Introduction....
When Norman tired of the public trailing through his stately home and the money he was paying his ex-wives, his thoughts turned to whether Freddie’s abduction and slave trading business might help him out.
For another tale featuring Freddie’s Mediterranean activities, see: The Legacy of Priam.
Chapter 1: Belvedere College For Young Ladies
Belvedere College aimed to ensure that all its students would be able to conduct themselves as ladies once they left its portals. However, some high-spirited members of the senior year were determined to learn all they could of less ladylike pursuits. Alcohol was a continual problem for, though it was legal for the 18-year-olds to be drinking, the College took the firm view that no lady was ever seen to be the worse for drink. The senior year girls didn’t really agree.
“Are you sure it’s down here?”
“Yes, that new girl, Christy, was bragging about it last night.”
“A case of vodka! That’s going to be a hell of a dorm party!”
“You’d better believe it. Come on, it’s behind the shed, she said.”
Lucy Amory and Jill Pascoe crept slowly around the back of the Science block. They were feeling their way in the dark, reluctant to use a torch in case they were seen from the main School building. Two black-clad men did not have the same constraint on their movements. Night vision goggles gave them a clear view of the two young women as they edged their way towards their prize. They noted with satisfaction that the girls had just as rebellious an attitude to their college uniforms; skirts shorter than regulation and blouses rather tighter than would be considered ladylike were favoured by the girls of the senior year and these were no exception.
“You keep watch, and I’ll see what I can find, Lucy,” Jill said as she slid into the gap between the Science block and the small shed that the school’s groundsman used.
Lucy stood peering into the dark while, unknown to her, one of the men slid closer to her. A slight rustle was the only warning she had. It was while she was puzzling what the sound might mean that a gloved hand clamped a sickly smelling cloth over her mouth and nose, while an arm reached around her body and dragged her back against her assailant’s chest. As consciousness ebbed away, Lucy heard the calls of her friend, “Lucy? Lucy? Lummmm!!” as she, too, fell victim to the intruders.
Chapter 2: Hamblingham Hall
“The long gallery at Hamblingham Hall is one of the finest examples of Tudor architecture in the south-west of England and holds an extensive gallery of portraits of the scions of the St John-Ferris family from the time of the Hall’s construction to the present day. Works by Holbein, Gainsborough, and, more recently, Millais, Gertler and Peter Blake depict the history of the family and, at the same time, present a cavalcade of the best of portraiture.” Freddie Clegg looked up from the guidebook to the array of gilt-framed oil paintings that lined the high-ceilinged room, with its twisting, uneven timber floor. It wasn’t hard to imagine, Freddie thought, earlier times with the St John-Ferris family parading in this airy, well-lit room. Now, though, the Barbour -wearing, Ugg-booted, bucolic set of National Trust members elbowing their way through the house would be the last thing that any of the earlier householders would have welcomed.
“Makes you sick, doesn’t it?” A tall, thin, bespectacled man hooked a teasel — a small spiky dried plant head intended to prevent visitors using the furniture — from of one of the gallery’s seats and sat himself down on the faded, velvet-covered seat. One of the Trust’s room guardians, busily chatting to visitors at the other end of the room, scowled at him but said nothing. “It used to be a home, now it’s just something for tourists to gawk at.” Norman St John-Ferris cradled his chin in his hands and stared past Freddie at a small family group, the mother pointing at one of the paintings.
“You’re not letting the fact that it used to be your home colour your judgement?” Freddie had known Norman since his early twenties. He’d watched as Norman had worked his way through three unsuitable wives, each sapping the St John-Ferris estate as settlements in acrimonious divorces marked the conclusion of each union. Finally, Norman had to let the Hall go to the National Trust. They let him live on in a small suite of rooms in one corner of the building but, as Norman said, it wasn’t the same.
“I feel like a vampire; I can only come out after dark. When the sun has fled the sky and the last of them,” he nodded towards a woman tugging a reluctant child in her wake, “has gone, then I can emerge.”
© 2011 Freddie Clegg
All characters fictitious
No re-posting without permission
Chapter 3: The Hillingworth Road
Lucy Amory and Jill Pascoe lay doped and helpless in the back of the small closed van as it sped away from the college. With their mouths taped shut, their eyes covered, their wrists and ankles wrapped in tape they would have known little about their journey but the effects of the anaesthetic made sure that they had no chance of following the van’s meanderings.
In the front of the van three figures looked forward to the end of their day’s work.
“They all right back there?” the driver asked.
His companion looked up at the small mirror mounted on the back of the sun visor. He could see Lucy, her short pleated skirt pushed up over her back side revealing a small white triangle of knickers between her arse cheeks. Beside her, motionless, the helpless Jill lay on her back, the tape wrapped around her chest emphasising her breasts as it pulled her blouse in tight against her belly. “Out cold,” he said. “No trouble at all.”
“Good job, Christy,” the driver said.
The girl wedged between the two men grunted. “I’ll be glad to get out of this college uniform,” she said. “Next time we have a job like this can we do it some way that doesn’t involve me getting into a bum freezing skirt and a tight white blouse.”
“What and spoil our fun?” the driver slipped his hand down from the gear stick onto her naked thigh.
“You want something to fondle, you wait till we stop and amuse yourself with the two in the back,” Christy said, pulling his hand away.
Norman St John-Ferris led the way from the long gallery against the flow of the visitors down the stairs and towards the back of the house. The two men passed through the billiard room; the table an immaculate green, the polished brass markers on the scoreboards glinting in the soft light from the lamps over the table. More teasels provided a disincentive for those seeking comfort on the padded leather arm chairs that once seated the more louche of the St John Ferrises, those that had lost the family fortune the first time around. Norman scowled at the rack of billiard cues, all secured in place by a padlocked bar, ensuring that no visitor would be tempted to put the table to the use for which it was intended.
Norman carried on into the library, an airy room lined with books, all carefully wired into place on their shelves and overseen by one of the more sour-faced room guardians.
“What do you notice,” Norman waved a hand around the room. Freddie looked blank. It was a library, there were books, he wasn’t sure what else he might be expected to see. “No ashtrays!” he blustered, “I can’t even smoke in my own library. And,” Norman nodded to three silver frames on the table in the window bay, “that’s the worst insult.”
The Trust had placed three wedding photographs, Norman with each of his wives, on the table. Freddie couldn’t help noticing that they were all good looking women. But Norman had always been attracted by a face and a figure. And, of course, it had been Norman’s inability to restrict that attraction to the woman he was married to that had been the main marital problem he had faced.
They stepped out onto a brick paved walk that led down into the formal garden. “Of course,” Norman said, seeming to get closer to the subject in hand, “if I didn’t have to pay the alimony I would be able to get the property back; tell this load of jolly, historical, theme-parkers to get on their way.” He had to step to one side as one of the “theme-parkers” almost walked backwards into him trying to take a photograph of the Hall’s garden frontage. Freddie could see that it was all Norman could do to prevent himself from elbowing the man into the ornamental pond beside the path
“I suppose so,” Freddie said.
“It occurred to me that I might be able to do you a favour and you could do me one.”
