s much more relaxed. As I said, the great thing is trust, and owners look for people with experience who can prove they are reliable. That makes it difficult for a young girl, or lad for that matter, to get started in the profession. Indeed, it is a profession, and early on crew will often work for a number of owners. Hard work, though, but it can be quite exciting.

  The four of them were sitting around the table under the awning on the top deck, with William and Veronica beavering away below.

  ‘We’ve,’ said Jonathan, ‘a small but fully equipped kitchen below, but up here we’ve hotplates and the mini barbeque set in the coaming. Means we can finish things off up here in private.’

  ‘I’ve always wondered,’ said Holt, ‘why these boats, and the much bigger ones owned by Russian oligarchs, are called yachts when they don’t have sails.’

  ‘I wondered that myself,’ said Jonathan, ‘and actually looked it up in Wikipedia. It seems a yacht was originally a fast Dutch boat for catching pirates and smugglers in shallow waters. After Charles II of England used one to bring him to Britain from Holland for his restoration, the term came to be used to mean a vessel for conveying VIPs. Of course, in the old days all those boats used sails, and for a time the term “yacht” was synonymous with boats with sails. Nowadays, for people with money, it often means a motor yacht.’

  ‘I see,’ replied Holt.

  ‘Interestingly, the great improvements made to motor yachts are now being applied to sailboats. The introduction of carbon-fibre-reinforced hulls has made a big difference. They are so strong and easy to maintain, though repairs in the event of serious damage can be expensive.’

  ‘I would love a boat like this, Jonathan.’

  ‘Be careful about for what you wish, my dear Jeremy. A boat is something you should only have if you have enough money left over after buying it to pay people to look after it, and if a large one, enough money to pay the crew. Wasn’t it when being taken to task
about the high cost of maintaining his yacht that J. P. Morgan famously said, “If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it”?’

  ‘Yes, but can’t one do a lot oneself?’

  ‘That’s the big mistake people make, for without adequate funds, the boat becomes your master and takes over your whole life. It was worse in the old days when the hulls were made of wood rather than carbon-reinforced plastic. An English guy I once knew bought a sailboat he could barely afford. He thought it was his dream come true, but with little money left, he had to spend every weekend scraping barnacles off the hull and painting it, leaving his wife sulking at home. Plus she hated boats.’

  ‘I can understand her,’ exclaimed Consuela. ‘That is if the boat was in England with the bad weather. Here’s different.’

  ‘Nowadays,’ continued Jonathan, ‘you can remove the barnacles and foreign matter from the plastic hulls with a high-powered water jet, but even so there’s a lot that needs to be done. You’ve only got to look around the marina at Antibes in the two or three months before the season to see the crews assiduously polishing and painting.’

  ‘Jonathan, you yourself are lucky to be rich enough to do it in style.’

  ‘It wasn’t luck. I worked my arse off, but now I’ve finally got all this, I’m almost too old to enjoy it. My greatest satisfaction is seeing other people, like you and Consuela, enjoying it. Please make the most it.’

  ‘I certainly am. By the way, what happened to that English guy with the boat?’

  ‘Oh, his wife got fed up sitting at home alone, divorced him for half his money plus maintenance for the three kids, and married a young layabout who was always on hand to rub her down. My friend had to sell the boat and ended up with the dog, which at least had enjoyed the days spent watching him scraping away. But let’s forget about that loser and have some more champagne.’

  Veronica had come up with some nibbles – and what nibbles. So fresh and appetizing, made all the better by the dry champagne. Shortly afterwards, Amanda and Consuela joined them, and Holt took the opportunity to give Consuela a broad smile, which she returned, pretending to bite her lower lip for being such a naughty girl. Had she told bosom friend Amanda what they had been up to?

  It was a lovely evening, with only a slight swell. The food and wine, the great company, plus being served by Veronica made it one of the best evenings Holt had ever spent. To cap it all, he had the night to look forward to. Were it not for thought of the initiation test that lay ahead, it would have been perfect.

  As on the previous morning, Consuela remained in bed for breakfast. Having time to spare, they went for a last walk around the grounds with the freshness of the night still lingering under the trees.

  Consuela signed the very substantial bill as if it were nothing, telling the receptionist to debit it from her husband’s account. A member of staff took charge of their bags and accompanied them down to the jetty as Amanda and Jonathan’s boat eased its way alongside.

  They would cut right across to Villefranche-sur-Mer, where a tender from the Vessos would pick Holt and Consuela up. No need to moor.

  After they had cast off, Jonathan pushed the throttle fully forward and the boat surged ahead. Soon they were hydroplaning at high speed with hardly any pitching, thanks to the stabilizer, and Holt commented on that.

  ‘I should,’ said Jonathan, ‘have explained that there are basically two kinds of motor yacht: light ones with relatively powerful engines like this one, which rise out of the water and hydroplane at speeds up to thirty knots, and heavy ones, which sit in the water and travel relatively slowly.’

  They were at the tip of Antibes Peninsula, with the long coast leading to Nice Airport well to their left, and were able to watch several aircraft make their approach over Antibes, descend over the water and land. They scanned the long beach at Nice through binoculars as they passed. Soon they were rounding the headland, jutting far out to sea beyond, and entering Villefranche bay. There they found themselves in a different world.

