Empress Bianca

by Lady Colin Campbell

In the years to come, Bianca would look back on that evening in late 1970 as the worst of her life. Had she sacrificed everything to be abandoned by this lunatic who wouldn’t even tell her why he wanted her out of his life? Was she to lose the crown she had striven for? To be supplanted, the way she had supplanted Amanda, by another woman, who would go on to reap the rewards of being that nutcase’s wife while she was exiled to social Siberia?

  Bianca knew the score. No matter how much money an ex-wife had, ‘ex’ meant demotion. It meant being second-class. It meant being ignored and overlooked. It meant being out in the cold, just another ordinary human being: comparable to that beggar woman who had pushed her face between the wrought-iron railings of her parent’s gate the day she became married for the first time, contemplating her betters as they prepared for a feast she would never enjoy.

  Bianca forced herself to put on her clothes, doing so by rote. When she had finished, she sat in the bedroom which she would have to vacate later that evening, distractedly flicking through catalogues of forthcoming ‘important’ jewellery sales in New York, London and Geneva sent by Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Phillips’ and Belmont’s. Although she was unable to absorb anything she was looking at, save the thought that all this was being removed from her grasp, the activity itself gave her something to do. She persisted in this activity until she saw through the bedroom window the car lights of the first guest coming up the driveway. At that point, she threw the catalogues aside, smoothed down her skirt and headed towards the drawing-room, where an unruffled - indeed, contented-looking -

  Ferdie was sitting with a glass of scotch in his hand.

  The first guests were the Swiss banker Alfred Hister and his wife, Inge.

  Bianca heard herself greet them effusively, as if everything was well in her world, and it was not about to collapse. She was surprised at her ability to give such a bravura performance - something that Ferdie had expected of her. All the same, Bianca hated feeling as if her whole being had just disappeared. At the very moment that she was observing herself giving outstanding performance, she was trying to reassert herself internally.

  The next couple to arrive were Raoul d’Olivera, the Mexican minister of the interior, and his wife Gloria. Raoul d’Olivera was, as Ferdie had often said, ‘someone you can do business with’. He was notorious throughout the country for the alacrity with which he accepted bribes, but he was so adept at oiling the machinery of business and of government and so careful to modulate the size of the bribe so that the pain it caused was limited that he had retained the post despite successive changes in the government.

  As soon as the butler showed them into the drawing-room, their hosts both went up to greet Raoul and Gloria d’Olivera. Ferdie and Bianca both appeared so normal, so hospitable and so apparently cheerful that neither the d’Oliveras nor the Histers had any clue that something was wrong. Indeed, Bianca was responding to one of Raoul d’Olivera’s stories with tinkling laughter when Philippe walked in.

  Normally, Bianca was deliberately tepid with Philippe when Ferdie was present. ‘We don’t want him suspecting anything,’ she frequently used to say to her lover; and like Bernardo, Ferdie had become firmly convinced that Philippe’s much-vaunted fondness for Bianca was not reciprocated. Right now, however, Bianca needed to speak to Philippe. Even as she was speaking to her guests, her mind was racing, wondering what could have brought on this catastrophic change of attitude in her husband. Was he playing a cat and mouse game with her, the reason for his refusal to give her a reason for the divorce being that he had found out about Philippe and herself? That must be why he wanted a divorce. Try as she might, she could think of no other reason. In the meantime her lover needed to be informed about this change of circumstances as soon as possible. Bianca wound up her conversation with Raoul d’Olivera and crossed the room to greet Philippe, as if she were fulfilling her duty as a hostess and doing no more.

  Philippe was already talking to Frau Hister when Bianca joined them. They were discussing orchids; after greeting him, she said: ‘Ah, but if you like orchids, Frau Hister, we must get my husband to walk you down the driveway to the orchid house. I adore orchids, and we’ve been developing a fine collection.’ With that, she linked arms with Frau Hister and waltzed her off to Ferdie.

  ‘Darling,’ Bianca said, approaching her husband with a big smile on her face, ‘Frau Hister wants to see the orchids. She’d love it if you showed them to her.’

