The Evil at Monteine. Brian Ball
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hold up. Why not use her?”
I could have screamed with anger. They knew about the trips I’d been on when I was with Tony’s father. There wasn’t much else, no hard drugs, no real addiction, and I was seventeen at the time. I tried to remember what ‘catalyst’ meant. Catalyst? I was that? And I was to be used?
“Strategy, Jensen?” said the calm authoritative voice I had almost placed.
“My report, page seven,” said another man, a deep bass. “I see no reason to change it in any way. I had anticipated the possibility of the woman’s presence.”
I heard the murmur of voices and the sound of papers rustling. I shuddered. I knew now what I had only suspected when I saw the Sievel woman regarding me with that curious stare. She was inimical to me. And so were her colleagues. They were setting me up for something, and it involved Richard’s welfare; in my innocence I thought they were engaged in some scheme to separate me from him because they thought I wasn’t a suitable International Marine Oil Company wife. I told myself to keep it cool. No confrontations, no anger. I wouldn’t let Richard down. I retrieved my sandal stealthily and made my way back.
I plastered my arm, rubbed some of my most expensive perfume on the ankle, and took out my third-best dress, a long-sleeved, two-year-old cotton thing, mostly red, but shot through with Chinese silks. Then I went downstairs again.
“You took your time, Anne,” Richard remarked.
He must have been drinking steadily, for he was flushed. Monica Sievel smiled at me, and I thought, You deceitful cow. Two other men were there: one was a short, slight, nearly bald middle-aged man; the other was rather older, maybe in his late fifties, and massively built with a huge paunch and great red jowls. He was Jensen, as I expected. His deep, plummy voice matched his bulk. Fitch was the possessor of the effeminate voice I had heard describe me as aggressive and assertive. Richard introduced me to them. I felt myself flushing. They must know that I had been listening to them, surely? But they gave no sign of it,
They asked me about my journey, how did I like the Castle, did I know North Yorkshire—all the usual things. Jensen suggested a drink for me.
“What will you have, Miss Blackwell?” the bar-steward asked me.
I staggered, literally. I put the hurt foot down and had to grab at Richard’s arm for support. Pain lanced through my leg, and a sudden chill struck back through the whole of my body.
It was the way he said my name that brought back the memory of that decisive, so-calm voice that I had overheard; whilst I was eavesdropping I couldn’t give any credence to the possibility. A bar-steward giving orders? Impossible. The impossible had happened, but why—why was an intelligent man like him masquerading as a servant?
“Here, Anne, what’s the matter?” Richard asked.
Concern registered also on the woman’s face. I thought I could conceal my feelings. I couldn’t. She held my gaze and then came forward in a motherly way.
“Is it your foot? See—it’s swelling!”
Richard inspected my ankle and the barman made sympathetic noises. I tried to avoid looking behind the bar in case they knew I would be looking for the folder they had been reading. I had an absurd impulse to say “It’s all on page seven,” but I kept it back.
“I slipped in the shower,” I told them. “On a piece of soap.”
Fitch smiled and then looked away. Jensen put his fingers on my shoulder and I managed to restrain the shudder I felt beginning in my spine.
“A drink might help,” suggested Max.
I couldn’t answer him for a moment. He knew so much about me. And then it struck me why he should choose to work as a bar-steward; he was in the ideal position to watch. Almost unnoticed, he could spy on International guests and record their unguarded words. It was clever. I resolved to be very careful.
“Maybe you feel sick,” said Richard. “Here, shall we give dinner a miss? Have a sandwich and a glass of wine upstairs?”
I smiled at them all. I slid onto a barstool and called on my store of confidence, though I felt like a sixteen-year-old bride. I looked at the man with the calm, authoritative voice.
“A very large gin,” I told him.
Had I known of the seismic changes that were soon to undermine our lives, I would have taken more than the one large measure of spirits.
CHAPTER THREE
The dinner was a disaster.
I was on the defensive from the moment a neat little waiter appeared to tell us it was ready. I knew what to expect, for I had looked up the word ‘catalyst’ in the library on my way down to the bar. I was, as the dictionary put it, a substance that causes change. I was part of an experiment.
They were going to watch the effects of my presence on Richard: I was sure that they would try to needle me into committing some social gaffe that would then reveal me as unsuitable for an International executive’s wife.
Mercifully, Max was out of earshot. He stayed in the bar, making a pretence of deferring to the three; Jensen, Fitch, and the Sievel woman as the waiter ushered us through the entrance hall of Monteine Castle to a large dining room.
I wobbled on my sandals, but I didn’t wince. Richard made me lean on his arm, and Jensen solicitously placed his large fat hand under my right elbow. I couldn’t help glancing back as we passed into the panelled room. The pseudo-barman was watching me. I might have been a laboratory specimen for all the humanity he showed.
“Madam,” said the waiter, helping me into an antique tall-back chair. I sat down and smiled at the Sievel woman. She would attack first.
“I’ve done it myself,” she smiled back. “The soap,” she explained. “I’ve slipped on my butt before now. So undignified! And it hurts!”
Fitch poured the wine. “I can’t imagine Miss Blackwell in any but a dignified position.”
Jensen said, “Do let’s stop embarrassing Anne and decide what we wish for the first course of this excellent meal. The game pâté is superb with the Pommard!”
“Richard’s told us a little about your work, Anne,” said Eric Fitch, when all but Richard had chosen the pâté. “Does it involve a great deal of travelling?”
I caught the faint whiff of some form of perfume from him as he handed me the pâté. I disliked him intensely from that moment.
“Goes with the job, doesn’t it, darling,” said Richard. “Anne’s a good driver.”
“I’d say that Anne would be very competent at whatever she put her hand to,” said Jensen, dipping his toast and pâté into a glass of green wine. He sniffed at the result.
Eric Fitch laughed. “It’s quite a cut-throat business, the design world, so I hear. And you’ve prospered. Falco’s right. You must be very competent.”
“How did you start, Anne?” asked Monica Sievel,
They knew, of course. They’d investigated me thoroughly, but I mustn’t show that I knew.
“I could always draw and paint a little,” I said. “I realized my limitations at about sixteen, though. I knew I wasn’t good enough for original work, but I could match materials and design. I freelanced, and I was lucky in getting some good, reliable artists.”
“So you’re an artistic entrepreneur,” smiled Fitch. “How clever you must be.”
He was mocking me. I kept my temper. Richard took their interest for what it seemed to be: polite, easy flattery.
“It’s more of an instinct for sensing what fits the mood of the times,” I said, and drank some wine.
“Your Anne has a marvellous life,” said Monica in her deep, sincere tones. “You’ve no idea what a bore it can be,