  Encircled on three sides by high mountains, the bay had a tranquil atmosphere, quite different from the bustle of nearby Nice.

  ‘It is actually,’ said Jonathan, ‘a very convenient spot for a gathering of important people. It’s next to Nice, with its airport, and not far from Monaco, with its rich residents. Did you hear the story about one of them, the famous tennis star Boris Becker?’

  ‘All I know is how he had an expensive fling in the broom cupboard at Nobu, the well-known Japanese restaurant in London.’

  ‘Well, Becker, who claimed to be resident in Monaco, was allegedly caught out by the German tax authorities, partly because his accountant boasted to a man he happened to meet on a German train, who unknown to him was a tax inspector, about how clever he was helping Becker avoid tax, as they could not prove anything. However, the kicker was that Becker snubbed a fanatical fan by refusing to give him an autograph. Enraged, the man went to the German tax authorities with proof that Becker had not been in Monaco long enough to avoid German taxes – he had newspaper cuttings reporting everything Becker did and where.’

  Down in their cabin to get ready, Consuela changed out of the somewhat formal attire she had worn to check out of the hotel into a striped fleece sweatshirt, tucked into white twill shorts. The contrast with the expensive-looking black leather belt drew attention to the shorts and her thighs. Had Holt not lain between them, he would not have been able to take his eyes off them.

  He himself had what he thought was a trendy rich‑guy-on-a-yacht number that Consuela had insisted on bringing. They were not quite film stars, but looked successful.

  The Vessos’s tender arrived promptly and took them to the boarding steps. Holt had intended to mount them two at a time and request ‘permission to come aboard’, just like US Navy officers do in films, but with Consuela determined to precede him he was unable to do so. Instead, the more senior of the two officers waiting for them at the top was the first to speak, saying, ‘Welcome to the Vessos,’ to which Holt was obliged to reply lamely, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Although,’ continued the sarcastic and supercilious officer, ‘we shall not be graced with your company overnight, you have been granted a stateroom so you can relax before the reception begins.’

  ‘ “Granted” is a very impolite way of putting it,’ replied Consuela, none too happy with their implication they did not automatically merit one.

  ‘My humble apologies. I am Greek and my English not so good. In Greek it means it is an honour.’

  ‘Apologies accepted,’ replied Consuela, unfazed.

  ‘My colleague will show you the way. Many guests have yet to arrive, so we suggest you relax and come up to the afterdeck in an hour or so. If you don’t appear, we’ll send someone down to call you.’

  As she didn’t speak Greek, there was no way Consuela could verify his excuse, but she seemed happy at the prospect of their having some time alone in their stateroom, leaving Holt wondering whether they might even find time for a session.

  They did, and when they arrived on the afterdeck they were flushed, as if they had just won a mixed-doubles tennis match. The two officers who had welcomed them aboard had noticed their sprightliness, with the elder one asking whether they had recharged their batteries, and the younger one unable to keep his eyes off Consuela’s lithe legs.

  ‘Yes, we really needed it,’ replied Consuela with a broad smile and what seemed like a wink.

  The officers, now showing due respect, proceeded to introduce them to their host, Zeon, a smooth elderly man who seemed to be the owner of the ship and master of ceremonies.

  ‘Great to have you with us. We were told to look after you as you represent the future. As you can see, most of the people here are elderly and well established in their careers or whatever. I do not always agree with what they do or believe. In fact, I hold these reception-cum-seminars in the hope those attending will be more enlightened afterwards.’

  ‘You know,’ whispered Consuela into Holt’s
ear after Zeon had excused himself to welcome the prime minister of some resource-rich republic south-east of Russia with a name ending in “-stan”, ‘a luxury yacht is very different from an ocean liner. There is none of that infra dig competition to sit at the captain’s table. The crew, including the captain, are here to serve every whim of the owner or charterer.’

  ‘To judge from the abundance of beauties,’ said Holt with a smile, ‘a number of whims are being served, though none of them could equal you.’

  Consuela seemed to appreciate the compliment, though flattery was hardly necessary in view of the admiring looks she was getting. Being rich or important, and assuming Holt was likewise financially well provided for, they knew how money and power attracted women and were not surprised at the disparity between Holt and Consuela. His Owl application form had been correct in guaranteeing the satisfaction of other men’s envious looks, even though not promising he would be getting what they were thinking.

  Zeon returned, having left X-stan’s prime minister in the good company of one of those young women. The girls probably would be classed as entertainers rather than crew and invited onboard for the occasion, so the qualifications Jonathan ascribed to crew members, notably discretion, would still apply.

  Zeon introduced them to one VIP after another. Sheik so and so, interior minister so and so, and so on. There were some fifty people altogether, and all were obviously rich and successful as heads of companies and hedge funds, and as government officials and politicos from various countries. Was the Owl of their number?

  Having given time for people to circulate with their drinks and make acquaintances, the crew opened some sliding doors to reveal tables laid out with a sumptuous buffet. Caviar, lobster, hams, the works. There was none of the meanness of some in the country set in England, described by Kingsley Amis in Take a Girl Like You, who, to save money, would have an impressive giant ham which was never eaten, as it had toothpicks with cheap titbits stuck all over it, defending it like the spines on some giant hedgehog or porcupine.