  Ferdie did not miss a beat. ‘It will be my pleasure,’ he said, ignoring Bianca and offering his arm to Frau Hister.

  As soon as she had accepted it and the two of them had headed off together, Bianca crossed the room to where Philippe was now deep in conversation with Raoul d’Olivera. ‘Do you gentlemen mind if I break up this conversation for a minute?’ she asked charmingly ‘I need Philippe to help me with something.’

  The minister of the interior clicked his heels, bowed his head and said: ‘I must see what my wife and Señor Hister are up to. Do excuse me.’

  ‘I think Ferdie might be on to us,’ Bianca said as soon as the minister had withdrawn. ‘He’s told me he wants a divorce, but he refuses to say why.’

  Philippe was surprised, but nothing Ferdie did ever shocked him. He’d grown to know him too well. If Ferdie suspected his wife and his partner were having an affair, it would be just like him to turn out his marital partner first before turning on his business partner.

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘About an hour ago.’

  Philippe cast his mind back to the events of the day. That very morning, he and Ferdie had had a personable chat in his office at Banco Imperiale. Everything had been absolutely ordinary, and Philippe did not think that Ferdie actually possessed the skill to dupe him if there was a problem between them. So whatever it was had happened that afternoon.

  ‘I don’t suppose he saw you leaving my house,’ Philippe offered.

  ‘I don’t know. I never know his movements for the day.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘I don’t see why I should be cast out like Amanda, but what can I do to preserve my position? Maybe I should have him committed? Do you think we could get a friendly psychiatrist to lock him up?’

  ‘That wouldn’t work,’ Philippe replied. ‘Clara and his mother would simply throw some money around, and then they’ll all be after your blood. What we need to do is remove him from the scene in a way that leaves everything else intact. You do realize that if he divorces you, we’re both done for? Ferdie’s much too proud a man to give one penny of alimony to a woman who’s deceived him. And I don’t see him allowing me to remain a partner one second longer than it suits him. He’ll set up my financial execution and enjoy it too. We’re staring annihilation in the face, Bianca. You do realize that, don’t you?’

  ‘I do,’ she said, turning pale again.

  ‘Has he set a timeframe?’

  ‘He wants me out of here by Sunday.’

  ‘And the terms?’

  ‘He said I’m to get my lawyer to get in touch with his.’

  ‘He means business. Does anyone else know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Not even the servants?’

  ‘They definitely haven’t overheard anything. He told me so casually that I actually thought he was joking at first.’

  ‘It’s good if no one else knows but us.’

  ‘What can we do?’

  ‘I have the germ of an idea. I’ll think it through over dinner and tell you afterwards. I can tell you right now, though, what we can’t do. We can’t see or speak to each other after tonight until our problem has been solved. No telephone calls. No visits, especially in the afternoon,’ he said with a regretful smile before looking Bianca squarely in the eye and adding in very deliberate tones: ‘In life, circumstances sometimes force people to do things they normally wouldn’t do. Do you understand what I mean?’

  ‘I’m not sure I do,’ Bianca said, looking decidedly uncertain.

  �
��Drastic situations call for drastic measures.’

  Bianca nodded her head.

  ‘We both accept that something has to be done to maintain the status quo, don’t we?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ she said, still not exactly sure what Philippe was getting at. ‘You trust me to solve this problem in such a way that neither of us loses out?’

  Bianca nodded again.

  ‘On the face of it,’ Philippe continued, ‘the only solution I can think of is a permanent one.’

  ‘Of course it must be permanent,’ Bianca said, not understanding what Philippe was getting at.

  Checking the room to see that no one was observing them, Sometimes “permanent” means “point of no return”,’ he said.

  ‘There must be another way,’ Bianca gasped, finally taking in what Philippe had been getting at.

  ‘And if there isn’t?’

  She grimaced. ‘My God, Philippe, the very idea makes my stomach turn.’

  ‘This is not the time to fall to pieces. You’ve got to be strong and keep a clear head. And you must act as if everything’s all right. Smile. Be brighteyed and carefree. Now let’s go over and engage d’Olivera in conversation. We don’t want Ferdie seeing us together if we can possibly help it. But we must talk after dinner, so find a pretext for us to be alone.’

