Chapter 66

AS THE DAY advanced, the mood in the Chelsea house grew more and more grim. There were still no leads and no word from Mitch.

Allegra was sitting with Adam, who lay on a bed in a spare room, his thigh heavily bandaged and his leg raised. He’d been shot in the thigh and the bullet was probably lodged in the bone. The bleeding was heavy but he’d been lucky the bullet had missed an artery.

The moment after he’d been shot, there’d been fierce knocking at the front door and she’d opened it to find Imogen and a strange man holding a revolver. They’d dashed inside and the man had immediately dropped to the floor beside Adam, assessing his condition. Imogen ran straight to Alex, who was howling, unclipped him from his car seat and pulled him into her arms to comfort him.

‘What the hell is happening?’ Allegra screamed at Malik, as Adam writhed in pain. ‘Why did you shoot him?’

‘He was trying to hurt you, wasn’t he?’ the young man retorted. ‘I acted to protect you.’

‘He was kissing me, you fucking idiot!’ she yelled. ‘Oh my God, is he going to be all right?’

Malik had turned back to Adam, his expression sheepish. ‘Yeah, but we need to get him seen to as soon as possible.’

‘I’ll call an ambulance,’ Imogen volunteered.

‘No,’ Malik said sharply, pulling out his mobile. ‘I’ll call the boys. We don’t involve any outside agencies, understand? You’ – he looked at Allegra – ‘get me a sheet or something.’

She raced to the linen cupboard, astonished that Julie was still sleeping soundly in the spare room despite all the drama. All she could think of was whether Adam was going to be all right. That fucking arsehole, shooting him like that! she thought, fiercely protective. Oh, God – perhaps I really do love him after all …

They’d bound Adam’s leg with a sheet. He’d regained consciousness and groaned with the pain, but had been docile enough when forced to hobble to the car, one arm over Malik’s shoulders. Once they were safely stowed, they’d returned to the Chelsea house. Adam had been taken away, his leg seen to by someone with medical training. He’d also been given a hefty dose of morphine for the pain.

‘What’s going to happen to him?’ Allegra said anxiously, as he was taken to a bedroom. ‘Shouldn’t he go to hospital?’

‘He will be seen professionally,’ Malik said. ‘But not right now. It’s not time for clean-up yet. We’re still mid-operation and casualties will have to wait until we know the full situation.’

‘OK,’ she said uncertainly. ‘Well, I’ll stay with him for a bit.’

Now she sat by Adam’s side, watching as he drifted in and out of a morphine-induced sleep, wondering how on earth it had come to this.

They slept as the day went by. Food appeared, brought from the kitchen by several maids and placed on the coffee tables: sandwiches, sushi, salads and muffins.

‘You should go home,’ Allegra said to Imogen. ‘You don’t have to stay any more now that they’ve got Marco. I’m going to stay with Adam.’

‘So he wasn’t going to hurt you?’ Imogen asked.

Allegra shook her head. ‘It’s so complicated, Midge. I don’t know what to think yet. But in some ways, nothing has changed between us. And I don’t want to lose him, if I can help it.’

‘Don’t throw happiness away,’ Imogen said softly. ‘It’s very precious, you know. Not as easy to find as people think.’

Allegra went back to check on Adam and Imogen went down to the kitchen to beg milk, water and some baby-friendly food for Alex. Now he was awake, he was in a cheerful mood, intrigued by his surroundings and softening even the toughest of Mitch’s assistants with his gurgling and kicking.

‘Hey, he’s so cute,’ Malik said. He sat down to join Imogen and Alex, playing together on a white fluffy rug. He held out a coloured block from the bag Imogen had brought with her. ‘Here, kid, here you are.’ Alex took it with a long coo and an interested look, then carefully brought it to his mouth and started chewing it. Malik smiled at him and looked at Imogen. ‘Isn’t his dad gonna be worried about where you guys are?’

Imogen shook her head, not taking her eyes off her son. It was amazing how she could spend long hours just staring at him, marvelling at how beautiful and clever he was. ‘No.’

‘Ah.’ Malik nodded. ‘You two split, huh?’

‘No. He’s dead.’

‘Oh.’ Malik looked embarrassed. ‘Hey, I’m sorry.’

‘That’s OK. He died before Alex was born.’

‘Gee, that’s sad. He never saw this little fella?’ Malik put out a finger to Alex, who clutched it and shook Malik’s hand up and down. ‘Poor guy. He missed out.’

‘Any news from Mitch?’ Imogen asked, after a moment.

‘Yeah.’ Malik seemed relieved by her deft subject change. ‘He’s on his way home right now.’

‘That was a quick visit. How can you get to New York and back so fast?’

‘He was only in Manhattan for an hour. And having your own plane helps the whole thing along. He’ll be back in a couple of hours.’

