When the Siren Calls

by Tom Barry

  “It’s better this way, Isobel. It’s better to know now.”

  As Isobel shuddered in anguish, Peter sat calmly on the other side of the Atlantic, waiting patiently in Dallas International Airport for a call from Massimo Pitsone, an old colleague from the Milan branch of his previous job. He straightened himself with confidence as the first peal of the phone rang out in the silence of the first class lounge. They had barely exchanged pleasantries before Massimo, who sounded strained and anxious, broke into the reason for the call — the prospectus for Castello di Capadelli.

  “Peter, my assessment of the proposal is similar to the one you have from the guys in London. But there’s something more I think you should consider. Whoever has written this document is either a complete fantasist, or is simply ignorant of the laws and regulations here in Italy. Or maybe both. The numbers are attractive, but what is proposed is impossible to do at this place Capadelli.”

  “How can you be so sure?” asked Peter, taken aback.

  “Because in this matter the law, for once, is black and white — your so-called resort is an illegal tourist complex. ”

  “But there’s already a hotel and restaurant operating on the site; how can it be illegal?”

  “Yes, I noticed that. But I can find no reference to any licences being granted for hotel and restaurant operations at Castello di Capadelli, which I think would be very difficult to obtain.”

  “So what about the spa and all the other developments that are in phase two?” asked Peter, his voice steadily rising as unease turned to foreboding.

  “All these are, and I hate to use the word, impossible. No one in the business of operating tourist facilities would buy into the development, that I can guarantee you.”

  “I’m sorry to sound like a broken record, Massimo, but from the very outset the place has been promoted as a tourist complex, as a resort.”

  Peter could almost hear Massimo shaking his head. “I saw that too, but my view is that all these promises are nothing more than inducements, hooks to sell property. It never has been, nor ever will be, a tourist resort. You see, I can give you a thousand reasons why it can’t b—”

  “Massimo, you have been most helpful. I owe you one.”

  The Italian did not take offence at his brusqueness; he knew a chastened man when he heard one, and thus carefully laced his apocalyptic words with a soothing tone.

  “It has been my pleasure. I am sorry to have not been able to be more encouraging. I have just one other incidental point. I think you said you were thinking of buying an apartment at Capadelli, irrespective of the wider investment. If so, I very much recommend you seek an independent valuation. I say this because the prices I see on the Capadelli website for apartments are strange.” He hesitated, seeming uncertain whether to heap further bad news on his old friend; in the short silence Peter could hear the tapping of computer keys somewhere at the other end of the line. “Perhaps I am not understanding something, but even in the centre of Milano I would not pay so much as these prices.”Forty

  Jay and Lucy sped from Pisa to Capadelli in a pearl white cabriolet, the top down and the wind in their hair, resplendent together in symbiotic beauty. Her sultry, youthful allure complimenting his mature and magnetic presence, they seemed to sail along the road as if propelled by their own power. The cool breeze rendered the sun-beaten landscape no more than a vast and beautiful painting, an idyllic backdrop for their perfection. She fiddled with his hair in playful affection as he drove, her eyes fixed on him.

  “Jay?”

  “Yes, Lucy?”

  “Did you like what I did for you last night?”

  He threw her a glance. “I will send you a thank you note,” he said, smiling at the memory.

  “Jay?” She looked at him unblinkingly now, her gaze almost predatory in its attentiveness.

  “Hmm?”

  “You remember at the sports day, when I said I wanted to talk about us and the future?”

  He held back a sigh. “Darling, I’m driving, let’s discuss it later.”

  She shook her head, flailing strands of gold through the wind as she did so.

  “No, if you can handle me giving you a blowjob while you’re driving, then I think you can manage to talk and steer at the same time. And if you can’t do that you are just going to have to listen.”

  Jay looked at her, weariness clear on his face. “What’s on your mind?”

  “You know perfectly well,” she replied. “We’ve been going out together for nearly two years now. That’s how long it’s been since you first told me that you weren’t happy with Rusty.”

