Vengeance in the Sun (17 page)

Danielle flung herself into my arms, incoherent with shock, her hands clinging round my neck, her breath coming in harsh gasps. Tenderly I stroked her hair, holding her close till her breathing eased.

“Come on, baby. It's time we went home.”

“Is everything going to be all right now?” she asked tearfully.

“You'll be in your own bed, with Peggy making you a hot chocolate and Mr Sam to keep you company in less than an hour,” I promised.

Every joint, every muscle, ached and throbbed. Painfully I put the car into gear, eased it round Steve's spreadeagled body and began slowly to drive back up the mountain road towards the headland and the villa.

Danielle cried quietly to herself as I drove off the road and onto the blackened headland. It had taken her a long time to get over the shock of Janet Grey's death. I wondered what indelible marks tonight's events would leave. I took the three miles to the villa slowly, easing the car round every suspicious drop of ground, the lights of the villa shining on the tip of the headland like those of a lighthouse to a distressed ship.

Gently I eased my breath in relief as the car rocked carefully onto the drive and up the sweep towards the courtyard gates. There were no lights on at the rear of the villa. The courtyard, heavy with the scent of roses and jasmine, lay plunged in darkness. With Danielle's hand safely clutched in mine, we slammed the car doors behind us and skirted the fountain and the silky ripples where a frog had suddenly dived for cover, and then entered the safety of the silent villa. As we left the tiled floors for the deep pile of white carpeting, we could hear the dull sound of voices.

“Won't they be pleased to see us?” Danielle whispered with a hint of her usual cheerfulness. “It will be a big surprise, won't it?”

“It certainly will,” I said dryly.

Light flowed from beneath the salon door and I could hear Mario's voice, harsh and taut, silencing Leonie's lazy drawl. Taking a deep breath I pulled the door open and went in.

I think of the three of them, Leonie was the one who was most shocked. The glass of golden liquid she held in her hand crashed to the floor, her face draining of colour. Peggy was the first to recover. With a cry she ran forward, clutching Danielle to her bosom, drowning her with tears. Mario stared at me unbelievingly, and then beyond me.

I said tiredly: “ There's no-one else. Only Danielle and myself.”

“My baby, my baby,” Peggy was crooning, rocking Danielle to her, kissing her cheeks, her hair.

Mario said slowly: “ Make the child some supper and take her to bed, and Peggy,” she paused at the door, her eyes darting for the first time to mine. “Stay with her.”

The blood running from my leg was dripping grotesquely onto the white carpeting. I knew my face was badly cut, my hands bruised and swollen. No-one moved to help me. In complete silence I limped across the room, sitting on the brocaded sofa, heedless of the crimson trail I was leaving.

“Well,” I said at last. “ Don't you want to know what happened?”

“
I want to know where Brad is,
” Leonie said, the skin tight over her cheek-bones, her cat eyes brilliant.

“Bradley,” I said flatly. “ Is dead.”

She faltered, her hands fluttering behind her for something to support herself on, her eyes fixed on mine unbelievingly.

Mario hadn't moved. “ Telephone for the police,” he said quietly to Leonie. “Tell them the child is safe and the woman is here.”

“Mario,” I said in a voice struggling for calm. “I am not ‘the woman'. Whatever Bradley Van de Naude told you earlier this evening was lies. He and Steve Patterson kidnapped Danny. Steve has been with her on the yacht ever since she disappeared.”

“You expect me to believe that?” Mario said, still not moving, watching me as warily as a cat a mouse. “ I knew about you even before he told me! Instinct told me! But no-one listened to me. Well, they'll listen to me now. Now that it's too late. Not that you've murdered!”

“Mario.…” I protested.

“You tried before, didn't you? In the study. You tried to kill him then but Peggy and myself, we came home too quickly for you.…”

“Bradley shot Ian Lyall,” I said flatly. “ He shot him and threw his body into the sea.”

He said stubbornly: “ Mr Lyall is with Mr Van de Naude.”

Wearily I shook my head. “ That telegram was a hoax by Bradley to get Ian out of the way while they kidnapped Danny. Ian Lyall was a private detective hired by Helena Van de Naude for just such an emergency.”