“Favour?” Freddie was always mistrustful of situations where people were offering to help him. Experience told him that things rarely turned out the way they were presented.
“Obviously if these three ladies were to go missing I would immediately attract attention from the forces of law and order. Since I have most to gain, I have the best motive.”
“True,” said Freddie warily.
“But what if for example I had the perfect alibi? Then their disappearance could have nothing to do with me, could it?”
“I can see that.”
“So that there was, for example, someone able to benefit from the availability of three, physically attractive women. And if they were, completely of their own initiative, to take advantage of certain information about the ladies’ whereabouts that I might let slip, then I could hardly be blamed, could I? They would certainly have their recompense from whatever could be raised on the three individuals; I would have no further alimony to pay. They would have a rather easy acquisition of three valuable properties while I would have succeeded in removing a significant financial encumbrance with no risk of suspicion to myself. Hypothetically.”
“Hypothetically,” Freddie agreed, “An intriguing proposition for someone in that line of business, of course.”
“Of course.” Norman St John-Ferris smiled with satisfaction. He believed that his point had been well taken. "Hypothetically."
© Freddie Clegg 2011
Chapter 5: Considerations
"It could be a good idea," Freddie Clegg was leaning on the rail of the balcony overlooking one of his training rooms. In the room below, Sarah, a long-time, originally unwilling employee of Clegg Enteprises, was taking amusement from freeing two of their latest "guests" from the packaging used to ensure their secure transfer and safe arrival.
Elspeth Grant, "Ellie" as she was known, was standing alongside Freddie. They’d both come to see the new acquisitions. "Hmmm?" Ellie wasn’t really listening; she was more interested in the packaging used in the boxes that the girls had been imprisoned in. It was something new that the logistics boys had been trying out. Injection foam had been pumped in around the girls, providing a packing that at one time protected and confined them.
"Norman’s proposal."
"I thought you said it sounded a bit vague."
"Rick’s people did some research. The proposition stands up. The older one is at the top end of what we’d normally consider for age but Larry seems to feel we could place her. The other two are pretty much on spec for regular product. I know we’re not short of product at the moment but I’d like to do Norman a favour."
"Hmm," Ellie’s grunt was sceptical. To her it sounded like Freddie had already made up his mind. Her attention was soon drawn back to the squealing captives. Extracted from their crates, they were now starting to realise what was happening to them. The taller of the two girls was struggling spiritedly but when the tape covering her eyes was removed the site of the room she was now in seemed to subdue her.
"That’s all right, dear," Sarah greeted the puzzled captive. "This must all be rather different from what you expected."
What do you expect, wondered Freddie, after you have been grabbed and drugged and wake up to find yourself blinded, gagged and helpless in crate that holds you immobile? Possibly not a brightly lit room looking like an open plan office in any typical modern development. Possibly not to be greeted in a conversational manner by a girl not much older than you wearing an outfit that looked like she’d stepped out of "Mad Men", either. Sarah still favoured a rather retro look.
Sarah guided the girl across to the centre of the room and left her standing there. She was obviously trying to make sense of her surroundings, looking up to the gallery where Freddie and the others were looking down. The first girl’s companion seemed just as confused when she was freed from her crate. Freddie watched closely as the lid was removed and the top slab of foam prised away. It really was fascinating, the way that the material expanded to fit so exactly around the form of whatever was within.
The fit was so close that Sarah found it difficult to extricate her from the crate. It needs some sort of strap putting underneath the captive before they go in, Freddie thought to himself. Eventually, the second girl was standing alongside her companion and Sarah could peel away the tape that blindfolded her. Freddie smiled. The two college girls in their short tartan kilts, mary-jane shoes, white knee socks and white short sleeved blouses had just the right look about them. They’d certainly be popular when it came to the auction provided they could keep that "innocent but corruptible" look through their training.
"Now," Sarah began chattily, "I’ll just take off your kilts, if that’s all right. It’s just that the boys like to see what they’ve got and you know what boys are like." As she unfastened the waistband of each girl’s skirt, allowing them to fall around their ankles, Lucy and Jill began to realise just why they had been abducted.
"And the shirts, please," Freddie called down.
"Sure, boss," Sarah replied, wrenching open Lucy’s blouse before turning to Jill and doing the same. Jill tried to pull away, tripped on her skirt and fell, sprawling on the floor.
"Careful," called Freddie, "don’t bruise the fruit." He turned back to Ellie. "Nice legs, though." Ellie rolled her eyes; Freddie was as predictable as ever.
Chapter 6: Reviewing The Field
"Sorry to drag you away from the entertainment, boss," Rick apologised as he finished setting things up ready for his presentation. Larry, the organisation’s marketing director, nodded a welcome as Freddie came into the room.
"Don’t worry," Freddie responded, "business before pleasure. I was pleased with the new arrivals though. That’s a good source you’ve found."
"Belvedere? Yes. Those two might well turn out to be the first of several." Rick finished connecting his laptop to the projector and checked the alignment of the screen.
Ellie and Harry, Freddie’s director of operations, joined the party as Rick started up the presentation.
"Is the PowerPoint absolutely essential?" Freddie asked.
Rick sighed. "I’ve kept it to a minimum; just the main bullets."
"All right, on you go," said Freddie. He didn’t want to discourage Rick but sometimes he took forever to get to the point.
"Right, three targets with information provided by your source, Freddie. It's going to be a bit of a European jaunt if we're going to synchronise the collections as you suggest. All three spend most of their time out of the UK." Rick’s first slide showed a slightly built blonde woman in here early thirties. "First up, Denise Tallis; thirty two, currently residing in South-Eastern France." Rick clicked up a slide showing a group of comfortable looking villas surrounded by a high wall. "She’s living in some sort of gated community which probably makes an at-home collection unfeasible, or at least harder work than we would like, but she spends time at the local country club and golf course. I think you’ll find opportunities there, Harry."
Freddie’s chief of operations grunted and scribbled a note on a pad.
"Next one, Rani Satvaya, twenty six." Rick’s slide showed an olive skinned woman with dark, penetrating eyes, dressed in a traditional sari. "Originally from Dakha, built a reputation in Bengali movies and modelling, before she married. Put her money into a fashion business – adapting Indian and Bangladeshi fashions to a western taste, sort of fusion clothing. ‘Whose Sari Now’ she called it." Freddie groaned –it was the sort of joke Rick might have come out with unaided. "Now she’s moved into designer shoes; based herself in Italy, not far from Milan.
Harry nodded. "OK, easier for us than some places. How about the other one."
Rick’s next slide showed smooth blue sky and white washed walls, the typical architecture of the Greek islands. "Holiday snaps?" Freddie asked. Rick thought that was bit unkind; Freddie was keen enough to get off to his Aegean island hideaway at any opportunity.
"Alicia St John-Ferris. Twenty four, third wife of our friend Norman. That’s her there." The next shot showed a tanned, blonde girl walking beside a harbour. "She hung on to his name after ditching the marriage. It seems to help in the business."
"Business?" Freddie was encouraged by the look of her. He could imagine a few of his clients finding her worth bidding on. "That looks like Mykonos."
