Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination (15 page)

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O
livia sat at the front of the boat in the white-leather passenger seat, fighting back surges of seasickness, her head bouncing up and down like a rag doll’s as every few seconds she was slapped in the face by a wave. Meanwhile, Alfonso, also soaking wet, stood at the wheel, dressed in a ridiculous outfit of white shirt, white shorts, white three-quarter-length socks and a captain’s hat. He was steering the boat inexpertly and much too fast into the prevailing wind so that it reared up and smacked into every wave head-on. He was gesticulating, oblivious, at the shoreline ahead and, completely inaudible above the roar of the engine, shouting things at her.

How,
she thought grimly,
could I be such a bloody idiot? Miss Ruthie is working for Alfonso. Miss Ruthie probably poisoned the banana cake and cut Drew’s head off. She’s like the evil red-raincoated dwarf in
Don’t Look Now.
She’s going to reappear from the cabin in a Little Red Riding Hood outfit and cut my throat. What can I do?
The answer, she realized, was nothing. She still had the hatpin in her hand. The pepper-spray pen was in her pocket, but her chances of overpowering two burly men with a pen and a hatpin were, realistically, not very high.

“Where are we going?” she yelled. “I want to go to the airport.”

“It is a surprise,” Alfonso said gaily. “It is a surprise from Meester Feramo.”

“Stop, stop!” she said. “Slow down!”

He ignored her, letting out a gurgling laugh and smacking the boat into another wave.

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“I’m going to be sick!” she yelled, leaning towards the spotless white outfit and feigning a quasi-vomit. He jumped back in alarm and immediately cut the engine.

“Over the side,” he said, waving his hand at her. “Over there. Pedro.
Agua.
Quick.”

She did a convincing dry heave over the side—not much acting required—and leaned back, hand to her head. “Where are we going?”

“To Meester Feramo’s hotel. It is a surprise.”

“Why didn’t someone ask me? This is a kidnapping.”

Alfonso started the boat up again, looking at her with his oily smile. “It is a beautiful surprise!”

She willed the vomit to rise again.
Next time I’ll do it for real,
she said to herself.
Right onto his little shorts.

As they rounded the headland, an idyllic holiday scene spread before them: white sand and turquoise sea, bathers frolicking and laughing in the shallows. Olivia wanted to rush ashore and slap everyone, yelling, “It’s evil, evil! This is all built on killing and death!”

The boatman approached the wheel, offering to take over, but Alfonso brushed him away impatiently, roaring towards the jetty as if in an advert for after-dinner mints, shower gel or tooth whitener. In the nick of time he realized he had misjudged it. He veered off to the left, scattering snorkelers and narrowly missing a jet ski, made a messy circle, churning up the sea, then cut the engine just a little bit too late so that he crashed into the jetty anyway, letting out a curse.

“Masterfully done,” said Olivia.

“Thank you.” He smirked, oblivious. “Welcome to La Isla Bonita.”

Olivia sighed heavily.

Once she was on the stable surface of the jetty, feeling the sun drying her drenched clothes and the seasickness subsiding, things didn’t seem quite so bad. A charming young man in white knee-length
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shorts took her bag and offered to show her to her room. Charming young bellboys seemed to be becoming a leitmotif of the trip. She thought back to the one at the Standard with the unnaturally bright blue eyes, large muscles, sideburns and goatee beard, whose face looked like one on a child’s magnetic sketch pad, and made a mental note to check the room for bugs. And then suddenly it came to her: colored contact lenses. Morton with his bleached, cropped hair and gray, clever eyes; the hooded diver with the calm, steady eyes behind the mask; the Standard bellboy with the packed body, the bright blue eyes which didn’t fit with his facial hair. They were the same person.

Trying to keep her composure whilst eyeing the current bellboy suspiciously, she followed him along a series of wooden walkways with ropes as handrails. The resort was fabulously eco, a barefoot paradise—pathways paved only with bark fragments, solar panels, signs carved in wood labeling the plants. She wondered whether there were neatly labeled castor-bean plants, and made a mental note to go for a nature walk in the morning and check for dead goats.

Her room—or, rather, ocean-view junior suite—was set back from the beach, standing on stilts on the edge of the jungle. She was disappointed not to be in one of the huts out over the sea, but even Olivia realized that in these circumstances it might not be appropriate to ask about a room change. The building was constructed entirely of wood and thatch, the linens and mosquito nets in soft whites and beiges. There were frangipani blossoms on her pillows. The walls were slatted to allow the sea breezes to join forces with the ceiling fan. The bathroom had modern chrome fittings, a deep porcelain bath with Jacuzzi jets and a separate shower. It was all very stylish. The toilet paper, however, was not folded down to a neat little point. In fact, there was no fold in it whatsoever. It was simply left hanging against the roll.

