The first time Philippe noticed the trembling was during negotiations with Continental Express prior to the sale of Banco Imperiale. He had been absorbed in a sheet of figures at the desk of his main office in the Principality of Andorra. This was something he often did. Like many highly successful businessmen, he trusted no one and had always functioned under the premise that he should keep as much as possible of his plans and thoughts away from his secretary, Gisele, even though she had been chosen for her trustworthiness as much as for her efficiency. ‘You just don’t know,’ Philippe would say to himself. ‘Maybe one day she’ll want to jump ship and float off with a competitor. Maybe she’ll sell our plans to a competitor, thereby giving him the edge. You just don’t know.’ Philippe therefore always tried to keep a crucial piece of every puzzle to himself until such time as he had to divulge the information to Gisele.
The telephone rang. It was Gisele. He reached for the telephone without looking up. He wanted to finish the line he was working on before his train of thought was severed by this latest interruption. He clamped the receiver to his ear. ‘One minute,’ he mumbled. Gisele knew this meant he was finishing off something, so she waited silently and patiently for his cue to continue.
Philippe wrote the final figure, looked up, catching sight of his left index finger as his line of vision settled upon the view of the Pyrenees in the distance. That, he always said, was one of the beauties of having an office in the tax-free haven of Andorra.
‘What is it?’ he asked quietly.
‘It’s Madame, sir,’ Gisele said.
‘Put her through.’
As they were speaking, Philippe looked, transfixed, as his index finger danced around while he held his hand in the air. ‘It must be the stress,’ he murmured to himself. Thereafter, he noticed that the index finger of his left hand trembled intermittently but gave it no more thought than he had given that first glimpse. Negotiations with Continental Express were intense and fraught, and it was only to be expected that, in a man of his age, there would be the occasional visible manifestation of the pressure he was enduring.
Once the deal was done and Continental Express bought Banco Imperiale, the pressure was eased off. The trembling continued, however, gradually spreading to the other fingers on his left hand.
‘It’s obviously the after-effects of the strain,’ Philippe thought, and was soon launching himself back into a new venture, this time shoring up Banco Imperiale Geneva, which had not been bought by Continental Express, with a view to making it attractive for takeover by another financial institution.
Eight months after the sale of the New York bank, the unexpected happened when Continental Express sued Philippe in New York City for breach of contract and for misrepresentation. The gist of their case was simple, even though the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times in London made it sound complex. They were claiming that he had padded the accounts to achieve a spectacular sale price and that he had, moreover, taken clients with him whom they had bought with the bank, having received ironclad guarantees that they would remain with Banco Imperiale NY. This lawsuit would have been devastating to Philippe’s reputation had he not fought it with the vigour that he did. He hired the toughest lawyers he could find: Gassman, Ginzberg, Strelnick and Houghton. They were renowned financial specialists, with a gift for ‘turning water into wine – an old Jewish trick not limited to the boy from Bethlehem’, as Philippe put it. He also hired John Lowenstein, the famous public relations consultant whose services his wife had been dying to avail herself of for years.
To Bianca, with her frustrated aspirations for public recognition, the employment of John Lowenstein was almost too bitter a pill to swallow. She had been obliged to stand by throughout the years she had been living in New York, as Lowenstein pushed her friends Ruth Fargo Huron and Stella Minckus through the social columns to the forefront of the public domain, making them celebrities, while she had remained a socialite known only within the narrow confines of a select social circle.
‘Let John use me,’ Bianca suggested to Philippe, hoping to achieve her aims on the back of Philippe’s need. ‘We could form a pincer approach, so to speak, to defeat your enemies. Me in the social columns: you on the financial pages. Take a leaf out of Dolphie’s book. Look at how he has used Stella to enhance his stature and Belmont’s. You don’t seriously believe Dolphie would have John Lowenstein on a retainer, at the prices he charges, to promote Stella, if his business interests weren’t also benefiting, do you?’
‘It won’t work,’ Philippe said, too quickly, to have truly considered all the sides of the question. ‘You’re too precious for me to run the risk of hurting you. And, believe me, Bianca, adverse publicity will hurt, even if it’s only your vanity.’
‘Let me worry about my vanity and you worry about Continental Express while John Lowenstein uses all the ammunition we can put at his disposal,’ she said sweetly.
‘No,’ Philippe said stubbornly, his bottom lip protruding the way it did whenever he had made up his mind and pressure was being applied upon him to change it. ‘I can’t run the risk of dragging you into this.’
‘I’m not some little china doll to be kept safely on the shelf, you know,’ she said. As Bianca uttered these words she realized, for the first time in all the years they had been together, that when she could have been acquiring fame, his claims of publicity being bad for business and potentially damaging to their professional and social positions had been nothing but an elaborate charade. He didn’t want the world viewing her as special, because he was afraid that if it did, she would become too independent. And then he might lose her.
‘No, you’re not a china doll,’ Philippe replied, as if in confirmation of her observation. ‘But you’re even more precious than the most precious china doll to me, and I must protect you against anything bad happening.’
‘Well, I wish you wouldn’t,’ Bianca snapped.
Philippe looked stricken. His left hand started to tremble even more than it had before. He opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it, and before she was even aware of what she would say, Bianca had jumped into the breach. ‘I’m getting sick of being mollycoddled by you in this way,’ she said. ‘It’s demeaning. And I wish you’d get that damned hand of yours looked at. That bloody tremor is getting worse than ever. You’re starting to look like a shaky little old man, and that, I have to tell you, gives your opponents the scent of blood far more than anything else you can think of.’
Goaded by Bianca, Philippe made an appointment to see his doctor in New York. The diagnosis was Multiple Sclerosis. At first, Bianca did not fully appreciate the severity of Philippe’s condition. Nor, in fairness, did he. Neither of them was the type to face bad news head-on. Each of them thought that by dodging the issue, it would go away. But it did not, and within a year the trembling was worse than ever, despite medication.
It was at this juncture that Bianca took things into her own hands. Acting upon the philosophy that there is no point in having influential and well-connected friends if you do not use them, she telephoned Stella and Ruth and discovered that the man they regarded as the world’s Multiple Sclerosis expert worked a few blocks away on 77th Street near Fifth Avenue.
‘Make an appointment with Dr Eli Wiseman as soon as possible,’ she instructed Mary van Gayrib, without even bothering to tell her husband what she was doing until Mary had confirmed a date and time.
