‘I’m nearly seventy,’ smiled Julia, ‘it’s too boisterous for me back there. I want to be tucked up with a good book.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure, Erin. Now come on and impress me.’
Karin stood on the terrace of the palazzo’s master bedroom feeling a discomfort she couldn’t quite place. She had come upstairs for an aspirin, but she knew that her headache wasn’t the source of her disquiet. She leant against the balcony and looked out at the pool shimmering beneath her in the streaky silver moonlight. She shuddered, thinking back to the earlier scene with Erin Devereux, wondering if she been a little hard on her. There had been no reason to imply she was bitter and jealous; Erin was just a lonely, angry kid who had just discovered the grim truth about her father. Well I can empathize with that, she thought, kicking off her heels and sitting down on one of the balcony chairs. Karin knew full well that her father Terence Wenkle was the ruthless bully that Erin had described. Yes, she worshipped him, because he had treated her like a princess and told her she could be whatever she wanted to be in life. But she also knew he was a crook, a liar, a greedy con man who didn’t care who he walked over to get what he wanted. She remembered the first time she had heard the Devereuxs’ name. She had been ten. The Wenkles had moved from their Essex detached house to a mansion in Surrey with stables and a swimming pool, because ‘Daddy was doing so well.’ One evening, after she had been sent to bed, she was creeping downstairs for her new Sony Walkman cassette-player when she had heard the raised drunken voices of her parents. Not daring to go any further, she had waited on the top step, listening to her mother shouting at her father.
‘Terry, you shouldn’t have done it. You shouldn’t have made him drop all his clients if you knew you were going to drop him.’
‘Business is business. It’s not my fault if he trusted me.’
‘Think of his wife, Terry. Think of his little girl Erin. He killed himself because of you and now that little girl hasn’t got a dad.’
‘It’s not my fucking problem.’
Then Karin had heard the unmistakable sound of a backhanded slap followed by her mother’s scream. Karin had covered her ears with her palms to stop herself hearing any more and had run back to her room, hiding under the duvet, praying for it to stop. People had said that Karin’s steely ambition stemmed from the confidence Terence Wenkle had instilled in his daughter, but deep down Karin knew it was something else. Her desire to succeed was a desire for reinvention; to wipe clean all traces of Terence Wenkle from her life and forget that she was really just a gangster’s daughter from Essex.
She took a glug of water to wash down her aspirin and thought about heading back downstairs. It was gone midnight and out along the driveway she could see guests stepping into cars to take them back to the Villa d’Este, but the party was still in full swing. The sound of the jazz band floated up to the balcony, along with a rumble of merry conversation. Karin slipped her heels back on and turned to go back into the bedroom. Her fingers were on the brass door handle when she saw two shadows behind the thin voile curtain. Still suspicious of Adam’s womanizing, she froze, immediately wondering if he would have the audacity to bring anyone into their bedroom. It was Adam alright, but the other voice was male and it was raised, angry. Curiosity made her wait outside in the dark to listen.
‘Listen, don’t worry,’ said Adam, ‘the team are in place for the Astley Stores takeover. Marcus says the shares should bottom out any day now, then we can move. We just have to wait.’
The other voice seemed doubtful, anxious. ‘Retail really isn’t your bag, is it Adam? So why should I trust you? Everyone else says that Astley’s is a busted flush. String of profit warnings and no doubt more to come.’
Karin heard Adam laughing. ‘I told you not to worry, didn’t I? The Astley CFO has been on our payroll for the last eighteen months; he’s been helping to run the company down. That “busted flush”, as you put it, is now open to a sale. With a strong management team, we can easily turn the company around.’
The other voice sounded impressed.
‘You SOB, you have Astley’s CFO in your pocket? That’s genius!’
‘That’s only the half of it,’ continued Adam. ‘The real money is in the real estate. The Astley retail group owns a small logistics company that have derelict warehouses right in the middle of a riverside brownfield site in Wandsworth. Fifty-one per cent of the company is owned by the Astley family, but they won’t authorize a sale of the warehouses because they’ve been land-banking it for years.’
‘Who owns the rest of the site?’
Adam laughed again. ‘Me. Through various companies, of course. We got it cheap because the Astley land was blocking any sort of development. Who else would want it?’
Karin could hear the other voice laughing now. Curiosity got the better of her and she quickly snatched a look at the man Adam was talking to. She recognized him as Jonathan Parsons, the chairman of Murray and Spink, a major investment bank whom Adam had introduced to her earlier in the evening.
‘Once we get control of Astley Retail and transfer the Wandsworth land to Midas, it becomes a fifty-acre riverside side worth two hundred and fifty million. I’ve already got a raft of investors lined up to build the biggest shopping mall in South London.’
‘And your share prices go up even further …’
Adam laughed again. ‘Call your broker. Buy Astley. Buy Midas Property, my friend. You can’t lose. Now, what do you have for me?’
‘How does Ginsui, the electronics company, take your fancy? Computech are about to make a move on it. An announcement is being made this week.’
Karin stood outside, goosebumps on her skin. She had a plan and she knew it was a beauty. What Adam was talking about was share manipulation and insider dealing. Not just the grey-area, skirting-round-the-edges-of-the-law sort of stuff she knew many big businesses indulged in. No, this sort of dirty play could get you two years inside. She could now hear Adam laughing. ‘I’ll put a call into my broker immediately so he can move on it as soon as trading opens on Monday.’
She heard the door click, as if Jonathan was leaving the room, and then heard Adam make a call to his broker; she waited outside on the terrace until she was sure Adam had left the room. For a second she thought of her father and shivered in the cool night air. But then she looked around her – the magical setting of Palazzo Verdi, the twelve-carat diamond sitting on her finger, the party filled with the most important people in society. And she pushed Terence Wenkle out of her mind. She’d come too far to get distracted by principles now.
Summer was sitting by the fountain in the palazzo’s courtyard, letting her hand trail in the cool water, when she saw Adam descending the sweeping flight of stairs from the bedrooms. He was lighting up a cigar and heading in her direction. She felt a rush of butterflies as he came nearer, then a flood of disappointment as she realized he hadn’t yet seen her.
‘Oh, hello. I haven’t seen you all evening.’ Adam gave a weak smile, but he looked her up and down approvingly.
‘Can we go somewhere to talk?’ Summer’s voice faltered as she said the words. Adam’s eyes darted around and he looked distracted, unwilling. He took a puff of his cigar.
‘Listen, I haven’t seen Karin in about half an hour,’ he said. ‘I’d better go and find her because some guests are beginning to leave already.’
She could tell he was in no mood for a quickie in the flower-beds. Though that was not what she had in mind anyway.