There was a sudden flurry of activity; men began running about and shouting. Malik stood up, instantly alert, and listened.

‘What is it?’ Imogen asked, standing up too.

He turned to her, his eyes shining. ‘A name,’ he said. ‘The kid’s broken. He’s given us a name. Now we’re getting somewhere.’

Mitch’s car, long, sleek and elegant, with blacked-out windows, sped back into town from Heathrow. It was almost dark. A whole day had gone by and he’d seen only an hour or two of it outside the confines of an airplane.

During the return flight, he’d received an unexpected message from London. His boys had found a source and, after interrogation, that source had provided vital information. He’d instantly transmitted it to Panciello’s people to help their investigations. Then it was back to waiting.

Every few minutes he checked his email and made sure that he hadn’t missed a call. There was nothing.

Have faith, he told himself. The old man will come through for us.

But he had gnawing doubts. And what if they were too late, after all this? He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror above the passenger door. He looked ten years older: grey and haggard.

I’m on my way, Romily. Hold on, baby, hold on.

They were coming into central London when his phone buzzed. He pulled it to his ear in one smooth movement. ‘Mitchell,’ he said.

‘Mitch, I’ve got the information you need.’ He recognised that hoarse voice.

His heart thudded and his palms became clammy. ‘Yes, sir?’

‘The address where you can find your property will be sent to your company email address. It will be marked for your attention. It will also be encrypted. Your guys will know what to do with it. They should look now.’

‘Thank you, sir. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’ The line went dead.

He stared at his phone for a long moment, unable to function now that he had the precious information they needed. Then he put through a call to his chief technician who was sitting in the operations room of the Chelsea house, monitoring all data traffic.

‘Sir?’ came the alert response to his call.

‘Arthur, check my company email account – the holding company. There should be something there. It will be encrypted. Get the address and research it. Pass it to Clarke for evaluation. The property we’re looking for is there. Understand?’

‘You bet.’

‘Good.’ Mitch cut the call. He leant back on the leather seat and sighed. The car moved slowly through the evening traffic. Relax, he told himself. You’ll need all your strength in a little while. The best people are working on it right now. You’ve done what you needed to do.

Romily could hear voices, raised and angry. Someone had left the doors open again.

She was thirsty and her stomach growled painfully, even though she didn’t feel hungry. More than anything, she longed for a hot bath or a powerful shower, to blast the dirt of all of this away. Her hair felt lank and oily, and her skin was in desperate need of moisturiser. She had never gone for so long without being able to care for herself, pamper herself and make herself beautiful.

I don’t care about that now, as long as I can live. I just want to see Mitch again.

She had tried to pass the hours by thinking about him, replaying all their times together, from their crazy wedding in a blacksmith’s cottage in Scotland to the last time they’d spoken: she’d called him in high excitement after her meeting with David McCorquodale.

‘I told him,’ she’d said. ‘I’m sure he’ll sell to us now. He took it all in. There’s no way he’ll let Allegra keep the company.’

‘This is it, honey,’ he’d cried. ‘This time next week, you’ll be walking into Colette’s and it will be yours.’

‘Ours,’ she’d said, thrilled.

All that effort and money and time and planning … and for what? Now she was going to die here alone, condemned to death by the same money that had given her everything she wanted.

I just want to live.

Remember when you nearly lost Mitch? she asked herself. He believed that tape recording. If you hadn’t managed to prove to him that it was a forgery, you’d have lost him for good.

She remembered the sweetness of that reconciliation, when they’d lain together in each other’s arms in the little Marais flat, laughing with joy and relief. He’d admitted that he’d already been on the point of returning to her. That he simply couldn’t live without her. ‘I realised I’d rather be with you as your plaything than not at all,’ he’d said. They’d giggled over his melodramatic demand to her father: How much will you pay me to divorce your daughter? And then they’d begun to wonder … and been tickled by the idea of Charles de Lisle giving Mitch the funds to start the business that would make him rich. So they’d cooked up a plan that would give them revenge on everyone: taking away Charles’s money and Allegra’s prized possession – Colette’s. They’d divorced, so that it would look absolutely convincing and so that they could marry again, properly. ‘You are going to have an amazing second wedding,’ Mitch had told her. ‘Forget three people in a cottage in Scotland. We’re gonna do it properly next time.’

Hot tears escaped from Romily’s eyes and soaked her blindfold. She sniffed. I want that wedding. I want to get married. She passed the long hours, dreaming up every detail of how it would be, trying to fight against the conviction growing in her heart that she would never see Mitch again.

It must be night again. She could smell food cooking. Eventually someone came, untied her and pushed something into her hand. It was greasy and hot. She tasted it: a samosa full of spicy meat and vegetables. The oil coated her lips but it was delicious and she ate it quickly. A glass of water was given to her and she gulped that down eagerly. There was nothing else. Her hands were retied.