Far from resenting the steps Bianca had taken, Philippe was delighted and made no secret of it. In fact, he even boasted, as he recounted the tale to Gisele: ‘I’m the luckiest man alive to have a wife like Madame. She’s more capable than ten Roman legions and does not shy away from taking charge when the occasion demands it.’
Dr Wiseman’s suggestions were basic enough. Philippe was to avoid stress, and he was to take his medication regularly, rather than when he felt the need for it. ‘You will never derive the cumulative benefits of the medication if you imbibe it intermittently,’ the doctor explained. ‘It is designed to be administered on a regular basis. Without that regularity it cannot do its work, and the symptoms of the disease will not be kept at bay but will continue to encroach with the steadiness and rapidity they have displayed since your initial diagnosis. MS is no respecter of persons, Mr Mahfud. All the money and success in the world won’t help you if you don’t start to show the condition the respect it deserves.’
As Dr Wiseman had noticed during that first meeting, Philippe was in many ways the worst person to have fallen victim to a disease like MS. He thrived on stress and had never been the sort of person who could conquer discomfiture. This latter trait had been the secret of his success in business and had also accounted for the great gaps within his personality. Despite being one of the most successful businessmen on earth, Philippe had never stretched the limits of his personality, withdrawing instead into a world of his own creation where he could function comfortably without the need for painful personal growth. He was someone who had always found it easier to escape the demands of small talk, casual friendship and normal socializing by retreating into his office and coming up with schemes for making yet more money. The acquisition of wealth had long been more about entertaining himself than it had been about what money could or could not buy, for he had passed the stage where his money could be spent. Money had become nothing but a yardstick of accomplishment and the means by which he was able to have the world adjust to him, rather than vice versa. In so doing, he had been able to remain fundamentally a child. A ruthless child, admittedly, but also one who could be sweet and kind and loving and who, to those close to him, had a vulnerability that made his limitations excusable, even appealing at times.
This self-indulgence might have been the source of much of his success, but it also became the cause of the rapid decline in his health. It wasn’t long before Philippe disregarded Dr Wiseman’s advice concerning the regular intake of his medication. ‘The damned tablets either make me nauseous or befuddled,’ he complained, ‘and I can’t afford to be either.’
At first, Bianca tried to get him to follow the specialist’s regimen with wifely concern. ‘You know what Dr Wiseman told you. You’ve got to take your tablets regularly. Why not try them for a month and see if there isn’t an improvement?’
Philippe, however, could last no more than two days before abandoning the discipline of regular medication. After enduring weeks of watching him ignore the doctor’s sensible advice, Bianca could stand no more. ‘I have to tell you I’m getting fed up with your childish attitude,’ she snapped. ‘Dr Wiseman says the reason why your limbs are stiffening and shaking is that you refuse to do anything to suppress the natural progression of the disease. If you persist in this folly, you’re going to end up unable to get out of a chair without help, and soon you’ll be unable to walk unaided. Do your really want to have to use a Zimmer frame or a wheelchair for the rest of your life?’
‘I’ll be OK,’ Philippe said. ‘All I need to do is win the case Continental Express have brought against me.’
‘If I were you,’ she said, ‘I’d settle it.’
Philippe looked incredulous. Even though the MS had started to affect his facial expressions, Biancc could see the passion that illuminated his irises. ‘Having MS doesn’t mean I’ve become a loser,’ he insisted. ‘I’d sooner die than settle that action.’
Fortunately Continental Express settled the lawsuit, having come to the realization, as Gassman, Ginzberg, Strelnick and Houghton buried them under a mountain of paperwork and John Lowenstein further immersed them under a welter of favourable newspaper coverage generated by a book he had arranged for a friendly journalist to write giving the Mahfud side of the argument, that the cost would ultimately wipe out all the financial benefits of any success they might achieve.
Left to his own devices, Philippe would have continued to go into the office every day, return home every evening, have a quiet supper; go to bed early and get up the following morning. Then he would resume plotting and planning and scheming his way towards the creation of yet another vast fortune, in an effort to give his life definition and to take his mind off what was happening to his body. However, he could no longer be left to his own devices. He needed help to walk, and he could not write anymore. He therefore became more reliant upon his assistants.
Gisele especially took the brunt of the responsibility, and gradually, as she had to do more and more for him, he found himself sharing his plans and dreams with her in a way that he never would have done in the past.
During this period of decline, Philippe kept his spirits up the only way he knew how. He dedicated himself to a new moneymaking project. This one, he knew, would have to be the climax of his financial career, so he set about making it as glorious as possible. Readying Banco Imperiale Geneva for an even more impressive and lucrative takeover than anything that had gone before, he cultivated rich clients even more avidly than he had done in the past. Using his Mexican connections, and that country’s proximity to neighbouring cocaine-rich Colombia, he pushed the already murky dealings of international banking further into the mire. Like many, if not most, successful bankers, he had never been overly concerned with the provenance of a fortune. As long as someone had a large enough amount to invest and thereby boost the desirability of Banco Imperiale Geneva for takeover, Philippe would court their business - no questions asked. This was true even when it was apparent that the money was tainted, that it was being laundered unlawfully or being diverted by officials of foreign states. It was only a matter of time before the word spread in the reputable and disreputable segments of the financial community alike that the man to turn to when you had nowhere else to go was Philippe Mahfud. To those members of the financial community who valued probity - or, at any rate, the appearance of it - he now became a figure to shun. But to those who admired results - to the Manuel Noriegas and the Pablo Escobars of this world, or to the bankers who wanted an ‘introductory fee’ for laundering drug and blood money while keeping their own hands clean - he provided the solution to their problems.
From Philippe’s point of view, this could not have been a more ideal time to build up quickly the most successful investment bank in the world. Aside from the billions of dollars of drugs money to be laundered, the Soviet Union was in the process of collapsing. The staggering wealth of that vast country was falling into the hands of a tiny minority of state officials who exploited the breakdown of the old order and the creation of a market economy by siphoning off billions of dollars. They cut deals with their cronies and either sold off or acquired state property, state enterprises and state assets.
