The Siren's Sting

by Miranda Darling

  Rice didn’t need to say it—but he said it anyway. ‘Stevie, this could sink us.’

  Stevie felt the weight of what Rice was telling her settle on her slim shoulders. ‘And the hostages?’

  ‘They’re all at risk. We are basically stuck between the pirates and the insurance companies and what they are prepared to pay: Hazard is handling the face-to-face but the insurance companies make the final call. So far, the pirates in Somalia have treated their hostages relatively well—they are, after all, their best asset—but we don’t know how long that will go on for. We’re doing everything possible. You can imagine what two hundred and eleven hostages are doing to the incident room—and that’s not counting all the other kidnap cases we’re dealing with all over the world. I’ve brought in everyone I know, pulled in masses of favours, but it’s not enough. We’re working thirty-six hours on, eight off.’

  Rice didn’t have to tell Stevie that he was working hardest of all—his appearance said everything. She had never seen him looking so worn, so vulnerable, so . . . old.

  She wished she could un-see it. David Rice and her grandmother Didi were the twin pillars of her world; losing Rice would mean collapse.

  Outside, the rain had become a downpour. A small cluster of mourners—the stragglers—appeared at the entrance of the church. They popped large black umbrellas, the blooms of sorrow, and stood waiting, unsure what to do next.

  Stevie turned back to her boss. ‘Do you want me in London?’

  Rice shook his head. ‘No. I’ve put a hold on all new clients until we get a handle on this. I won’t need you for some time.’ He paused, his eyes on the black and grey shapes outside. ‘Why don’t you take a holiday?’ The words came out heavily.

  ‘I don’t—’ Stevie began to protest, but Rice dropped a weary hand onto the table.

  ‘Stevie, I don’t have the energy. It’s an order, not an invitation: take a goddamn holiday.’ He rose from the table, and looked down at her. His grey eyes met hers and held them briefly—an apology of sorts?—then he turned and walked out.

  Stevie leant back in her chair and pulled out her black Russian cigarettes with the gold tips. She had almost stopped smoking them—she had overdone it a little in Russia—but, every now and then, she still craved the sharp, poisonous bite of the smoke in her lungs. She put one to her lips and lit it with a match; she drew in deeply then exhaled as if deflating, up towards the low ceiling. The exchange had left her feeling hollow and angry and anxious all at the same time. She wanted to help Rice but he didn’t need her—didn’t want her—and that wounded her. There was no choice but to take off. She stubbed out her half-smoked Sobranie, paid for her drink and went across the road to the church opposite.

  The funeral had finished and all the mourners had left. The church had the empty feel of a room once the party is over and all the guests have gone home. Stevie could smell the mix of feminine perfumes, the tang of quality leather and cigarettes, that the visitors had left behind. Huge arrangements of white lilies gave off their own powerful scent and dropped golden pollen onto the waxed timber pews. Underlying it all was the familiar, reassuring smell of beeswax furniture polish, and incense.

  She wandered about among the figures of Jesus and Mary Magdalen and St Sebastian full of arrows, nestling in their candlelit alcoves. To the right of the door was a large alcove covered from floor to ceiling with childlike drawings done on paper and stuck to the walls.

  Each drawing, she realised as she moved closer, depicted someone in the act of dying: an old man lying in a bed under a grey crayon blanket and surrounded by the figures of his family; a younger-looking man lying under the feet of a horse, crayon blood pouring from his head; a woman in crayon skirts caught under the wheels of a tram; a group of crayon men in army uniform trying to stop a tank on a bridge . . . Hundreds of years’ worth of deaths, recorded by loved ones left behind in pencil and crayon, then stuck on the church walls for remembrance.

  It was an uncanny idea. The drawings were a reminder of the domesticity of death: it arrived in kitchens, in streets full of shops, in sparse bedrooms; it was happening all around them, to people who drew like children. So many deaths, thought Stevie, were accidental—a careless step, a silly mistake, the premature and unplanned end to a busy life. Life is a fragile and precious thing; we hang by a thread.

  That, the cynic in her supposed, was the intention behind the wall: a reminder of our transience and mortality, the kindling of hopes for something to come after—in case we messed this life up.

