The Siren's Sting

by Miranda Darling

  She saw Osip first, more handsome than before, in white trousers and a linen shirt in faded blue, the first three buttons undone. He was mixing Bellinis, smiling and shaking his head as one of his sisters teased him about his mane of hair, wild from the salt and sun. The little group were gathered around the granite swimming pool, talking and laughing, some lounging on straw mattresses, others sitting in old cane chairs looking out towards the sea. Stevie took a deep, steadying breath and stepped out onto the terrace.

  Osip looked up and beamed, then walked over and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘Have you met my parents?’

  A handsome older man with silver hair and a perfect tan rose from his cane chair to kiss Stevie. ‘You were very young, but I recognise you.’ His wife had the same silvery hair and tan, and she wore amber jewellery and a pale purple kaftan. As she kissed Stevie she said, ‘Your mother and I were great friends, you know.’ She stepped back. ‘You have her eyes.’

  Stevie smiled. ‘It’s been a long time . . .’ she said softly.

  ‘But we have never forgotten her, or Lockie.’ The baroness squeezed her hand. ‘They were a handsome couple—les plus beaux du quartier.’ She turned as three girls approached. ‘My daughters are around your age. Perhaps you remember them? Severine, Marie-Thérèse and little Nicolette.’

  ‘We used to play together on the beach when we were tiny,’ said Marie-Thérèse as Severine handed Stevie a Bellini.

  ‘Do you remember Palmiero?’ her sister chimed in. ‘The little boy who used to show off so much on the windsurfer?’

  Stevie nodded. He had been a god to the little girls too young to lift a sail yet.

  ‘That’s him over there.’ Marie-Thérèse pointed to a tall man with shoulder-length dark hair and a beautiful smile. ‘I think I may have to flirt shamelessly with him tonight.’ She laughed and looked over at Palmiero again. ‘I think I might have loved him since the windsurfer. His parents moved to South America after that. He only came back last year.’ Palmiero glanced over at Marie-Thérèse and smiled. She blushed and looked away, then turned to Stevie. ‘Do you think it’s possible to love someone and not realise it for so many years?’

  Stevie thought it over a moment and decided that definitely it was. She said so.

  ‘Then maybe tonight I will be brave enough to tell him,’ said Marie-Thérèse, lifting her eyebrows in merriment.

  Stevie smiled and felt as if she had come home.

  As the daylight turned from soft gold to pink, Stevie reluctantly withdrew herself from an animated discussion on the best way to make osso bucco and made her way towards the back courtyard. She was due to phone Hazard and needed a moment of privacy. The roof was probably her best bet. Her feet dragged up the stairs—she didn’t want to talk to Rice, not with the way he was right now. She didn’t want to come away from their phone call feeling deflated and cold, not now, not the night before she was leaving for some pleasure cruise of the Mediterranean on a ship full of villains. Still, work was work. She took her second deep and steadying breath of the afternoon and dialled.

  Rice’s direct line was answered by Josie: ‘Rice’s line. He isn’t taking calls right now.’

  Stevie was relieved. ‘It’s Stevie. How are you, Josie?’ There was silence on the line. Josie hated small talk. ‘I’m supposed to report in on the Kroks,’ Stevie went on, speaking as quietly as possible, and ducking down out of sight behind a low wall. ‘I never got the dossier Rice was supposed to send, so this is all just my observations.’

  ‘Okay, shoot,’ replied Josie.

  Stevie filled her in on the situation at the Villa Goliath, and aboard the Hercules. ‘And Clémence Krok want me to go on a cruise with them, leaving tomorrow morning.’

  Josie’s response was swift. ‘That sounds like a very foolish idea, Stevie. The man is the head of the world’s largest private army; he is surrounded by bodyguards armed with ceramic guns; he is unstable, irritable, violent, unpredictable and deadly. What part of that doesn’t put you off?’ she asked drily.

  ‘The thing is, Josie, Krok is up to something. He’s running some syndicate with Dado Falcone and Socrates Skorpios.’

  ‘A weapons manufacturer, and a billionaire shipping tycoon of very dubious reputation—of course they are up to something. Men like that are always “up to something”. But what does it have to do with you? It is all the more reason to stay away.’

