Vengeance in the Sun (20 page)

“Just see that you don't!” and he pulled me to him, kissing my eyelids, my mouth, my throat.

Gradually the pearl grey of early morning filled the room with ethereal light and he said at last.

“Time I woke Mario. I'll be back with the police in under the hour.”

Mario was sleeping soundly. He stared, puzzled and tousel-headed as Max woke him, gazing at his surroundings uncomprehendingly.

“We had to put you to bed out here,” Max said with a grin. “No easy task I can assure you!”

“I wasn't drunk!” Mario began indignantly. “I never get drunk!” he stared down at his clothes and then his expression changed. “The police! You were going for the police!”

He stumbled to his feet, his eyes alarmed. “What has happened? Why did no-one wake me?”

Max laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.

“The coffee Leonie gave you last night was drugged. It knocked you out completely, and then you fell into a natural sleep.”

“Drugged?” Mario stared at Max as if he were mad.

“She was his wife,” Max said, and then, seeing that the bewildered Mario still did not understand, said again: “Leonie was Bradley Van de Naude's wife. That cat she said she heard was Bradley. He was flung from the car before it went over the cliff.”

Mario swallowed hard, his brain struggling to keep up with Max, his eyes registering Max's bruised face and torn shirt.

“He came back,” Max said simply. “ There was a fight and in the dark he fell on his knife.”

“Is he dead?”

Max nodded. “So now I'll go for the police and you can take care of Danielle and Lucy.”

Mario hurried after him, saying: “ Leonie. Where is Leonie?”

“She got away,” Max said briefly. “ It was all very confused…”

“But she must be caught.…” Mario protested excitedly. “She must be made to tell what happened.…”

“Don't worry,” Max said reassuringly. “She'll be caught. Without Bradley, Leonie isn't going very far.”

Pacified, Mario went into the kitchen to start cooking us all a substantial breakfast, and I went upstairs and gently woke Danielle. She complained of horrible nightmares, but otherwise seemed her usual, cheerful self. Peggy was impossible. For a start, despite a raging headache, she wouldn't believe that she had been drugged. Even Mario couldn't make her understand, and it took him all his strength and marital authority to prevent her from unlocking the salon door to see for herself.

“I don't believe it,” she repeated time and time again. “ I simply don't believe it!”

At seven o'clock, with Danielle playing ball on the terrace, Peggy still repeating that none of it was possible, Max and the police arrived at the villa.

For the next couple of hours Mario came into his own. Translating and re-translating, whilst Bradley's body was covered with a sheet and removed on a stretcher. Peggy watched, her face bloodless. Then, hesitantly she walked to the open door, surveying the destruction and carnage of what had been the most elegant room in the villa.

“Now do you believe it?” her husband asked grimly.

She nodded her head, and with unusual tenderness he helped her away, sitting her down on a kitchen chair, pressing a cup of hot tea into her hand.

A squad of men had already gone down to the bay and a tight lipped officer came back with the news that Ian Lyall's body had been washed ashore with the morning tide and that there was a single bullet through the heart.

Peggy began to cry quietly and I took Danielle upstairs on the pretext of looking for Mr Sam, while the police toiled to bring Ian's body up the steep cliff path, through the villa and into the waiting ambulance in the courtyard. Then, murdered and murderer were driven off together.

The officer was surprisingly kind. Gently he questioned Danielle, making her repeat time and time again what had happened to her. Who had been with her on the yacht? How long had she been there? What had she seen when Bradley arrived? What had she seen and heard when I had arrived? What had happened to Mr Lyall?

Then, with Mario as interpreter, I repeated as clearly as I could the succession of events that had led to the deaths of Steve Patterson and Bradley Van de Naude.

The officer's face was expressionless as Max gave his evidence of how Bradley had died. How Leonie had come down with the knife at Danielle's throat, how I had plunged the room into darkness, and how he had wrested the knife from her grasp, only to have Bradley leap on him and wrench it from him. How they had fought. How they had overbalanced and Bradley had fallen with all his weight on the knife in his hand.

Danielle told of her ‘nightmare'. Of Miss Blanchard going to cut her throat and Bradley frightening her and everything going black till she found herself in my arms, and of how there was blood everywhere and then of how she had woken up in her own bed, not the yacht, and could she go back and play ball again as she was getting rather good at it and needed to practice.

