Deep and Silent Waters

The men laughed, staring at Laura. ‘I’m sure she will,’ one said. ‘The company are thrilled that she got this nomination. It’ll be a big boost for the film around the world.’

‘Wonderful,’ Melanie said enthusiastically. ‘I think I’ll go along tonight. It sounds marvellous. I’ve never seen a film in a setting like that – it’s a brilliant idea, showing films in St Mark’s Square, right out in the open under the stars, a damn sight more pleasant than watching them in a cinema. Oh, I know they’re air-conditioned, these days, but when the place is packed with people it still gets hot and stuffy. It would be a pity to miss one of the latest films while I’m actually at the Venice Film Festival.’

‘I’d love to go, too, if only I could stay awake long enough,’ Laura said, stifling another great yawn. She caught the eye of one of the men and smiled an apology. ‘Sorry, I’m dead on my feet. I had to be up terribly early this morning to fly here.’

The waiter brought liqueurs and strong black coffee. Laura felt her gorge rise. She had eaten such a weird mixture already, since Melanie had insisted on letting the men choose the food. They had picked a dish each: a risotto coloured black by the cuttlefish ink used to flavour it, followed by guinea fowl cooked with mushrooms and lots of cream, both accompanied by far too much wine, and then a pudding with a strong almond flavour and masses more cream. Laura rarely ate much and the peculiar mix of ingredients was turning her stomach – it felt like something resembling a washing-machine.

‘Not for me, thanks,’ she said, her face pale. Her eyes implored Melanie. ‘I’m sorry, would you mind awfully if – I think I really must go to bed—’

She got up, stumbled, and the men rose, too, concerned.

‘Are you okay? Would you like someone to come upstairs with you?’

Fat chance! she thought. What an opportunist – but then most men are! Aloud she said, ‘No, no, please, stay and have coffee with Mel. I don’t want to spoil the evening for you.’

Melanie stayed resolutely in her seat. ‘A good night’s sleep is what you need,’ she said, with a smile pinned to her face but a look in her eyes that told Laura she would be in trouble tomorrow for running out.

‘See you in the morning.’

As she left Laura kept her eyes from the corner where Sebastian was sitting, yet was still conscious of being watched from there, aware of a coldness, as if someone had opened a refrigerator door and released a wave of chilly air. Every nerve in her body tingled with dread. Oh, God, she thought, that isn’t just coldness. It’s hatred. Her temples began to throb with distress, as if she heard the brazen sound of a gong being beaten. Somebody wanted her dead. Somebody wanted to kill her. From across the room, that dark intention beat on and on, and she knew it must come from Sebastian. Had Clea felt that death-wish beating on her before she died? Laura had assumed that either she had jumped or was pushed – but now she saw that Clea could have been driven to her death by that relentless hostility.

She hardly knew how she got out of the crowded room, across the even more crowded lobby, to the lifts. Her body moved automatically, her mind submerged and drowning beneath waves of shock.

It wasn’t until she was back upstairs that the faintness and sickness began to subside. She went into her room, closed the door and staggered to the bed, which had been turned down by a maid who had left a bedside lamp switched on, making a gentle glow. Laura sat there for several minutes, trembling and breathing thickly, before she had the strength to move again. She undressed and washed, put on a cream silk nightdress, which the maid had left out on the bed, and was about to slide under the covers when there was a tap on the door.

Melanie! she thought, tempted not to respond, but the tap came again, louder.

Laura went to the door. As she opened it a crack and looked out, she saw Sebastian. Her heart constricted in her chest, and she tried at once to shut the door, but he had his foot inside and forced it back, pushing her with it. Laura leant her whole strength on the door, but so did he, and he was bigger, stronger. The struggle was silent, despairing. She knew she must lose but wouldn’t give up until, with one last thrust, Sebastian sent her flying.

She sprawled on the carpet, aware of him closing the door and kneeling beside her.

‘Have you hurt yourself?’ His eyes were anxious, his face pale, but she remembered what she had sensed coming from him in the dining room, the desire to hurt, the hatred.

‘Leave me alone!’ she said hoarsely. ‘Go away or I’ll ring downstairs and get hotel security to come and chuck you out.’

‘I just want to talk to you for a minute.’

‘I don’t want to talk to you, especially alone in here. I don’t feel safe around you. I don’t want to end up the way your wife did.’

His expression changed. The concern vanished and a blackness invaded his eyes, a burning resentment and hostility. That was what she had felt in the dining room, but it wasn’t quite the same now: the feelings she had picked up earlier had been bitter, a hatred like black ice. This rage was hot, gushing up from deep inside the body. Not a desire to kill. A very different desire, which made her throat close up in fierce shock.

‘Don’t touch me!’ she cried, scrambling to get up and away from him, but she didn’t move fast enough.

He took hold of her shoulders, forced her back down on to the carpet and held her there while he climbed on top of her, his knees on either side of her waist, holding her silk-covered body rigidly between them.

‘You think I’m going to kill you, do you?’ he muttered. ‘Thanks for the vote of confidence. I’m beginning to think I should do just that. At least it would get you out of my head. I spend too much time thinking about you.’

‘Well, don’t! I don’t want you thinking about me.’

His temper flared again. ‘I don’t give a damn what you want! What about what I want?’ His eyes travelled over her slowly. ‘You know what that is, don’t you?’

She looked up at him, her mouth dry, her body pulsating suddenly with wild sexual awareness. Sebastian stared down at her, his black pupils glowing and dilating. His lips parted to suck in air audibly. The hands pinning her shoulders relaxed slightly and slid caressingly down over her bare skin, peeled back the silk that was half covering her breasts and his warm palms cupped the soft, smooth flesh he had exposed.

He bent his head slowly and she watched him as if hypnotised, unable to move, her throat beating with passion and fear, so much on edge that she thought she might scream. At the same time she ached, with a deep physical need, to feel his mouth on the bare breast he held. When his lips parted around her nipple her body jerked into an arch, and a harsh, low cry of pleasure came from her.

Sebastian lifted his head slightly to look down at her again. ‘Like that, do you? Funny. So do I.’ He moved his head to her other breast and took the nipple of that into his mouth, sucked softly, his fingers pl

aying with the warm flesh, fondling and stroking the way a baby does as it takes milk from its mother. Laura felt her breasts swell, felt, too, the flesh between her thighs burning, moist and open with arousal.