Long before the world woke up to the existence of a new category of crook, and the Russian Mafia became a byword for unbelievable corruption and unimaginable wealth, Philippe Mahfud was the man these new billionaires banked with. Men such as the politician Yuri Vitsen, with his army of relations feathering their nests to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars apiece, or Boris Budokovsky, the businessman who shot from penury to billionaire status within two years, needed accommodating banks such as Banco Imperiale Geneva where they could safely ‘lodge’ their assets. So they beat a well-worn path to Philippe Mahfud’s office door at the Banco Imperiale Geneva, where the distinction between nominee and beneficial owners was negligible, and the difference between desirability of clients was measured purely in the size of the fortune to be banked. In Philippe, they had their ideal banker, for the idea of turning away billions of dollars of investors’ money for any reason at all, was truly incomprehensible to him. He felt it his duty as well as his right to accept all clients, irrespective of the source of their wealth. To him, it seemed perfectly ludicrous that morality should be mixed up with banking. ‘All dollar bills are green,’ ran Philippe’s philosophy, ‘irrespective of whose fingers have touched them.’
Philippe nevertheless knew in his bones that he would not want to bring the game to a close until he had achieved his objective of selling Banco Imperiale Geneva for the highest price ever paid for a private bank. The problem there, of course, was that his health and the erratic state of the international financial community meant he could not be sure that he would actually be able to pull off this feat. Like many other outstandingly successful businessmen, Philippe was a gambler at heart, and, like all gamblers, he was transfixed not only by winning but by the prospect of losing. To people like him, victory without the possibility of loss was as dull as the idea of a woman without the scent of danger.
Multiple Sclerosis, however, was not Bianca or the banking world. It was not a tiger he could ride, and by 1993 he was fighting a losing battle with it. His mobility was so seriously impaired that he had to move the headquarters of Banco Imperiale Geneva to his Andorra tax haven in the Pyrenees between France and Spain allowing him to commute easily by helicopter between L’Alexandrine and his office in the principality.
Of course, there was never any prospect of moving from Geneva to Andorra without all the trappings that went with the billionaire lifestyle.
Neither Philippe nor Bianca was one for self-sacrifice, so he bought a palatial, rose-coloured, eighteenth-century stucco villa a stone’s throw from the Presidential Palace, which he then turned into Banco Imperiale’s new headquarters. Commuting between L’Alexandrine and Andorra offered only a temporary solution, however. Philippe’s decline, exacerbated by his refusal to take his medication correctly, continued rapidly, and by 1994 he needed nurses in attendance around the clock. It was at this point that Bianca suggested turning the top two floors of the Banco Imperiale Building in Andorra into a home from which he could function. ‘My darling,’ she said sweetly, her tone warming Philippe’s heart as completely as it would have chilled her son Pedro’s, ‘I know you live and breathe work, and I would never want you to give up anything that brings you such pleasure, but we do have to consider your well-being. It makes more sense for us to live above the bank and for you to run the business from home than for you to commute to the office from L’Alexandrine.’
Being a logical man, Philippe saw the sense of his wife’s suggestion and authorized her to turn the top two floors of the Banco Imperiale Building into an apartment for them to live in. Bianca promptly commissioned Valerian Rybar and Ion Antonescu to transform the place into an Andorran version of their New York apartment and their Geneva house. Refurbishment began within six weeks. The schedule of works was intended to last six months.
Two weeks before the commission was completed, however, Bianca came home to L’Alexandrine from a luncheon party at Ruth Fargo Huron’s house with shattering news. ‘I sat beside the American ambassador,’ she informed Philippe, who was sitting, shakier than ever, like a wizened old man in a gilt Louis XVI armchair, his legs covered in a ranch mink blanket. ‘She informs me that there is trouble brewing in the US over money laundering. They’re going after the Nigerians and the Russians. All the bankers who have been assisting them to divert their national assets are going to be blacklisted unless they assist the American government in tracing their assets.’
‘This is serious,’ Philippe remarked. ‘I’ll be destroyed unless I provide them with assistance. But if I do, my clients will desert me in droves unless I can find a way to prevent them from finding out that I’ve cooperated. But you know what that damned Freedom of Information Act is like. They force you to sing, then they list you as a canary.’
‘What will you do?’ Bianca asked.
‘Get in touch with the Secretary of State and provide them with as much information as they need to keep off my back while cutting a deal with the authorities that will assure us anonymity.’
‘And if you don’t play ball?’
‘They’ll blacklist me, and there goes any chance of selling Banco Imperiale Geneva.’
‘I do wish you’d get yourself out of the line of fire,’ she said passionately. ‘The stress does your health no good, and, if I could take some of the heat for you, your enemies wouldn’t bother with me the way they would with you.’ For some time now, Bianca had been using Philippe’s increasing infirmity, and the wifely concern she expressed as a result of it, to lay the ground in the hope that he would use her as his trusted right hand so that she could become both the financial and a social queen bee.
‘That might be a solution further down the line, but it’s not the answer to our immediate problems,’ Philippe said, careful to leave open a door he had no real intention of using.
‘But surely there must be something I can do right now to help,’ replied the picture of wifely solicitude.
‘There is,’ her husband replied disappointingly. ‘Get in touch with Valerian and the architect. We’re going to need the best security system in the world just in case word leaks out that I’ve cooperated with the Americans. You know what they’re like. Between their open-government policy and their naïve insistence on always occupying the moral high ground, someone’s bound to find out. We’d better be prepared, or I’m a dead man.’
‘This has the potential to turn very nasty,’ said Bianca, sounding more worried than she actually felt.
‘You can say that again. But don’t worry, Gisele will find the best security advisors, and we’ll make sure they design an impenetrable defence system which doesn’t intrude on the homeliness of the place.
Once the Russians and my Latin American friends find out that I’m providing the Americans with information about their financial activities, they’ll put out a contract on my life. You’ll be in danger too, Bianca. We’ve got to act right now. Security must be in place before the Russians get wind of any cooperation I give the Americans.’
Faced with a new and unexpected problem, Bianca immediately saw the one benefit that would accrue should Philippe be liquidated. She would be free to achieve the desires and aspirations that Philippe had always thwarted. This glimpse of a bright new life quickened her pulse and made Bianca realize that widowhood had an attractive dimension, but it did not stop her from doing all she could to keep Philippe alive and as healthy as she could. She duly got in touch with Valerian and Ion and set about altering much of their handiwork to accommodate a bewilderingly sophisticated security system.
Bianca was astonished at the speed with which one of the finest nongovernmental security systems in the world was put into place. Titanium shutters, which went up and down at the touch of a button in the control room, were created for the windows and doors of their apartment.