Leonie's voice, flat and strange, said: “ They are on their way.”

“Good,” Mario relaxed perceptibly. “At least the child is safe.”

The blood from my leg was soaking in ever widening circles into the pristine whiteness of the floor.

“If I had kidnapped Danielle, why on earth should I bring her back?” I asked with what I hoped was sane reason. “Because you grew afraid,” Mario said triumphantly. “ You have

committed murder and now you are afraid!”
“Would it be too much to ask for something to bind my leg

with while we wait for the police?” I asked. “ Otherwise I'll have

bled to death and no-one will get any answers.”
Mario looked at my leg grudgingly, then said to Leonie: “See

she doesn't try to leave.”
“She won't,” Leonie said surely.
“Leonie for goodness sake, listen to me.…”
“How did he die?” she asked, her eyes glittering pinpricks the

sockets already deepening.
“It was an accident,” I said bleakly, wondering when she had

changed her affections from Max to Bradley. “The car crashed. It

went over the cliff.”
She closed her eyes, her face ashen.
I said: “What I told Mario was the truth. Bradley and Steve

kidnapped Danielle.”
She opened her eyes and said slowly: “They won't believe you.

Mario and Peggy will give evidence about the time you drugged

her before and about the other accident. They won't accept the

word of a child. You're going to find yourself on a charge of kidnap

and murder.”
Our eyes held. Hers held complete certainty.
I said vehemently: “But I didn't do it!”
“Prove it.”
I thought of Bradley's mangled body fathoms deep, and Steve's

broken body spreadeagled across the road.
“Leave now. Go to Max. He'll know what to do.”
I had never thought to have Leonie as an ally.
Max. I was already rising unsteadily to my feet. She reached for

her handbag, handing me a headscarf.
“It's the best I can do, but it will stop the bleeding and it doesn't

look too serious. Go now. I'll stall Mario. I'll tell him you're in

the bathroom.”
There was no time to think. What Leonie said made sense. Max,

at least, would believe me when I told him what had happened. Once in a foreign jail it could be days before I could get in touch with him. With strength born of desperation, I ran across the room and down the long corridors of the villa D'Este.

The Audi and the old Estate stood side by side in the moonlit courtyard. I made for the Estate first. My years with Max had not been useless. Within seconds I had yanked the bonnet open, and even as I heard the distant ring of running feet, immobilised it in a way that I hoped would fox even the mechanically minded Mario. Then, as the running click of high heels grew nearer, I was back in the Audi, the courtyard gates a blur as I sped through them.

I switched the headlamps full on and trod hard on the accelerator, driving recklessly into the black void of the headland. It wouldn't take the police long to respond to Leonie's telephone call. I only had precious minutes, and however hard I strained my eyes to the furthermost tips of the lights, I still could not see the narrow band of grey that indicated the road.

The feet that had been racing after me had been Leonie's, not Mario's. I drove the car into a gulley, revving the engine desperately as the wheels churned, finally gripping solid earth and I jerked forward, the car continuing to bucket and rock.

Why Leonie? Perhaps Mario had come to his senses and she was telling me my flight was unnecessary. In the blaze of the headlamps the land showed clear and flat. I trod harder on the accelerator. If she had, it made no difference. I was going to Max. Nothing, and no-one was going to stop me.

But I was too late. Even as I saw the snakelike grey of the road and the grim background of soaring mountain behind it, lights flashed, and a car, driven at suicidal speed, sped round the bend, plunging off the road onto the headland, driving directly towards me.

I swung the wheel hard over, still racing forwards, trying to by-pass him. I knew that once I reached the road I could hold my own. Max had taught me to drive and unless there were road blocks between here and Palma I was confident I could out-distance the police.

The other car swerved to block me, our headlights meeting in a blinding glare of light. Apart from wilful suicide there was nothing to do but brake and grip the wheel with all the strength that remained in me. For a moment, as the bonnet of the other car skimmed the Audi, I thought my luck had finally run out. The jolt flung me to the far side of the car, half stunning me as the Audi's brakes shrieked to a halt. With distorted vision I saw the policeman fling his door open, running across to me, tall and formidable. Stumblingly I opened my door, half falling out onto the rough grass.

