The Forbidden Touch of Sanguardo

As the maître d’ clicked his fingers to a minion, who scurried up with the requisite bottle, Rafael turned back to Karl Reiner.

‘We’ll get this analysed, shall we?’ he said. He took the bottle, emptied the water it contained into the jug on the table and carefully poured the contents of Louise’s glass into the now empty bottle, screwing on the lid and putting the bottle in his jacket pocket.

‘You can’t do this!’ Karl pushed to his feet.

‘I just have,’ said Rafael. ‘Would you like me to call the police as well?’

The maître d’ looked aghast, and Rafael relented.

He turned back to Celeste. ‘Can she walk, do you think?’

Celeste drew Louise to her feet again. ‘Come on, Louise—let’s go.’

Carefully, they escorted her from the dining room. Rafael phoned for his car. As they passed the reception desk Rafael paused to instruct that his bill be sent to his office.

‘Oh, and cancel Mr Reiner’s room for the night,’ he added. ‘He won’t be needing it after all.’

The expression on the receptionist’s face told him that his assumption had been right.

‘The upper floors are bedrooms,’ Rafael elucidated to Celeste as he guided both her and the woozy Louise out to the pavement. ‘And, no, I was not planning on availing myself of the hotel facility here tonight!’ he added stringently. ‘I leave that kind of crassness to the likes of Louise’s druggist!’

He got them both into the car and helped Celeste strap in a supine Louise. Then, after Celeste’s protracted extraction of Louise’s address from her, he instructed his driver and the car moved off.

He turned back to Celeste. ‘Did you definitely see him spike her drink?’

‘Yes! And that analysis will prove positive!’ she bit out vehemently.

He held up a hand. ‘Celeste, I don’t know the exact legal status of Rohypnol, or anything else it might be, but proving that you saw him do it, plus that it was non-consensual on Louise’s part, is going to be very difficult—if not impossible.’

He saw the stormy expression in her eyes in the street lights and went on, ‘So let’s just get her home, shall we? You can read the Riot Act to her tomorrow. But you know...’ His voice changed. ‘You have to allow for the fact that she was there of her own free will, and might very well have been perfectly willing to go ahead with whatever it was that Karl Reiner had planned.’ He took a breath. ‘I know it’s not anything you could possibly go along with yourself, but there are women who would.’

Women who would do a lot more...

He saw Celeste’s face still. For a moment it was as if he could see the bones beneath her skin. Stark and skeletal. But maybe it was a trick of the strobing street lights.

Louise groaned. ‘I feel sick,’ she said.

Silently Rafael handed Celeste a clutch of paper tissues from the supply in the car. To his relief they were not needed, and some fifteen minutes later they were in Earls Court, pulling up outside the address Celeste had extracted. They got Louise up the steps, and eventually inside, into the hands of the flatmate who had come down to answer the door.

She stayed to explain, briefly, what had happened, sufficiently reassured by the concern of the flatmate, who seemed sensible and level-headed. ‘Probably a roofie,’ she said. ‘Possibly vodka, too. Get her to phone me tomorrow,’ she instructed. ‘Celeste Philips—we’re at the same agency. I have some ground rules to spell out to her if she’s going to survive this modelling game!’

After handing over the woozy Louise, she returned with Rafael to his car. Back in the interior, she closed her eyes. Rafael settled in his seat and looked at her. Her face was tight and stark.