Together with the reinforced steel that lined the floors and the roof of the apartment, the shutters could seal off each room within seconds, so that the whole apartment became impenetrable. Smoke alarms, sound sensors, cameras, surveillance and recording equipment covering every area of the apartment and the two access points from the bank downstairs were also installed. No one could either gain entry to the building or leave it without the consent of the guards, who materialized, like magic, from Israel.
Heading the team of bodyguards was Erhud Blum, a retired senior operative of Mossad. He assembled nine of his former combatants into what he called the ‘finest security force in the whole world outside of Israel’.
Thereafter, neither Philippe nor Bianca would ever spend another moment in the Andorra apartment without being observed except, of course, when they used their respective bathrooms. In deference to their need for privacy, these two rooms were the only ones which did not have surveillance equipment, but this lack was compensated for by the titanium doors which, when operated in conjunction with the shutters on the windows, sealed off both rooms. Access to them from the outside would therefore become impossible without the cooperation of the parties locked inside the bathrooms or of the head of the security team himself. Not even the nine operatives had the code that allowed the doors to be opened. Only Philippe, Bianca and Erhud Blum possessed this information.
The security system in place, Bianca and Philippe then moved into the apartment that was henceforth to be their primary base. ‘What a relief it will be that we are no longer sitting ducks for the Russian Mafia and the Columbian drug barons,’ she said to him the first night they spent under their new Andorran roof, ‘and that we will never have to worry about security again.’
Within weeks, however, Philippe noticed that this sentiment sat at odds with her conduct. In the last week alone, she had spent three days and two nights at a stretch at L’Alexandrine. ‘What’s up with you?’ he asked, having missed her. ‘Is Andorra our new home or isn’t it? Are you afraid of sleeping here with me, or is there another reason? You’re not worried we’re going to be shot in our bed, are you?’
‘My desire to be at L’Alexandrine has nothing whatever to do with fears of assassination,’ Bianca replied crisply. ‘Much as I love you and want to be with you, I can’t stay cooped up in a cage. L’Alexandrine is my home and always will be. I don’t mind sleeping in Andorra with you, but why should I stay here during the day while you’re working, when I can just as easily be at L’Alexandrine enjoying the benefits of those surroundings?’
‘But it’s a security risk for you to be there on a daily basis with only one bodyguard to protect you. What happens if the Russians or Colombians decide to kidnap you in order to get at me?’
‘Darling, you worry too much. The Russians and Colombians don’t know anything about the assistance you’re giving the Americans, and even if they do find out, they won’t be interested in little old me. It’s you they want. My one bodyguard is all I need. I’m not worried and I’d advise you not to worry about me either. Worry about yourself, because I don’t think I could survive if anything happened to you,’ she said lovingly, knowing that a kind word not only turns away wrath but also takes the wind out of a man’s sail.
Although the sexual side of their marriage was long dead, the relationship still appeared to be strong. Philippe craved as much as ever his wife’s presence: her touch, her scent, the feel of her body next to his. From her point of view, however, the twitching which was an inevitable part of motor neurone disease meant that she could never get a good night’s sleep in bed with him. Now that the sexual side of their marriage was dead, Bianca failed to see why she should inconvenience herself, so for the last two years she had been sleeping with him less and less frequently and now used this move to stop sleeping with him altogether.
Bianca, however, took care when vacating the marital bed to resort to the subterfuge of getting Philippe’s doctor to advise her to do so on the grounds that his movements were disturbing her sleep and affecting her health. ‘Dr Wiseman has suggested that I have my own bedroom near yours,’ she said to sweeten the pill of withdrawal, ‘but to show you that this is just a temporary change of habit, I won’t even get Valerian to do it up for me. I’ll use the main guest suite until things change and we can sleep together once again.’
What this meant, in reality, was that Bianca had no intention of becoming apartment-bound by her invalid husband. Now that he was sliding towards total infirmity and death, Philippe’s pride prevented him from admitting that the woman he had so revered was capable of abandoning him under the guise of her health. It took a very different sort of man from Philippe to conclude that the oasis he had been drinking from was a mirage. Ferdie had been that sort of man; Philippe, and Bernardo before him, were not.
And Bianca knew it.
As Philippe’s health deteriorated, Bianca found it easier and easier to spend as much time away from him as she could engineer. Added to the boredom of being with the infirm, she had developed a real and sincere antipathy towards his condition. She had always despised ill health even more than she abhorred weakness, and she secretly feared catching Multiple Sclerosis, even though the doctors had assured her on countless occasions that it was non-communicable. Still she withdrew even more from Philippe, both physically and emotionally, and felt fully justified in protecting herself against this dreadful and incurable disease.
By this time, Bianca had resumed the tenor of her life as it had been while Philippe was healthy. If one of her New York friends was having a dinner party that she wanted to attend, she would cross the Atlantic in the Lear and soak up the pleasures of Manhattan and the Fifth Avenue apartment. Her New York home remained one of the great loves of her life, on a par with L’Alexandrine and socializing, and she never returned to it or to the social scene without her heart skipping a beat of pleasurable anticipation. Paris also became a centre of activity now, and she frequently took the Lear there for some appointment with a friend, whether it was luncheon, a dinner party or one of those balls where the majority of the guests boasted monarchist names such as Bourbon-Parma, Lubomirski, and Polignac, and the inevitable guests of honour were the uncrowned queen and empress of France: Son Altesse Royale Madame La Comtesse de Paris and Son Altesse Imperiale La Princesse Napoleon. She never ceased to thrill at the old-world glamour and the magnificence of it all, and each time she saw an assemblage of the grandest of the grand, Bianca experienced an ecstatic rush of pleasure.
For Philippe, this was an acutely painful period. As he had spent most of his life jumping through hoops to avoid the unpleasant realities of life, however, this facility rescued him from the recognition of what was going on in his marriage, even if it did not alleviate his loneliness and feelings of abandonment. His powers of reasoning remained sharp, and his business acumen was not affected by the progress of his condition. He was therefore still able to work on building up Banco Imperiale Geneva for takeover, albeit from the confines of the Andorra apartment. This quest for the deal to crown all deals occupied his days and nights and much of his thoughts, while Bianca drifted in and out of the apartment for a few hours every two or three days.