"She runs an art gallery. Very Chi-Chi, modern stuff designed to fit in some of the new up-scale villas that are going up now. She’s well connected cruises all the five star hotels; well known; nodded through by Maître D’s; that sort of thing."
"Conspicuous?" Harry knew what the answer was going to be.
"Oh yes. Known by all and seen around."
Harry looked depressed; he much preferred the ones that didn’t stand out in a crowd but given that physical attractiveness was often the main feature on the list of required attributes for a new "guest", he didn’t often get his wish.
"One bright spot with this one though. She’s bent. Big debts on the gallery, fences the odd archaeological artefact to keep the income up. Plus she’s played some big clients on a long line, flirty eyes that say I might but then never does. She may even have pissed off one or two of our clients, Freddie."
"Might help a sale certainly," Freddie responded.
Rick hadn’t finished though. "One other little problem with this. These ladies all know each other. They spend a lot of time sharing their grief over their previous husband, and I mean A LOT. Email, Facebook, twitter, mobiles, the whole electromagnetic spectrum practically. They run a sort of pan-global bitching club for ex-wives of the good Norman. They really haven’t let go, in spite of the fact that it's his money that’s keeping them comfortable."
"Can’t say I’m surprised," Freddie wasn’t sure he saw the problem with this. Norman was the sort of guy that was likely to provoke long lasting acrimonious feelings in a divorce. He wasn’t good at ending relationships. Actually he wasn’t good at keeping them going either.
"Well, maybe not but it means if one of these ladies goes off line the others are likely to go to ground or worse still start bleating to the authorities. It means we’re going to have to do three lifts virtually simultaneously at three different points around the Mediterranean."
As usual Rick’s planning was well thought through. Freddie turned to his operations director, "Harry, how is that with you?"
"I’m not sure. We’re short-handed at the moment. Two at the same time wouldn’t be a problem but I’m not sure about three. I’ll need to do some work."
"Unless you want to pick up the Greek end, Freddie," Rick suggested. "That’s your patch, after all."
That’s true enough, thought Freddie. He still had the villa on Agoras, although he hadn’t been out there for a while....
© Freddie Clegg 2011
Chapter 7: On the Club Valcros Operation
A non-descript, mud-streaked Land Rover Defender pulls a horse box trailer away from the stables at Club Sporting Valcros. Inside the trailer, a piebald pony munches absent mindedly at the hay in his net, seemingly unconcerned by the grunts and thumps coming from inside the trailer’s tack box.
Karen Freeling is driving the Land Rover. Her elder sister, Trudy, is sitting beside her. Karen, fresh from practising her dressage, peers through her sunglasses at the lane ahead and slows down for the speed bumps at the Country Club’s gates. She waves to the gate keeper and blows him a kiss as the Land Rover and trailer drive through. The grunts and thumps are still coming from a helpless figure, locked inside the box, struggling beneath a blanket. The figure groans as the trailer bumps along. The sound isn’t loud but it’s enough to disturb the pony. He looks up, puzzled, not used to sharing his trailer, but soon returns to his hay.
They turn on to the road down towards Le Val.
Trudy Freeling pulls her golfing sun visor from her forehead and shakes her long, blonde hair loose. She tosses the pink visor onto the dashboard in front of her. The visor matches exactly the pink of her polo shirt and her short, divided skirt. "You’re a dreadful flirt," she says to her sister. "You’ll give that poor boy all sorts of expectations."
"What makes you think I’ve only given him expectations?" Karen replies with a giggle as she swings the Land Rover on to the Le Val ring road and on towards Brignoles and the cross-country route south.
Two bags of golf clubs are lying across the back seat of the Land Rover. One bag is bright pink, matching Trudy’s shirt and skirt. The other is lemon yellow. The club head cover is missing from the three wood in the lemon yellow bag. All of the other woods are neatly capped with matching lemon yellow covers.
The lemon yellow, number three wood, club head cover is the reason why there is relatively little noise coming from the figure in the trailer’s tack box. It is currently jammed into the mouth of the woman to whom it belongs. She would rather it were not there, to say the least. However, the fact that the lower half of her face has been wrapped with tape means that she can’t push the mouth-stuffing cloth out with her tongue.
The woman in the tack box is Denise Tallis, women’s captain at the Club Sporting Valcros and previously Denise St John-Ferris. She always attracts attention when she turns up at the club: the men want to flirt with her; the women want to gossip with her. She’s not beyond using her charms to get where she wants to be and, until right now, she’s happy with what she’s been able to get. She’s 32, but looks a good 6 years younger. She keeps herself fit; being out on the course three or four times a week has given her a glowing tan that you couldn’t get under any lamp. She’s always immaculately turned out. She thinks that it’s important to look the part as captain. Today, she’s wearing a lemon yellow outfit;: short sleeved polo shirt, shorts, white socks and yellow shoes. It was a sunny day when she got up that morning and she wanted to look as bright as the day.
Not half an hour before, she was enjoying a round with Trudy. She always likes to try to play with the new lady members soon after they join, and it’s especially nice when youngsters are coming into the club. They’d had a good game. Denise thinks Trudy showed some real talent and she’d told her so. The girl had seemed flattered. Of course, when Trudy suggests they stop by the stables to meet her sister on the way to the club house, she is only too happy to accept.
Trudy introduces Denise to her sister. Karen is keen to show Denise and Trudy her new pony and they step into the stables. And then they attack her, Karen grabbing her arms, Trudy pushing the top of the club head cover into her mouth, almost choking her, and winding the tape round and round her head. She’s pushed to the floor, Trudy kneeling astride her. She is rolled over, face down. Her lemon yellow outfit is now streaked with mud from the floor. More tape is wound around her wrists and her arms and chest. She’s trying to call out, but she’s gagging on the club head cover. More tape around her ankles. And not one word spoken by her assailants. Karen grabs her by the shoulders, Trudy by the feet. They lift her up. She is trying to kick out with her legs but her attackers ignore her efforts. They carry her to the tack box in the horse box trailer standing just outside the stable entrance. Blankets are piled on top of her. They are heavy. They stop her kicking against the sides of the box as they are packed down around her legs. The lid of the box is dropped with a clang. There’s the sound of a padlock closing with a click. She panics and tries to kick out again, shaking her head to try to dislodge the gag. It has no effect. She hears the clop of hooves as the pony is led into the trailer.
Then she is moving. The trailer is being towed. Out of the yard, she assumes, but where to and why?
Trudy picks up her mobile and sends Harry a text. He always likes to know if things have gone according to plan.
© Freddie Clegg 2011
Chapter 8: On the Milan Operation
Detective Inspector Gina Alfredi looks in disbelief at the CCTV images. She should be used to the absurd indulgences that surround the Milan Shoe Fair each year, but this takes the biscotti. The stiletto heeled shoe that she can see on the screen must be 4 metres high. It’s perfect in every detail, from the tip of the heel, the replicated stitching, the shaping of the toe and the sole. Heaven only knows what the leather that’s covering it must have cost. But that’s what you find with the shoe designers here, no expense spared. Still, the costs of the display would be easily covered, but the price of Satvaya’s shoes meant that Alfredi was never likely to afford a pair.