“Mr. Feramo has asked you to join him for dinner at seven,” said the boy with a sly smile.

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He’s going to poison me,
she thought.
Feramo’s going to poison me with ricin in the salt. Or he’s going to serve me O’Reilly’s poisoned goat. Or release an oxygen-acetylene bubble and set fire to me.

“How lovely. Where?” she said smoothly.

“In his suite,” said the boy with a wink. She tried not to shudder. She hated people who winked.

“Thank you,” she said weakly. She wasn’t sure if tipping was in order, but, deciding to err on the side of generosity, she handed him a five-dollar bill.

“Oh no, no,” he said with a smile. “We don’t believe in money here.”

Yeah, right.

It was excellent to have a proper shower: an up-to-the-minute rainwater-style power shower with side jets and a chrome head the size of a dinner plate. She took her time, washing her hair in the high-end products, soaping herself, rinsing and moisturizing, then wrapped herself in the exquisite cream-colored Frette robe and padded across the wooden floor to the balcony, where she sprayed mosquito repellent onto her wrists and ankles, hoping it would work for diver-murdering Islamic kidnappers as well.

It was dark now and the jungle was loud with the sounds of frogs and cicadas. Flaming torches lit the pathways down to the sea, the swimming pool glowed turquoise through the palms and the air was sweet with jasmine and frangipani. Enticing cooking smells drifted up from the restaurant area, along with the murmur of contented voices. It was the seductive face of evil, she told herself, marching determinedly back into the room to find the bug detector slash calculator she’d bought from the Spy Shop on Sunset Boulevard.

She took it out of her case with some excitement, then stared at it, frowning. She couldn’t remember what you were supposed to do. She had decided to throw away the packaging of all her spy equipment in order to protect the various disguises, overlooking
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the obvious flaw in the plan, which was that she would no longer have the instructions. She vaguely remembered that you were supposed to press in a preagreed code. She always used 3637, which was the ages of her parents when they were killed. She punched it in: nothing. Maybe you were supposed to turn it on first? She tried pressing
ON
and then entered 3637, then waved it around the room: nothing. Either there was no bug, or the bloody thing was broken.

She snapped. One little thing too many had been added to the cumulative stresses of the day, and she found herself hurling the little calculator passionately across the room as if it were responsible for everything: Drew’s head, Morton C., Miss Ruthie, the sub-aquatic hooded rapist, the strange slime on the hill, the kidnapping, everything. She shut herself in the wardrobe with her back to the door and curled up into a ball.

Suddenly, she heard a tiny beeping noise. Raising her head, she opened the closet door and crawled across towards the calculator. It was working. The little screen had lit up. She was overcome with a rush of affection for the tiny gadget. It wasn’t the bug detector slash calculator’s fault. It was doing its best. She dialed in the code again. It started to vibrate very slightly. Excited, she got to her feet and started to walk around the room, holding the calculator out as if it were a metal detector. She couldn’t remember how you knew when it found the bug. It beeped again, as if it was trying to help. That was it! It would beep if it detected something and start to vibrate increasingly when it got closer to the bug. She tried waving it at the power outlets: nothing. There were no telephone jacks. She tried the lamps: nothing. Then she felt the vibration change. It led her to a wooden coffee table with a stone flowerpot embedded in the center, from which emerged a stubby cactus plant. The calculator started practically jumping out of her hand, completely overexcited with itself. She tried to look under the table, but it was a heavy, boxlike thing. Should she disembowel the cactus with her knife? It would certainly be satisfying. She hated cacti. Spiky plants were bad feng shui. But then it was wrong to destroy life. What was
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it going to overhear anyway? Who was she going to talk to? She stared at the stubby little plant. Maybe it was a camera as well? She opened her case, took out a thin black sweater, pretended to put it on, then changed her mind and chucked it casually at the table, covering the cactus.

It was twenty minutes to seven. She decided she might as well try to look her best. A girl in a scrape had to use whatever resources were at her disposal. She dried her hair and then swung it around in the mirror in an imitation of the annoying Suraya, murmuring provocatively, “Leaves my hair shinier and more manageable!” The combination of seawater, sun and the remains of the red dye had turned it a lovely streaky blond. Her skin had caught some sun glow too, in spite of the lashings of sunblock. She didn’t need much makeup, just a bit of concealer to tone down the red nose. She put on a flimsy black dress, sandals and jewelry and surveyed herself in the mirror. The whole effect was quite good, she decided, at least for the end of a shit day like this one.

