LITMIR.BIZ

      Vincente was just closing his suitcase the next morning when his cellphone shrilled.

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘It’s your driver. You said to let you know if I saw her. She’s just got into a taxi. I heard her tell the driver to go to the cemetery.’

      ‘I’ll be right there. Have the engine running.’

      He was downstairs in a moment. As they found their way through the streets, he asked tensely, ‘Are you sure you heard her correctly?’

      ‘She definitely said St Agnes Cemetery, where she buried her husband yesterday. It’s natural enough if she’s grieving for him.’

      Vincente didn’t answer this. His eyes were fixed on the road.

      By good luck he saw Elise as soon as he reached the cemetery. She’d left her taxi and was walking away. A twist in the path gave him a sideways glimpse of her, revealing that she was carrying a bouquet of glowing red roses.

      Red roses. The symbol of love. It defied belief that she was putting them on her husband’s grave.

      He followed, taking care to remain among the trees that would hide him, and managed to get close enough to see her drop to one knee before a modest grave, contrasting with the swaggering mausoleums that littered the place. She was facing him and he could see her face well enough to detect its look of unutterable sadness as she spoke to some unseen presence.

      He’d come to England seeking her, hating her, determined to make her pay for a long ago act of cruelty. He’d so nearly secured her through her husband, but the greedy fool had died and Vincente had to think of a new plan, fast.

      He’d been so sure of the kind of woman he would find, but she had been different—softer, more vulnerable, more honest. But he quickly reminded himself that this was bound to be an act. She’d had years to practise it by now.

      By sheer force of will he managed to keep his hatred alive.

      Her passion was harder to explain away. He was no stranger to feigned desire. Attracted by his wealth, women had always put themselves out to seduce him, and everything in Elise’s past warned him that she was one of that kind. But she’d turned out to be different. He’d felt her trembling in his arms and his deepest instincts had told him that she wasn’t feigning. At almost any moment he could have stripped her naked and taken her with her full-hearted consent.

      Until the end, when she’d fended him off with real intent, filling him with astonishment. For a moment he’d been on the verge of losing control, but he’d forced himself to calm down and leave her. He’d spent the rest of the night racked with unsatisfied desire and anger. But there had also been the dawning of respect, and that disconcerted him more than anything.

      Vincente stayed hidden as she rose to go, and only came out from among the trees when she was out of sight. Then he crossed quickly to where she had been and studied the graves. He spotted the red roses at once and dropped down on one knee to read the inscription.

      ‘George Farnaby,’ he read. He had died two months ago, in December, aged sixty-four.

      Frowning, Vincente reached into his pocket and drew out a small notebook. Flipping through the pages, he came to the entry he was looking for.

      One final note. Her father died just before Christmas. Ben Carlton’s extensive entertaining was unaffected. A guest at one of his parties says she went through the motions of being a good hostess, but looked terrible.

      Vincente looked at the roses that lay, fresh and blooming, against the hard stone. At last he went away.