Even that limited contact was a sacrifice for her, because she vehemently hated the sensation that she was walking into a prison as she entered the premises. And each time she left, she experienced the sense of release that comes with escaping from prison. There was something about enduring invalidity that made daily existence with Philippe seem like working her way through sludge. This feeling of enervation intensified rather than lessened over the months until she found herself thinking, as she walked into Philippe’s bedroom: ‘If only Philippe would die and release us both from the prison his illness has made of our lives.’
Then in 1998, a few months after Bianca actively began wishing Philippe would die, Dr Wiseman, conscious that his patient’s condition had deteriorated to the point where his concentration was being affected, made a recommendation that would speed up Philippe’s demise. ‘Madame Mahfud,’ he said to Bianca on one of his monthly visits to Andorra, ‘you must prepare yourself for the possibility that your husband might become incompetent in the not too distant future.’
‘But he’s in the middle of preparing the biggest deal of his life,’ Bianca objected.
‘Then you’d better get him to speed up negotiations.’
‘What sort of time frame are we dealing with?’
‘It could be months, or it could be a year or two. The one thing your husband has on his side is his fine mind. I’d go as far as saying I’ve never had a more strong-minded patient than him. But even an act of will can’t keep a disease like this from encroaching upon the mental faculties once the powers of concentration start to go.’
‘Doctor, you know what husbands are like. The last person they listen to when the issue is their health is their wife. Why don’t you have a quiet word with Philippe?’ she suggested, smiling sweetly and acting rather more helpless than she actually was. ‘Tell him that he must prepare himself for a decrease in his mental powers and that he should aim to conclude any projects within months rather than years. Could you do that for me?’
Dr Wiseman looked at her. She was, he felt, an astonishingly attractive woman. So feminine. So innocently coquettish. So concerned for her husband’s welfare. What red-blooded man could turn down a request made in such a winning manner?
To ensure that Philippe would not detect any collusion between Dr Wiseman and herself, Bianca then left the apartment to shop in the tax-free haven of Andorra, while Dr Wiseman spoke to her husband.
‘Are you sure it’s the disease that’s affecting my concentration and not the drugs you prescribe?’ Philippe asked, clutching at straws.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Mahfud, but that’s the way Multiple Sclerosis progresses.’
‘I was hoping it was the drugs,’ he said, sounding like a vulnerable little boy.
‘If you have any major projects, I’d suggest winding them up within the next few months.’
‘A few months? How short time becomes when you face your own mortality,’ Philippe said, tears welling up in his eyes.
‘I wish there was something I could do, beyond begging you yet again to take your drugs in a more responsible fashion.’
‘I will, I promise I will,’ Philippe said, reminding Dr Wiseman this time of a little boy who has got into trouble and hopes, that by promising to be good, that the punishment will go away. Except, of course, it wasn’t going away. Not until Philippe was dead.
Dr Wiseman looked at his patient. Here was one of the richest men on earth, yet nothing he or anyone else could do would preserve him from the helplessness and powerlessness that awaited him. Money was a truly finite entity, as limited as it was empowering. Here was a man who had once made people quake in their thousands. Now he was trembling too.
Meanwhile Bianca was winding up the shopping expedition across town. Coinciding her return with Dr Wiseman’s departure, she burst into her husband’s bedroom in a distracting flurry of excitement.
‘Darling,’ she cried, rushing up to his bed with a large box tucked under her arm, and then kissed him on the cheek, ‘I went to Gucci while you and Dr Wiseman were talking, and look what I found for you. Isn’t it beautiful? And so comfortable too.’
She now held up a cashmere-lined silk paisley dressing gown, the collar topstitched in the Gucci emblem. She put it on and modelled it girlishly. ‘Isn’t it the most beautiful shade of yellow and brown you’ve ever seen?’ she asked. ‘It will pick up your colouring perfectly. Why don’t you try it on while I see Dr Wiseman out?’
‘How did it go?’ she asked in her most serious voice once she and Dr Wiseman had stepped outside of Philippe’s bedroom.
‘I think he took onboard what I was telling him.’
‘This is all very ominous. I wish there was something I could do.’
‘You’re doing all a wife can. The important thing is to help him keep his spirits up. MS is a cruel disease.’
‘What will the end be like?’
‘Patients lose the ability to swallow and so can’t eat. Their immune system is weakened and they fall prey to all sorts of infections and viruses. Finally, their hearts give out, or the ones with really strong hearts drown in their own body fluids. It’s not a pretty picture.’
Bianca grimaced, her whole body shaking at the horror of it all.
‘I only hope I’m not there to see it when it happens,’ she said.
‘There is one other thing,’ Dr Wiseman said.
Bianca looked up at him, her beautiful eyes filled with curiosity and strength. There was no doubt in his mind that this was one woman who could cope with anything that life threw at her and remain a paradigm of desirability.
‘Your husband said he doesn’t like Nurse Owens. He says she’s rough with him and she has no sense of humour. He feels uncomfortable around her. And,’ he said, a note of amusement creeping into his voice, ‘he claims that she’s ugly.’
Bianca laughed. ‘That, I have no doubt, is the worst of her sins. Philippe has a real thing about women’s looks.’
‘He seemed genuinely distressed at the prospect of being left in her care.’
‘She comes highly recommended from the Van Gayribs in New York.
She nursed old Mrs Van Gayrib who had Alzheimer’s disease. They couldn’t sing her praises highly enough. I told Philippe only last week that I’d find someone to replace her when I’m next in New York. I’ve taken you up on your suggestion of having brawny male assistants and am going over there in ten days to vet the men Mary’s interviewing.’
‘You might have trouble getting male helpers to cross the Atlantic,’ Dr Wiseman observed.
‘I gather there’s a queue of them willing to come.’
‘How did you accomplish that? I thought all the male helpers in the world want to come to the US.’
‘We’re offering them deals they can’t refuse,’ Bianca laughed. ‘Six month contracts as employees of the bank. All medical benefits thrown in free for themselves and their families for the duration of their employment, which can be renewed if they give satisfaction. Six shifts a week: $750 a shift. We fly them in as our guests, and they live here in Andorra, rent-free, all expenses paid, in a building we’ve leased expressly for the staff.’
‘Presumably the reason why you’re employing them under American contracts in America is that Andorran employment law has sharper teeth than American?’ Dr Wiseman remarked.
‘I honestly wouldn’t know,’ Bianca said. ‘We’re doing it purely and simply to get around the need for work permits. Can you imagine the nightmare it would be if we had to apply for four or eight different work permits every six months? This way, they come in as guests, collect their wages in New York, and we save ourselves a lot of trouble.’