She lay back and tried not to think about how much she wanted more food: a crisp salad with fragrant lemon and thyme chicken, new potatoes in butter … that would be perfect.

If I get out of here, I’m going to eat as much as I can! she told herself. I want to feel alive.

After another hour or so, she was hauled to her feet and taken for another bathroom break. As she went out of the room where she was kept, she listened out eagerly but heard nothing. She knew, though, by some other sense, that people were watching her as she walked past and this frightened her horribly. Why were they staring? She felt like a prisoner being taken from the dock to be hanged.

She spent as long as she dared on the loo before the door was rapped upon and then opened, and she was pulled out while still fumbling with her jeans.

Then she heard it again, more crazed shouting, worse than ever this time. She could make out distinct words. ‘Not waiting any longer …’ ‘… we mean business …’ ‘… tell them thirty more minutes then she’s dead’ …

Her skin crawled with horror. Thirty minutes? Do I have only thirty minutes to live?

But why hadn’t her parents paid up? She had been certain they would. She’d thought that she would die not because of lack of money but because she knew too much about her kidnappers and their plans. She already knew they planned to travel to South America with their new riches, and vanish there into a life of secret luxury.

Then heavy footsteps came rushing towards her and she was pulled off the sofa and thrown to the ground.

‘Where’s your money?’ hissed a voice in her ear.

‘Carlo? Is that you?’ she asked, trying to make her voice sound strong. She ignored the pain where she’d hit the hard concrete of the floor.

‘Doesn’t matter who the fuck I am, you whore!’ The man pulled her up on to her knees. ‘Your daddy isn’t going to pay. So here’s what we’ll do. Do you have money at home?’

‘Yes,’ she stammered. Is this in my interests or not? What should I tell them? ‘But in my bag is a card. You can use it to take out cash. I’ll give you the number. You can buy things with it as well.’

She gasped as she took a heavy blow round the head that left her ears ringing.

‘How stupid do you think we are?’ jeered the voice. ‘Your account might be watched. And we didn’t risk all this for five hundred stinking Euros or whatever your cash machine will give us. We want cash … jewels. Have you got that?’

‘Yes, yes,’ she said, fighting the dizziness that was overwhelming her. ‘Cash – about ten thousand Euros and five thousand pounds. And the jewellery I’m travelling with, along with my Rolex – that must come to over one hundred thousand Euros.’

There was a pause and then another voice said in a scornful tone, ‘All this for a hundred thousand Euros, Carlo? This is a fucking disaster.’

‘Fuck you!’ roared Carlo. ‘We’re not going to get the twenty million. They would have given it to us by now.’

Just then, a phone rang. Someone answered it hastily, speaking in a language Romily didn’t understand. Then they said, ‘Call the parents. They have the money. Call them now, they want to pay.’

Romily didn’t know whether this was good news or bad. She carried on kneeling, her head bowed, trying to keep quiet and not be noticed.

Carlo strode away, not bothering to close the door behind him. She heard him growl in French but couldn’t make out what was said. Then he returned, marching up to her. He pulled off her blindfold and she was staring up into his face, the face she had once trusted implicitly.

‘Hah!’ he sneered. ‘Seems you’re worth something after all. Mummy and Daddy have found our twenty million. They’re following the delivery instructions right now. If the drop is made successfully, our courier will call us. If the drop is a trap, he won’t. Either way, we’ll know in twenty minutes.’

Romily closed her eyes. Blindness seemed preferable to seeing that contemptuous face in front of her.

Twenty minutes. She began to send last thoughts out to everyone: her parents, friends, brother, and Mitch. I’m so sorry, darling. I wish this hadn’t happened. We were going to be so happy. I’ll always love you … always.

She thought of her death. Will it hurt? Will it be quick? I hope it’s quick. I don’t want pain. She began to feel faint but steeled herself. I can stand it They mustn’t see I’m scared.

Carlo came close to her. She could feel his body heat radiating through his clothes; smell the bitter cumin-flavoured tang of his sweat. It repelled her. She turned her head and opened her eyes to look at him, hoping that with her gaze she was reminding him that she was a woman he knew, a human being, and she asked him with her eyes how he could contemplate killing her for money.

He stared back but his own eyes were cold and full of hatred. It was as though he didn’t really see her at all.

Then he pulled a gun out of his pocket and pushed the barrel against her head, the cold dark O of the barrel pressing into her temple. In the other hand, he held his telephone. ‘Five more minutes,’ he said in a harsh whisper. ‘Five more minutes for you.’

I will be strong, she told herself. I won’t let them see that I’m afraid, or that I want to live. She stiffened her spine and straightened her shoulders.

