Brazillian Affiar Part 13

For an instant Philippa was too amazed to move. Then she ran across and turned the handle. The door did not open and she hammered on it.

"Let me out! Senhor Diegos, I'm locked in!"

There was no answer, and she went to the window and pushed against the shutters. They were stiff to undo and her knuckles were bleeding before she finally managed to force them open. They swung back and she found herself staring at iron bars.

Fear spread through her like a fever and she ran back to the door and hammered on it. "Senhor Diegos, let me out! Let me out!"

"Not yet, Miss Smith," he answered. "Now please be quiet. There is no one to hear you. The servants are away and my wife is deaf."

"But why do you want to keep me here?"

This time there was no answer; only the sound of footsteps moving away.

Quiet settled over the house and Philippa paced the floor. She was a prisoner here. But whose prisoner ? Diegos's or someone for whom he worked ? And what did he intend to do when he finally opened the door? She s.h.i.+vered and stared ahead of her, suddenly seeing an upturned boat bobbing in a grey sea...

CHAPTER EIGHT.

It was six o'clock before Philippa heard any sounds of activity. Car wheels scrunched in the drive and the faint cadences of voices came to her ears.

Whoever the visitor was, it was someone Diegos had been expecting. The knowledge that there was someone else in the house - even though she did not know whether it was friend or enemy - made her in some obscure way less afraid, and as her fears ebbed she went to the door and strained to hear what was going on.

The voices came nearer and she jumped back, heart thumping loudly. The key turned in the lock, and the door opened. On the threshold, the light behind turning them into figures of darkness, stood Diegos and Maya.

"So we meet again," Maya said, stepping forward. "I'm sorry it had to be so soon. When I spoke to you last, I'd no idea Rolly's mother was dead."

Philippa looked at her with loathing. "Was kidnapping me the only way you could prevent me from telling Lucas about you?"

"Roily thought so. It was his idea."

The loathing in Philippa became more painful. Was there no limit to what Roland would do to achieve his ambitions? Did winning a contract mean so much to him that even after hearing his mother had died, his mind could still work out so warped a scheme?

"It's a pity you don't love Roland any more," she said scornfully "You'd make an ideal couple."

"Lucas will suit me better," Maya smiled. "He was in a savage mood this afternoon."

"You saw him?" Philippa asked before she could stop herself.

"I've just left him. What did you say to him when you got back to the hotel?"

"Nothing."

"But you quarrelled with him, didn't you?"

Philippa turned away but Maya would not be stopped. "When Lucas came to see me he was like a man in a daze. He didn't come to life until I mentioned your name and then he said he never wanted to talk about you again. So you must have said something to him."

"Unfortunately not the right things. At the time I didn't know Mrs. Marsh was dead. By the time I found out, Lucas had left the hotel."

"Lucky for me! And now you won't have the chance of telling him."

Philippa had no need to ask what Maya meant. She could not believe it yet the cool triumph on the magnolia-skinned face told her it would be unwise not to accept it as fact. Beauty could often hide evil, and Maya was evil personified.

"I wondered when your brain would start working properly," Maya went on.

"You'd never dare harm me," Philippa said.

"I'd never dare let you go," Maya replied, and swinging round, spoke in rapid Portuguese to Diegos.

Even without being able to understand a word, Philippa knew they were talking about her. Once or twice Diegos flung a look at her and the expressions that crossed his face - surprise, reflection and finally decision - made her tremble for her safety. The conversation was cut short by the telephone, which he answered.

"Masterson," he said to Maya, and she immediately took it from him.

From the doorway Philippa watched them. To one side was the stairs leading to the hall below and she inched forward slowly. Did she have a chance of escaping while they were talking ? If she could reach the front door and make a dash for it... She looked at her sandals. They were flimsy but the heels were low, and she'd at least give Maya and Diegos a run for their money.

She inched forward, sidled round the door and crept slowly towards the stairs. Diegos was still talking to Roland, with Maya listening over his shoulder. Once the woman half turned and Philippa froze against the wall, not relaxing until she saw the back of the black hair again. Then once more she crept forward, keeping flat to the wall, as if by doing so she could merge into the heavily embossed paper that decorated it. Her hands were damp with fright and her fingers left marks on the paper behind her.