Standing behind her, Gina’s colleague, Sergeant Vincenzo, is more interested in checking out how his DI’s arse is moving in her trousers, but his attention is brought back to the needs of the moment by Alfredi’s clipped commentary.
"Two men. We see them here. They know what they are doing, where they are going, no doubts, no hesitation." Alfredi turns around; Vincenzo has the sense to be looking towards the screen.
"This where they called us in?" The view zooms shakily as though the CCTV operator didn’t quite believe what he was looking at.
"That’s it. Once he saw this, the guy in Security knew they had a problem." The picture shows a girl struggling helplessly against ropes that are holding her against the heel of the display shoe. The picture moves around as the operator tries to make out exactly what is going on. Its movement gives the footage a prurient feel, as though the CCTV operator was keen to take in every detail. It lingers on the way the ropes at her ankles fix her legs against the heel, the ones at her waist press her buttocks back against it, the way that her arms have been dragged around behind the stiletto so that her wrists could be tied.
"Perceptive!"
"Have you spoken to her?" Alfredi nods at the screen. Her hair is naturally dark, growing out at the roots from a pale blonde dye that she’s decided she doesn’t like.
Vincenzo shakes his head. "Not yet. That’s next. Do you want to do it?"
"No. You do it." Alfredi knows whatever she’s says, she’ll be wrong. If she does it, she’s hi-jacking his work; if she lets him do it, she’s being the idle bitch-boss that lets him do all the grunt work before taking the credit.
Sergeant Vincenzo leaves Alfredi with a muttered "OK" and heads to the interview room. The girl from the CCTV footage is sitting on a chair, wrapped in a blanket. She’s still obviously shocked by her ordeal. The cloth that the raiders used to gag her is hanging limply around her neck. It’s still there even though she was freed more than an hour ago.
In spite of her experiences, she’s on her feet as soon as Vincenzo enters the room. "Have you any news? What’s happening? Why am I still here?"
The last thing Vincenzo needs is this excitable woman haranguing him. "Please. Sit down. We are doing all we can. It will take some time but, if we can ask you a few questions, then you can go."
"Where is Rani? Have you found her?"
"No, we haven’t." Vincenzo was blunt. There seemed little point in saying anything else. Rani Satvaya had obviously been the target of those raiding the offices and Vincenzo had his own views about what would happen next.
The attack on the girl had been an unfortunate but necessary inconvenience for the raiders, the thing with the shoe was an improvisation, or maybe to make a point, Vincenzo thought. Of course, they had amused themselves in the way they had left her helpless. Why wouldn’t you, Vincenzo thought, looking down at the seated girl. Behind her tear-streaked face, bedraggled hair, and scared dark eyes, she was an attractive looker. She, conscious that his gaze was more than that strictly needed for the conversation, drew the blanket closer around her, covering her skirt, ripped in the struggle with the intruders when they grabbed her, and her blouse, torn open as they’d given themselves a moment or two’s amusement once she was helpless against the heel of the shoe.
"So, what happened after they tied you up?"
"Apart from their stupid games? Stupid male games!" She spat it out as if she imagined the police officer would consider them of little consequence. "I don’t know. I couldn’t see. They came back with Rani. She was tied and blindfolded. Gagged, too, just like me. Squealing and wriggling, trying to break free of them, of course! They had her bag, the designs for the new range. Took her out front, maybe ten minutes before the Security got to me."
"And then you were freed?"
"Yes."
"These men – did you recognise them?"
"No – they had masks. Like animals – a fox and a cat."
"Not seen them around the office before?"
"No, I told you. We don’t have foxes and cats."
"Weapons?"
"I don’t know. I didn’t see anything. They just grabbed me. He was strong, the Fox. The Cat did the work with the rope. But they both wanted their fun."
"And you hadn’t seen them before?"
"No, I told you."
"What happened after they left?"
"How the hell should I know? I was tied to that fucking shoe? Remember? Go ask Security? They got CCTV, they’ll tell you."
Vincenzo eases off the pressure and offers her a cigarette. She snatches it greedily, taking a deep drag as soon as it’s lit.
"They say anything?"
The girl shakes her head and then reconsiders for a moment, "Oh, yeah – ‘Nice Tits!’ – if that helps? Maybe there was a Neapolitan accent. I dunno. I was more worried about what else they were going to do to me."
Vincenzo stubs his own cigarette out. He knows he isn’t going to get much more from the girl. He tells her she can go. Angelina, a woman police officer comes in to help her out. Vincenzo wonders how she’d look up against the shoe heel.
Gina Alfredi isn’t too impressed with the outcome of Vincenzo’s interview. "Maybe Neapolitan? A big help!"
Vincenzo shrugs.
"It looks like a business hit to me. Who do we know who didn’t like Rani’s shoe business? Anyone in Rani’s family? Other Bangladeshi businesses wanting to come here and maybe didn’t like how she was doing it? I think this has something to do with her business or maybe some of her old friends in the movie business. We should check that out."
"Sure, boss." Vincenzo isn’t enthralled by the amount of work that this implies. He looks at his watch. Time for a coffee. Maybe he’ll find that Angelina in the canteen, he thinks. More chance with her than this frosty bitch.
© Freddie Clegg 2011
Chapter 9: On the Mykonos Operation
Freddie steps off the Flying Dolphin onto the harbour side. He can remember when the low, sleek, hydrofoil ferries were new. Now, the throb of their diesel engines sounded more desperate than powerful. They were tired and battered by years in use. He felt the same way sometimes.
Mykonos quay has the usual array of restaurants and bars. On the hill behind the quay, windmills stand like sentries guarding the port and trying to ensure the place goes on looking like the postcards of it.
It’s hot. The Dolphin left Agoras at eight o’clock and now the sun is about as high as it is going to get. Freddie is sweating. Mainly, it’s the false beard and the wig that are causing the problem. He hates using prosthetics but there was too big a chance of bumping into one of his old customers on Mykonos. That, or some of the competition.
Freddie hefts his bag over his shoulder. Alicia’s place is a couple of miles out from Mykonos town but he doesn’t want to take a taxi. He’s working light. Everything he needs is in his bag. Even so, it’s hotter work than he’d like. He’s carrying too much weight to make this comfortable.
He stops about 100 yards short of Alicia’s. There’s a handy bar. He treats himself to a dish of olives and can of Coke and sits quietly watching the world go by. The gallery is called “Mykonoids”. It seems like she’s moved into multi-media stuff; there’s a video screen pushed up against the window rolling what, even from where Freddie is sitting, looks like a series of flash gun explosions. A complicated metal mobile made of what looks like rusty car parts swings erratically. Alicia appears at the door of the gallery with a client. She’s wearing a short white denim skirt over bare tanned legs with a white tee shirt. Blue ceramic beads on her leather thong necklace echo the roofs of a hundred Orthodox churches on the island. The look is simple and obviously expensive. Freddie looks across towards the gallery in a casual way, but in one quick glance he’s taken in all he needs. Height, weight, muscularity; things that might affect the snatch. How she moves, how big her mouth is. He already knows what he’s going to do. This is just a chance to go over it one more time in his head.