  Her grandmother Didi would say that every day should be cherished, every day was a new beginning, and every day should be mined for pleasures and charm; that was a life well lived. Stevie shook off the gloom that had shrouded her since the meeting with Rice and decided to act: she would head south tomorrow, down to the island of Sardinia, where her grandmother still had an old, whitewashed house by the sea. There, she would soak up the sun and swim and fill herself with serenity.

  Back at the Turin Palace, Angelina had left a note in Stevie’s pigeonhole commanding her attendance at an impromptu performance at the Teatro Regio. She was to sing her favourite arias for Torino’s finest, with dinner and dancing after. Stevie was just slipping back to her room, where she planned to decide in peace how best to refuse the invitation, when the diva herself swept along the corridor in her dark glasses, Zorfanelli on one elbow, Sanderson—carrying Angelina’s jewel case—on the other.

  ‘Stevie, my darling, my saviour, my little oiseau.’ Her voice filled every corner of the marble reception. ‘How can I ever repay you for saving my jewels? I’ve popped you in a box with Fernando and Sanderson for tonight’s performance. You will be the guest of honour!’

  Stevie forced a huge smile in return as she took the diva gently but firmly by the elbow. ‘Really, you are too kind,’ she murmured, then went on in even softer tones. ‘But I must stress this, Angelina: please never reveal to anyone that I have been anything more than a travelling companion to you, never breathe a word about my background. And if we meet somewhere in the future, the same applies. This is what I ask in return for saving your jewels. Can you do this for me?’

  The diva nodded, then caught sight of Stevie’s damp hair. ‘The performance begins in a couple of hours,’ she said in horror. ‘You can hardly turn up looking like that.’ Then she blew her saviour a kiss and the trio swept through the revolving doors and into a waiting car.

  La Dracoulis was magnificent. It was as if she knew that everyone in the audience was there for more than her golden voice. There had been rumours crackling like electricity about her incredible survival of a pirate attack off Somalia. No doubt Zorfanelli—his sense of spectacle almost as acute at Angelina’s—had played a part in whipping up a sense of danger on the high seas that added a different kind of glamour to the image of La Dracoulis.

  Her large, slim hands, wrapped around her shoulders, suggested vulnerability. Stevie noticed her make-up was paler than usual; a bruise showed on her upper arm—something her super-attentive make-up artist would never have overlooked . . . It was all part of the spell she was weaving that night and it was masterful. Turin was captivated.

  Skorpios attended. He was seated alone in another box, mesmerised. In his hand he held a single white lily. Stevie recognised in him the same sense of drama. Perhaps it was what drew him and Angelina together. As La Dracoulis sang her final note, she closed her eyes and lowered her head, as if expiring from the effort. The applause was rapturous.

  Someone threw a flower onto the stage; a hailstorm of stems followed, green spears flying through the air. They were all lilies. As if by some prearrangement, some extra-sensory understanding, Angelina searched the boxes until she found him. Socrates Skorpios, on his feet now, raised his own flower to his lips. Zorfanelli noticed the exchange and obviously felt the energy flow between them. Sanderson, standing beside Stevie, looked charmed, but the mound of flowers on the stage reminded Stevie of the church, and of the wall of death.

&nbs
p; There was a dinner afterwards in an old palazzo, twenty tables around a small dance floor, an orchestra. The entire room was lit with candles, frescoes on the walls glowing in the soft light.

  Skorpios was not seated with Angelina but he came over after the first course and complimented her on her performance. Stevie overheard Angelina lament that no one danced the tango anymore, to which Skorpios replied, ‘Another lost art, my dear; another tragedy.’ His extravagance matched hers in every way.

  That night, the orchestra played nothing but tango. Skorpios and La Dracoulis danced every dance. No one at the dinner could talk of anything else but Angelina and Socrates, no one could keep their eyes from the charging, swaying couple. Their chemistry was so powerful it left the room breathless.

  At midnight, Stevie rose discreetly and slipped out, leaving Skorpios and Angelina to their dangerous romance. On her way through the marble foyer, she passed Fernando Zorfanelli, a rumpled, broken figure smoking too many cigarettes behind a statue of Vittorio Emanuele.