  Dinner, for Bianca, was a torment, but for Philippe, it was nothing more or less than an exercise in problem solving. If love barely existed where Philippe was concerned, friendship did not exist at all. Since Ferdie Piedraplata was nothing more than a vehicle through which he could make money, he could contemplate the removal of his senior partner with a chilling degree of dispassion. There was, in his view, only one solution to their current problem; and he and Bianca both knew it. The practicalities of removing someone permanently were not something he had ever confronted before, but Philippe, like many other bankers who invested the private fortunes of wealthy private clients, had a great many contacts from all walks of life, including the seamier side of society.

  One such contact was his client Antonio Gagliari, a cousin of the famous Gambino family in New York. Gagliari liked to think that people in Mexico City considered him a businessman, when in fact everyone knew he was a front man whose business interests were the means by which his mob connections laundered some of its ill-gotten gains. In the business community, it was an open secret that he had arranged, over the years, the murder of three business associates who had tried to rip him off. However, like many a Mafioso, unless you crossed Antonio Gagliari, he was honourable, and polite and scrupulous in his dealings. His reputation, of course, had never mattered to Philippe and Raymond, or indeed to Ferdie, all of whom followed the precept that there was no such thing as tainted money.

  By the time dinner was finished, Philippe had a plan. As soon as they all rose from the table, he asked Ferdie - not Bianca - if he could use the telephone. It was important that he and Bianca were not seen to be colluding with one another, and he couldn’t very well use someone’s telephone without their permission. Ferdie’s reaction could not have been more normal. ‘You old goat you,’ he laughed. ‘Making a midnight rendezvous with a hot little number, are you? Use the telephone in my study. That way none of the ladies can overhear you.’

  More convinced than ever that Ferdie knew about Bianca and himself, Philippe headed towards the study and sat behind his host’s desk. He took out his handkerchief, covered the receiver of the telephone with it and then, removing his Mont Blanc fountain pen from his pocket, used it to dial Antonio Gagliari at home.

  The butler answered. ‘Tell Mr Gagliari that Señor Piedraplata wishes to speak with him,’ Philippe announced then waited for him to come to the telephone.

  ‘Ferdie,’ Antonio said when he picked up the receiver. ‘This is a surprise. What can I do for you?’

  ‘It’s Philippe Mahfud, not Ferdie. I’m calling from his house. We have a little problem, and we need some assistance with it.’

  ‘What sort of problem?’

  ‘The problem isn’t the problem; it’s the solution. We need a permanent solution, and we need it quickly.’

  ‘How quickly?’

  ‘Friday.’

  Antonio Gagliari sucked in air between his teeth. Philippe heard it clearly. ‘I have a friend who might be able to assist you. I suggest you meet him on neutral territory. Somewhere crowded, like a busy street corner. Say the corner of Ascencion and Madrigal.’

  ‘That will be fine.’

  ‘Eleven o’clock tomorrow morning?’

  ‘I’ll be there.’

  ‘Wear a white carnation in the lapel of your jacket and carry a rolled-up newspaper under your right arm. He’ll approach you.’

  ‘Ring me at home later. Say after midnight, if that’s not too late for you.’

  ‘We’re night owls in this family.’

  ‘How much will the service cost?’

  ‘Why don’t you credit an extra $25,000 to my account in Geneva, and we’ll forget we ever had this conversation?’

  ‘Thanks for your help, Antonio. It’s much appreciated.’

  ‘Think nothing of it, Philippe. We businessmen have to stick together and help each other out when we can.’

  When they hung up, Philippe let out a sigh of relief. ‘My God,’ he thought, ‘he didn’t even want to know the identity of the person we’re wasting.’ That level of professionalism took the breath away. It was just another contract.

  The delicious irony of arranging a contract on someone from the victim’s own desk was not lost on Philippe. He almost felt sorry for Ferdie. Almost: but not quite. With a sense of accomplishment, Philippe walked back outside. He had always wondered if he could kill someone.