‘Very sophisticated,’ Dr Wiseman said, smiling approvingly. ‘Was this your husband’s idea?’
‘How clever of you, Dr Wiseman. You never miss an opportunity to assess your patient’s condition,’ she laughed. ‘Yes, it was his idea.’
‘Still no diminution in his mental powers. That’s good.’
‘Or cruel, depending on how you look at it. It can’t be much fun for someone with my husband’s mental capacities to witness the collapse of his body while his mind remains intact. And, I have to tell you it’s affecting his personality. He’s become even more demanding than he used to be. Everything has to be done yesterday.’
Dr Wiseman nodded his head sympathetically, bringing the visit to an end. One of the bodyguards opened the door of the apartment and shadowed Dr Wiseman into the elevator and down to the apartment’s street entrance, his machine gun cocked and ready for anything.
Before the bodyguard had a chance to come back inside the apartment, Bianca had turned on her heel and was heading purposefully straight to Philippe’s bedroom.
‘Darling, Dr Wiseman is very concerned about your welfare,’ she said. ‘I know he’s spoken to you about winding up your work with the bank, and I think now’s the time for me to give back some of what you’ve given to me over the years. Why don’t you appoint me chairman of the board in your place and let me act on your behalf? I’ll only do what you want, of course, and refer everything to you for your consideration.’
‘It wouldn’t work,’ her husband replied slowly and deliberately.
‘Why not?’ Bianca replied patiently, feeling anything but patient.
‘I can’t think of a worse thing to do. It would send out the wrong message to the financial community. They’ll think I’m past it. All the sharks would be after the bank.’
‘There’s no denying it,’ Bianca thought. ‘This broken down old man is still a force to be reckoned with. If only he’d hurry up and die and get out of my hair, so I can live the remaining years of my life without having to waste time and energy thinking about someone who is nothing but a pain.’
‘So what do you propose doing?’ she asked sweetly.
‘I’m going to throw bait to a few fish. Spread the word that I’m open to offers for the bank. Then I’ll wait until a big enough fish swims into my waters. In the meantime, you can get me a sweet and pretty young thing to replace that ugly bitch Nurse Owens,’ he said, a twinkle in his eye.
A practical nurse from Kingston, Jamaica and a devout Plymouth Brethren aged thirty-eight at the time of her employment in 1998, Agatha Wilson had been blessed with a sweet disposition, and all the adversity she had faced during her life had only made her more kindly. The sixth of seventeen children born in Trench Town, Agatha went to work as a maid at the age of thirteen. Within six months she had given birth to the first of five children, all of whom would be delivered before her twenty-first birthday. She got her big break as a nursemaid to the young wife of Nicholas Shoucaire, the Lebanese industrialist.
As Agatha’s natural abilities became apparent, Odette Shoucaire promoted her as nanny to the two youngest children; and Agatha, earning more money than ever before, breathed freely for the first time in her life.
When the Shoucaires moved from Jamaica to Canada, they took Agatha Wilson with them.
Like many God-fearing Jamaicans, Agatha was both industrious and reliable. Every penny she earned, she sent back to her family in Kingston.
She took pride in the fact that her children were being sent to good schools; that they lived in a small but clean house in Havendale, a suburb, instead of the slum where she had been raised. To her, the accomplishments of her children made all her sacrifices worthwhile.
It had to be said, some of Agatha’s sense of contentment lay with the Shoucaire family. Husband, wife and children were all happy and decent, and they made Agatha feel a part of the family in a way that few other employers would have done. Then in 1990 disaster struck. Nicholas Shoucaire was diagnosed as suffering from Multiple Sclerosis at the relatively young age of fifty-seven. His disintegration was even quicker than Philippe’s, and when walking became too difficult for him, they sold their three-storey maison de maître near Nice and moved into a sprawling one-storey villa beside Walter and Ruth Fargo Huron’s house near Cap Ferrat. This was shortly before their youngest child was due to go to boarding school in England, and Agatha dreaded the prospect of having to return to Jamaica once the post of nanny became redundant.
Faced with the possibility of losing their faithful retainer, however, Odette and Nicholas Shoucaire suggested that she switch roles and become his practical nurse. They therefore sent her to a practical nursing school in London for six weeks, where she learned the basics, and when she had completed the intensive course, she returned to Cap Ferrat to nurse him.
Bianca’s path first crossed that of Agatha’s at a luncheon party given by Walter and Ruth in 1996. She was impressed by how gently the Jamaican woman treated Nicholas Shoucaire but thought no more of her until Odette telephoned her out of the blue in 1998, just as she was about to dismiss Nurse Owens. After exchanging pleasantries Odette said: ‘I’m trying to find a position for Agatha. My children are all at school and, now that my husband is dead, I simply don’t have any work for her to do. I remembered that your husband has MS too and wondered if you’d be interested in employing her. She was truly a godsend with Nicholas.’
‘In principle, I’m very interested,’ Bianca said graciously. ‘We actually need someone right now. My husband says one of his nurses is too rough with him.’
‘Ruth Huron says you’re a superb employer, and all your staff adore you. This is the sort of position I want for Agatha. She really is an exceptional human being, and I hope you won’t misinterpret this when I say that offering her to you is about the highest praise I can confer upon you. That’s how much she means to us as a family.’
Bianca and Odette arranged to meet with Agatha the following day, and the week after that, the nurse started working for Philippe in Nurse Owens’ place. Agatha and Philippe clicked from the very first. ‘Philippe’s in love with Agatha,’ Bianca frequently joked, and there was an element of truth to the statement. Both nurse and patient had complementary personalities. Each of them was hungry for an emotional attachment, and within weeks of knowing each other, they had established a genuinely companionable and emotionally sustaining relationship that only strengthened with time.
During the first months of their relationship, Philippe beavered away: setting up, with the assistance of John Lowenstein, what was little more than an elaborate scam to ensure that the financial and social columns on both sides of the Atlantic were drip-fed favourable stories about Banco Imperiale’s performance with a view to enticing someone into bidding for it. However, it was a totally isolated occurrence that swung things in Banco Imperiale’s favour and removed any reservations the financial community might normally have entertained about dealing with Philippe Mahfud. In August 1998 Russia defaulted on its debt, and the financial world stood transfixed, as if on the edge of an abyss, for several months.