She shakes her customer’s hand and he’s gone. She watches as he gets into a Porsche 911 parked outside. Freddie can’t think where he’s going to get much driving from that on the island. Alicia pushes her blonde hair back with sunglasses that probably never leave the top of her head as the Porsche drives off. She goes back into the gallery.
Freddie downs the last of his Coke, picks up his bag, drops a couple of Euros on the table, and heads off towards the gallery.
There’s a buzz as he steps through the door. “I’ll be right with you,” a voice, Alicia’s he assumes, calls from the back room.
Freddie looks around. None of the stuff on the wall is to his taste. He’s always preferred the representational to the abstract, and the multi-media, kinetic stuff just goes swooping way over his head, assuming it’s got any valid intellectual or artistic merit.
Alicia comes in from the back. “Hi,” she says. “How can I help?”
She looks as good close up as in the photographs in Rick's PowerPoint. Just as well, thinks Freddie, it’s not time for dramatically re-arranging things. “I’ve got something you might be interested in,” Freddie says and passes his box to her.
Alicia takes one look at the contents of the box and then looks up at Freddie. It’s a look that blends the vices of lust, greed and envy almost seamlessly. It’s a look that Freddie knows quite well. It’s usually a sign that an auction is going to be profitable but, in this case, it’s a good indicator that Freddie’s plan is going to go well.
“I think this needs some careful attention.” Alicia’s voice is as calm as she can make it. “I think I’ll close up for a while. We won’t want to be disturbed.” She puts the box down with almost reverent care. Walks across to the door to the gallery and turns the sign around so it now shows “êëåéóôü” – ”Closed” – to the outside world. “Let’s go through to the back. Would you like some coffee?”
He knows what she’s thinking. If the piece in the box is genuine, it’s worth a fortune and if he’s offering it to her, it’s almost certainly illegal. She’s only seen one like it before and that’s in the museum in Iraklion on Crete. It’s the figure of a standing male, a kouros, one hand clutched to his forehead. It’s big, maybe 50cm high, and carved out of ivory. There’s a trace of gold leaf around the lower limbs as though once it was clad in gold.
She makes them each a strong Greek coffee, pouring the thick black liquid into tiny cups from a battered copper briki.
“Where’s it from?”
Freddie shakes his head from side to side. “Hard to say. Least-ways my contact didn’t say. What do you think?”
“Late Minoan, if it’s genuine. Could be the pair to the one from Palaikastro except there isn’t a pair to the one from Palaikastro, is there?”
“That’s what I’d been told.”
“What makes you think I would be interested in this?” She’s wary. He’s not surprised. The police would have her on a Dolphin back to Piraeus and out of the country faster than you could say ‘cultural theft’, assuming she didn’t check into the the Korydallos Prison for a ten or twenty stretch on the way through.
“The people you deal with here. This isn’t a tourist shop. Your customers pay for good stuff. They even pay for stuff like this,” he nodded at the metal mobile swinging in the window. “Plus the word is you’ve shifted a few things before. Nothing big, nothing unique, but interesting stuff. Night hawked off Lefkandi, I’d heard, or picked from the seabed off Mochlos.”
“What terrible lies people tell about me.” She’s fluttering the eye lashes. Freddie thinks Rick’s assessment is on the money, as ever. “I can’t think why they’d say that. But, this is a beautiful thing.”
Her attention is so distracted by the kouros that she doesn’t notice Freddie’s sleight of hand dropping the small capsule into her coffee as he passes his hand over it. She doesn’t notice the drug either. It’s tasteless and, besides, the bitter coffee and the sweet sugar mask anything else.
She sits down, looking a little puzzled as the drug takes effect.
Freddie keeps up his end of the conversation, confusing her by appearing to ignore the effects she is feeling. “You must be able to find a home for it. Among your Porsche-driving, helicopter-flying set. There’s plenty of Russian money coming into the islands, too, these days, isn’t there?”
“Hnng, myurr...” is the last thing she says as she slips off the chair, unconscious. Her coffee cup tips over as she falls. It spreads a short, thick patch of sticky grounds across the table. She spreads herself across the floor.
Freddie puts the kouros back into its box carefully. Stopping for an amused moment to consider that its packing closely resembled the way in which the girls had been packed back at the centre.
The tragic thing about the kouros he has just shown Alicia is that it is genuine; it was dug from the site at Agoras by Bethany and her team of archaeologists currently enjoying – if that’s the word — the hospitality of Pashim Bey in Egypt. Until Alicia mentioned the one from Palaikastro, Freddie hadn’t realised there was anything like it on Crete. Artefacts of the Post-Palatial Minoan periods hadn’t really been the subject for discussion when he’d said goodbye to Bethany and her team, any more than they were with Alicia now.
With the kouros safely packaged, Freddie turns his attention to Alicia.
He rolls her over on to her face and pulls her wrists behind her. Cable ties do the job of fixing them together. That done, he lifts her up and sits her on a chair. It’s an old wooden stick back chair, substantial enough, Freddie thinks, to hold her when she wakes up, legs spread wide enough so she won’t find it easy to turn over. He drops her arms over the back, links some rope around them and her waist, pulling her tight against the back of the chair. She’s breathing easily, still unconscious. He takes each leg in turn, bare, tanned, soft blonde hairs, bare feet in Nike trainers. He draws one back to the back leg of the chair. He takes a turn of rope around the chair leg and then around her ankle, slides the rope between chair and ankle, loops it and ties it off. He does the same on the other side. She’s stirring a little. He didn’t use much of the drug. It’s safer that way and, besides, he didn’t need to do more than slow her down so he could do this. She’s shaking her head trying to get back her senses. He waits until she’s pretty much all the way back to conscious before he starts on her gag.
She’s coming around. Freddie walks across and pulls a wad of cotton waste from his bag. She’s awake enough to know something is going on that she doesn’t like, but not so awake that she can stop it. Freddie squeezes either side of her jaw to open her mouth so he can push the cloth inside. It’s a big knotted wad, enough to stuff her mouth and firm enough so there’s no risk she’ll swallow it and choke. Freddie holds her head up by the hair so he can check it’s in right. Then he takes his roll of tape, slices off pieces six inches long and straps them criss-cross fashion over her mouth. He uses half a dozen or so, smoothing them down carefully. She’s almost fully conscious now, aware of the ropes and the gag. Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t like it. Freddie’s efforts are rewarded with a poisonous look and a growl. Freddie isn’t bothered.
It’s a couple of hours later. Alicia is sitting tied to the chair in the back room of the gallery, bored and frustrated at not being able to do anything about the ropes or the gag. Freddie is in the same room. He’s sitting almost opposite her, playing patience, dealing cards onto an upturned crate. There’s another hour before he’ll move Alicia.
Freddie gives a satisfied grunt as the final card turns over and the hand comes out. He gets up and stretches, walks across to Alicia, and gives himself the treat he’d promised himself for a winning hand. He picks up his knife and moves towards her. She shrinks back in the chair. He grins and slices her white denim skirt open, up the front seam. The blade slips along it like it’s slicing through wet paper. With her ankles tied, one to each of the back legs of the chair, the tightness of her skirt had held her thighs close together. With the seam cut, they spread apart showing a white vee of cotton panties. She tries to shrug away from him, but the ties won’t let her. Freddie’s enjoying himself; just him, some rope and a struggling girl. It’s nice to get back to first principles for a change.
