Hanging above the mantle was a gilt-edged Venetian glass mirror in the shape of a hexagon. An Italian politician had taught Ana how to recognize Venetian glass, and seeing it always took her back to the day of the lesson. She had met the man when she accompanied a male colleague to Italy several years before. The journalist had been assigned to interview the official about the ‘Save Venice Inc.’ restoration project. The Italian had been charming and very willing to tutor Ana in the history and fine art of glassmaking. He had generously provided her journalist friend with enough information for a long day of writing then insisted they go to Murano, where Ana could see the process first hand. She was told that the length of the field trip would require lunch at his favorite trattoria on the island. The tour had been interesting, and the Prosecco with lunch had been refreshing.
On the return to Venice, standing with her tutor at the deck railing, watching Venice come into closer view, she had suddenly felt a hand slide around her waist, and then down to her buttocks. He squeezed—hard. He leaned toward her and in heavily accented English whispered a very explicit request to be carried out at Hotel Boscolo Veneti, the closest venue after docking. Much to his disappointment, especially after having paid for lunch, the pillar of the community was to be humiliated by a hard slap from a woman much too young for his attentions. The next day her colleague questioned the man’s sudden uncooperative attitude. The experience had served to chip away at Ana’s naïveté, and since then, on the rare occasion when she has seen Venetian glass, it has caused her to smile.
The fleeting memory gone, she was attracted to a collection of framed photos displayed on the mantle; however, as a first-time guest she didn’t feel it would be appropriate to linger and stare. She sat down beside Ben on the gray suede sofa. Hugh brought a beer to Ben and a glass of wine to Ana. He gently handed Paris her favorite martini before turning back to fetch his tumbler of Scotch. He then sat down beside her in the matching chair. There was a quiet moment before conversation began, during which Paris uttered a very audible sigh. It seemed as though she had been holding her breath until her son and his friend had arrived and were safely ensconced in her nest.
Ben was sure that his mother had not kept the preceding events from his father, and he was waiting to see how they would segue into the subject. But each parent was playing the charming host, asking questions of Ana about her career, her family, and her hopes for the future. Ben noticed a little discomfort in Ana’s body language and was concerned that she was being put on the spot. He hoped she thought they were genuinely interested rather than intrusive.
Finally, Ben interrupted and said, “Let’s talk about the elephant in the room.” Everyone made some gesture of discomfort during the pause. Ana rearranged herself on the sofa cushion, Paris fussed with smoothing her skirt, and Hugh brushed something imaginary from his sweater.
Hugh ended the awkward moment and said, “Go on, Ben. Give me your version of events. Your mother was quite upset when she told me and may have left something out.”
“Mum, I know you’ve talked to Dad about what you saw and what I told you when you came to the flat.” His mother looked down, guilty as charged, and then turned to Hugh and gave another expressive sigh. Knowing there was no escape from their concern, he continued, “Dad, I hope that at least you haven’t implemented an investigation. I know that your buddies at Interpol owe you favors.”
“No, son,” Hugh said, “I don’t have enough facts to make it worthwhile.”
Paris interjected, “I still don’t know what they want.” She shook her head and folded her arms across her chest, obviously frustrated.
“We’re taking a good part of the weekend to enjoy you being here,” said Hugh. “But tomorrow I’m going to escort your mother to the museum and hang around to see if she’s contacted again. People work in those offices seven days a week. From now on I don’t intend to let her out of my sight.” He reached over and squeezed her hand affectionately. “You two will remain here, on the property—preferably in the house.”
Ben put his beer bottle on the side table and stood. He walked over to the fireplace and leaned on the mantle, his back to everyone, and said, “I can’t stand that I’ve involved all of you in this mess.”
Paris rose from her chair and went to stand beside him, taking his arm and then clutching his hand. “It’s not your doing, son. You’re the unwilling bystander. They want something from me and were trying to use you as a bargaining chip. We still don’t know what that is.”
She took Ben by the hand and led him back to the sofa, where he flopped down, rubbed his face with his hands, and ran his fingers through his hair—a sure sign of stress and frustration that his mother had come to know very well. Ana had been taking it all in. Ben had still not admitted to her the reason for his ruse to get her there. But she was analytical, intelligent, and it became clear that all three were worried about her safety as well. She decided to leave the subject of his deception for another time. It was, after all, for her benefit. But he could have told her how he felt, what he feared. She wouldn’t have argued. It seems he had somehow become used to women who were contrary and unreasonable. That certainly did not describe Paris. There were so many questions.
A light knock on one of the open sitting room doors drew Ana away from her musings. The woman who stood in the doorway was wiping her hands on a printed apron whose strap hung askew from one shoulder. Her hair was streaked with gray, and assuming she was the cook, Ana thought that she appeared to have enjoyed many of her own creations. The woman smiled and said that the meal was ready to serve. After a short pause she added that timing was important because she had prepared a chocolate soufflé for dessert, and would everyone please not linger before coming to the dining room.
Paris laughed and said, “Edith does her best to run things around here, and we’re all better off if we do it her way, especially at mealtimes.”