The stairs were nearer now, the first step to freedom only a foot away. Once she started to run there must be no stopping. She tried to crane forward, anxious to see the length of the staircase, but the bal.u.s.trade curved, making it impossible for her to see beyond the turn of the stairway. She tried to remember if the hall was carpeted and whether there had been a special lock on the front door. But she could not remember anything except the room she had just left behind.

Knowing that if she went on thinking she would be too frightened to move, she made a sudden dash forward. Down the stairs she raced and round the curve to the straight flight. Behind her Maya screamed and there was a rush of steps. Not pausing to look back, Philippa sped on. The hall was reached with its polished floor and death-trap rugs. Her foot slipped and the edge of the carpet slithered beneath her. She flung out her hands and steadied herself against the base of a statue, sending it cras.h.i.+ng to the ground.

The door! She must get to the door! It was directly in front of her, and she wrenched at the handle. It refused to turn and her fingers tore at the lock, one hand holding the bra.s.s k.n.o.b, the other jigging the latch up and down. Even safety locks opened this way. Why should this one refuse to move? Tears of fury flooded her eyes and in desperation she wrenched at the door again and started to scream. But it was a waste of time. Heavy hands threw her to the ground and she lay where she fell, knowing she had failed.

"If you try that again," Maya's voice seemed to come from a long way off, "you'll only make things worse for yourself. Now get up."

Philippa did as she was told and with Diegos and Maya either side of her, went up the stairs and into the study. The door closed on her, the key turned and once more she was a prisoner. Sobbing, she sank to the ground knowing nothing could save her now.

The sharpness of Diegos's voice - which she heard in the distance - aroused her to consciousness. He was speaking English and she knew immediately that he was talking to Roland. She clenched her hands, forcing down the hysterical laughter that bubbled in her throat. Roland had never been a good linguist; even as a boy his examinations had been marred by his difficulty with French and Latin, and he had often complained that when nerves got the better of him he was unable to think in any language other than his own. Thank heavens he had not changed!

She pressed her ear closer to the door, determined not to miss a word of what Diegos was saying on the telephone.

"You are not being realistic, my friend. Even if Rodriguez gives you the contract there's no guarantee he won't withdraw it if Paget tells him the reason you left England... Of course Paget will tell him! Do you think he'll sit back and let you take the contract... No, it's impossible to stop her! Impossible!"

Maya's voice interrupted. Diegos muttered to her in Portuguese but when she spoke again it was in English.

"Diegos is right, Roily. He knows Rodriguez better than you. If Lucas tells him about your past..."

Diegos interrupted her and there was another flood of Portuguese before Maya resumed speaking.

"You mustn't forget Diegos's position, Roily. I've enough money for both of us and we can live anywhere in the world. But Diegos can't, and if Rodriguez finds out that he was spying for you, he'll throw him out... Of course Diegos knows what he's saying! Being at the Ministry won't protect him. It'll be all the more reason for Rodriguez to fire him. Think how well it would go down with the voters if he could say he didn't even cover up for his own a.s.sistant!"

There was a long pause and Philippa bent to the keyhole to try and see what was going on. But the only view she had was of the wallpaper opposite - ever afterwards she'd hate crimson flock, she thought irrationally - and she straightened and pressed against the panel again. The silence continued and she was about to move back when Maya spoke again.

"Very well, Roily, if that's how you feel... But you'll have to compensate Diegos. It isn't only money, it's loss of position... I know he should have thought of it at the beginning, but you can be very persuasive when you want." There was a pause, "He'll want double... Very well, I'll tell him you agree. Now what about Miss Smith?" The pause this time was longer and when Maya spoke her voice was harsh. "You're crazy!'You'll never stop her telling Lucas... Of course I know it won't matter, but... All right, if that's what you want we'll do it. I'll tell Diegos. But it'll mean keeping her here for at least a fortnight. You'll never clear up your affairs before then and you wouldn't want Rodriguez to stop you leaving Brazil... Very well... Good-bye."