During that period, investors with funds to invest had to find a safe haven. USNB, the mighty American bank which had the most limited exposure in Russia of all the leading American financial institutions, reasoned that Banco Imperiale was a safe haven at a time when it looked as if the extraordinary buoyancy that the financial markets had enjoyed throughout the latter part of the nineties might be coming to an end. So out of the blue, USNB tendered an offer in mid-September of $6.8 billion for Banco Imperiale. This was just the sort of deal towards which Philippe had been working ever since he had divested himself of his New York operation. Here was the highest amount ever offered for a private investment bank. Philippe, fully aware that the Banco Imperiale was not worth the price, moved to close the deal before USNB discovered how completely they had been duped or before the financial markets recovered from the Russian crisis.
Multiple Sclerosis or no Multiple Sclerosis, Philippe clearly remained as wily and astute as ever. He could see that the Russian crisis was little more than a storm in a teacup, although he was firmly of the opinion that such an overheated economy would go bust within three or four years. ‘We must strike while the iron’s hot,’ he said to Agatha, who, having no idea what he was talking about, nodded her agreement good-naturedly. Using his health as the excuse to speed up the conclusion to their negotiations, Philippe stipulated that the deal must be signed within six weeks or it was off. Then USNB made its second mistake. It laid down the condition that it should have the right to send its own medical team to Andorra to confirm that his health was as precarious as he claimed it was. Philippe unsuccessfully tried to rub his hands with glee when that term came through. Then he had Agatha telephone Bianca at L’Alexandrine and ask her to come to Andorra as soon as possible. Wondering what the problem was, she came as quickly as she could and was more than a little irritated when she walked through the bedroom door to see her husband propped up in bed, grinning broadly. ‘They’ve fallen for it,’ he rasped throatily. ‘We’ve got them.’
‘Who’s fallen for what, and who have you got?’ Bianca asked, irritation tripping off her tongue with every word.
‘USNB,’ he laughed. ‘They’re suspicious about the state of my health, and they’re sending their own doctors to check me out.’
‘But I thought you didn’t want anyone in the financial community to know your state of health.’
‘I didn’t before this, but now I do. Don’t you see, Bianca? Their doctors will confirm that my health is so precarious that my demand to conclude the sale within an unnaturally short space of time is reasonable, based as it must be upon my fear that I might die before the deal is done,’
Philippe chuckled then started to cough, the spittle running down the side of his face, as he struggled to continue talking. ‘Once the markets regularize, USNB isn’t going to be quite so keen on acquiring Banco Imperiale as it now is. So we’ve got to move fast.’
All trace of annoyance deserting her, Bianca sat down on the bed beside him and stroked his arm tenderly. ‘You’re the most brilliant man I’ve ever known,’ she said, ‘and so lovable too. What would I do without you?’
‘I knew you’d be proud of your old Philippe.’
‘I am, darling, I am. No one else could’ve done this but you. Now, I must be off. Tonight I’m having dinner with the Oldenburgs, and I don’t want to be late. They’re having one of the Spanish Infantas, and you know how crazy everyone goes whenever any member of any reigning royal family comes to dinner.’ Bianca pecked her husband on the cheek, turned to Agatha and said:
‘Take good care of Monsieur as you always do.’ She was out the door by the end of the sentence, having been there for less than ten minutes.
As Philippe had envisaged, USNB’s doctors verified the state of his health, and it was agreed between the two sides that the purchase of Banco Imperiale would be concluded on Wednesday, October 28 1998.
On the day of conclusion, the ailing man awoke bright and early. Agatha and Eli, his favourite male assistant, helped him dress before he sat down to a breakfast of fresh mango juice, scrambled eggs, Matzos soaked in milk and butter, and coffee. The announcement of the sale was due to take place at nine o’clock New York time, which would be three in the afternoon his time.
Bianca had promised to come and share the moment of victory with him, and Philippe allowed himself to savour a delicious sense of anticipation as he shuffled towards the living room to watch his moment of glory on television from the comfort of the overstuffed sofa that Valerian Rybar had made for his stylish wife and himself.
Agatha turned on the television. Philippe used the remote control of get CNN. He squirmed from side to side in an attempt to get comfortable, before settling down to watch the financial news. So far, so good.
At eleven o’clock Agatha and Eli helped him back into bed. He rested until one in the afternoon, getting up in time to have a light lunch of mashed potatoes and smoked haddock, which the Jamaican nurse fed him, as usual, from the hospital tray beside the bed. When he had finished, he looked at the clock and registered that the time was coming up for two-twenty.
‘Ring L’Alexandrine and find out what time Madame left. She’s late,’ he said to Eli as Agatha wiped the corners of his mouth with a Handy-Wipe before completing the job with a fine Irish linen napkin that was heavily embroidered with Banco Imperiale’s emblem of the doubleheaded eagle which the Mahfuds had adopted as their own.
Eli left the room to make the call.
‘Help me up, sweetie,’ Philippe said to Agatha. ‘Let’s see if we can’t Zimmer me into the living room without Eli’s help.’
His nurse pulled him up by gripping him beneath his arms. He leaned into her. ‘You smell so lovely,’ he said lustily.
‘You’re a naughty boy, flirting with me like that,’ she joked.
‘I wish I could do more than flirt with you.’
Agatha laughed good-naturedly. ‘Naughty.’
‘I used to be in my youth. I was a man of strong passions. Still am. Only thing is, the old pecker hasn’t worked for years.’
‘You’re making me blush.’
‘I love it when you blush. Come on, give me a little kiss. Just one kiss.’
Agatha smiled. What harm was there in humouring a dying old man? She pecked him on the cheek.
‘No. I want a proper kiss.’
‘Now, Monsieur, you don’t want me to have to tell you off again, do you?’ she scolded gently.
‘I like it when you tell me off.’
Philippe stopped to catch his breath. They were in the passage leading from the bedroom to the living room. It was appreciably darker there than in any of the rooms because it had no windows; the security system required the doors leading off it to be kept shut at all times.
The cloakroom door suddenly burst open, and in the half light Philippe could make out a tall figure with what looked like a gun. ‘Don’t shoot,’ he croaked, a look of absolute terror on his face, as if the bowels of hell had opened up and he had seen the fate that awaited him. ‘Don’t shoot. I’ll give you $10,000,000 not to shoot me.’
‘It’s only me, Monsieur,’ Eli said.
