Feramo moved past her, shut the bathroom door, locked it and turned to face her.
“Do you normally wander through your host’s home without permission?”
Go with the fear, she told herself. Don’t fight it. Use the adrenaline. Go on the attack.
“Why shouldn’t I look around for a bathroom if you ask me for dinner and have me met by unexplained six-foot sex goddesses then leave me hanging around on my own?”
He slipped his hand inside his jacket. “I take it this belongs to you?” he said, holding out the Louis Vuitton clutch. Bugger. She had left it on the floor when she was taking photographs inside the secret room.
“You told me you were French. You made a great thing about speaking from the heart. And then you bloody well lied to me. You’re not French at all, are you?”
He looked at her, impassive. His face, in neutral, had an almost aristocratic sneer.
“You are right,” he said eventually. “I did not tell you the truth.”
He turned and unlocked the door. She thought she was going to faint with relief.
“But come. We will be late for our dinner,” he said, more pleasantly now. “We will talk about these things then.”
He threw the door open, gesturing her out into his bedroom. It was a big bed. Olivia strode determinedly past it—there was his shirt on a chair, books by the bed—and out into the corridor. He closed the door and stood between her and the elevator, directing her the other way.
At the end of the corridor was yet another closed door. He moved ahead of her to unlock it, and she grabbed the chance to slip the camera into her bag as he pushed the door open to reveal a stairwell.
“Up,” he said.
Was he planning to push her off the roof? She turned to look at him, trying to gauge if this was the moment to run. As her eyes met his, she saw that he was laughing at her.
“I’m not going to eat you. Up you go.”
It was very confusing. Reality kept shifting to and fro. Suddenly, now, with his laugh, it felt like a date again. At the top of the stairs he pushed opened a heavy fire door, and there was a rush of warm air. They stepped out into a strong wind and a tremendous roar. They were on the top of the building, the vast panorama of Los Angeles surrounding them. The noise was coming from a helicopter parked on the roof, rotor blades turning, the door open, ready.
“Your carriage awaits,” Feramo shouted above the noise. Olivia was torn between fear and wild excitement. Feramo’s hair was streaming straight back from his face as though he were in front of a wind machine on a photo shoot.
Olivia ran across the concrete keeping low to dodge the rotor blades. She scrambled into the helicopter, wishing she hadn’t worn a slip dress and the uncomfortable shoes. The pilot turned round and gestured towards the harnesses and ear protectors. Pierre was in the seat beside her, pulling the heavy door closed as the helicopter lifted into the air, the building shrinking away below them. They were heading towards the ocean.
It was impossible to speak against the din. Pierre didn’t look at her. She tried to concentrate on the view. The sun was setting over the Santa Monica Bay, a heavy orange ball against a pale blue sky, red light reflecting back off the ocean’s glassy surface. They followed the coast a little way, banking downwards against the dark line of the mountains towards Malibu. She could see the long line of the pier, the little half-built restaurant at the end, and beside it the surfers, black, seal-like figures, catching the last of the waves.
Feramo leaned forward, instructing the pilot, and the helicopter swung out towards the open sea. She thought of her mother, years ago, chastising her for her sense of adventure, her interest in dangerous boys and life close to the edge: “You’ll get yourself into trouble; you don’t understand the world, you only see the excitement. You won’t see the danger until it’s too late.” Unfortunately the advice was only given in the context of Catholic boys or boys with motorbikes.
The sun was slipping behind the horizon, separating in two, one orb on top of the other like a figure eight. Seconds after it disappeared the sky around exploded into reds and oranges, the lines of airplane trails white against the blue high above.
Well, she wasn’t having this. She wasn’t just being whisked out into the middle of the Pacific without so much as a by-your-leave. She dug Feramo indignantly in the arm.
“Where are we going?”
“What?”
“Where are we going?”
“What?”
They were like a geriatric married couple already.
She wriggled further up in her seat and yelled in his ear.
“Where are we going?”
He smirked. “You’ll see.”
“I want to know where you’re taking me.”
He bent to say something in her ear.
“What?”
“Catalina!” he bellowed.
Catalina Island—a day-tripper’s island twenty miles offshore. There was one little cheerful seaside town—Avalon; the rest was wilderness.
Night fell quickly. Soon a dark shoulder of land was rearing up out of the gloom. Far away to their left, she could see the lights of Avalon—cozy and welcoming, cascading down to the little curved bay. Ahead of them was only blackness.