  “I’m not sure I said that exactly.” Jay did not mean to bait her but couldn’t quite banish the blitheness from his tone.

  “So are you now saying you are happy with her?” she asked, in no mood for games and well aware that she had less than an hour before they reached Capadelli.

  “Lucy, this is all a bit heavy. We’re here to enjoy ourselves, not to talk about Rusty.” She tried to interrupt but he powered on, “and anyway, from everything you’ve been saying about Rob lately, it hardly matters what either of us said two years ago.”

  “I only have Rob because I need someone when you’re not around,” she retorted. “If you were around more, then things would be different.”

  “But you live in London, and Rob lives in London, and I live in Cheshire, so he’s always going to be around a lot more than me.”

  Jay took his eyes from the road and flashed her a quick smile, by all appearances reconciliatory but confident he had trumped her.

  “Well, that’s what I want to discuss,” said Lucy, reflecting back the smile like a mirror but with danger in her eyes.

  “You mean you and Rob are moving to Cheshire?” He widened his eyes in playful shock, determined not to let the conversation become real.

  “Jay, I’m serious.”

  “Serious about what?”

  “I want to come and live with you.”

  He turned sharply onto a side road, swinging his body into hers with the force of the manoeuvre.

  “Do we have to do this now? I live with Rusty and have two twelve-year-old boys. Now can we just leave it?”

  She ignored him and continued, placing each well-rehearsed word after the next with calculated rigour.

  “Most of the time you don’t live with Rusty. Most of the time you are somewhere else — here in Tuscany — living by yourself in your own flat. So if I lived here with you, then there wouldn’t be any problem.”

  She stressed her final word in premature elation but Jay made no reply, keeping his eyes firmly on the sharply winding road.

  “So what I’m saying,” she continued, “is that I am not asking you to leave Rusty right away, but I am asking to come and live with you here. I’ve been thinking a lot about it, and there’s no reason why it can’t work.”

  “Except you have a job in London,” he reminded her, still not meeting her gaze.

  “I only fly fourteen days a month. And if I want to I can do the London to Pisa run permanently. I know it can be made to work because other girls do it. I really don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.”

  “Just because it works for other people doesn’t mean it will work for you. And what about Rob’s feelings?”

  “When have you ever cared about Rob’s feelings?” she said, her tone derisive.

  “Probably more often than you have.” He met her eyes now and would not release them. “Anyway, this is too big a thing to unload on me now and expect me to discuss it sensibly, let alone give you an answer.”

  “If you love me, Jay, as you say you do, then there’s really not much to think about. We can be together here and you don’t have to change anything at home, not yet anyway.”

  “Where is all this coming from?” he asked, fearing he would drown in the sheer volume of her words. “Things have been working fine the way they are.”

  “Not for me. At least not anymore. Anyway, now you know what I w
ant, you’d also better know that I’ve asked for a transfer to Pisa, and I’ve given notice on my flat. So while we’re here I’ll be taking notes in your place. Measuring curtains and all that sort of thing. Deciding what bits and pieces I want to bring over.”

  She met his eyes once more, challenging their indifference. “I’m moving in with you, Jay.”Forty-one

  Soft white clouds blanketed the Surrey sky as Peter Roberts wandered late down to breakfast, still in his dressing gown as his gym kit lay untouched on the dressing room floor. For the first time he could remember, there had been no particular reason to get out of bed on a workday. Powerless frustration lingered on him like a stale odour. As he wandered aimlessly into the lounge-sized kitchen, its granite surfaces refracting the light into emblems on the walls, he found Isobel sitting listlessly at the breakfast table. She was nursing a cup of coffee and staring intently at a single piece of paper, her eyes flicking frenetically back and forth as she read and reread the cold black words.

  “There’s a letter here that you might want to read,” she said, looking up at him and folding the paper in two. “It’s from Andy Skinner, about the rental scheme and what’s happening at Capadelli.”