  ‘Josie, I can’t stay away. I’m doing a job for Rice. He asked me to do this as a favour.’

  ‘I don’t think he fully knew what he was getting you into, Stevie. I don’t think he would have asked you if he had. I’m going to tell him as soon as he comes out of the crisis room—which probably won’t be for days,’ she sighed exasperatedly.

  Stevie’s heart thudded. ‘Is it still terrible?’ she asked quickly. ‘Is David alright?’

  ‘David looks terrible,’ said Josie, pulling no punches. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a heart attack. The pirates are driving him to his death.’

  Stevie swallowed the huge lump in her throat. ‘Don’t tell him anything, Josie,’ she whispered. ‘Please. He doesn’t need any more worries on his plate. I will quickly and quietly finish the job. It’s the least I can do to help him.’

  ‘It sounds like you’ve seen enough. Pack it in.’

  ‘The threats to Emile Krok are becoming more specific. There’s something not right going on. I can’t get a good picture of who might be threatenening the child if I don’t have some sense of what Krok is up to. In a way, the cruise is the perfect opportunity to watch and learn.’

  ‘You make it sound like a sewing circle,’ Josie replied acidly, but Stevie could hear the concern in her voice as she said, ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Stevie. David’s not worth it.’

  ‘He is to me, Josie,’ Stevie said softly, and ended the call.

  It was then that she heard the first notes. The pink light was fading to pale blue as Stevie peeped over the low wall that hid her from view. Osip was sitting cross-legged on a reed mat and playing a flute. Stevie sat still and listened, enchanted by the music, as the sun sank slowly into the sea.

  The last note of the flute died with the sun and Osip wrapped his flute in a cloth and stood. ‘Ciao,’ he said; he must have caught sight of the top of her head, Steve realised.

  ‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you, Osip,’ she said quietly, straightening up from behind the wall. ‘I came away to make a phone call. You know, I hear that melody every evening and I’ve always wondered who was playing.’

  Osip smiled. ‘I could sense someone listening.’ It was almost dark now and the scent of sandalwood rose from the terrace below; a light breeze came up off the water and danced around their faces. Osip’s eyes turned an impossible blue as he stared at her.

  ‘Do you play for any special reason?’ asked Stevie, looking for something to say to break the rather intense spell of the moment.

  ‘None,’ he replied, gesturing with his free hand. ‘I play because it is charming to me, and because I know the music drifts around to the other houses in the bay. I know people wonder who is playing the strange melodies, but I think they like the mystery.’

  ‘It is a charming mystery,’ Stevie agreed. ‘I won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘It’s okay.’ Osip grinned. ‘I see it as my contribution to the universe—that one tiny moment of beauty.’ He took her hand. ‘Do you find that silly?’

  Stevie shook her head. ‘No. Not at all, actually. It makes perfect and wonderful sense. I think everyone should do that. Only I’m not sure what I could add . . .’

  ‘This is where I should say something like, “Your beauty is enough”, right?’

  Stevie laughed. ‘No! Definitely not.’

  ‘I’m not good at seductions like that. I should be: I’m French. But the art seems to have eluded me. Perhaps something hidden deep in my background . . .’

  ‘I’m sure you do just fine, Osip.’ Stevie raised an eyebrow and gently removed her hand from his.

&nb
sp; ‘The moment of beauty can be as simple as giving an unexpected compliment, or putting a flower by the bed, or cooking something for a friend. The important thing is that you are giving back to the universe—creating something—as well as taking from it. There is a balance to strike.’

  Stevie thought of her afternoon on the yacht, the party at Dado Falcone’s house, Simone. Everyone wanted something, everything. ‘Maybe you are right,’ she said slowly. ‘Maybe it is that simple: the intention to give back is enough, however small. I think a lot of people only think about what they can take from the world and other people. Giving is seen as weak or as somehow harmful to their own interests.’ She wondered if she was like that, taking too much, giving too little. Perhaps this favour for Rice was a way of giving. She would like to see it as that, to see it as something that would give him strength in some way, fix things. She wanted to think about David, but right now Osip was gesturing down the stairs where dinner awaited.