“Okay, Olivia, you’re on,” she said sternly, then shot her hand over her mouth, worrying that the cactus had picked it up. Tonight she had to put on a performance. She had to present Feramo with the woman he wanted her to be. She had to pretend to herself that she had kissed no blond, gray-eyed, double-crossing youths, seen no disembodied heads, understood nothing about the links between al-Qaeda bombs and acetylene, and had never heard the word “ricin.” Could she pull it off? It was going to be like “Don’t mention the war” when dining with a German. “Would you pass the ricin please?” “It’s very rice in the Bay Islands, isn’t it?”

She started giggling. Oh dear, was it possible she was hysterical? What was she
doing?
She was about to have dinner with a
poisoner.
Her mind raced wildly, trying to summon antipoisoning strategies gleaned from movies: switching glasses, eating only from the same pot as the host. But what if the dishes arrived already on the plates? She stood still for a moment then lay down on the floor, repeating
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the mantra, “My intuitions are my guide; I still my hysteria and overactive imagination.” She was just starting to calm down when there was a thunderous knock at the door.
They’re taking me away to be stoned,
she thought, scrambling to her feet, hopping into her strappy sandals and reaching the door just as the maniacal knock came again.

A small plump lady in a white apron was standing outside. “You want turndown?” she said with a motherly smile.

As the lady bustled into the room, the bellboy appeared in the doorway behind her.

“Mr. Feramo is ready to receive you,” he said.

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P
ierre Feramo was reclining on a low sofa, his hands resting on his lap with an air of controlled power. He was wearing loose clothes in navy linen. His beautiful, liquid eyes stared at her impassively beneath the finely arched brows.

“Thank you,” he said, dismissing the boy with a wave of his hand.

Olivia heard the door close, stiffening as the key turned in the lock.

Feramo’s suite was sumptuous, exotic, lit entirely by candlelight. There were Oriental rugs on the floors, ornate tapestries on the wall and a smell of burning incense which instantly took her back to her time in the Sudan. Feramo continued to stare at her scarily. Instinct told her to take control of the mood.

“Hello!” she said brightly. “It’s nice to see you again.”

In the flickering light, Feramo looked like Omar Sharif in
Lawrence of Arabia
when his blood was up.

“This is a beautiful suite,” she said, attempting to look around appreciatively, “though in our country it is polite to get up when a guest enters, especially when you’ve had her kidnapped.”

She saw the slightest flicker of confusion pass over his features, quickly replaced by a stony glare.
Oh, sod him, sulky bastard,
she thought. On the table in front of him was a bottle of Cristal chilling in a silver ice bucket, together with two flutes and a tray of
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canapés. It was, she noted with interest, the same table as the one in her room, right down to the cactus embedded in the middle.

“This looks nice,” she said, sitting down and flashing him a smile as she glanced at the champagne glasses. “Shall I be mother?” Feramo’s face softened for a second. She was, she realized, behaving like a northern housewife at the vicar’s tea party, but it seemed to be doing the trick. Then his expression changed again and he fixed her with a fierce stare, like an annoyed bird of prey.
Okay,
she thought,
two can play at that game.
She settled herself down and stared back. Unfortunately, however, something about the impromptu staring competition made her want to laugh. She could feel the giggles bubbling up from her stomach, and suddenly they burst out through her nose, so she had to put her hand over her mouth, shaking helplessly.

“Enough!” he roared, leaping to his feet, which just made her laugh even more. Oh God, she had really done it now. She had to stop. She breathed in deeply, looked up, then collapsed in giggles again. Once something struck you as funny like that, when you really, really weren’t supposed to laugh, you were doomed. It was like giggling in church or school assembly. Even the thought of him sweeping out a sword and lopping off her head struck her as hilarious as she pictured her head bouncing across the floor, still giggling, Feramo bellowing at it.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said, pulling herself together, both sets of fingers over her mouth and nose. “Okay, okay.”

“You appear to be enjoying life.”

“Well, so would you be if you’d narrowly escaped death three times in one day.”

“I apologize for Alfonso’s behavior with the boat.”

“He nearly killed a bunch of snorkelers and someone on a jet ski.”

Feramo’s mouth twisted oddly. “It was the fault of that accursed boat. Western technology, for all its promise, is designed to make a fool of the Arab.”

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“Oh, don’t be so paranoid, Pierre,” she said lightly. “I really don’t think that’s the first priority in modern speedboat design. How are you, anyway?”