  4

  Between the vast granite marbles that frame the bays of the Costa Smeralda, a small inflatable speedboat bobbed at anchor. Stevie Duveen lay stretched out along one side, eyes closed under her straw hat, sunbaking. She turned onto her stomach, pressed her cheek against the warm grey rubber and listened to the lap-slap of the wavelets against the fibreglass hull. There was nowhere in the world she would rather be.

  A warm, dry breeze blew offshore, bringing with it the rich, oily scent of the cistus, curry bush and rosemary that grew wild all over the island. The faint chatter of voices—bathers gathered on the pebbly beach—drifted over, the crisp trilling of cicadas protesting at the fierceness of the afternoon sun.

  Stevie half opened her eyes and gazed out through the lattice of her battered Panama: chinks of emerald green sea, a deeper, navy blue further out, then the white-hot sky above. She thought briefly of the dinner she would prepare when she got in—a fresh orata fish, stuffed with wild fennel and baked in paper. She would eat on the roof if the wind didn’t pick up, and watch the sun set over the water.

  From somewhere in the distance came a faint drone. Stevie squinted up into the sky and saw a tiny plane. She watched it circle slowly. Now the sound of engines—two; no doubt it was holidaymakers looking for a sheltered bathing spot. Stevie hoped they wouldn’t anchor too close. Italians were very sociable creatures.

  A wash rocked her boat, gently at first then growing stronger until the dinghy tipped violently and Stevie’s pocket binoculars, lying by her head, slid into the sea.

  Stevie sat up, annoyed at the discourteous boating behaviour, and looked towards the open sea. Two naval patrol ships had rounded the point—sharp noses, flat grey colour, hammerhead sharks—and were now steaming off towards La Maddalena island.

  A velvety rumble filled the air, growing quickly louder; over the headland swarmed a mass of helicopters in tight formation, darkening the sky.

  In the deep blue water an enormous shadow appeared.

  Stevie stood transfixed as it grew bigger, travelling forward, the sea sucking and foaming around it. A moment later, a conning tower broke through the surface and Stevie was staring at the black nightmare of a nuclear submarine.

  Of course, she knew they stalked the floor of the Mediterranean. The American naval base on La Maddalena was pitted with submarine caves where the sleek beasts could surface and be serviced in completed privacy. But there was nothing like coming up close. That explained the helicopters and the patrol boats. The plane was likely a spotter.

  She stood, the boat bucking under her legs, and faced the sea monster. It was gargantuan. The conning tower was three storeys high and completely smooth, painted black. But, unlike the majestic whales she had seen up close, the submarine was frightening. It had been built for war; it was a stealthy killing machine. Stevie shivered from more than the shadow cast by the giant as it streamed away in a white wake towards the golden horizon.

  Stevie tried hard not to believe in omens. She was, after all, an analyst, a risk assessor, trained to cast a cold eye over a situation, quantify the risks a client faced, and then implement steps to counter those dangers. It was a position that, admittedly, occasionally conflicted with her hot little heart—but not omens. They were too distracting. One began to see them everywhere if one started looking. The surfacing of the nuclear submarine in her tranquil bay of emerald green, however, was too big to ignore.

  She peered over the edge of the dinghy and spotted the dark shape of the binoculars, perched on a boulder, surrounded by sea urchins, about ten metres down. Stevie took a deep breath and dived, straight and narrow as a pin, into the sea.

  The trouble was, she didn’t need the submarine to know she was headed for trouble. A call from David Rice had been enough.

  ‘Her husband is a dangerous man, a very dangerous man. Proceed with absolute caution, do you understand?’ Rice’s voice had been low and in earnest, not a tone he often used. ‘No freelancing, no games, take absolutely no risks.’

  ‘Sounds delightful,’ she said, then added, ‘The scarf arrived, by the way. Unnecessary, but very much appreciated.’

  There had been a pause on the other end, then, ‘Stevie, if I thought there was any chance of you getting into any sort of bother with Krok I would never send you. I’m only telling you this so that you see you don’t cross him. You have a penchant for doing things your way that won’t do in this case.’