I said determinedly: “I've got see someone … in Palma.…”

“Not tonight you haven't.”

Instead of in handcuffs I was in strong arms, and Max's voice, thick with emotion, was saying against my hair.

“You fool! You stupid, beautiful, unbelievable
fool!
”

Dizzily I cling to him, tears half choking me: “Max! Max it's you! Oh my God! I thought it was the police!”

Max didn't seem interested in the police. His lips were on mine, and there was nothing gentle about the way he was kissing me. Eventually his grip on me eased and he said unnecessarily: “I saw Claudette.” He smiled down at me in the moonlight. “ No more misunderstanding, Brat?”

“None,” I said, my arms still around his neck, his body firm and strong against mine.

“No questions?”

“None whatever,” I said, my fingers tightening into the thick curls in the nape of his neck.

“Good.” He looked down at me. “ I have one.”

I stared up at him, my heart scarcely beating.

“Why did you think I was the police?”

Amazingly, for those brief, heaven sent minutes, I had forgotten the tragedy I was enmeshed in. I said brokenly: “ There's been an accident. I've just killed Steve Patterson,” I saw the expression in his eyes change to one of incredulity. “And,” I added for good measure, “Bradley Van de Naude as well.”

“Then in that case,” Max said with remarkable cool. “You'd better tell me about it before the local officers of the law rob you of the chance.”

With legs that felt as if they weren't my own I let him lead me to his car.

“I was coming for you. They won't believe me at the villa. At least Leonie does, but Mario doesn't. It was Mario who told Leonie to ring for the police. He thinks I kidnapped Danielle.”

Max, imperturbable, raised a dark eyebrow as he began to drive towards the headland tip and the villa.

“Is she kidnapped?”

“She was. She's safe at home in bed now. Bradley Van de Naude and Steve did it. Steve stayed with her on the yacht. She never saw Bradley or knew he was involved. Not until the end, that is.”

“Why should the son want to blackmail his parents?”

“Only John Van de Naude is his father. Helena is a stepmother and coloured. When Van de Naude married her he had to leave South Africa and his political career. Bradley stayed on there for schooling. Inherited all his father's wealth and wanted to go into politics too.”

“And?”

“John Van de Naude's politics underwent a radical change. He has agreed to accept Premiership of Ovambia, Helena Van de Naude's natural home, it means the Ovambians will be self-governing for the first time in their history. It also meant any political career for Bradley in Southern Africa was definitely at an end. It was that, combined with his pathological hatred of Helena, that caused him to kidnap Danielle and try and force his father off the political scene for good. In his own words, Helena had degraded his father, his mother's memory, himself. If you ask me, he was mad as a hatter at the end.”

Briefly, Max's hand came down on mine and squeezed hard.

“So far, my sweet, so good. How did the accident happen?”

Despite myself I felt my voice begin to break.

“I thought Ian Lyall had something to do with it. Steve had deliberately fostered that idea in my mind so that I wouldn't turn to Ian if I became suspicious of anything. Early this evening I saw him making his way down the path that leads to the beach. I told Bradley.”

“And.…”

“Bradley told me to wait in the villa and said he would go after him.”

“And you,” Max said with an expression I knew of old. “ Didn't do as you were told.”

“No,” I said miserably. “I followed him. On the
Helena
I walked in on Danielle, Ian Lyall, Bradley … and Steve.”

The ground was steepening, the yawning gates of the villa D'Este only a hundred yards away.

I said flatly: “ Bradley Van de Naude took Ian outside. He shot him and threw his body over the side.”

“What happened then?” Max's voice was almost unrecognisable.

“He said because I now knew he had kidnapped Danny that I would have to be killed. They killed the other nanny. Janet Grey. She became suspicious and Bradley pushed her from a fifth floor block of flats. He also said …” here my voice broke completely. “That now Danny had seen him she would have to die as well.”

“I'm beginning to feel very sorry the gentleman in question is already dead!” Max said, speeding between the courtyard gates, “I could have made his leaving a lot more interesting for him!”