He lays the tip of the blade just touching the inside of her right thigh. The message is clear. You know what that did to your skirt, think what it could do to your skin. Alicia growls. It’s an animal-like noise that carries fear, fury and frustration. It’s not loud, the handful of cloth jammed into her mouth and the strips of tape that hold it there make sure of that, but she can see he’s amusing himself at her expense and she doesn’t like it.
Mainly though, she’s confused. She assumes this is all because he wants to rob the place, so why is he waiting around? There isn’t any cash in the gallery and, while the art on the walls has some value, he’d have been better off picking on one of the jewellery shops.
Eventually, she gets her answer.
It’s dark. Freddie looks at his watch. He leaves Alicia for a while and heads up to the two room apartment she has over the gallery where he throws some clothes, money and her passport into a small suitcase. It will look like she’s gone off by herself for some reason. He cuts her ankles free from the legs of the chair, but then ties them one to the other and runs some rope around her knees as well. As he’s tying her legs, his hands push between the insides of her thighs. She squeals and tries to wriggle away from him. Freddie grins tolerantly; she’ll have to put up with far worse before too long.
He checks around the place and tidies up, takes his box and her bag and suitcase out the back of the gallery to where the gallery’s van is parked and opens the back of it. He puts the kouros, in its box, carefully down on the floor of the passenger side. He goes back for Alicia, checks her gag and unties the ropes that hold her to the chair. He gets Alicia on to her feet. Now she realises that he’s taking her with him, she really starts to panic, mewing and trying to thresh back and forward. He puts her over his shoulder and gives her what is intended to be a reassuring pat on the arse. That just makes her madder. Freddie carries her out to the van and pushes her down in the back. There’s some sacking she uses to protect pictures when they’re being moved. He tosses it over Alicia, covering her from view.
Then it’s easy: shut up the gallery and drive down to the bay on the far side of the island from the harbour. There’s no one about. Ellie is waiting for him with the zodiac. It’s no trouble to get Alicia out of the van and into the boat. Alicia’s still struggling, but neither Freddie nor Ellie seem very interested. She ferries the helpless girl out to the yacht while Freddie drives the van back to the port, parks it not far from the Dolphin quay, and then steps in to one of the bars for a celebratory Metaxa while he waits for Ellie to bring the yacht around to the port. It takes her about an hour. Freddie is feeling quite mellow by the time he steps on to the yacht. Alicia is tied up on one of the bunks in the forward cabin. Ellie has sliced the rest of her clothes off, so that now she’s completely naked.
Freddie gives an approving nod. He may be doing Norman a favour but it should turn out all right financially. Alicia doesn’t know which of them she’s more scared of: the man who snatched her or the woman who stripped her. She’s got all of the time of the crossing to Agoras to work it out.
© Freddie Clegg 2011
While Freddie’s teams have been cutting a swath through Norman’s back catalogue of wives, Norman St John-Ferris has been hosting a conference on the Commercialisation Of Heritage. Hamblingham Hall has provided a venue of historical distinction for discussions on the development of access, the improvement of presentation, and the role of info-tainment.
The Trust has provided speakers. Members of Britain’s impoverished aristocracy have come together to cry on one another’s shoulders in an attempt to reverse the tide of wealth driving out breeding. A range of re-enactment societies, architectural restorers and theme park operators have tried to present their various products as panaceas for an ailing industry.
The conference has served its purpose. Contacts have been made, relationships formed, ideas exchanged and, most of all, Norman has been seen in the company of a large number of people while his former wives have been accosted, drugged, abducted, and imprisoned hundreds of miles away from him.
Alicia was the first one to reach the holding cells on Agoras, but, then, it was less than a day’s sailing across the Aegean from Mykonos.
They’d left her naked, wrists chained behind her and ankles shackled, for what had seemed like days in a windowless stone room with a barred front wall. Every so often they would bring her food and water and take her to use a bucket and shower. She’d tried pleading with them, tried telling them that no-one would pay a ransom for her, but they hadn’t seemed interested. She’d even tried getting around one of the guards with the flirtatious look and double meaning suggestions that had worked so well for her in her business. The guard had just grinned. "You think that if, I wanted to, I wouldn’t just fuck you, honey? What you gonna do with your hands chained up in back? Ain’t gonna pull no Princess Leia – Jabba the Hutt trick on me, are you?" He’d reached over through the bars and pinched her tits just to prove his point. She’d decided that seduction wasn’t a very fruitful course.
Rani had a more complicated journey. Drugged and fitted into an insulated capsule within the meat compartment of one of the Clegg Meat Transport freezer trucks, she’d been driven down from Milan to Reggio di Calabria and via ferry to Messina before being dropped off at a warehouse in Catania. From there, it was a 170km ride, doped, blindfolded and unable to enjoy the mountain views, in the back of small van to Agrigento. Carried on board a small yacht, wrapped Cleopatra-style in a rug, she had woken up to find herself out at sea, helpless and providing passing amusement to the two men who had snatched her from the Milan showroom. They’d kept her chained up and gagged on a bench in the cabin, one watching her while the other steered the vessel, each taking turn and turn about until they got to what she took to be a small island somewhere in the Aegean. Then, it had been more drugs and more rope until she found herself behind bars in a rock-walled room onshore somewhere, with a heavy metal collar locked around her neck and without the Donna Karen suit, the Stella MacCartney underwear and, of course, the Rani shoes she’d been wearing at the time she was snatched.
Finally, Denise Tallis arrived to join the others. From her tack box prison, she had been moved to the cellar of a house somewhere on the south coast of France where she’d been kept bound and gagged on the floor by Karen and Trudy. She had made one brief bid for escape, struggling with Karen as she tried to change her tape bonds. It had been no good. She had managed to head-butt Karen in the abdomen, knocking her back, but Karen had recovered quickly, pulling a pistol from the waist band of her skirt. Denise was left standing with her hands raised while Karen called Trudy down to help. They’d forced her to strip then, as much as a punishment for attempting to get free as from any security need. Karen had been especially cruel in making sure Denise was well secured. The ropes around her wrists, ankles, knees and arms were pretty standard, but the hog tie and the rope gag and harness that pulled her head back simply added to Denise’s discomfort. Karen made her point further by using the helpless Denise as a footstool, keeping her on the floor beside the chair where Karen was sitting, reading or watching TV, waiting for the truck that would take her on the next stage of her journey. The truck brought a wooden crate and Denise was loaded inside, still hogtied and tape gagged. The crate was her home for the next twenty hours while she was loaded on board a small cargo plane, flown to Kalamata, driven to the port at Gythio, and shipped on to Agoras. When they broke open the crate, the naked and helpless Denise found herself in a rock-walled room with a steel-barred front wall. A heavy steel collar, wrist cuffs and leg fetters replaced the ropes. A thick leather pad gag replaced the tape. This time, she had no opportunity to attempt her escape.
Given that he was looking to place his three new acquisitions individually, Freddie felt he should take a close look at Denise, Rani and Alicia. After all, he reasoned, he could hardly recommend one or the other without a careful consideration of the attributes of each.
