‘How did the standoff in the desert end?’
‘Quartano, very coolly, started trying to reason with her. But Charlie being Charlie — that wasn’t going to work. However, while she was directing her anger at him, I managed … to … intervene.’
Sabatino’s face was suddenly a picture — clearly drawing her own conclusions. ‘So you … you…?’ she said, oddly unable to complete the sentence.
Straker lowered his gaze.
‘Wow,’ said Sabatino.
Straker lifted his eyes. He looked at her through the moody cabaret-style lighting of Ronnie Scott’s, her face partly in shadow. ‘I told you that you wouldn’t believe it.’
He looked her in the eye. Her response was strange.
Hard to read.
Straker tried to discern her reaction. But couldn’t do it. Didn’t know what to make of her expression.
Then Straker was completely taken by surprise. Sabatino, very suddenly, half rose, leant forward across the L-shaped bench, and kissed him forcefully but sensuously square on the mouth. For several seconds. Then, pulling back — but only by a fraction — she held intensive eye contact with him, her eyes flicking backwards and forwards between his.
Straker was utterly floored.
‘You like sex, right?’ she said slowly, taking him by surprise yet again.
He nodded, shrugged — and then smiled into her face apologetically at the lameness of his reaction.
‘Why don’t we keep it that uncomplicated. Let’s go and atone — purge — ourselves for our deeds, right now, through raw physical release.’
Straker’s reservations, voluntary or involuntary, professional or social, suddenly vanished. Her reaction to his deeply private revelation was extraordinary. He would have expected most people — he didn’t know for sure, having never actually told anyone — to be repulsed by such a barbaric secret. To Straker’s way of thinking, Sabatino’s reaction was counter-intuitive. What triggered her to react this way? Was it the danger? Was it something more primeval — a moth-to-the-flame attraction to the killer instinct?
‘We shouldn’t go back to your place,’ she said, ‘you’ll have too many vibes from your wife, and will feel awkward. We’ll go to my hotel.’
Straker, abandoning any earlier reservation about complicating their professional relationship — the intrusion into his divorce — the revelation about Charlie, smiled uninhibitedly and said: ‘Sure, I get that. Where are you staying?’
‘The Dorchester.’
‘Stylish.’
‘I’m paid an indecent amount of money. The least I can do is spend it in decent places.’ She looked at him intently as she smiled. ‘You coming?’
‘Very nearly.’
‘Don’t you dare. Not yet, at any rate.’
Reaching her hotel room in Park Lane, she turned on the light, kicked the door shut behind them and approached him directly, kissing him firmly on the mouth. Her body, pushed in hard against his, was already inducing a strong response. Straker found her predatory approach erotic and intoxicating.
Kissing him, Sabatino started unbuttoning his shirt and, within a few moments, was at his belt and trouser buttons. With a hand into his fly, and a gentle cupping and circling of her hand and fingers, Straker felt a shock wave run through him. She was electrifying.
Pushing him back on the bed, and kneeling astride him, she finished removing his clothes and then lifted her top over her head, revealing her slim taut figure. Unclipping her bra — passing both hands behind her back which served to project her chest — Straker was treated to the sight of her round, hand-sized breasts. No effects of gravity or the surgeon’s knife were anywhere to be seen.
Leaning down, she kissed him hard on the mouth and, without lifting herself off him, deftly removed her jeans and knickers. This was amazing. Straker had never been so passive and yet so aroused.
Sabatino grabbed both Straker’s wrists, and pinned his arms above his head. He was lying spread eagled with this writhing, spirited, energetic and beautiful woman on top of him.
She continued to pleasure them both with the rhythmic action of her hips. That continued for a time, her knowing exactly how far to excite him before slowing up and letting him subside. She came three times in the process.
Starting again, she felt Straker’s movements intensify. Very quickly, she lifted herself up and off him — and took him further by surprise. She grabbed the end of him between thumb and forefinger and squeezed him hard. ‘Oh no, you don’t,’ she said firmly. ‘The Colonel hasn’t finished his duty … not by a long shot.’
It worked.
He laughed out loud, at her directness, her control — and the clear knowledge of what she wanted, and how.
What a woman. Not then, but afterwards, he was given to mulling whether she was this confident and direct because she lived the high-octane life of a racing driver, or whether she was a racing driver because she was naturally this self-assured.
In the end he concluded he didn’t give a stuff.
Thankfully, she was what she was and was magnificent for it.
THIRTY-THREE
The next morning, following an even more energetic “round four”, Straker shared an expansive breakfast with Sabatino, served off a crisp white linen tablecloth in her room in the Dorchester. Just after eight, he left her to walk to the office.
There was suddenly a different feel to his world. Halfway across Mayfair, Straker felt himself to be better. It wasn’t simply the endorphins of last night, powerful though they were — nor was it just the intimacy with another human being, which he had been without for so long. Straker felt his buoyancy was more profound than that. Several strands of his new life seemed to be helping distance him from his troubles. There was the role at Quartech. His status with Quartano, particularly after the Buhran assignment. His involvement in the spectacular world of Formula One. And now, after last night, a closeness to one of the most fascinating women he could imagine. What might this closeness to Sabatino end up meaning? he wondered. Straker’s mind only knew positive thoughts that morning — a sensation he had not experienced for a very long time.
Irritating him — as it broke his reverie — was the ring of his phone. But seeing who it was, he relaxed — feeling this incursion to be a part of his new-found optimism. ‘Karen? How’s it going?’
‘Pretty well, I think, Matt. I’ve got something for you.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘You asked me to look for any connections between Van Der Vaal … Massarella … Obrenovich and Joss MacRae?’
‘Yes…’
‘Were you aware that in March — just gone — MacRae sold a thirty-three per cent stake in Motor Racing Promotions Limited — for a mix of cash, equity and convertible prefs?’
‘Interesting,’ said Straker recovering some of his buoyancy. ‘No. I didn’t know that. For what sort of money?’
‘Around £500 million.’
‘Christ. To who? Hang on, if that’s the case why doesn’t everybody know about this?’
‘Because,’ said Karen knowingly, ‘nobody does. I couldn’t find a single article on it. I talked to our bank in Zurich. It’s all been done completely hush-hush. The stake was bought by a Lichtenstein Anstalt.’
Straker exhaled audibly. ‘That’s, surely, why nobody knows about it, then — but, by the same token, neither can we. A corporate shield’ll stop us from knowing who’s behind it, too. Sod it — that’s a tantalizing dead end.’
Karen chuckled teasingly. ‘There are no shareholders listed, no. But I have done some digging.’
She paused for effect.