Count Valieri's Prisoner

And feeling tears prick at her eyelids as the jester realising he has brought about the murder of his own child, flings himself, heartbroken, across her dead body.

The applause at the end was long and generous with cries of ‘Bravo’ from all over the auditorium. It took a while for the stalls to clear and Maddie hung back, unsure what she should do.

Her best bet, she supposed, was to go back to the hotel and wait for instructions. Because she was sure there would be some.

In a way, she hoped they’d arrive tomorrow. It was late, and she felt suddenly very tired, as she walked out into the rain-washed street, hugging her cream pashmina around her. The stress of the past weeks coupled with the flight and the long car journey were clearly taking their toll.

I need sleep, she thought longingly, not an interview.

But the Count clearly had other ideas, she realised, recognising the unmistakable shape of his limousine, parked just across the street from the theatre, with its chauffeur in his dark uniform standing beside it holding the rear passenger door open for her.

And not Camillo this time. This new man was altogether taller and leaner. Younger too, she thought, although his peaked cap was pulled down shadowing his face, denying her a good look.

‘Signorina Lang—you will come with me, please.’ His voice was quiet, but it seemed to convey an order rather than a request, and Maddie hesitated.

‘You’re taking me to the Count?’

‘Who does not like to be kept waiting.’

Slightly brusque for a paid employee, she thought as she climbed into the car, but at least he spoke English, so that was a step forward.

Not that any conversation was likely, however, while the glass panels between the front and rear seating remained firmly closed.

On the other hand, she didn’t really feel like talking. The effect of the coffee had worn off and waves of drowsiness were sweeping over her.

But I can’t go to sleep, she told herself firmly, suppressing a yawn. I have to stay awake and totally alert. This is an important evening. And made herself check once again that her little voice operated tape machine and spare batteries were safely in her bag.

What she really needed was the caffeine rush from another espresso, she thought, helping herself to some of the chilled mineral water, in the hope that it would clear her head.

She began to rehearse some of the questions she needed to ask, but instead found the words and music of the opera still teeming through her brain.

I am Crime. He is Punishment. Except that was wrong, surely. It was the other way round. He is Crime …

Wasn’t that the way it went? She wasn’t even sure any more. But she could remember Rigoletto’s despairing cry, ‘Ah, the curse’ and shivered again.

She wanted to knock on the glass and ask the chauffeur not to drive quite so fast, but it was too much effort. Somehow it was much easier just to lean back against the cushions, and let them support her until the jolting over the cobbled streets ceased.

I’ll close my eyes for a few minutes, she told herself, yawning again. A little catnap. I’ll feel better then. Wide awake. Ready for anything.

And let herself slide gently down into a soft, welcoming cloud of darkness.

Her first conscious thought was that the car had stopped moving at last, and she no longer felt as if she was being shaken to bits.

Her next—that she was no longer simply sitting down, but lying flat as if she was on a couch. Or even a bed.

With a supreme effort, she lifted her heavy lids and discovered that she was indeed in a bed.

Oh God, I must have been taken ill, she thought, forcing herself to sit up. And I’m back at the hotel.

But just one glance round the room disabused her of that notion.

For one thing, the bed she was lying in, though just as wide and comfortable as the one in Room 205, was clearly very much older with an elegant headboard in some dark wood, and a sumptuous crimson brocade coverlet.

For another, there seemed to be doors everywhere, she realised in bewilderment as she tried desperately to focus. Doors next to each other, in some impossible way, in every wall all round the large square room. Doors painted in shades of green, blue and pink, and interspersed with shuttered windows.

I’m not awake, she thought, falling limply back against the pillows. I can’t be because this is obviously some weird dream.

She wasn’t even wearing her own white lawn nightdress, but some astonishing garment in heavy sapphire silk with narrow straps and a deeply plunging neckline. And it was the faint shiver of the expensive fabric against her skin that finally convinced her that she wasn’t dreaming. And that she hadn’t fallen down a rabbit hole like Alice either.

The bed and this extraordinary door-filled room were not Wonderland at all, but total, if puzzling, reality.