He looked at her uncertainly. “Come, we must drink a toast!” he said, reaching to open the champagne. She watched him, fingering the hatpin hidden in the fabric of her dress, trying to assess what was going on. This was her big chance to get him drunk and find out what he was up to. She glanced around the room: there was a laptop closed on the desk.

Feramo seemed really quite desperate to get into the Cristal, but was having trouble with the cork. Clearly he hadn’t had much practice either at opening champagne bottles or fucking things up. Olivia found herself frozen into an encouraging smile as if waiting for a man with a bad stammer to get the next word out. Suddenly the cork shot across the room and the Cristal spurted out, frothing all over his hand, the table, napkins, cactus and canapés. A strange curse burst from his lips as he started grabbing at things and knocking them over.

“Pierre, Pierre, Pierre,” she said, starting to dab at the puddle of Cristal with a napkin. “Calm down. Everything’s fine. I’ll just take these . . .” she said, picking up the flutes and heading for the wet bar, “and . . . rinse them, so that they’re pristine. Ooh, what beautiful glasses. Are they from Prague?” She carried on babbling as she washed them in hot water, then gave them a good rinse and swilled out the bottoms.

“You are right,” he said. “They are fine Bohemian crystal. Evidently, you are a connoisseur of beauty. As am I.” At this Olivia almost started laughing again. Clearly the Arab mind could be as corny as the shopping channel.

She replaced the glasses on the coffee table, ensuring that what had been Feramo’s glass was now hers. She watched him carefully for the gestures of a thwarted poisoner, but instead she saw only the eagerness of an alcoholic on the verge of his first drink of the evening.

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“Let us drink a toast,” he said, handing her her glass. “To our rendezvous.” He glanced at her seriously for a moment, then downed his champagne like a Cossack in a vodka-drinking competition.

Does he know you’re not supposed to drink champagne like that?
she wondered. It reminded her of Kate’s mother, a lifelong teetotaler who, if she poured someone a G&T, would fill a tumbler almost to the top with neat gin with barely a nod in the direction of the tonic bottle.

“Come, let us eat. We have much to discuss.”

As he rose to lead the way out to the terrace, she emptied her glass into the cactus. Feramo pulled back her chair for her, like waiters do. She sat down, expecting him to push it forward, like waiters do, only somehow he got it wrong, and she sat down on nothing, plunging to the floor. She thought she was going to start laughing again until she looked up and saw the intensity of his humiliation and rage.

“It’s all right, Pierre. It’s all right.”

“But what do you mean?” As he towered over her, she imagined him commanding a mujahedin battalion in the Afghan mountains, pacing above prisoners, keeping his anger controlled, then suddenly blasting them with a machine gun.

“I mean it’s funny,” she said firmly, starting to get to her feet, noting to her relief that he hurried to help her. “The more a situation is geared up to be perfect, the funnier it is when something goes wrong. Things aren’t
supposed
to be perfect.”

“So that is good?” he said, the trace of a small-boy smile appearing.

“Yes,” she said, “it’s good. Right, I shall sit down on the chair, not under it, and we’ll start again.”

“I do apologize. I am mortified—first the champagne and then . . .”

“Shh,” she soothed. “Sit down. You couldn’t have found a better way to make me feel comfortable.”

“Really?”

“Really,” she said, thinking:
Now I don’t have to worry about being poisoned every time I take a sip.
“I was intimidated when I walked in.
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Now we know we’re both just human beings and we don’t have to pretend to be all fancy and perfect and we can just have a good time.”

He grasped her hand, kissing it passionately. It was as if something about her acted as a trigger for him. His mood swings made no sense. He was dangerous, clearly. But she didn’t have a lot of options here. Maybe if she just brazened it out and followed her nose she could keep control of the situation. Especially if she was sober and Feramo was drunk.

“You are the most wonderful woman,” he said, looking at her almost wretchedly.

“Why?” she asked. “Because I’m good at washing glasses?”

“Because you are kind.”

She felt terrible.

He downed another glass of champagne, leaned back and gave a vicious tug to a thick, dark-red bellpull. Immediately, the key turned in the lock and three waiters appeared carrying steaming casseroles.

“Leave it, leave it,” Feramo barked as they twittered around, obviously terrified. “I shall serve it myself.”

The waiters set down the dishes and hurried out, falling over each other in their haste.

“I hope,” said Feramo, unfolding his napkin, “that you will enjoy our dinner. It is a great delicacy in our land.”

She gulped. “What is it?” she said.

“It is curried goat.”