  The glitter of the sunlight had been replaced with candles now, set the length of a long wooden table on the terrace, and dotted around the pool. The terracotta tiles were warm under Stevie’s bare feet as she found a chair and sat—prudently, she thought—a little way away from Osip. An enormous fish cooked in a heavy salt crust was served, with salad and grilled vegetables from the garden, and a local rosé. For dessert there was ice-cream made of white rice and covered with a mysteriously delicious reduction of grape must called saba. As the plates were cleared, three musicians appeared and the dancing began.

  Stevie sat on a cane chair and watched the dancers, sipping on a small glass of pungent mirto, the local myrtle berry liqueur that was a dark shade of purple.

  Osip came and sat beside her on the still-warm stones. ‘Are you worrying about your cousins?’ he asked.

  Stevie’s mind had been on David, but she nodded. She was worried about them too. ‘They had a real estate agent over this afternoon.’

  ‘But the house is not theirs to sell?’

  Stevie shook her head emphatically. No.

  ‘Then, really, there is no problem.’

  Stevie looked at him in surprise. ‘But they want my grandmother to die so they can sell the house.’

  ‘Wishing won’t make it so—isn’t that the saying?’ Osip replied. ‘They seem terribly unhappy, your cousins, because they are constantly looking to the future and fantasising and saying “when we have this much, we will be happy”—but of course they won’t. Because the worm is within.’

  ‘So I should do nothing?’

  ‘I think you should let them torment themselves with visions of what could be, and ignore them. They will depart soon, and go back to their covetous little nest, and leave you and your grandmother in peace.’

  ‘It’s that simple, is it?’ Stevie asked sarcastically, but then she realised Osip was right. The worst Mark and Simone could do was to annoy her and offend her sense of what was right. And even that was only if she let them. She would take back that power and let them go.

  ‘It’s that simple.’ Stevie smiled at her new friend and touched her glass gently to his. ‘To learning to let go.’

  10

  As the guests came aboard the Hercules, the staff served warm lemon-butter croissants. A crowd had gathered behind the security cordons on the dock, eager to catch a glimpse of who was boarding, and to see the monstrous albatross of a boat under steam. Stevie had arrived early to avoid the circus and slipped aboard unnoticed. She had resisted the temptation to wear white—not wanting to be mistaken for one of the crew—and had instead chosen a silk dress printed with toucans and tigers on a background of emerald green. Sometimes standing out was even better camouflage than blending in. Stevie had long ago learnt that invisibility was becoming exactly what people expected to see.

  Vaughan Krok was nowhere to be seen but the boat swarmed with his men in their white berets with their white ceramic guns. They glanced at Stevie but made no attempt to address her or check her identity. She assumed they had been shown photos of the invited guests and knew exactly who was expected aboard.

  Stevie left her sandals in the raffia basket by the gangplank and went looking for Clémence.

  She found her by the shaded centaur pool, long brown legs stretched out on a chaise longue, her face mostly hidden under a large red sunhat. She was reading a yachting magazine.

  Stevie wandered over but Clémence did not notice her approach.

  ‘Have you heard anything more?’ she asked the reading figure.

  Clémence looked up and Stevie jumped in fright.

  Mrs Krok’s face had changed. Overnight, it appeared to have sharpened; it was the same, yet somehow strangely altered. Perhaps it was the mouth . . .

  The corners of it now twisted up in a strange smile. ‘What are you and my sister plotting, I wonder? Something’s up, only she won’t tell me what. I suddenly have a feeling it has something to do with you.’

  As Stevie returned the gaze, she felt as if she were staring into a reptilian kaleidoscope, irises of fragmented colours, without any warmth in them at all. It took all her self-possession to flop down casually on the chaise next to the predator, put her feet up and wave a small hand in the air.

  ‘Your sister was going to get me an appointment with one of her masseurs. Apparently the man works miracles with circulation and especially cellulite.’ She hissed the dirty word under her breath. ‘It takes months to get an appointment.’

  Clémence’s sister fixed her with her strange stare. ‘Really?’ The word was laced with boredom and contempt. Another of her sister’s spoilt, vacuous friends, she was obviously thinking.

  Mission accomplished.

  Stevie lay back, closed her eyes and nodded. ‘It’s the scourge of the twenty-first century.’

