Laking took a whisky and soda with his meal. He had little appetite for the appetizing concoction despite its traditional French delicacy. He picked at the food, envying the dark bearded Indian next to him who ate with noisy ravenous appetite.
The passengers were a mixed bunch. The Indian spent the flight with his nose buried in law books. The obvious Californian businessman across the aisle spent most of the flight drinking champagne and chewing a fat cigar. At intervals he dictated to an ash-blonde secretary who lazily caressed the keys of a portable typewriter on the table fitted to the front of her seat. There was a family of six forward, holiday-bound, with four noisy young children the hostess did her best to amuse with an assortment of games. There was a man shuffling cards and laying them out for solitaire, game after game. Next to him his wife sat engrossed in a fashion magazine. But most of the passengers lay back, eyes closed, enjoying an after-lunch doze.
Laking finished his whisky and squashed his cigarette into the ashtray. He leaned back, his mind jumping ahead to Monte Carlo. There would be no one at the airport to meet him. He didn’t expect anyone. Stacey had no interest in him. She’d be out somewhere, with friends. Or with Duke Fenton.
Laking’s thoughts slipped into the old groove. Fenton was his editorial director. He had joined him as general editor soon after the company had been formed, and his hard work and efficiency had soon won him a directorship. Laking relied on him and over the years Fenton had become more than just a colleague, he had become a friend. Now, looking back, Laking realized Fenton had become too friendly. Especially with Stacey.
Stacey had persuaded him to take the Villa des Fleurs again for the season. It had followed Fenton should occupy the small bachelor apartment nearby as he had done the year before. Sara Belling was there too, staying in the villa with Stacey and himself. Sara would always be there, the perfect secretary.
It was as if Laking had transferred his business from London to flourish in the sun of the South. And it had flourished. His uncertainty, when Stacey had first mooted the idea, had quickly been dispelled. Business routine continued uninterrupted and the short air journeys that either he or Fenton had undertaken between London and Monte Carlo had been necessary only on rare occasions.
The villa at Monte Carlo was the ideal setting for the drama he was planning.
The drama of which his visit to Kirkland had been the first act.
Laking was jerked out of his reverie. The hostess handed him the customs and police forms. To fill them in now, she said, saved time when they landed. Nice was now less than thirty minutes flying time away. Laking completed the forms and by the time the hostess had collected them the warning notice ‘Fasten Your Seat Belts’ flashed on the panel and they were descending towards the Côte d’Azur Airport.
Laking passed through the French landing formalities in quick time. In less than half an hour he was on his way in a private hire car to Monte Carlo. He savoured the luxuriousness of the limousine. He appreciated warmth and luxury, always had done, ever since his first taste of expensive living. Ever since he had left his meagre existence, stepped into big business through that one stroke of good fortune. He had hoped never to look back, but it hadn’t worked out that way. Not quite. He frowned, and stared out of the car-window.
Nothing could ever take away his memories of the Côte d’Azur. He knew the coast from Marseilles to the Italian frontier, the villages and towns of Provence, the land of olive trees. This whole stretch of the Mediterranean was as familiar to him as the streets of London.
Here on the Côte d’Azur the sun shone all year, semitropical plants—palms, lemons, bananas, prickly pears—flourished in the warm, sea-scented breezes. Here life was full of carnival, battles of flowers, motor rallies, concours d’élégance followed each other in brilliant succession. On a hundred golden beaches brown-bodied men and women played around, film stars, celebrities, holiday-makers, from all over the world.
Laking had travelled the coast road many times from Marseilles to Menton near the frontier. He had visited the Calanques of Cassis, the Baie des Anges, the Baie de la Napoule and the tiny coves of Le Trayas, cut in the red rock of the Esterel. He had wandered in the brightly-coloured ports of Villefranche and St. Tropez, frequented by artists. He knew too the fashionable resorts—Juan-les-Pins, Cannes itself, a town as elegant as the yachts that come from all over the world to shelter in its harbour.
In those early seasons he and Stacey had driven to the flowering fields of Grasse. Stacey had collected samples of the perfumes made there. They had marvelled at the wild gorges of Le Cians and Dalius, and from a road cut out of the living rock they had looked out over the vast canyon of the Verdon. But most of all, from those first trips, he remembered Provence and long summer days full of the scent of thyme and lavender and the music of the cigales.
Provence had been like a page from a history of art with its relics from former ages carefully preserved, some dating from Roman times. How much more memorable it had been with Stacey at his side. The arena, the Maison Carrée of Nimes, the Aqueduct of Pont du Gard, the triumphal arch and the Roman theatre of Orange, the antiques of St. Remy. The Roman remains at Aries, the theatre, the arena, the Alyscamps, and the church of St. Trophime whose gateway was a masterpiece of Romanesque architecture.
Memories whirled in his brain, sun-filled, dazzling, all of them flavoured with the scent of Stacey’s hair, the brownness of her skin, her excited laugh. Meals in softly-lighted inns and restaurants, piquant and appetizing food gently seasoned with garlic, olive-oil and spices, heady with the Rhône wines, Château Neuf-du-Pape and Tavel. He remembered their first sight of the glittering Promenade des Anglais at Nice, their exploration of the Principality of Monaco with its Palais Océanographique and its subtropical gardens and the famous Monte Carlo itself. And now here they were, renting a villa for the second year.
But no longer alone. Nothing was the same. Nothing could be the same again; until, Laking’s face was grim, until his plan had run its course.
He paid off the car at the foot of the steps. Taking the light valise and the briefcase he slowly climbed the slope to the steps that ran alongside the white two-storey villa. Once above the neatly laid out garden with its shrubs and palms he turned to take in the view above the green tiles of his roof.
In the brilliant afternoon sunshine the sea was a smooth expanse of lapis-lazuli fringed with a white strip of sand and the stone of the promenade wall. The town clustered down to the water’s edge and at the further end he could see the inlet to the tiny harbour. Behind, towering on the great rock was the Palace of Monaco.
Laking’s gaze came slowly back to his own villa. Through the screen of shrubs he could see the open french windows of the library. The white paved terrace ran the whole length of the villa. It was separated from the lawn by orange trees and clusters of mimosa. Green shutters lay back against the white walls on either side of the window and small balconies opened out from two of the bedrooms with balustrades of decorated wrought-iron.
Laking walked back down the slope and went down the steps alongside the garden to the wide iron gates between a pair of orange trees. Before going in he looked back up the broad walk which led to the road above. The white façades of detached villas dazzled his eyes in the strong sunlight. The soft greens and reds of shrubs and flowers and trees were etched vividly against the brilliant blue of the sky. His gaze wandered further. To the flat roof of the apartment block. An attractive building, three storeys high.
Laking could just make out the top floor through the palm fronds which decorated the lush, shady garden. Fenton rented an apartment on the second floor. Laking wondered if he was there, working. He liked to think so, but he went on wondering.
He turned and pushed open the gate, descending the wide gravel steps to the terrace. He went quietly along it and paused by the french windows.
There was the soft clicking of an almost silent typewriter. A girl sat at his desk, her back turned to him. The suntanned arms revealed by the sleeveless nylon blouse hardly moved as her fingers