Go back to your first conclusion, she told herself. You became ill in the Count’s car, and you were brought here to recover. That’s the only feasible explanation, even if you don’t remember feeling unwell—just terribly sleepy.

And you’ve been looked after, although a room liable to give one hallucinations was perhaps not the best choice in the circumstances.

Thinking back, she seemed to remember a phrase which described this kind of décor. Trompe l’oeil, she thought. That was it. She’d come across it during some of her preliminary research on the Ligurian region, but had decided it was irrelevant.

However, it occurred to her that she was growing a little tired of mysteries and enigmas, whether verbal or visual, and would relish a little straight talking from here on in.

She would also prefer to get dressed, she thought, if only she knew where her clothes were.

She wondered too what time it was—and that was when she realised, with shock, that not only was she no longer wearing her wristwatch, but that, even more alarmingly, her engagement ring was also missing.

And it’s not just my clothes, she thought frantically, as she shot bolt upright, suddenly wide awake as she stared round the room. Where’s my bag? My money, passport, credit cards, mobile phone, tape recorder—everything?

Suddenly, the fact that she was next door to naked in a strange bed, in a strange house in the middle of God only knew where, took on a new and frightening significance.

And even if there was a perfectly innocent explanation, the noble Count Valieri was going to have some serious explaining to do—when they finally met.

The next moment, Maddie heard a key rattle, and a section of the wall opposite the bed swung open, revealing that, in this case, it was a real door and not a pretence.

But it was not the man in the portrait, her expected elderly host who entered. Her visitor was male but younger, tall, lean, olive-skinned and, in some strange way, familiar. Yet how could that be? she asked herself, perplexed, when she was quite certain that she’d never seen that starkly chiselled, arrogant face before in her life, or those amazing golden brown eyes, currently flicking over her with something very near disdain.

‘So you have woken at last.’

It was the voice that jogged her memory. The cool, peremptory tones she’d last heard ordering her into the Count’s car outside the opera house. Only now, instead of the chauffeur’s tunic and peaked cap of their previous encounter, he was wearing chinos and a black polo shirt, unbuttoned at his tanned throat, this casual dress emphasising the width of his shoulders, the narrowness of his hips and his long legs. He looked strong and tough without an ounce of excess weight.

A factor that only served to increase her unease, which she knew she must be careful not to show.

However, realising how much of her the sapphire nightgown was revealing in turn, she made a belated snatch at the embroidered linen sheet.

‘Obviously,’ she returned with a snap, angrily aware of a faintly derisive smile curling his hard mouth. She paused, taking a deep, calming breath. ‘You’re the Count’s driver, so presumably you brought me here.’ Wherever here is.

‘Sì, signorina.’

‘The problem is I can’t quite remember what happened. Have I been ill? And how long have I been asleep?’

He shrugged. ‘About twelve hours.’

‘Twelve hours?’ Maddie repeated. Then, her voice rising, ‘That long?

That’s impossible.’

‘You fell asleep in the car. And you were still morta—sleeping like the dead when we arrived.’

‘Then how did I get here—like this?’

‘I carried you,’ he said. Adding, ‘And you continued to sleep quite happily in my arms as I did so.’

Her mouth went dry as she assimilated that. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said hoarsely. ‘There must have been something—in the coffee. Or that water in the car. You drugged me.’

His mouth tightened. ‘Now you are being absurd,’ he stated coldly.

She waved an impatient hand. ‘Well—maybe. But I don’t understand why you didn’t take me back to my hotel.’

‘Because the Count wished you to be brought here.’

‘Well, that was kind of him—I suppose. But I prefer to stick to my own arrangements. Perhaps you would thank him and tell him I’d like to leave.’

‘That will not be possible. You are going nowhere, signorina. You will remain here until arrangements for your release have been concluded with your family in Britain.’

There was a taut silence, then Maddie said unevenly, ‘Are you telling me that I’ve been kidnapped?’

‘Yes,’ he said, adding laconically, ‘I regret the necessity.’