  Now he knew the answer.

  Chapter Twelve

  Duarte dropped Ferdie off at five-forty five sharp, as was his habit. Instead of taking the car to the garage at the back of the house before having a relaxing drink in the servant’s television room, he followed Bianca’s instructions, issued at midday when she had sent him to Sintra to pick up a dress she wanted to wear the following evening.

  His instructions were to drop Ferdie at the front door and leave immediately to collect Bianca and Manolito at the house of Señor and Señora d’Olivera. To ensure that Duarte would not dally, she had specifically forbidden him from entering the house, even to use the lavatory, telling him if he did so she would dismiss him instantly. Knowing that Bianca, for all her generosity, would carry out her threat if she ever discovered that he had deviated from her orders even slightly, the chauffeur adhered to them punctiliously, as Bianca knew he would. The virtue of having well-trained servants was that you knew precisely how they would react.

  As soon as Ferdie was out of the car, he sped off. Duarte did not realize that Ferdie was now walking into a house where there were no servants at all, all of them having been given the afternoon off while he was en route from Sintra to Mexico City with the dress that Bianca had ordered him to collect. The last he saw of the Señor, therefore, was when he looked in his rear-view mirror and saw him entering the house through the front door.

  Ferdie walked into the hall. The house was still, but that was not unusual. Stillness is always an overriding characteristic of big houses with a lot of staff, no matter how many people buzz around in the background.

  This is one of the less renowned perks of great wealth, so even though it may not buy happiness, it can and frequently does buy a superficial calm born of a well-tended and structured environment.

  ‘I’m home,’ Ferdie shouted, the cue for Manolito to come bounding up to him. He did not know that his son was at the d’Oliveras’, although he was aware that Raoul d’Olivera’s driver had taken his son there, along with Bianca, that afternoon.

  Nothing.

  ‘Manolito, Papa’s home,’ he shouted expectantly.

  Still nothing.

  No Manolito, no dogs. The latter must be having a bath, Ferdie presumed, knowing Bianca’s mania for cleanliness. She in
sisted that the dogs be bathed twice a week, which, he knew, was not good for their coats. Fortunately it was now only a matter of time before he and the dogs were rid of her. What he did not know was that she had locked the dogs in the laundry room, having given them, in typical Bianca fashion, raw prime ribs of beef to keep them quiet.

  Ferdie listened carefully. He could vaguely hear what sounded like a television set playing in the nursery. ‘Ah, Manolito must be up there,’ he decided, and set off down the passage past his office, heading towards the stairs which led to his son’s room. Ferdie’s last thought was of Manolito, his last sight the Louis XIV console table with its vast arrangement of orchids, ginger lilies and cocoa leaves in the passage just past the door to his office.

  No sooner had he passed that office than the hitman, wearing surgeon’s gloves, stepped out of the room into the passage behind him. He knocked him out with one blow to the back of the head, delivered with Ferdie’s own gun. Philippe had informed the killer where he would find it. With consummate professionalism, the assassin bent down, removed Ferdie’s Gucci loafers to prevent them from scuffing the carpet as he dragged him upstairs and, careful not to dislocate Ferdie’s shoulders lest the pathologist do a thorough job at the autopsy, grasped him from the front under his armpits and pulled him up the stairs to his bedroom.

  Once there, the hitman hauled Ferdie up onto the bed. Placing a silencer on the gun, he stood over him momentarily then briskly put the muzzle directly onto Ferdie’s ribcage over his heart. To ensure that serendipity could play no part and that Ferdie might somehow survive a bullet delivered at point-blank range into his heart, he pulled the trigger twice.

  Blood oozed from Ferdie’s chest cavity onto a counterpane that Bianca had ordered to be specially made at Porthault. The hitman, satisfied that he had accomplished his task, pulled back Ferdie’s eyelids to check that he was dead. Then he removed the silencer, placed the gun in Ferdie’s left hand and ambled out of the house so unconcernedly that an onlooker would have taken him for a lazy servant dragging his heels in the performance of his duties.