PROLOGUE
Sometime in the 1980s
The residents of the South of France are too chic to consider themselves socially competitive, but in the villas that pepper the Côte D’Azur, one-upmanship was rife. Saul Milford, a man of not inconsiderable self-assurance, liked to think that he had the best villa in the whole area. An old mas in the foothills of Provence, Les Fleurs was not the biggest house but with its turrets and bright blue shutters, it was certainly the prettiest. Already that summer he’d had Princess Margaret, Mick Jagger and various other members of London’s beau monde round the kidney-shaped swimming pool. They’d all seemed to enjoy themselves and it was easy to see why. The grounds were studded with fabulous bronzes, sculpted by his dear friend Christopher Chase, one of England’s most prominent artists. There were olive groves, an abundance of poppies on the hillside, and in the sunshine, the Mediterranean sparkled like a sapphire in the distance. This evening, as dusk was settling on the grounds with a honey glow, it looked even more spectacular. It was excellent timing: tonight there was to be another party. Staff in white suits scurried around the pool plumping up cushions and filling silver ice buckets with champagne. The smell of spices from the kitchen mingled with the strong scent of lavender and the air crackled with anticipation of a fabulous evening ahead.
Saul smiled to himself, sipping lemonade freshly made from fruit in his orchard, silently congratulating himself that his purchase of the villa the previous summer had been one of the best decisions he had ever made. He could certainly afford it. His company, the luxury goods house Milford, was doing well. For years the company’s sumptuous leather products had been the preserve of the upper classes who ordered bespoke luggage for their exotic holidays. But the Eighties had seen the rise of a new, more democratic wave of millionaires riding on stock market killings. The City was awash with money and it was making Saul rich. Very rich. And what was the point of taking money to your grave?
Saul looked down from the terrace to where his two nieces Emma Bailey and Cassandra Grand were playing. From this distance, he could just about make out the dialogue between the two cousins. It was funny how personalities were set at such a young age. While the girls were similar in many ways, their differences were equally marked. So marked in fact, that Saul felt confident he could predict how their lives would unfold and the direction in which their desires and ambitions would take them.
Dangling her feet in the swimming pool Emma put a bookmark in her copy of Jane Eyre. At seven she was tall for her age, with clever, grey eyes that posed questions without the need to open her mouth.
‘Do you want to play chess?’ she asked her cousin.
‘No,’ replied Cassandra, rolling her eyes dramatically.
‘What about hide-and-seek?’ Emma persisted.
‘No,’ snapped Cassandra impatiently.
‘Why?’
‘It’s for babies,’ said Cassandra painting a coat of red polish on her stubby square fingernails. The twelve-year-old had been excited about the holiday for months. She loved hearing Saul’s stories about rock stars and princesses and wanted to look perfect if she happened to meet any of them that evening.
‘Why don’t you go and ask Tom,’ she added coldly, pointing to her three-year-old brother who was busily rummaging in a flower bed getting soil in his hair.
‘Tom’s too young to play,’ replied Emma, refusing to be fobbed off.
Cassandra looked up at her cousin, her eyes squinting up in the sun.
‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’
‘Come on, Cass,’ Emma persisted. ‘There’s loads of places to explore. We could go and look for butterflies. I bet there are millions in this garden. I’ve got a book in the villa that tells you how to identify them.’
‘You are such a swot,’ tutted Cassandra, smoothing down her long dark hair. ‘We’re on holiday. Can’t you just relax by the pool like a normal person? Listen, I’ll paint your nails if you give me fifty pence.’
‘I haven’t got fifty pence.’
‘Well, you’d better go and find something else to do then,’ said Cassandra, ‘on your own.’
‘OK then. I will,’ said Emma. Above her on the terrace, Saul Milford smiled and then walked back into the house to get ready for the party.
She hadn’t been able to sleep. How was she expected to with the music and turquoise light reflected from the swimming pool seeping through the shutters? She had crept out of bed and gone to watch the party from the safety of the terrace. In the glow of a thousand tea-lights the whole scene looked spectacular as hundreds of impossibly glamorous people were laughing, drinking and dancing under an umbrella of moonlight.
Minutes earlier she’d been on the verge of going down to find her parents when Saul, taking a break from the action, had caught her.
‘What are you doing here, I thought you went to bed hours ago,’ he’d said sitting on the terrace next to her.
‘How can I sleep with all this going on? It all looks so beautiful,’ she had explained.
‘There’ll be time to enjoy all this when you’re older,’ he’d smiled putting his arm round her. ‘One day all this is going to be yours.’
‘Really Uncle Saul?’
‘Really,’ he’d laughed, draining the last of his champagne and standing up. ‘Now come on, off to bed! You know I can’t protect you if your father finds out you’re still up.’
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What a wonderful holiday it had been! As it was the last night of the trip she had no desire to go back to bed. She waited until Saul had returned to the party and then wandered away from the house, walking deeper into the grounds, wanting to make the night last as long as she could.
The further she walked moving away from the candles around the pool and the buttery light spilling from the villa, the darker it became, only flecks of starlight peppered the tarry sheet of sky above her. The high rasp of frogs in the trees replaced the chirp of crickets and the air began to lose its floral scent. Still she carried on walking, the damp grass tickling her bare feet, drawn by a faint light in the distance. As she approached the light, she saw it was coming from the little wooden house she had explored with her cousin earlier in the week. She had wondered then what might be inside it, but it had been locked tight. She was not easily scared but for a moment her steps slowed as she wondered whether to turn back to Les Fleurs, now so far behind her that it was nothing more than a black shape in the distance. Suddenly she caught sight of a dim outline of a figure through the dusty glass of the outbuilding. Curious, she edged closer, freezing when she heard a low moan from inside. She was now just below the shed’s dirty window. Holding her breath, she slowly raised her head and peered inside. The glass was so filthy it was like looking through smoke. At first, she was unable to make out what or who was inside. But as she pushed her face closer she let out a gasp – at first in puzzlement and disbelief and then in horror, as she realized what was happening in front of her. Stumbling back, she fell and scraped her arm on a rock. She looked up at the window, then back to the villa. She knew she should leave – run back to her bed as fast as she could – but as if pulled by a force she could not control she looked through the window again, hoping against hope that what she had seen was just her imagination. But no: the vile image was still there. Shaking her head to rid it from her mind, tears streaming down her face, she turned and ran back to the villa, not yet aware that what she had just seen would change her life forever.
1
Twenty-three years later
Sitting in the passenger seat of an ink-black Mercedes, Emma Bailey turned round and watched the white Federal-style mansion fade from view, bringing to a close one of the most stressful days of her life. She blew out her cheeks, smiling to herself at a job well done. Emma had spent the last twenty-four hours charming and cajoling industrialist PJ Frost, attempting to persuade him that her company Price Donahue was the right one to advise him on a billion-dollar mergers and acquisition strategy. Emma’s head was swimming. Not just from the pressure, but from dinner last night; a seven-course tasting menu with free-flowing vintage champagne that she had been in no position to refuse. Frost was from the old school where deals were brokered over food, liquor and preferably blood-sports, which she was glad to have been spared.
‘We did it!’ laughed Emma, sinking back into the leather and watching the frosty white landscape speed by.