‘You gave me the most dreadful fright, Eli. I thought you were a hitman,’ Philippe said, shaking from terror before vomiting on the floor.
Eli and Agatha took him back into the bedroom to clean him up and change him, while the housekeeper mopped up the mess.
It was at this point that Bianca arrived. ‘You’d better hurry or we’re going to miss the report of your crowning glory, you fabulous emperor of finance, you,’ she said coquettishly, standing well away from him for she could not abide the stench of vomit.
‘I just had the most awful fright,’ Philippe mumbled and explained what had happened. ‘I really thought the end had come,’ he said, still clearly rattled by the incident.
‘Well, all’s well that ends well,’ Bianca said briskly, her voice displaying not an ounce of sympathy. ‘So let’s hurry before we miss everything.’
With that, she led the way into the living room, where the television set had remained tuned to CNN. Philippe shuffled in between his nurse and her male assistant, and they all sat down to look at the USNB-Banco Imperiale announcement, Philippe proudly taking Bianca’s right hand in his left. The merest flicker of distaste passed over her elegant features, but no one caught it.
Promptly, at three o’clock in the afternoon French time, CNN ran the item along with a photograph of Philippe and Bianca taken outside L’Alexandrine ten years before. In many ways, it was the ideal photograph to use for such a story. Bianca was a study in glamour, her hair piled high on her head, her neck and earlobes ablaze with the most amazing diamond and emerald jewels. Philippe, standing slightly behind her, appeared as a short, squat, powerful man beaming with pride at the beautiful creature he called his own.
No sooner was the broadcast finished than Bianca withdrew her hand from Philippe’s and started clapping. ‘You make me feel so proud,’ she said. ‘My husband: the emperor of the financial world. This moment must make you very, very proud.’
‘It does,’ he said, the spittle oozing down one side of his mouth.
‘You know,’ she continued in sentimental vein, ‘when I stop to think of the first time we met…and of all the things we’ve accomplished since then. We really have been an exceptional team, haven’t we, my darling?’
‘Yes, we have,’ Philippe agreed. ‘I could never have done it without you.’
‘Nor me, my darling. You’ve been my inspiration and so much more besides.’
Philippe smiled and motioned Agatha to bring him the telephone.
‘Who are you going to call now?’ Bianca asked, annoyed that he was diverting his attention elsewhere.
‘Raymond and Hepsibah and Rebecca, to see what they thought of our performance.’
Bianca’s expression hardened. ‘If you’re going to do that, I’m off. No point sitting here looking at four walls while you talk to those sisters and that brother of yours.’ She was about to give Philippe a goodbye kiss on the forehead when the latest item on the newscast caught their attention.
‘Congress has just announced the formation of a fact-finding committee to investigate allegations of money laundering involving the Russian Mafia and banks in Europe, the Caribbean and the Americas. All the offshore banks will be targeted, and among the onshore banks whose finances are to be examined is the Swiss-based Banco Imperiale Geneva, the subject of our lead story today.’
Philippe started to gag, panic-stricken by this new development. Agatha rushed to get him some oxygen, while Bianca sympathetically stroked his hand. ‘Take it easy, for God’s sake,’ she said. ‘Otherwise you’ll kill yourself.’
The nurse quickly returned with the oxygen and clamped the mask over his face. He breathed in slowly, and gradually his respiration returned to normal.
‘They’re going to kill me,’ he said to Bianca. ‘I know it.’
‘Who’s going to kill you?’ she said, knowing very well Philippe meant the Russians. ‘No one wants to kill you.’
‘You don’t know what they’re like. Anyone who crosses them is wiped out. They’re constantly gunning down businessmen in the street. They’ll be sure to kill me once those fucking Americans spill the beans about my cooperation. Christ, why did I ever cooperate with them? Fucking naïve fools!’
‘But you’re safe and sound in here,’ Bianca observed, ‘surrounded by a team of the finest bodyguards Mossad has ever trained, in an impregnable fortress.’
‘They’ll find a way,’ Philippe said gloomily.
‘I’d better call the doctor and get him to give you something.’
‘I can’t take tranquillizers with MS, Bianca,’ Philippe replied. ‘My breathing is already depressed enough without drugs, which would slow it down even further.’
‘Then you’ll just have to get a grip on your emotions, darling,’ she said gently, kissing him once more on the top of his head. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow. And do try to lighten up. You don’t want to spoil your big day with negative thoughts.’
Philippe, however, was caught in the grip of a terror that would remain with him for the rest of his life. Thereafter, he would never walk from one room to another without insisting that his nurses, their male assistants and the bodyguards walk ahead of him. He made them look behind curtains and under furniture for gunmen who might have gained access to the premises and were lurking, ready to kill him. After the part he had played in Ferdie Piedraplata’s murder, the manner of his late partner’s death preyed on his mind. His greatest fear became not only that he would share Ferdie’s fate but also his manner of execution.
For her part, Bianca regarded Philippe’s fears as preposterous but put a tolerant face upon them until he tried to bring up the manner of Ferdie’s death with her. Cognisant that their every word was being recorded by the surveillance equipment and that Agatha and Eli were both present as witnesses, she cut him short before he could say anything incriminating. ‘Agatha, what tablets have you given Monsieur?’ she snapped. ‘He’s having delusions again.’
‘Just the usual, Madame,’ she replied.
Bianca had always been one to recognize and grasp every opportunity that came her way, and at that moment she saw that she could turn this to her advantage. ‘You know what is true,’ she said decisively, jumping to her feet and turning to face her husband as she was seized by inspiration, ‘it’s cruel of Dr Wiseman to allow you to have delusions and hallucinations. We’ve all spent the last two months watching you cower in fear. It’s very distressing for us and can only be worse for you. All this talk about being executed by Russian hitmen is nothing more than an indication that your drugs need to be changed. You’re clearly suffering from drug-induced paranoia, and I can no longer fool myself into thinking that the signs will go away if we ignore them long enough. You’re getting, worse, not better. I’m going to have a word with Dr Wiseman right now.’
Bianca reached for the telephone and called New York. She briefly explained the problem. ‘I’ll alter the drugs,’ Dr Wiseman said. ‘They’re obviously affecting him mentally. We’ll put him on some other medicine. They might befuddle him on occasion…at least, until he gets used to them…but that’s a small price to pay for peace of mind.’
It was now only a matter of time before Philippe’s greatest fear was realized, although not from the source, nor in quite the way, he had imagined.