Grimly our statements were taken down, the salon searched minutely and locked, and then the officer asked that we go with him down to Police headquarters where we would be questioned yet again.

Mario turned to me with a reassuring smile.

“It will be all right. The little one's evidence will see to that. They will match the bullet with the gun owned by Bradley. All will be well.”

Max looked at his watch. “ Nine-thirty. Would you ask the officer if we have time for a fifteen minute detour on our way to Police headquarters, Mario?”

Mario, no longer puzzled by any request, asked. The officer frowned.

Mario said to Max: “He wants to know the reason. Cannot it wait till later.”

“Afraid not,” Max said, not sounding the least regretful.

Mario and the officer conferred again in rapid Spanish.

Mario said: “He wants to know where it is you wish to go that is so important?”

“The British Embassy.”

The officer was voluble in his assurances that the Embassy would be immediately informed of the circumstances its nationals unfortunately found themselves in. But there was no need for Max to go there before going to Police headquarters. As officer in charge he must insist.…

“Tell him,” Max said unperturbed, “that our reason for going to the Embassy is not to complain or seek help.”

Mario did so. The officer grew more and more puzzled.

“He wants to know for why?” Mario said, raising his hands palms upwards in a gesture of bewilderment.

Max glanced at his watch again. “Tell him that in exactly two hours, Miss Matthews and myself are due to be married at the British Embassy and that our witnesses will be awaiting our arrival.”

I tried to speak and failed. Mario tried and succeeded. The officer's frown became less prominent, the conversation more excitable.

I said at last: “You can't be serious, Max!”

“I've never been more serious in my life,” he said, grinning down at me. “ The minute Claudette spoke to me I asked the British Ambassador to arrange the quickest wedding he could. He has done and it's going to take place in exactly one hour and fifty-five minutes so perhaps you'd like to change your dress!”

I didn't wait to hear if the officer had given his permission or not. I was already racing up the stairs to my room and scrambling into the prettiest dress I owned.

Peggy and Danielle rushed after me, Danielle jumping up and down and squealing: “Oh
do
let me be a bridesmaid!
Please
let me be a bridesmaid!”

“Yes,” I gasped, zipping my dress up, brushing my hair, searching for sling backed high heels.

There was a knock on the door and Mario came in, sheepishly holding a posy of hastily picked flowers.

“It is all right. The officer understands. He and his men will have to attend the ceremony and then you will both have to go straight to Police Headquarters, but he will allow the marriage.…”

“How on earth did Max persuade him?” I asked breathlessly, applying eyeshadow and mascara.

“He is a romantic man,” Mario said grinning. “Besides, he is a racing fanatic. How could he refuse the future world champion permission to marry!”

Danielle had her party dress on and Peggy was brushing her hair, incoherent with excitement.

Hand in hand we ran down the wide sweep of stairs to where Max, surrounded by pistol hipped police, waited.

The dark curls were as unruly as ever, and the brown eyes gleamed with an expression that sent my heart racing.

“I'm ready,” I said simply.

“Not yet, Brat. Not yet.” From his hip pocket he drew a delicate necklace. The gold and lapis lazuli one he had given me for my birthday and which I had so pettishly left behind me. The two cherubs soared upwards against their background of blue. I felt tears prick the back of my eyes as he gently fastened it around my neck.

“And this.”

The interested policemen crowded round and Peggy began to dab at her eyes as Max very gently and very firmly, slipped my engagement ring back into place.

“Now, Brat. Now you're ready.”

“Oh Max,” I said. “I do love you.”

The officer cleared his throat. “There is not much time.…”

Max smiled down at me. “ Claudette and Fedor are going to be a little surprised when we turn up under police escort!”

“Oh goodness,” I said. “Your mother!”

“My mother?” Max asked mystified. “ What about my mother?”

“She wants to become a Justice of the Peace. Uncle Alistair asked me specifically to keep out of any trouble!”

“Then all I can say,” Max said, looking round at the squad of policemen, “ is that we'd better not have any wedding photographs taken!”

And regardless of our audience he took me in his arms and kissed me.

First published in 1979 by Hale

This edition published 2013 by Bello
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Copyright © Margaret Pemberton, 1979

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