  There was a faint jangling sound, followed by a whiff of gardenias as Clémence sat down on the third chaise. ‘Hello, Stevie. I see you’ve met Marlena. Is she playing nice?’

  ‘Charming, charming,’ muttered Stevie.

  ‘We were born identical, Stevie,’ continued Clémence, ‘only life has shaped us differently. Now, I think, you could tell us apart.’

  Stevie opened her eyes and studied the two sisters. Seen together, they were remarkable. Two jaguars swathed in designer silks. Only there was a slight difference between them: Marlena’s eyes were narrower, her cheekbones more prominent; she was Clémence with a harder edge, and a slightly more muscular build.

  ‘Clémence is younger by almost a minute. It shows, don’t you think? The younger twin is always a little frailer, a little weaker— and of course her eyes are an uninterrupted blue . . .’

  ‘They’re violet,’ snapped Clémence.

  The twins broke off their bickering to watch a small commotion on the dock. Two women in their early thirties had roared up in a silver convertible Porsche Boxster—one blonde, one dark, both in the enormous oval sunglasses so popular that summer. They parked across two spaces then got out. Both wore platform stiletto heels and babydoll dresses, one blue, one yellow, and carried enormous designer handbags. Their jewellery flashed in the morning light like sun on the sea.

  They looked vaguely familiar . . .

  Suddenly Stevie remembered where she had seen the girls before: Tara and Tatiana—Stevie couldn’t remember which was which—had been hanging off the arms of Alexander Yudorov, oligarch and husband, at his chalet in the Swiss Alps.

  Clémence had lowered her sunglasses ‘Do you know those girls?’

  ‘Vaguely . . . Tara and Tatiana, St Moritz last winter, the polo on ice.’

  Clémence slipped her glasses back over her eyes. ‘I saw them in Cannes, at the festival, attached to the enormous son of a Hollywood studio head. He was so big the director’s chairs couldn’t be trusted to support him and the organisers had a special one secretly reinforced, just for him.’

  ‘Goodness.’ Stevie’s mind boggled at the thought.

  Clémence was still watching them. ‘Their husband hunt was obviously unsuccessful and
they’ve moved hunting grounds for the summer.’

  ‘Clémence, dear,’ said Marlena, ‘don’t you think it’s a little de trop, all this coming from you? These girls are just following in your footsteps.’ Marlena was losing interest in the sideshow on the dock. ‘I only hope they don’t plan to wear those shoes aboard a yacht. The owner will crucify them for ruining the deck.’

  Clémence reapplied her lipstick, then poured herself a Pimms from a jug on the table before answering. ‘Those girls will never get the husband they think they deserve. They’ve got it all wrong. They think if they act like princesses, their prince will come. Let me tell you, that is not the way of the smart fortune huntress. These two, they go after the good-looking, flashy men. They’re often the ones looking for a rich wife!’

  Marlena cackled with delight. ‘Our parents made that mistake. Both thought the other had money—what a disappointment. Clémence is absolutely right.’

  ‘The really successful fortune huntress will do anything to please the object of her attentions.’ Clémence grew energised as she spoke. ‘She cooks, she flatters, she’s always happy and fun. Those girls pout and complain and demand. Why wouldn’t the men just take the eighteen-year-old from Brazil with the incredible arse who only wants to have a good time and land a few trinkets?’ Clémence shook her head in dismay. ‘Big mistake.’

  Marlena nodded in amused agreement. ‘Even real princesses don’t behave like that—look at Loli and Ludi-Brigitte. They’re tremendous fun, even if they are a bit dim. That’s why the airline hostesses have more success marrying big money than the nouveau riches. Watch Clémence—she is a master.’

  Her sister took the comment as a compliment and warmed to her theme.

  ‘One of the most important things is to know when to mind, and when not to. If I minded every phone call from his ex-wives, every mention of his other children, every Christmas spent with the ghosts of his past at his disapproving mother’s house, well . . .’ Clémence lowered her glass. ‘Well I wouldn’t be in this position. No,’ she continued, ‘I’m afraid the only person who will marry either of those two girls is someone looking to please their father, or someone who doesn’t know better and mistakes their petulance for class.’