Perfect Strangers

‘We could go away, disappear,’ she said urgently. ‘Just you and me, somewhere they’d never find us.’ She blushed as the words came out of her mouth. She paused, holding her breath, but if Josh had caught her intention, he didn’t react.

‘Sophie, listen to me,’ he said quietly. ‘There is nowhere we could go that these people wouldn’t find us. Right or wrong, they think that money is theirs, and if we take it from them, they will keep hunting us – for ever. Do you want that?’

‘No,’ she said simply.

‘Then we have to go see the top man, tell him what we know – and hope that’s enough.’

‘And what if it isn’t?’

Josh gave her a smile. ‘Then we’d better hope this lobster is pretty bloody good.’

Right on cue, two waiters appeared bearing a silver tray laden with food, with two enormous lobsters centre stage.

‘You crack on,’ said Josh as they laid the feast out on the table. ‘Just got to see a man about a dog. See if you can dig the good stuff out for me, I’m rubbish with those nutcrackers. I’ll only be a few minutes.’

Sophie watched him thread his way through the tables, then glanced down at the lobster, staring back at her with blank eyes. Curiously, it made her think of a boy named Charlie Simmons. Sophie guessed she must have been fourteen and head over heels in unrequited love with the floppy-haired boy from the school down the road. Her mother had clearly decided it was time for a talk about the birds and the bees, so she took Sophie to a posh restaurant in London, ordered lobster and announced that if she was ever to stand a chance with any man, she had to learn to be a lady – and for Julia Ellis, being a lady involved knowing how to behave in polite society. Being able to crack a lobster without losing your dignity was just one of the things on her checklist.

Sophie smiled as she began the ritual of opening the hard coral shell and pulling out the sweet snow-white meat. Her mother meant well, of course, it was just that Julia’s idea of what constituted an ideal husband – the one with the biggest pile of gold – seemed ridiculously naïve now. Sophie could barely believe the hours she had spent smiling politely as red-faced boys called Rupert or Alexander boasted about their small achievements at endless Chelsea dinner parties or slumped against the bar in too-loud, too-smug nightclubs. But her mother had been wrong. Just because a man had money didn’t make him right for you. A good marriage was never going to make you happy if there was no love, no chemistry with the man you were marrying. She looked out at the sea, now bruising orange and purple as the sun dipped closer and closer to the waves, and wondered how she could have missed out on all this. Not this swanky restaurant, but feeling like this. As if life was one big adventure, even if right now it meant being in quite a lot of danger. And sharing that adventure with one person who made you feel alive, special, just by the way he looked at you.

You’ve fallen for him, whispered a voice in her head as she plunged her fingers into the lemon water.

Suddenly she just wanted to see Josh. Lost in her thoughts, she wasn’t exactly sure how long he’d been gone, but she was sure he should be back by now. She scanned the room nervously.

Where was he? The noise seemed to swell around her, the laughter from the next table taking on a malicious, sinister air. She didn’t even have enough money to pay for the meal. She stood up, fighting down the urge to panic, and stopped a waiter.

‘My friend from this table?’ she said. ‘Have you seen him?’

The waiter shook his head and Sophie moved through the tables towards the restrooms. Knocking on the door of the men’s, she called Josh’s name, but there was no response. Pushing all those ingrained ideas of social niceties to one side, she opened the door and ducked inside. ‘Josh? Are you in here?’

But there was nothing except two urinals and an empty stall.

‘Josh, where are you?’ she whispered urgently, moving back towards the kitchen – could he have gone to speak to the chef? And then there he was, coming out of a door marked ‘Office’.

Her heart swelled with relief. ‘Where have you been? I’ve been stuck at the table . . .’ His handsome face looked so serious, she stopped.

‘What’s going on, Josh?’

‘The manager has arranged a meeting,’ he said, taking her arm and leading her through the steamy kitchen, ignoring the glances of the staff in their whites. Sophie felt her pulse quicken. She knew this was the plan, but now it was actually happening, she wasn’t at all sure it was the right thing to do. ‘Do you trust me?’ – that was what Josh had asked her when they’d arrived at the Steppes. Nothing had changed, the answer was still yes, so when a black SUV pulled up at the kitchen’s rear door, she got inside after Josh without a word, even though it felt as if they had just walked into the lion’s den.

The car crossed the bridge from the island and drove south, on to Collins Avenue and along the Miami seashore. Sophie wished she had seen South Beach in different circumstances, because it truly was glamorous. The sorbet-coloured hotels, the art deco lines, the hot Latin sounds pumping out of the bars; it was like a neon-lit party town. Now they were passing the waterfront mansions and sleek motor yachts moored in Biscayne Bay. This was multimillionaire central, the playground of some of America’s richest citizens. An iron gate swung inwards and the car turned off the road, past an armed guard and into a circular drive. The house behind was a Spanish hacienda-style with whitewashed walls and a rippled terracotta roof, and beyond it Sophie could just glimpse the sea. Whatever illegal activities the Kaskov family were up to, they were certainly lucrative. Properties of this size weren’t bought with the proceeds of surf ’n’ turf restaurants, no matter how popular they might be.

A squat man in a black suit opened the car’s door and beckoned them out. Then wordlessly he turned and walked around the side of the house. Josh and Sophie could only follow, across a sloping emerald lawn to where a man in riding gear was standing next to a horse, brushing its glossy chestnut coat. Despite her fear, Sophie couldn’t resist reaching out to stroke the horse’s neck.

‘Beautiful, yes?’ said the man, turning towards her. Sophie was caught off guard. She had been expecting a stable-boy type, but the man holding the reins was strikingly handsome, with chiselled features and dark hair that gleamed. In fact, he looked exactly like the many gorgeous South American polo players she and her friends had giggled over on their summer trips to the Guards or Cowdray Park polo clubs.

‘She’s a polo pony, isn’t she?’ said Sophie.

The man nodded appreciatively.

‘She’s a Criollo/Arabian cross, from Argentina, which makes her one of the best breeds of polo ponies in the world. Now I just have to decide if I want to buy her. What do you think?’

He looked Sophie up and down, his dark eyes running over her as if he were feeling her haunches and checking her teeth.

‘I’d say you have already made your decision,’ said Sophie, looking away from his blue-eyed stare.

‘So you are Sophie Ellis,’ he said matter-of-factly.

‘Yes. We’re here to see Sergei Kaskov.’