‘It will be my pleasure,’ Carlo said, ‘to rid the world of another parasite like you.’

She breathed out slowly and refused to speak, sensing that in the room there was fear and dread to balance out Carlo’s rage-fuelled bloodlust. Someone watching did not like what was going on at all. Help me, she prayed.

‘Carlo, do we have to kill her?’ It was Rocco, sounding calm and reasonable. ‘Worse for us if we are caught. If we get the money, let’s just leave her here.’

‘She knows us!’ snarled Carlo.

‘They’ll already guess I’m involved. And that idiot Marco is bound to blab at some point. Everyone will know we did it. But once we’re away, they won’t be able to find us.’

‘I’m going to find Marco and kill him, believe me,’ Carlo said. ‘And if all that ties me to this is you … well …’

The gun was taken from her head and the next moment there was a loud explosion. A heavy body hit the ground next to her. Romily opened her eyes and looked down. It was Rocco, blasted through the chest, a huge hole in his back, his face twisted. Blood was rushing from the gaping wound, streaming out all over floor.

‘Now you,’ Carlo said brusquely. The barrel came back to her head. He cocked the gun. She closed her eyes and waited for the explosion. And then it came.

The room erupted in a tornado of sound. She collapsed to the floor, into the warm stickiness of Rocco’s blood. Am I dead? What’s happening? she thought, confused. She’d always imagined that when she was shot, the world would turn off instantly, like a radio. But the noise, the raging gunfire, was going on forever. On and on: blasting, shouting, thudding. And then … quiet fell. A couple of muted voices was all she could hear.

Footsteps came running across the concrete floor beside her. Then she was being lifted up in strong arms and held close to a warm body.

‘Romily! Romily, it’s me. Are you OK? Are you OK, baby?’

She opened her eyes to the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen. Mitch was looking down into her eyes, his face grey with anxiety, his chin covered in stubble. If that’s how he looks, I must look terrible! she thought. And then she laughed at the stupidity of the thought, though it came out a weak, small sound.

‘My darling,’ she said in a croak. ‘You came for me. I’m not dead.’

‘But you’re hurt. You’re covered in blood!’ he said in panic.

‘Not mine. Rocco’s.’ She looked to where her guard lay on the warehouse floor. She could see Carlo’s body a few feet away, also blood-soaked from many wounds.

‘You’re safe, my love.’ Mitch pulled her close to him and wrapped his arms around her, sinking his face into her hair. ‘I’ve found you. I’m never letting you go again.’

Malik answered the telephone call, then he came dashing out to find Allegra and Imogen, who were waiting in the sitting room, both tense and nervous. They’d seen Mitch and his boys leave in three huge Land Rovers and had known that they were going to get Romily.

‘They’ve got her! She’s fine, she’s fine. They found her in a warehouse in Brixton.’

Imogen and Allegra hugged each other, laughing and crying at the same time.

‘Can we see her?’ asked Allegra, when they were able to speak again.

Malik shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. It’s time for cleanup.’

‘Clean-up? What’s that?’

‘After an operation like this, we have to clean-up, of course. The police were not involved and we’ve got to make sure that there’s no reason for them to be. There are … things to be disposed of. I think you girls should go home and try to act as normal as possible.’

Allegra looked at Imogen and they exchanged glances. Normal? How could they feel normal after all this? They’d been in Mitch’s house for almost twenty-four hours, waiting, wound up to a fever pitch. Life couldn’t just go back to normal, could it?

‘What about Adam?’ asked Allegra. He was still lying sedated in the spare room.

‘He’s part of the clean-up, I’m afraid. We’re going to get him to a surgeon tonight or tomorrow, to get his leg seen to. Then he’ll have it explained to him that it’s in his best interests to forget he was ever here or ever shot.’

‘Will you tell me where he is? I want to be with him if I can,’ Allegra said anxiously.

Malik looked at her sympathetically. ‘Maybe I can stretch the rules, just this once.’

‘It’s the least you can do,’ she replied sardonically, ‘considering you shot him for absolutely no reason.’

Malik shrugged. ‘I was protecting you, in case you’ve forgotten.’ He looked over at Imogen. ‘How about you? Any requests?’

She smiled back and shook her head. ‘Actually I can’t wait to get home. But please – when you see her, give Romily our love. Tell her we want to see her as soon as she’s up to it.’

‘You bet. It’ll be my pleasure.’ Malik looked at his watch. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, ladies, I need to get clean-up underway. And that includes getting a glazier out to your house, Allegra, to deal with the bullet hole in the front window, so if you wouldn’t mind warning your housekeeper – and making sure she’s going to be discreet – that would be great.’

Allegra raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m impressed.’

‘It’s the little details that count. See you guys soon, I hope. And give Alex a block to chew from me.’ Malik grinned at Imogen, and headed out of the room.