  Peter took the letter from her and paced about reading it in silence, his face reddening bit by bit as his eyes descended the paper. Isobel could not watch him and distracted herself as best she could in the murky depths of her latte.

  Peter scrunched up the letter and threw the ball at the wall, the sounds resonating like artillery fire in the intense quiet of the room. He moved to the window and looked into the distance, out across the fields, and said nothing for a long time as Isobel watched, tense and anxious. Several minutes passed before he spoke.

  “The bastards,” he said, his voice low and emphatic. “But it’s not Skinner that’s the villain, you know, it’s smooth talking Brooke, he’s the one that screwed us.”

  Isobel flinched beneath his words and said nothing, opting for sitting motionlessly and staring once more at the still surface of her drink. Peter approached his wife and leant over the table, his weight supported by two clenched fists.

  “Isobel, did you hear what I said?”

  “Yes, I heard you,” she said quietly. “But all the letter says is they are reviewing the rental scheme.”

  “It’s not what it says. It’s what it doesn’t say. We’ve been cheated. It’s not just about being turned over on the apartments. Or being screwed on the rental deal. If I’d bought into the project, in six months, we’d be looking down the barrel of a £30 million loss.”

  “Save the melodrama,” said Isobel with a sigh, “he only asked you to look at something for Skinner, he never asked you to invest.”

  “But he was hoping I would.”

  “Was he, really? He must have known you’d check things out. Maybe he was just trying to buy himself some time, to keep Skinner off his back.” Isobel looked away, conscious she had said too much, and shocked to hear herself seeking to make excuses for the man who had so recently betrayed her

  Peter ignored her words of mitigation, and ploughed on with his tirade. “He can’t be allowed to get away with this. And, for better or worse, we are the only people who can make sure he pays for his sins.”

  Isobel gulped at his words; was she now to pay for her sins every bit as much as Jay? She looked up at him unsteadily.

  “Well, we need to do something,” he declared, pacing away in frustration.

  Isobel blew through her lips in exasperation. “For god’s sake, stop talking like a boy scout. There’s nothing we can do.”

  “The hell there isn’t. We can get even, that’s what we can do.”

  “I don’t see how,” she said, “and getting even won’t get us our money back.”

  “It’s not about money, it’s about satisfaction.” He thumped his fist down with the last word and silent tremors crossed the surface of Isobel’s coffee.

  She put her hand over Peter’s closed fist. “How about we just let it go?” she suggested gently, as much for her own sake as his. “Save ourselves any more grief.”

  “Grief? Giving out grief is what we need to be doing, not saving ourselves from it.” Peter paced back to the window, a slight spring developing with every step.

  “An hour ago I woke up thinking I had nothing to do. Well, this letter just changed that. I’m going to make that smug bastard rue the day he ever met me.”

  “Good money after bad?” she asked, with sarcasm etched into her voice.

  Peter returned to the table and sat opposite his wife, wrapping his hands around hers so that they held the cup together. “Listen, no one’s going to fuck me over and get away with it, especially not when I’ve got the time to do something about it. And certainly not a failed bean counter like Brooke.”

  He pressed her hands into the cup with determination, until her palms felt raw and blistered from the heat. She looked up at him and felt a strange mixture of apprehension and awe; she knew there must have been times when her outwardly mild mannered husband had been ruthless; after all, his work was fiercely competitive, a world where survival of the fittest was the name of the game, and the weak went to the wall. But she had yet to witness his ruthless side in their daily life, to see it burn through her cotton wool existence. But fear again gripped her.

  “What’s gotten into you?” she demanded, pulling her hands from him. “Be serious for a moment. This is not the City, and it’s not the Wild West either. We made a mistake, that’s all. At worst it was a poor investment. It isn’t the first, and it won’t be the last. Maybe we just need to take our medicine and move on.”