It was only when the three barred doors to their cells were opened that the three women realised their joint fate. Denise, Rani and Alicia stared at each other in shock as they were dragged from their cells into the space outside. A chorus of gag-muffled cries of recognition, distress, and anger greeted Freddie as they saw one another.
"Ladies," Freddie admonished as the three were arranged in a line. "Please don’t distress yourselves. It really won’t do any good and you might bruise yourselves. That’s going to make everybody here unhappy and, believe me, you don’t want that."
Freddie’s quiet, matter of fact turn of speech seemed even more disturbing to the three women than threats of violence would have sounded.
"Now, for the sake of clear understanding, while I know that you three have had some association in the past, that is really not any concern of mine or my associates. You have not been abducted for the purpose of extracting money from your ex-husband, who, I understand, doesn’t have any, from your businesses, or from your families. We are in the business of trading flesh. You represent three units of what we hope to be profitable merchandise. As far as we are concerned, we would like you unmarked and, shall we say, unsoiled."
The shared looks of fright, distaste, and fear on the girls told Freddie his message was getting across.
"So, I can promise you that, if you cooperate with us, you will be treated reasonably well and you will not be subject to any sexual assault. The outcome of this will be that you will stand the best possible chance of the more desirable placements. You really want to achieve this, believe me. You are all used to using your bodies to get what you want; now what you want is a new position where you can do the same. Tits, arses, cunts," the crudeness shocked the girls from their wide-eyed disbelief, "are what my clients want. You ladies are in possession of three sets. You’d better start working out how to make the best use of them here, because you aren’t going anywhere else."
Freddie turned to Andrea. "We’d better get some photographs taken. Usual thing: full frontals, full face and profile, close up of tits and crotch. I’d like to get them on the wire to the prospectives this afternoon." Andrea started to move Rani and Alicia over to where they would get their mug shots done. Freddie was left with Denise. "You know, the research guys were right about you," he said, looking appraisingly at her body, small tits, trim waist, tanned. Even after the ordeal of her abduction and transport, the neat bob of her dark hair showed the skill of her hairdresser. She looked at him quizzically, still bemused by his conversational tone. The thick leather pad that was strapped across her face prevented any questions, but Freddie could tell that she was thinking, "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Yes," said Freddie, "you’ll definitely go down well with the MILF fanciers." Freddie could see she looked confused. "Mothers I’d Like To Fuck, dear," he explained. The scowl she returned him was no surprise.
Andrea started having trouble with Rani as soon as she took her gag off. "You can’t really get a good picture of the merchandise if half their face is covered in leather" is one of Freddie's favourite sayings, but it does mean that you have to put up with a certain amount of distressed abuse from the guests in the process. Rani seemed to have a fascinatingly wide range of abusive remarks at her disposal. Expletives had never bothered Freddie and some of the more creative ones were beyond Andrea’s grasp of English. In the end, they managed Rani's photo-session with Freddie holding her neck still while Andrea took the pictures.
Freddie was more than a little pissed at Rani’s recalcitrance.
With the intention of reminding Rani just who was in charge, he grabbed a single arm binder from the rack of restraints and pulled it in place over her shackled wrists. Tightening the straps, he dragged her elbows back towards one another painfully, drawing a gasp of pain that he took as a mark of encouragement. As he tightened more of the binder’s straps, he pushed Rani forward onto her knees before Andrea.
"You’re wearing a pair of my fucking shoes!" Rani’s exclamation was as loud as it was unexpected. With her head inches from the floor and black, sweat-soaked hair dangling over her face, her reaction to Andrea’s orange and purple suede high-heeled pumps that she could see right in front of her was explosive. "What gives you the right to do this to me and wear my fucking shoes!"
"They were a present, darling," Andrea responded, coolly. "Some friends of mine picked them up in Milan along with some other odds and ends. I’m told they could be a real rarity. The last of the line."
In a rage, Rani tried to lunge forward at Andrea. Freddie grabbed at the single arm binder, stopping her short with a jerk that felt to Rani like her arms were being pulled out of their sockets. She gave an exasperated cry and fell forward at Andrea’s feet.
"Beautiful they are, but you don’t have to worship them," Andrea laughed as she reached down and fitted the pad gag back in place. Rani growled as Freddie pulled her to her feet and slapped her back against the wall.
"Get the photos of her tits and cunt and push her back in her cell until we need her again," he said. He turned back towards Alicia and Denise. "Now, tell me you two don’t want to make my life difficult as well."
The two women shook their heads and waited submissively for their turn in the photo booth.
© Freddie Clegg 2012
Chapter 12: Sales Negotiations
"Freddie, I’d like to help you out, but I’m not sure," Lee Kuan said as the two met in the King George Palace Hotel in Athens. The two men were sitting on the hotel terrace, looking out across the Plaka towards the Acropolis. A rowdy group in the street below were protesting the latest round of Government cuts. Ellie Grant, who’d joined Freddie on his trip to the Greek capital, was sitting a little way away. She preferred to leave him to get on with things. A half-read Stig Larson lay face down beside the empty coffee cup on the table. She pulled her sunglasses down from her head and relaxed in the warmth of the mid-morning sun. Freddie would be a while.
"Don’t worry, I’m not looking for a favour. I thought it might be your sort of thing but, if not, then no problem." Freddie was used to Lee Kuan’s negotiating style. As always in these discussions, it was more like fly fishing than trawling for a buyer. "I just thought you’d like something green, something you can put your own stamp on, so to speak."
"Completely green?" The upward inflexion convinced Freddie there was at least a flicker of interest.
Freddie nodded. "No training at all. Only the necessary force associated with abduction, transport, and the rather short-term confinement they’ve had so far."
"Which is how long?"
Freddie was happy with the way the conversation was going. If Lee Kuan wasn’t interested, he wouldn’t bother to ask. He looked at his watch. "Four days, so far."
"And you’ve got one that’s perhaps got a little more mileage than usual?"
"Yes. Looks better than its license plate would have you guess. Nice upholstery. Compact."
"I’ll have a think. No promises. Have you got a spec sheet?" He sounded uncertain but Freddie was pretty sure he’d go for Denise. He was sure to be interested in seeing her trained from scratch, Freddie felt; he’d often talked about his ideas on training methods. Denise had got the sort of comfortable shape he went for, too: not too skinny, not too tall.
Freddie tossed over the SD Card with its encrypted cache of files. The girls’ photographs, physical details and such personal attributes as Freddie felt able to warrant were on there, too. Freddie operated strictly on a buyer-beware basis, but he liked to give his customers the best possible data on which to make their decisions.
It was less than an hour later when Freddie’s mobile phone rang. The conversation was guarded. He was pretty sure the circuits at his client’s end were OK, but he couldn’t speak for the Greek PTT. Even with all their economic mess, you couldn’t guarantee the right levels of corruption these days. "Clegg," he said brusquely. It was a signal that all his clients recognised, that the line may not be secure.
There was an enthusiastic greeting at the other end.
"Prince!" Freddie responded, "how’s the desert?"
