Encounters. Barbara Erskine

don’t care how she knew,’ his face was ugly. ‘But there’s nothing she can do. No one can, because it’s too late and my plans are always foolproof.’ He turned to look at his wife, then swung back to me. ‘If you want to stop your sister going to jail you are going to do as I say for the next few hours. That is all I ask.’

      Davina and I stared at each other. Her face was white and pleading.

      I subsided onto the bed. ‘What do you want me to do?’

      He lifted my bag off the side table and wrenched it open to look inside. Then he threw it in my lap. ‘Get downstairs and wait for me in the car,’ he said.

      In the hall the spray of fragrant white flowers still lay on the Bokhara rug where Sarah’s jacket had flicked it. I bent and picked it up then I went out and climbed into the blue Alfa Romeo which stood outside.

      He took the hairpin bends of the mountain road with screaming tyres as we swooped down towards Florence. The glare off the white road reflected through the windscreen and I closed my eyes.

      ‘Where are we going?’ I asked wearily.

      ‘England.’ He did not look at me.

      My eyes had flown open. ‘England!’

      He chuckled suddenly. ‘I told Davina that if anyone wanted to see you alive again they had better keep very quiet about what they know.’ He glanced up at the driving mirror and smiled at himself. ‘You could say, cognata mia, that I am using you as a kind of hostage.’

      A wave of nausea swept over me and I felt myself clinging to the sides of the seat. The palms of my hands were clammy with fear.

      ‘You’re going to kill me?’ I whispered in disbelief.

      ‘Of course not. I don’t want a murder charge hanging over me, Celia. I’m not that much of a fool. But they don’t know that do they!’ He laughed out loud. ‘And I know you will behave because of what will happen to your sister – and your beloved husband – if you don’t. You are merely an insurance policy, my dear. I have a plane waiting at San Giusto and like any good tourist you carry your passport in your handbag. So we should have no more problems.’

      ‘I don’t believe you. You’re kidnapping me!’

      ‘You are hardly a kid,’ the scorn in his voice flicked at me and I flinched. He was right. I was no kid, and I understood perfectly that I had no choice but to do everything he said.

      The Learjet was waiting on the tarmac near the terminal buildings, a beautiful glittering bird, poised for take off. Within twenty minutes we were cleared and in the sky.

      I remember little of that flight. Europe lay beneath a haze of thin cloud which flattened the countries below into a tableau of white. I did not know when we crossed the Alps; I did not know when we crossed the Channel, but suddenly we were losing altitude and Simon himself took the controls from his pilot as we began to circle southern England. Gatwick was wet and glistening beneath a summer shower and very crowded, but Simon took my arm and guided me through the formalities with the minimum of fuss. Then we were in the chauffeur-driven maroon BMW swooping down the lush green lanes of Sussex.