  Peter laughed bitterly. “Over my dead job prospects we will! Now are you going to sit there spooning your coffee, or are you going to get involved?” Isobel stared up at him quizzically as he loomed over her in his dressing gown, speaking like some great warlord or propagandist. He should have been a comical figure but he instilled respect in her; she knew how easily he could have lashed out at her and blamed her for their troubles, but she sensed only determination in his voice.

  “I think I’m already involved, aren’t I?” she asked, her feet shuffling nervously beneath the table. “But I still don’t see what we can do. What I can do.”

  Peter smiled at her, his determination almost manic. “We need to entrap Brooke, that’s what we need to do. And to do that what we need now is information.”

  “What sort of information?” she asked, knitting her eyebrows in genuine puzzlement.

  “That’s what we need to work out. But it’s often that way — that you don’t know what you need to know until you start asking questions. The thing we mustn’t do is put them on their guard. If we do that, the best we‘ll get out of them is more bullshit.”

  Isobel’s lack of enthusiasm was almost manifest, it stood between their minds like a wall.

  “I’m no detective,” she said, “and I’m not sure I’ve got the skills for whatever it is you’re thinking about. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

  “Where we start, where you start, is over in Tuscany.”

  “Go back to Tuscany? Now?” Isobel shook her head automatically as her whole body screamed no.

  “Where else?” said Peter, as he beamed at her. “We can’t wait till they’ve done a runner! You need to get over there and get them to open up. Use your charms if you need to.” Isobel shifted awkwardly in her chair. “Make them believe we are still fat and happy.”

  “Or rich and stupid?” she offered, but without humour, thinking she’d like to engrave those words on her tombstone.

  “All the better if they think that!”

  As Peter looked across at her, his jaw set hard, Isobel sought frantically for an excuse, any excuse that would change his mind.

  “But Peter, why do you need me to dig around. What can I find out that accountants can’t?”

  “Accountants are not the police. They look at ledgers and public records. We need to see the real dirty linen, the stuff crooks h
ide from the accountants...and the taxman.”

  “But what if it all turns out to be a fool’s errand?” she asked. “What if there’s nothing to find out, except what we already know? And why would they open up to me, charms or no charms?”

  “Just trust my instincts on this. Their whole operation is a bag of worms; I already found that out from Massimo. I’ve been mulling over what he told me all weekend, trying to think like they think, trying to make sense of it all.”

  “And when we’ve found out what is to be found out, what then?” asked Isobel, for whom the idea of truth grew larger and more terrible by the day.

  Peter leant forward in theatrical secrecy, fuelled by a sudden boyish enthusiasm.

  “I’ve already been thinking around a few ideas. And they all involve Brooke’s balls.”

  Isobel closed her eyes at the phrase; an agonising image of her on her knees, her red lips caressing them, delighting in them, flashed before her.

  She felt Peter sense her discomfort; he reached out and gave her arm a reassuring squeeze.

  “We need to act quickly. So get on that phone and get your flight booked.”

  “Peter, please, I really don’t want to go back to Tuscany...not right now.” A heavy silence hung in the air, as Peter seemed to wait for an explanation. “It’s just the letter, I feel so awful, that it’s all my fault.”

  Isobel could feel his stare, could see the look of puzzlement in his eyes; she pressed her fingers onto her eyelids to suppress the tears as he gently touched her shoulder.

  “Peter, I’m really, really, sorry.”Forty-two

  Peter had suggested that Isobel stay at Castello di Capadelli whilst she was in Tuscany, setting out the many advantages of being so close to her target. But even the idea of closeness was now an unbearable one to Isobel and she had protested without conviction, saying that it would be better to stay elsewhere until the furnishings she had ordered arrived. Eamon had plied her with a stay at the Villa Magda over the phone, his voice silky and tantalising. But the memory of her wantonness in Villa Magda came back to haunt her, and her imagination was seized by a vision of a rapacious Jay coming to her suite in the dead of night, engorged and hungry for her, ready to take what little that was left.