‘Oh you’re going to have regrets all right,’ she said, her voice shaking. ‘When you find yourself in court. And don’t think a plea of insanity will spare you.’

‘I would not think of offering one, even if there were to be a court case—which I guarantee there will not.’ He paused. ‘And I am completely rational, I assure you.’

‘In which case,’ Maddie said stormily, ‘you can prove it by returning my belongings and arranging for that other man—Camillo—to take me to Trimontano for the rest. Instantly.’

‘That is not going to happen. Your possessions have already been collected from the hotel and brought here.’

Maddie gasped. ‘Who decided this?’

‘I did.’

‘Then here’s a decision that I’ve made,’ she said icily. ‘I came to Italy to interview a woman who was once a singer called Floria Bartrando. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of her.’

‘The name is familiar.’

‘You amaze me.’ She gave him a stony look. ‘Your boss, Count Valieri was supposed to be acting as go-between, and I understood there was a need for a measure of secrecy about the project. But this—abduction—this is total madness. And it stops here.

‘The deal over the Bartrando interview is off, and I’m leaving as soon as I get my luggage back.’

‘And I say that you stay as you are and where you are.’ He added softly, ‘Until I choose otherwise.’

He walked towards the bed, and, in spite of her previous resolution, Maddie found herself shrinking back against the pillows. She said, ‘Don’t come near me. Don’t dare to touch me.’

He halted, his mouth twisting contemptuously. ‘You flatter yourself, signorina. Let me assure you that your body is of no interest to me, except as a commodity to be exchanged when my negotiations with your family are complete.’

She was silent, thoughts scurrying through her head. She knew of course that people were taken hostage, but these were mainly wealthy tourists who’d strayed into dangerous places. Not a TV researcher looking for a lost soprano in a supposedly civilised backwater.

She said slowly, ‘You—you really mean you’re holding me for ransom? That I’m your hostage?’

He frowned. ‘A crude term. Let us say instead that you will remain here as my guest until the deal is done.’

‘Then I’ll be here for a bloody long time,’ she flung back at him. ‘My God, now I know you’re crazy. My family haven’t that sort of money. My uncle’s the headmaster of a school, and my aunt helps in a local nursery. So they couldn’t pay you in a hundred years.’

‘But I was not talking about them. I was referring to the family you are about to marry into—who are rich,’ he said quietly, sending a chill down her spine. ‘And it will cost them a great deal to get you back—unharmed.’

Maddie stared up at the dark, cold face, her lips parted in shock.

She thought, ‘He wants money from Jeremy and his father? But why? Just because they’re wealthy?’

She said, her voice shaking, ‘You can’t possibly mean this.’

‘Have I not made it clear that I do?’

‘But you can’t have thought about the consequences,’ she persisted. ‘You’ll get years in jail when you’re caught. Your life will be wasted.’

She saw his mouth harden, and his eyes fill with unutterable bleakness. He looked, she thought, as if he too had been carved from limestone like the nearby mountains.

He said, ‘Then I would not be the first. But you argue in vain, signorina, because no charges against me will ever be brought.’

‘But what about the Count? He’s a respected man. A businessman. A patron of the arts.’ She spoke almost wildly, clutching at straws. ‘You can’t tell me he knows what you’re doing.’

‘You are wrong. He knows everything.’

‘And condones it?’ Maddie shook her head. ‘No, I don’t—I won’t believe it.’

‘Then ask him,’ he said. ‘At dinner this evening. I am here to invite you to join him.’

‘Then you can both go to hell.’ She glared at him. ‘Do you really imagine I’d sit down to a meal with someone who treats me like this? I’d rather starve.’

‘Do so, then.’ His tone was indifferent. ‘If your future husband responds swiftly to my demands, you should not have to endure many days of hunger.’

‘You mean—you wouldn’t care?’

‘That you wish to behave like a fool? That is your choice. But I think you would do better to accept the situation, so that you look like a woman and not a skeleton on your wedding day.’

He paused. ‘There is a bell beside the bed. Ring it and a maid will come, and bring anything you require.’