  Rice was referring to her escapades in Russia and the warning hit home. It had been a winter of blood and fear and Stevie was still shaken to her core by the things she had seen.

  Rice continued, ‘You’ll be a guest of Krok’s wife—perfectly legitimate and perfectly safe. She’s a remarkable woman and I think you will get on.’

  The day after Stevie had arrived in Sardinia, a parcel was delivered to the house by courier—a rare and difficult feat to achieve on the island, where the regular mail service was patchy at best. Inside was a slim orange Hermès box and a note: Please forgive an old brute who values you more than you know. It had been signed D.

  Rice was obviously regretting his rather harsh words at the Caffè al Bicerin in Turin, and any hurt feelings Stevie might have been nursing evaporated. Beyond the gesture, the scarf itself was beautiful: the signs of the zodiac were placed on a white background and edged with brown and gold. It was the sort of gift one might receive from a lover, she thought—only Rice did not intend it that way. Unfortunately. However she did like the idea of being valued more than she knew; the happy possibilities seemed ill-defined and infinite, and if she didn’t examine David’s motives too closely they might even remain that way.

  Stevie stuck the note to the bathroom mirror with a tiny dab of toothpaste.

  The day after that he had called her. He needed a personal favour, a tiny job that only Stevie could do, and that had been the end of Stevie’s holiday.

  Clémence Krok was the third wife of Vaughan Krok, owner of STORM, the world’s largest private army. She had known Rice in his gayer days, he had explained, in London. Clémence had been a beauty; she, well . . . he had not needed to explain further. Stevie, irrational and inappropriate hackles of jealousy rising to prick the faint hairs on her neck, had understood perfectly.

  She had a distinct premonition of trouble ahead, in one form or another. But David Rice was the only man on earth she could not refuse. Although he had no idea of how she felt, he was the man she admired most in the world and the standard by which, if she were brutally honest, she judged every other man. His dismissal of her in the café had hurt her feelings, mostly because Stevie often wondered if Rice took her seriously. She was regularly attached to assignments that involved soothing the hysterical, reassuring the mad, and babysitting the famous. Her colleagues at Hazard assured her it was because no one else could do those jobs like she could: an ex-SAS captain would have a very different approach to client concerns. Stevie’s skills, matched with her unthreatening, unassuming appearance, were a golden combi
nation. But the worm of doubt sometimes whispered in her ear: He doesn’t believe you can do it. He doesn’t think you can handle anything serious.

  The discussion in the Bicerin had reawakened the worm that had been sleeping since Russia. Stevie could not have said no, even if she had had a good excuse. One day, she would prove to Rice that she was a force to be reckoned with.

  Stevie’s face broke through the surface and she breathed a lungful of air, binoculars clutched in her hand.

  Damn the man.

  She wiped the lenses as best she could. The glasses were tiny, deceptively powerful— ‘Rather like you, actually, Stevie,’ Rice had said when he had given them to her as a thirtieth birthday present, during a dinner at Le Colombier in Chelsea.

  All was quiet up at Brown’s villa, painted pale grey and set among dark green spears of oleanders. The entire valley had recently been bought, house by house—nine in total—by the Russian president, whom Stevie in her prudence always referred to by the codename ‘Brown’.

  Brown had left the existing houses as guest cottages and built himself a large villa at the top of the valley, facing out to sea. At the back, facing the road, he had planted an entire grove of two-hundred-year-old olive trees. At the front, reaching down to the bay, he had created an artificial lake studded with massive palms.

  It was a villa more suited to the south of France and its popular excesses—not hideous, but too grand, too perfect, an imposition on the landscape rather than an extension of it. The Costa Smeralda had traditionally drawn a different kind of jet set: people who wanted to walk about in bare feet at sunset, to feel close to the wild mountains and winds, close to the sea. The houses were most often shaped organically, rounded and whitewashed and nestled into the massive boulders that inspired their creation. The floors were red brick or terracotta and no one dreamt of air-conditioning. The heavy stone walls and wooden shutters kept out the worst heat of the day, and sheltered the occupants from the violent storms that swept in sporadically.