It was not so good, his caller claimed. Too many people watching what was going on in Egypt, Syria and Libya. Things were not stable. Freddie sympathised. While disorder and confusion were often good news for Freddie’s acquisition program, Freddie knew that he had more customers in repressive regimes than in the so-called democratic world.
"You need to cheer yourself up. Form new relationships." There was a pause and a quizzical grunt from the other end. "I came across a girl just this week that you might like to get together with. I could set up a meeting."
While Freddie carried on his sales pitch, Ellie started up her laptop and connected to the encrypted video feed from Agoras. It gave her a link into the surveillance cameras in the centre. Not much seemed to be going on. Denise, Alicia, and Rani were all sitting in their individual cells. Denise and Alicia were reading. They’d been given books to give them something to do while Freddie set up the sales. Rani was sitting cross-legged on the floor staring fixedly forward, looking as though she was lost in meditation.
Freddie’s conversation with Prince Asim ended. "How was that?" Ellie asked.
"OK. A positive maybe. I think he’ll go for Alicia. He might even be persuaded to bid up against Lee Kuan."
"Any progress on a buyer for Rani?"
"Not so far," Freddie responded, "but some of the State-side contacts might be interested."
"It's worth a try."
© Freddie Clegg 2012
Chapter 13: Training Centre
Back in the UK, Freddie took the opportunity to see how the girls from Belvedere College for Young Ladies were doing. In Clegg's training centre, Lucy Amory and Jill Pascoe were approaching the end of their conditioning and preparation for sale. Jill, the more independently minded of the two, had found it hardest to adapt and her pale skin bore the stripes of the beatings needed to achieve the required level of submission to the will of her trainers. Lucy, though, had determined at an early stage to make the best of her current situation and had taken to some of the tasks assigned to her with enthusiasm. Clegg watched as she was brought out, naked, from her cell to go through the regular morning routine. She might be shackled, Clegg thought, but she carried herself with confidence. Her head might be bowed as was required of trainees but her breasts were held up, her shoulders were back, and she stepped out in a purposeful way that said, "I may be a slave, but I'm a good one."
Harry had told him that she'd quickly become proficient in the various sexual acts that made up the girls' standard repertoire. Clegg was pleased for her. Generally speaking, the better the girls were after training, the better position they gained and the better lives they led.
Jill was a different proposition. She was wrestled from her cell, resisting, gagged and wild eyed. Freddie knew what was next in store for her. When the beatings didn't work, there were more painful options. In the end, she would comply. It was just a matter of how much damage she did to herself in the process. He hoped she didn't press things too far. Apart from everything else, it just increased his costs and reduced his take.
Freddie's consideration of the likely profitability of his Belvedere College acquisitions was interrupted by a phone call. Norman was wondering how Freddie was and if he would like to stop by at Hamblingham.
Freddie took his Aston across country to Suffolk.
Norman St John-Ferris leant happily on the gate of the drive to Hamblingham Hall, smiling with satisfaction at the sign that said "Closed To Visitors" as Freddie drew up.
Freddie wound down the window of the Aston. "I hope that doesn’t include me, old man."
"Quite the reverse," Norman beamed, opening the gate. "Come on up to the Hall."
Freddie drove through. He bounced gingerly over the cattle grid and swung the car across the empty visitors’ car park, ignored the signs saying "No Cars Beyond This Point" and continued round to the side of the Hall. Norman followed him on foot. Freddie parked alongside a bright red Ferrari and got out just as Norman stepped across the grass to meet him. "Nice car," said Freddie, "wouldn’t have thought it was your style."
He had hardly said it when the door to the Hall opened. Freddie watched, impressed, as a long-limbed girl loped down the steps with antelope-like grace. Her skin was the polished black of a west coast African and her clothes looked as though they cost as much as the Ferrari. She tossed a Michael Kors "Skorpio" satchel handbag into the car, not caring if she scuffed either the bag or the car’s upholstery. "Back soon, darling" she called to Norman before peering momentarily over seasonally unnecessary sunglasses at Freddie and sliding into the car in a movement that seemed like she was pouring her legs into the foot well.
A spatter of gravel hit the wall of the Hall as she sped off. Freddie winced at the clunk as she crossed the cattle grid. Ferraris weren’t designed for that, Freddie thought.
Freddie looked questioningly at Norman.
"Danoola Iswana," Norman said as he ushered Freddie inside. "Call her Danni. Isn’t she something?"
Freddie’s immediate reaction was to be worried by this new development, but he put his thoughts to one side. He looked around the entrance hall. The ticket desk and racks of guidebooks had gone. So had the sour faced woman who had asked for his entrance fee on his last visit. "So, you got the National Trust out?" he said. "No problems?"
Norman led the way into the library. Ashtrays, Freddie noticed, had been reintroduced. The wedding pictures had been removed. Norman pulled a bottle of scotch from where it was incongruously perched on the bookshelves. Freddie nodded as Norman offered him a glass. "They didn’t like it but they didn’t have much choice. I’m letting them run the park, can’t be arsed with that, but I’ve got the house back. Police were a bit curious. Felt it was all a bit of a coincidence, Alicia running out on her gallery, Rani’s business getting wacked by the Famiglia, Denise quitting the country club. I didn’t feel able to help. Told the police they talked to each other more than they ever did to me. Besides, they only ever spoke to me through their lawyers – tragically, they seem to be out of a job now – so how was I to know anything about what they were up to? Said I’d be happy to help, but I’d been hosting a session on the history of the Hall for the Trust all over that week."
"Hard to see how they could suspect you of anything," Freddie said, sipping his whiskey, still feeling disquiet about the arrival of Danni.
"That’s what I thought. How’s business?"
"Surprisingly good. Just sold on three very nice pieces that I was lucky enough to lay my hands on through some contacts in Europe. Very nice Asiatic item, picked up by an American looking for something a bit different. There was an older piece that I thought I might have trouble with turned out to be really attractive to an Asian client who was looking for something in that line. The other one was high gloss, very arty looking piece, just the sort of thing they like in the Gulf; had two princes both take a shine to it and that helped drive the price up. All packed up, shipped, signed, and paid for."
"Well it’s nice to hear things are going well."
"Thanks. No problem. One other thing, Norman, about Danni..."
"Did you see those legs? I’m still looking for the end of them. Worth buying her that Ferrari to have her around cheering up the place."
"So, she’s a feature around here now? You’re not planning on getting married, are you, Norman?"
"Hey, no. Well, why not? But, no. No, she hasn’t even mentioned it. No."
"Good," said Freddie, still feeling worried. "I’d hate to think you might need any more favours."
Three hours later, it was dark. Freddie was heading back after dinner at the Hall. He put a call through to the office. Harry took it. "How was your dinner, Freddie?" Harry asked. "Norman on good form?"
"Yes," said Freddie. "Really good form. Got a new woman in tow, too."
"Uh-oh. Hasn’t he worked out what’s causing his problems?"
"It seems not. Maybe it will all be OK."
"But if not....?"
"I think we ought to research the possibilities," Freddie said. "I’d like to know how I could lay my hands on a long-legged piece in ebony and what the re-sale opportunities might be. Just in case. I’ll get you the details. I’m worried that Norman and the Hall could turn out to be a full time job."
The End
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