Nico Ladenis came up from his kitchen, especially to speak to Tug Harrison. With his dark satanic good looks Nico had a fearsome reputation. If he served the best food in England, he expected it to be treated with respect. If you ordered a gin and tonic to ruin your palate at the beginning of one of his celestial repasts you had to expect his wrath and contempt. Tug Harrison ordered a chilled La Ina for himself and a Dubonnet for Bonny. Then he and Nico discussed the menu with the same serious attention that Tug would give to BOSS's quarterly report.
When Nico left, sending one of his underlings to take their order.
Tug turned to Bonny to ask what she had chosen, but she feigned a girlish confusion Oh, it all sounds so gorgeous that I can't possibly make up my mind. Won't you order for me, Sir Peter?
He smiled and she sensed that she was on the right track at last.
She was getting the feel of the relationship, her intuition working up to cruise speed. Clearly, he liked to be in charge of any situation, even to choosing the meal.
She went very gently on the Chevalier-Montracket that he ordered to complement her salmon. She encouraged him to relate the adventures of his young days in Africa. It was not difficult to show intense interest in his conversation, for he was a fine raconteur. His voice was like the caress of velvet gloves, and it didn't matter that he was old and that his skin was wrinkled and bagged and foxed by the tropical sun. Recently she had read somewhere, perhaps in the Sunday Times Magazine, that his personal fortune was over three hundred million pounds. At that price, what were a few wrinkles and scars? Well, mydear. At last Tug dabbed his leathery lips with the folded table-napkin. May I suggest that we take coffee at Holland Park.
There are a few small matters that I would like to discuss with you.
Modestly she hesitated a moment. Could she afford to make herself too readily available?
Shouldn't she play just a little hard to get? Should she hold out until the second time of asking? But what if there were no second time? She quailed at the thought.
Go for it now, honcychild, she counselled herself, and smiled at him.
Thank you, Sir Peter. I'd love that. She was awed by the splendour of the Holland Park house. It was hard not to rubberneck like a tourist as he led her up to his study and settled her into a deep leather armchair.
it was a masculine room with a set of rhinoceros horns on the panelled wall. She noticed the two paintings and shivered as she recognised their value.
Are you cold, my dear? He was solicitous and motioned the black servant in flowing white kanza to close the window. Sir Peter brought the coffee cup to her with his own hands. Kenya Blue, he told her.
Specially picked from my private plantation on the slopes of Mount Kenya.
He dismissed the servant and lit a cigar. And now, my dear. . . He blew a streamer of cigar smoke towards the ceiling. Tell me, are you sleeping with Daniel Armstrong? It -was so unexpected, so brusque and alarming that she lost her equilibrium. Before she could prevent herself she flared at him, Just who the hell do you think you're talking to? He raised a beetling silver eyebrow at her. Ah, a temper to match the colour of your hair, I see. However, that's a fair question, and I'll answer straight. I think I am talking to Thelma Smith. That's the name on your birth certificate, isn't it? Father unknown. My information is that your mother died in 1975 of an overdose. Heroin, I believe. That was the period when a shipment of had stuff got loose in the city.
Bonny felt a cold nauseous sweat break out on her forehead.
She stared at him. Like your mother's, your own career has been, shall we say, chequered. At the age of fourteen, a juvenile school of correction for shop-lifting and possession of marijuana. Then at eighteen, a nine-months sentence for theft and prostitution. It seems you robbed one of your clients. White in women's gaol you developed your interest in photography. You served only three months of your sentence.
Time off for good behaviour. He smiled at her. Please correct me if I have got any of these facts wrong. Bonny felt herself shrinking down into the huge chair. She still felt sick and cold. She kept silent.
You changed your name to the more glamorous version and got your first job in photography with Peterson Television in Canada. Dismissed in May 1981 for stealing and selling video equipment belonging to the company.
They declined to press charges. Since then a clean record.
Reformed, perhaps, or just getting a little more clever?
Whichever is the case, it seems you are not burdened by too many moral qualms and that you'll do almost anything for money. You bastard, she hissed at him. You've been leading me on. I thought. .
. Yes, you thought that I was lusting after all that decidedly palatable flesh. He shook his head with regret. I am an old man, my dear. As the flames burn lower, I find my appetite becomes more refined. With due respect for your obvious charms, I would class you as Beaujolais nouveau, a hearty young wine, tasty but lacking integrity or distinction. The wine for a younger palate, like Danny Armstrong's perhaps. At my age I prefer something like a Latour or a Margaux, older, smoother and with more class to it. You old bastard! Now you insult me. That was not my intention.
I merely wanted us to understand each other. I want something other than your body. You want money. We can do a deal. It's a purely commercial arrangement.
Now to return to my original question. Are you sleeping with Daniel Armstrong? Yes, she snarled at him. I'm screwing his arse off.
An expressive turn of phrase. I take it that no mawkish sentiments complicate this relationship? That is, not on your side at least?
There is only one person I love, and she's sitting right here in this room.
Total honesty, he smiled. Better and better, especially as Danny Armstrong is not the type to treat it so lightly. You have a certain influence and leverage over him, so you and I can do business now.
What would you say to twenty-five thousand pounds? The sum startled Bonny, but she screwed up her courage and followed her intuition. She dismissed the offer scornfully, I'd say "Up yours, mate! " I read somewhere that you paid ten times more than that for a horse. Ah, but she was a thoroughbred filly of impeccable bloodlines. You wouldn't set yourself in that class, surely? He held up his hands to forestall her furious response. Enough my dear; it was Just a little joke, a poor one, I agree. Please forgive me. I want us to be business associates, not lovers, nor even friends. Then before we talk about a price, you'd better explain what I have to do. Her expression was bright and foxy. He felt the first vestiges of respect for her.
It's very simple really. . . And he told her what he wanted.
Daniel had spent every day that week at the Reading Room of the British Museum. This was invariably his practice before leaving on an assignment. In addition to books specifically on Ubomo, he asked the librarian for every publication that she could find on the Congo, the Rift Valley and its lakes, and the African equatorial forest.
He started with the books of Speke and Burton, Mungo Park and Alan Moorehead, re-reading them for the first time in years. He skipped through them rapidly, merely refreshing his mind on the half-forgotten descriptions of the nineteenth-century explorations of the region. He moved on to the more recent publications.
Amongst these he found Kelly Kinnear's book, The People of the Tall Trees, listed in the bibliography.
He called for a copy of her book and studied the author's photograph on the inside of the dust-jacket. She was rather pretty, with a strong and interesting face. The blurb did not give her birth date but it listed her honours and degrees. She was primarily a medical doctor, although she also had a PhD.