Hugh shrugged his shoulders and reached for his wife’s hand, pulling her up from the chair. She put her arm through his and they headed toward the dining room. He motioned to Ben and Ana to follow, and they fell in behind. Leaves had been removed from the table in order to make the meal more intimate and less formal. Ana observed that Ben’s parents were not the countrified class-conscious English types she had read about. They seemed very down to earth, and although they revealed that Edith was housekeeper as well as cook, it was obvious they were not taskmasters and considered her a friend, not a servant.
Ben and Ana had made no stops on the trip from London, so the hearty meal was welcome, as was the perfect chocolate soufflé that followed. Coffee was served in the comfort of the sitting room, and soon both Ben and Ana became distracted by fatigue. Paris noticed the tiredness in Ben’s eyes and how he unconsciously began to rub his shoulder. As a guest in their home, Ana was making every effort to take part in the conversation, although being a mother, Paris knew that the young woman needed sleep as well.
“I think it’s time you young people were in bed.” She stood and walked over to Ana, holding out her hand to urge Ana up from the sofa. “Come dear, let me show you your room,” she said gently. Ana stood and held her hand out to Paris, who took it in hers and led Ana toward the doorway. “I had planned to put you in Olivia’s room, since it’s more feminine, but then I remembered the cluttered way she left it last time she visited. The guest room will be much better.” She paused and looked over at Ben. “We don’t clean up after our children, we just close the door—always have.”
Ben chimed in, “That’s the truth. Squalor is the only word I can use for the state of my room from the time we came back to England until I went off to university. I guess at some point Mum set Edith loose on it. I came home for the holidays that first year and found it actually habitable.”
Ben’s mother was quick to add, “It was Edith who insisted. I was against it.”
“No more stories tonight,” Hugh said. “We’ve all had a long day, and tomorrow you’re to stay put and wait until we come
back from London. Then we attack this problem by whatever means necessary—and hopefully with more information.”
Ben smiled at his Dad and said, “It seems strange after all these years to have you telling me what I can and can’t do again—a bit of déjà vu.”
Chin in the air, his expression serious, Hugh cautioned his son. “It was for your own good then, and it’s for your own good now.”
“I know, Dad. Thanks. I was just teasing. But I do realize the whole thing is no joke.” He walked over and put his good arm around his father’s shoulder, gave it a squeeze and said good night.
The two tired travelers were herded out of the room and up the stairs. They reached Ben’s room first, and he gave Ana one of those captivating smiles as he bid her goodnight and then closed his door. She thought back to the night they had spent on the same bed and how she had watched him sleep, how she had tuned herself in to every nuance of expression on his face. She nurtured him, cared about him, almost felt his pain, and the feelings were all new, unfamiliar. She wondered in an instant if she would ever again watch him sleep.
Paris accompanied Ana to the guest room, turned on two lamps then showed her where she could find fresh linens and sundries. She thanked Paris, who closed the door leaving Ana alone. The room was pleasant, with its chintz curtains and Victorian armoire. The four-poster bed looked like an antique and was covered with a velvet comforter in a muted shade of viridian green. Hand embroidered pillows were strewn across the top, and the bedside table held a small vase of fragrant flowers Ana could not identify. Her suitcase stood beside the door, and she reasoned that at some point Edith must have brought it upstairs. She freshened up as quickly as possible and pulled on a satin slip, kept for the times when her preference for sleeping au naturel would be inappropriate. After turning off the bedside lamp she slid contentedly under the soft comforter, and with no more than two thoughts about the day, she was asleep.
Ben had not been as fortunate, finally admitting to himself that the drive had been too much for his shoulder. He wondered if that was his penance for having deceived Ana. He lay awake in the darkness, the dull pain robbing him of relaxation, his brain trying to formulate some sort of plan to help his mother. However, there was very little information, and until she was contacted again, neither he, nor his father, could make any decisions or enlist help from Interpol. Ben could not reconcile the failure to kidnap him with any plan villains might have to go forward with a crime, whatever it was to be. Eventually he got out of bed and rummaged through his luggage for the bottle of ibuprofen. While he swallowed several tablets with a swig of water, he wondered if they had actually abandoned the plan. He hoped that his father would learn something from tomorrow’s trip to the museum. He climbed back into bed and lay staring at the ceiling of his room, where so many years ago stars had been painted for a boy who had become fascinated by thoughts of space and time. The first silvery light of dawn had begun to filter through the shutters before Ben finally dozed off into a deep but fitful sleep.
