He turned the air conditioning fan on full blast and slid the windows up and down a few times, but the plump greasy man in the back seat did not seem to get the message. Jimmy Culundis was deep in thought; he sat with his eyes closed, cigar jammed in his mouth, drawing in and belching out smoke at evenly spaced intervals of eight seconds.
Culundis was in a good mood; the few people that knew him well found it hard to tell when he was in a good mood, because he always appeared cheerful, regardless of his mood. His business with Missh in Umm Al Amnah had been concluded in much less time than he had thought, and he had been able to fly to France on the Sunday, watch his horse, Guided Missile, win the Arc de Triomphe at Longchamps by fourteen lengths, and still get back to Athens in time to spend Sunday evening with his wife and seven children.
Culundis led a dual life, which he enjoyed, and which seemed, for him, to work. He was still married to Ariane, the fisherman’s daughter from the village where he was born. He had only known her as a child when he was in his teens, but he had spotted her one day when he had returned to his village to visit his elderly parents, and had married her. She was pretty and homely, and not interested in a jet-set lifestyle, although she was happy to entertain any of the friends or colleagues that Culundis brought home. She had not wanted a grand house, and so, for their home, Culundis had bought a modest house, although fitted with almost every luxury money could buy, overlooking the fishing port where they had both been born.
Whilst he did business and played in the most expensive pastures of the world, Ariane was happy to remain in Greece, with the children. Although he saw her, on average, less than one evening a week, still, after seventeen years of marriage, he looked forward to those evenings at the one residence he owned, among all the others, that he called his home.
The horn of the Citroen shrieked, and the car swerved violently to avoid a tractor that had just shot straight out into the main road from a cart track, the driver still clearly of the opinion that the motor law of priorité à droite continued to apply to main road intersections with cart-tracks.
‘Imbecile,’ said the chauffeur, from somewhere inside the cloud of smoke.
Culundis thought about the word, ‘imbecile’. It was a good word, he decided, to describe Abr Qu’Ih Missh, the thirty-eighth Emir of Amnah; the word applied equally well to his father, the now-deposed thirty-seventh Emir. They were both fools, in their different ways; but the old boy had strength of character, he thought. The son was weak; very weak. Culundis smiled. He hadn’t slept on the Friday night after Missh had come down and given him the news; he had spent the entire night on the telephone, giving orders. For not only did Culundis have access to any type of military equipment he might want, he also had access to the finest mercenary soldiers in the world: an almost instant army, ranging from prematurely retired English and American top-ranking officers, including generals and brigadiers, to disenchanted SAS soldiers, to freshly trained privates. And it was not only soldiers he had on his books. He had strategists, military planners, economists, politicians. In short, he had all the personnel, ready and willing at the drop of a small hat containing a large cheque, to go anywhere in the world, to any country, to soldier it, police it, and govern it, for whomsoever’s benefit Jimmy Culundis instructed them.
During the long Friday night, Culundis had, on Missh’s telephone bill, assembled, briefed and ordered the despatch to Umm Al Amnah of one such complete instant armed force. With the exception of himself, Umm Al Amnah had not got a friend in the world. Culundis grinned again; he reckoned Emir Abr Qu’Ih Missh would go a long, long way to keep that friendship.
15
When Culundis and Elleck arrived at Chateau Lasserre, they were formally introduced, in turn, to Mademoiselle Nicole Varasay, the Viscomte’s current live-in delight; to each other, since they had never met; and to an aperitif comprising a mixture of non-vintage Bollinger champagne and a framboise liqueur. By the end of their first quarter of an hour in the chateau, they had decided that Mademoiselle Varasay was gorgeous, that they did not particularly like each other, and that the drink was lethal.
There are not many people who have a portrait of an ancestor painted by either Boucher, Fragonard or Winterhalter. Viscomte Lasserre had portraits by all three. What made it all the more remarkable was that in his magnificent dining room, they looked about as insignificant as a trio of china flying ducks.
The dining room was 125 feet long; one wall was a series of arches containing leaded-light French windows, which were opened onto a balcony overlooking the seventy-two acre lake. On another wall was a marble fireplace, twelve feet high and fourteen feet wide. Although it was midsummer, a log fire burned cheerily, fanned by a cooling breeze that came in off the lake. The room was only faintly lit, by candles burning in the massive crystal chandelier above the table.
The inlaid rosewood table at which they sat had extension leaves which would take it to ninety feet in length, enabling it to seat seventy-five people in comfort; but tonight there were no leaves in the table, only the two semicircular ends joined together, making a round table that enabled the four diners to sit cozily together, but with ample room. On either side of the Viscomte sat Culundis and Mademoiselle Varasay, and between them sat Elleck. As Elleck had become progressively more sloshed on the champagne cocktail, he had increasingly ogled Mademoiselle Varasay. She wore a shimmering ice-blue gown completely off her shoulders, and only just over the top of her nipples; her sun-tanned bare arms, chest, and almost bare breasts, her stunning face and sensuous mouth were almost more than Elleck could bear, together with the fact she seemed to be taking such an interest in him, an interest that seemed to him to go well beyond the formalities of common courtesy.
Their first course was freshwater crayfish drunk with a ’69 Corton Charlemagne, followed by truffles en croute, drunk with a ’62 Haut Brion, followed by rack of lamb grilled with fine herbs, drunk with a ’47 Latour, followed by a raspberry pavlova, drunk with a Chateau d’Yquem 1959.
As a mouthful of the sweet rich Sauternes slipped down his throat, Elleck suddenly felt a hand feel its way over the front of his trousers, find his fly and, one at a time, undo the buttons; he gulped and looked startled at Mademoiselle Varasay. In her right hand, she was holding her glass; she raised it just a fraction at him, drank from it and put it down. The hand slipped inside his trousers, found the gap in his Marks and Spencer Y-Fronts, prised it apart and began to encircle the only three things in the world that Elleck truly cherished that weren’t in a bank safety deposit box in Switzerland. Squirming with a mixture of dread, embarrassment and sensuous pleasure, he swung his eyes to the Viscomte, who was engaged in conversation with Culundis and had apparently noticed nothing, nor had Culundis. He tried desperately to think of something to say to Mademoiselle Varasay, but could think of nothing. The fingers began a short stroking action.
The Viscomte turned his head and addressed Elleck: ‘I think, Monty, it is time now that we began to talk some business. Both you and Jimmy have come a long way to be here tonight — Jimmy knows why he is here, but you do not.’
The stroking action continued; Elleck shot a desperate sideways glance at Mademoiselle Varasay, but she did not bat an eyelid, and not one portion of her that was above the table was visibly moving in any way that was out of the ordinary. The Viscomte turned to her. ‘My darling, I do not think it would be of interest to you what we have now to discuss. Perhaps you would like to relax in the drawing room, and we will join you shortly?’
‘Oui, mon chéri,’ she replied, gracefully and pleasantly. She stood up from the table and began walking towards the door. The Viscomte did not stand up, so neither did the other two men.