‘All I want,’ Maddie told him tersely, ‘is a way out of here.’

‘That, I fear, she cannot provide. And she is loyal to the Count, like the rest of his staff,’ he added. ‘So do not ask.’

She said shortly, ‘I’m hardly in a position to bribe anyone.’ She hesitated. ‘Nor am I exactly dressed for dinner—even with a geriatric kidnapper. Will I get my clothes back?’

‘You will be provided with adequate covering,’ he said. ‘Be content with that.’

Which was another way of saying ‘no’, Maddie thought as he walked back across the room and the door—a blue one—closed behind him, becoming just part of the wall again.

She lay staring at it while she counted to fifty slowly, to make quite sure that he’d gone, before she pushed away the coverlet and swung out of bed, treading across the marble floor to try the handle. But the door was locked, as she’d known in her heart that it would be.

However, that could not be the only real door in the room. And now she would find the others.

The first she came across gave access to a large walk in closet, lined on one side with drawers in the same dark wood as the bed-head, all empty, with a matching series of wardrobes filling the opposite wall.

Maddie pulled open each door in turn, but the interior rail held nothing but a robe that matched the nightgown she was wearing, and a pair of velvet slippers in the same deep blue.

‘His idea of adequate covering, no doubt,’ she muttered as she closed the door again and went back into the bedroom.

What she really needed to find was the bathroom, but naturally she wouldn’t have lowered herself by asking him where it was. And her dogged search revealed it behind a pink door a couple of doors away from the closet.

The dark green marble walls, she thought, made it gloomy, although that might have reflected her own mood, rather than the décor, while the bathtub and shower were both distinctly old-fashioned.

However, the water was hot and the plumbing worked. There were plenty of towels and a basic selection of toiletries, none of them her own.

There was also a full length mirror on one of the walls and she stood for a moment staring at her reflection.

Your body is of no interest to me …

Out of all the things he’d said to her, why on earth should she remember those words in particular? Impossible, she thought, to fathom.

At the same time she could not help noticing, albeit unwillingly, how the deep bodice of the nightgown gently cupped her breasts and the way the cling of the fabric swirled as she moved, the silk hem just brushing her insteps.

No interest. Yet the right size, she thought, and the right length. And although the colour and style of the nightgown were not something she would ever have chosen for herself, she could not deny that it was becoming, making her fair hair look almost silvery.

What was more, she would swear it was brand new, and she wondered, as she turned away, who it had been bought for originally.

But, she reminded herself briskly, she had far more pressing matters to consider. Her priority was to get out of this crazy, dangerous situation and somehow reach Genoa, the airport and safety.

She knew now which were the real doors and which the false, and accepted that there was no opportunity for escape there. So, she started on the windows. The first two sets of shutters opened on to glorious oil-painted landscapes—one showing a sylvan lake overlooked by a rococo palace—the other depicting rolling meadows studded with poppies and edged by cypress trees.

The Italy I was expecting to find, she thought wryly, walking on to the next window, and catching her breath as she flung back the shutters.

Because there were the mountains as far as her eyes could see, confronting her, surrounding her like a cage of rock. And, in spite of the sunshine, as tall, harsh and inimical as her jailer, she thought, feeling suddenly cold.

While one gingerly downwards glance told her that below the window was a sheer drop to heaven knows where.

And there was no sign of Trimontano, or any other human habitation apart from the prison she was standing in.

She left the shutters open, and went back to lie on the bed, heaping the pillows up behind her as she began a serious attempt to evaluate her equally serious position.

Her only hope seemed to lie with Count Valieri himself, who surely could not know that an actual crime was being perpetrated in his name. Not unless the younger man had some hold on him too and was forcing him into it.

If this was the case, then maybe they could work together to stop things before they went too far. Unless of course the Count was older and feebler than his portrait at the theatre suggested.

But that couldn’t be true. His handwriting suggested a forceful and determined personality, so he might well be acting against his better judgement for some reason.