* * *
Ana sat in the sunny breakfast room nursing a coffee with cream and too much sugar. It was the second cup, her need for caffeine being stronger than usual. She had slept hard, with vivid dreams seeming too real to be discounted. She had slept eight hours, but it felt like four. Ben’s parents had left very early, long before she came downstairs. Ben’s mother had left oatmeal in a double boiler on the stove, a full carafe of coffee, and on the counter next to it, a plate of scones with a crock each of butter and jam. Ana settled onto the cushioned window seat adjacent to the table, coffee in hand, a scone split and buttered on the plate in her lap. The view from the window was lovely. A wide expanse of lawn gave way to a stand of mature trees, spaced far apart—she thought they could be Chestnuts—and directly under the window was a bed of pale pink cabbage roses, no doubt the source of the generous bouquet in the sitting room. Spiky purple flowers she couldn’t identify flanked the rose bed on three sides. Ana’s thoughts strayed from the visual pleasures beyond the window to the matter at hand. Their instructions—orders really—had been to stay put, but even her short acquaintance with Ben suggested that he was unlikely to acquiesce.
She stood, then walked over to put her breakfast things in the sink before starting upstairs to dress. As she passed the door to Ben’s room, he opened it slowly and stepped out into the hall. He was dressed in gray sweat pants and a long sleeve tee whose logo advertised some long-forgotten rock group whose name she had heard, but whose music she had managed to avoid. His hair was tousled and a new growth of beard gave him a casual and sexy air, even though the tiredness in his eyes remained. He saw her and brandished the weapon of his smile, stopping the woman in her tracks and putting her at a loss for words.
“Is it still ‘good morning’ or have I slept into the afternoon?” Ben closed his door and then leaned against it, waiting for Ana’s response.
“You barely made it with ten minutes to spare. It’s almost twelve. But I’ve only been down for about half an hour.”
“I just couldn’t get to sleep. This whole thing was spinning around in my head until the wee hours, and I know you’ll say I told you so, but my shoulder was giving me fits on top of it.”
“I’m not one to jump on an opportunity to be right,” she said, smiling. “But I would have driven, if you’d asked— even if I had reservations… fear, actually.”
“That brings me to the confession I mentioned last night.” Ben took a deep breath and waited for Ana to respond.
“Go ahead. But I think I know what you’re going to say. I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“I could have just trusted that you’d do what I advised, but I don’t know you well enough to have depended on that. It was clear there was a chance you were in danger too, because of having been seen with me. I just couldn’t leave you in London to fend for yourself.” Ben paused, again waiting for Ana’s reaction. She remained quiet, so he continued. “Whatever this is about, whatever risk is ahead of me, I couldn’t worry about what could be happening to you. I figured the best place for you was with me, and with my father. He has years of experience with criminals and has a lot of contacts at Interpol.”
“How did that come about?” Ana was suddenly curious about what Ben’s father had done for a living. “Was your father with Scotland Yard or something?”
“No. He spent his career as an investigator with Lloyd’s of London. He advanced to running the department that deals with thefts of high-end jewelry, art, cars—whatever wealthy people see as ‘priceless’ and are willing to insure at exorbitant rates. He was working in their office in San Francisco when I was born. But then he was just an investigator. When he was promoted to department head we moved back to England.”
“So that’s why he’s trying to get on top of this, and why he went to the city with your mother. He obviously knows how to take care of her. Is he in possession of a firearm? I know that sounds formal. It just sounded so crass to say ‘gun.’” She stopped herself and took a deep breath. “Sorry to rattle on, but this is a lot of new information to take in.”
“In San Francisco he carried a weapon. I stood at attention for many lectures about not touching it. And when I was about ten, he took me out to a shooting range and taught me how to be safe around that weapon—firearms in general. I never liked even holding it, but he said a man never knows when he might have to defend himself or someone else.”
“I didn’t know that insurance investigators needed to carry weapons.”
“Depends on how valuable the stolen or destroyed items are, or how involved the agents are in tracking them down. There’s always the possibility of a confrontation. And it’s not always an individual. For lack of a better word, ‘gangs’ of crooks plan some pretty complicated heists—and some are real bad guys.”
“Now you’re using proper crime lingo.” She laughed softly and shook her head.
Ben crossed his arms and continued to lean on the door, his eyes fixed on hers. He thought she migh
t have been wearing what she slept in and noticed the pleasure he felt while examining her tousled hair, lack of makeup, and baggy pants. He shot her a rather seductive smile, and feeling slightly embarrassed, she was compelled to end the conversation and escape his gaze. She quickly told him about the coffee waiting for him, along with the scones and oatmeal. Before he could say anything else she made a hasty retreat down the hall and into her room.
* * *
Once behind the closed door, Ana shed the baggy pants she had found in the closet, perhaps a garment left behind by a previous guest. Next came the satin slip and the cardigan she had pulled over it before going downstairs. She lingered in the shower, wondering what the day would bring. Freshly washed and combed, Ana pulled out jeans and the gem-encrusted tee shirt from her suitcase and quickly dressed. Her one pair of comfortable shoes seemed appropriate for the kind of day she expected, so she slid into them, tied the laces and stopped before the mirror. I’ve already been exposed bare-faced, so why bother with it, she thought, but then settled for a wee bit of mascara and swipe of rose pink lipstick.
Curious about what Ben was up to, she returned to the kitchen, where she found him reading a newspaper, his spoon suspended over a bowl. Steam rose from the mug beside it, and a few crumbs on the table were all that remained of a scone.
Good Deed Bad Deed : A Novel Mystery Page 11