Jazz clearly took to Remy Sabatino — as she did to the club.
Although still early — the second house only just settling in — there was already a buzz about the place, with its usual diversity of people drawn by great music — the music for atmosphere.
Sabatino was captivated by its immediate sense of intimacy. Mood, though, also oozed from walls, awash with striking black and white photographs of jazz legends. Low ambient lighting was broken by the brighter pools coming from the shaded ceiling and wall lights. Red velvet benches were trimmed with chunky brass railings — and, topping off the atmosphere, were the numerous red glowing table lamps set among the tiers of table bench seats rising back up from the stage.
Shown to a table in the corner of the pit, Straker and Sabatino ordered drinks and sat together for an hour, listening to a set by a young quartet from New Orleans — playing an unusual mix of trad and lounge jazz with an occasional hint of Cajun.
Straker glanced at Sabatino’s face from time to time, to make sure she was enjoying all this. He quickly realized he should have no concerns on that score — her expression showed her to be fully immersed, soaking up the scene. He still kept checking, though — but soon realized he was doing it specifically to enjoy her enjoyment.
Although there was no dancing, one beat got Sabatino moving rhythmically while sitting at their table. Without even moving her whole body, Straker was taken with her superb sense of rhythm. She turned to make deliberate eye contact with him. She kept moving without inhibition. It could so easily have induced awkwardness — self-consciousness — but there was none on her part. Why should there be any, then, on his? She continued to move. Her movement was suggestive — without being lewd — but her message seemed clear.
At the end of the number she leaned across the corner table, close enough that he would be able to hear her — even over the noise of the applause. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your divorce.’
Straker almost flinched. Her personal directness hit him hard. It wasn’t the starkness of it, blunt though it was, it was more the sense of a crystallization. This was the first time he had heard the D word spoken out loud by somebody else.
‘It’s complicated,’ he replied defensively, pulling back slightly.
Her expression showed a similar thought or memory crossing her mind.
Sabatino smiled sympathetically, and turned back towards the stage to enjoy the resumption of the set. Nothing was said between them for nearly ten minutes. Straker was intrigued. He got the sense that something was brewing. Suddenly she turned to face him. He was struck by the mischievous — voracious, even — expression on Sabatino’s face. ‘You’ve got to tell me something,’ she said.
Straker breathed in. ‘Tell you what?’
‘How did Charlie Grant die?’
The look in her eye was not hesitant — it was demanding. It was quite clear she wasn’t going to let this go as she had during their dinner in Monte-Carlo.
Whether it was the sense of well-being from digesting Rules’s jugged hare, the treacle pudding, or the three glasses of a half-decent Malbec — their better familiarity with each other, or even the increased sense of closeness between them that evening — Straker didn’t react as sharply as he had before.
‘You won’t believe it,’ was the most dismissive defence he could mount.
‘Try me.’
‘It’ll repulse you.’
Her expression, if anything, became more anticipatory than ever.
‘I doubt that.’
Even with this momentary focus on Charlie Grant, Straker found it impossible to stop his imagination summoning up — all too clearly — their final scene.
Sounding defensive, he said: ‘We were in the Middle East, in the wake of the Arab spring. Quartano had finally — and successfully — negotiated a billion-dollar weapons contract with the Buhrani Defence Minister. A signing ceremony was arranged out on a desert firing range, within what should have been a secure area — a Buhrani military garrison. Except that Charlie Grant, I uncovered through my investigation, had been leaking details of that weapons contract — as well as the blueprints for a top secret Quartech rifle.’
‘Leaked to whom?’ Sabatino asked, now turned fully to face Straker across the corner of their table.
‘A German rival — which was also involved with an Al-Qaeda-aligned terrorist cell in Buhran, a group determined to overthrow the monarchy there and declare an Islamic state.’
‘Heavy, heavy. Why was Charlie doing all this?’
Straker tilted his head as an invitation to be patient. ‘The signing ceremony was ambushed — by the Al-Qaeda cell. Numerous dignitaries were killed. The Defence Minister, who was also an heir to the throne, and several Quartech staff were taken hostage.’
‘No!’
‘Quartano and I arrived at the ceremony — from Germany — half an hour too late. There was carnage. Bodies everywhere. Through binoculars, I was fortunate to catch a distant sight of the hostages — being driven off across the desert on the back of open army trucks.’ Straker took a long drag of his wine.
‘How were they released, then?’ she asked. ‘Quartech pay a ransom?’
Straker shook his head as if to say how-could-you-suggest-such-a-thing. ‘I flew a tactical helicopter recce of the desert behind the firing range. I managed to locate the terrorists’ camp — the place where they had taken the hostages. It turned out to be a lost city among the dunes of the hinterland. I pulled together a team of soldiers, from what was left in the garrison. I put together an operation, briefed them, and led a company attack at dawn the following morning. We took out all the terrorists in a raid, and succeeded in releasing the hostages.’
‘Wow. And you led all that?’
‘Was the company commander.’
‘How many soldiers made up this attack group?’
‘Eighty-odd.’
Sabatino clearly looked impressed. ‘Then what?’
Straker’s mind’s eye suddenly took over. ‘Dawn was just coming up over the Buhrani desert. I was releasing the hostages — when I heard a click.’
‘What does that mean? What kind of click?’
‘A safety catch.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Someone had a rifle and was preparing to fire.’
Sabatino’s eyes widened. ‘Who?’
‘Charlie Grant.’
‘At whom?’ she asked hurriedly.
‘Dominic Quartano.’
‘No!’
Straker, looking down, could bring it all back. So painfully. Charlie was standing there, the low early morning sun gleaming off her perfect skin, her hair flowing in the gentle desert breeze, her white diaphanous robe wafting in the wind — standing there with the rifle at the aim, trained on Quartano, her brilliant dark grey eyes flashing with anticipated triumph. Straker inhaled deeply. That image would haunt him always: the incongruity of a beautiful woman confidently handling and aiming a weapon with lethal intent.
‘Why? Why did she do all that — why did she want to harm Quartano?’
‘Revenge,’ Straker said matter-of-factly. ‘It was all about revenge.’
Sabatino pulled a face that showed this was hard for her to comprehend. ‘For what?’
‘The death of her father,’ Straker explained: ‘Quartano had mounted a hostile takeover — taking over the Grant family company. Its entire board was fired and replaced, including Charlie’s father. Apparently, the man never got over it. Killed himself six months later.’
‘And Charlie blamed Quartano?’
Straker nodded.