So, she would simply have to talk him round, she thought. Tell him frankly that Nigel Sylvester was also a forceful and determined man, and certainly not someone you would wish to have as an enemy, and to treat him as prey would undoubtedly have a dangerous backlash.

She could also warn the Count that she wasn’t Nigel Sylvester’s favourite person and, if it was left to him, he probably wouldn’t give a brass farthing to get her back.

Perhaps not in those exact words, she thought ruefully. But at least I can let him know that if this madness continues, he’ll have a fight on his hands that he can’t possibly win.

While I, she thought, her throat tightening nervously. I could end up caught helplessly in the middle. And what will happen to me then?

CHAPTER FOUR

SHE SEEMED TO have lost all track of time. But maybe that was a deliberate policy of disorientation on the part of her captors.

Eventually, of course, she had rung the bell, unable to ignore her stomach’s wistful rumblings any longer, and recognising, too, that she needed to keep her strength up.

A maid had appeared so promptly she might have been waiting outside the door, and carrying a small table which she placed beside the bed. She was followed by another girl in a starched white overall, her hair covered by a cap, and carrying a laden tray. After which they nodded, smiled, wished her ‘Buon appetito’ and left.

And this time, she actually heard the key turn in the lock.

And they’d behaved as if it was perfectly normal to serve a strange girl locked in a bedroom, wearing nothing but a nightdress in the middle of the day. A realisation which did nothing to lift her spirits.

Sighing, Maddie investigated the tray and found a tureen of vegetable soup, steaming and aromatic with herbs, a linen napkin containing freshly baked rolls, a plate of cold meats, and, in a covered glass dish, a scarily rich dessert that seemed to be composed from chocolate truffles. There was also a small jug of red wine, a bottle of mineral water and a pot of excellent black coffee.

It would have been more dignified to pick at the food, but Maddie fell on it as if she hadn’t eaten for a week.

Last night’s dinner was a long time ago, she told herself as she wiped out the few final delicious drops from her soup bowl with a crust, and tonight’s confrontation was unlikely to be relaxed or festive. So she’d make the most of what there was, although she was sparing with the wine, knowing that later she would need to keep her wits about her.

But it took a very long afternoon to get to that point. When the maid returned for the tray, she brought with her a lamp with a pretty glass shade which she placed on the table. But when Maddie asked if she could have a book to read, the girl murmured an apologetic ‘Non capisco,’ and left.

So there was nothing to do except allow the same weary thoughts turn like a treadmill in her brain, and watch the afternoon light begin to fade from the sky.

She even took a bath, just to break the monotony, but the warm water failed to have its usual soothing effect.

It was disturbing to consider how carefully her capture must have been planned and executed. And know it was her connection with the Sylvesters that had condemned her to this nerve-racking experience.

But I shall be blamed for it, she told herself. Because I insisted on coming to Italy.

Suddenly she had lost control of her life, she realised as trailed back into the bedroom, swathed in a towel. And the knowledge made her feel vulnerable. And scared.

Although the Count’s henchman had said she would be returned ‘unharmed’. And that was the word she had to cling to, hoping against hope that her captors meant it.

But all those trick doors were a reminder of how completely she was trapped. And if she was going to be left to vegetate all day and every day, she’d be stark raving mad by the time the ransom was paid. If indeed that ever happened …

The next time the real door opened, it was already quite dark and she’d lit the lamp. She sat up nervously, wishing she was wearing more than a towel, but it wasn’t her kidnapper but another maid, a short stocky girl, who’d brought with her Maddie’s own hairbrush and cosmetics bag.

But nothing else.

The girl gave her an unsmiling nod as she walked into the bathroom, emerging a moment later, her face set in lines of disapproval as she shook non-existent creases from the nightgown Maddie had left on the floor after her bath. She placed it carefully on the bed, then fetched the matching robe which she laid beside it.

She said, ‘You dress please, signorina.’ Her English was halting and heavily accented, but at least it was communication, thought Maddie, wishing it had been the girl who smiled.

‘Willingly,’ she returned. ‘When I get my clothes back.’