There was a momentary silence, then a burst of Portuguese from Diegos, interspersed with sharp utterances from Maya.

Philippa bit her lip. Her anxiety, which had calmed while she had listened to Maya talk to Roland, grew afresh, and she knew with dreadful clarity that regardless of what the woman had promised, she had no intention of carrying it out. It had been stupid to think she would. If Maya had loved Roland she would not have cared whether or not Lucas knew she had copied the tender, but her determination to marry Lucas made it imperative for him never to guess the part she had played in the whole affair. And in order to do this she must keep Philippa quiet for ever.

Philippa rubbed a shaking hand over her face. It was impossible to believe she was going to be murdered! Such things did not happen in real life. This was a nightmare and she would soon wake up. She had to wake up.

The key rasped in the lock and she ran back to the middle of the room as the door opened. Maya came in and sauntered over to the mantelpiece to take a cigarette from an ornately carved silver box. She lit it and inhaled deeply, then sat down and crossed one silken leg over the other.

"There must be something special about you for Roland to be so concerned with your safety."

"There doesn't have to be anything special about me," Philippa retorted. "It only means Roland doesn't take murder as lightly as you do!"

Maya studied the tip of her cigarette and by the pursing of her mouth conceded the point. "You're brighter than I thought," she said at last, and looked up at Philippa disarmingly. "It's because I've set my heart on marrying Lucas. If it weren't for that it wouldn't matter to me whether you were dead or alive. As I told Roily, money will never be a problem to me and I don't care where I live. It's who I'm living with that matters. And right now I want it to be Lucas."

Philippa forced herself to stay calm. Perhaps logic could dissuade Maya. "How do you know Roland won't tell Lucas the whole story when he finds you've thrown him over?"

Maya shrugged. "I'd tell Lucas Roland was "being spiteful because he was jealous. Don't worry about me, Miss Smith, I know how to handle Lucas - and Roland."

There was nothing more Philippa could say and she sank to a chair. She shrank from the thought of what- was going to happen to her, but imagination forced her to face it. Would her body be washed up on the sh.o.r.e or would it be discovered lying crumpled by the roadside, a victim no doubt of another of the hit-and-run accidents so prevalent in this city of hot tempers and fast cars?

Outside an engine revved and Maya stood up. "Come along, we're going."

"Where?"

"For a drive. It's a pity not to show you something of Rio. Diegos thought you might like to do some sightseeing."

Philippa retreated behind a chair. "I won't come with you!"

Maya laughed. "If you're going to be difficult I'll call Diegos. He'd like nothing better than to take you by force."

The double meaning did not escape Philippa and she s.h.i.+vered. Slowly she came round the side of the chair and walked to the door. There was no point fighting to remain in the house. Outside, however closely they watched her, there was always the chance something might happen to give her the opportunity of escaping.

With Maya by her side she went out of the house.

Diegos was in the car and as Philippa went to climb in the back, Maya pushed her to the front.

"We'll both sit next to Diegos. We'll get a much better view that way!"

Philippa hesitated. The tropical dusk had fallen and in a moment it would be dark. Should she make a dash for the trees that bordered the drive or should she start to scream on the chance that a pa.s.ser-by might hear her and come and see what was wrong?

Maya jabbed her side. "Get in," she said impatiently, and Philippa glanced down and saw the glint of a gun. It was small, almost a toy, but something in the way Maya's hand closed round it showed she was not playing a game.

"If you try and run for it, I'll use it," Maya said, and Philippa climbed in next to Diegos. Maya slid in beside her and slammed the door.

"Where are you taking me?" Philippa asked as they headed towards Rio.

"Still asking questions?" Maya said. "You never learn, do you, Miss Smith?"

A mile of road sped by beneath their wheels, with only the hum of the powerful engine to fill the silence. Philippa tried to make some sort of plan but paralysis had seized her brain. "I'm being taken for a ride," she thought, and almost giggled from the sheer unreality of the situation. On the dashboard the needle dropped as Diego's foot went to the brake, but they were still doing fifty as the car pa.s.sed through a suburban street. She glimpsed lighted shops, housewives moving between market stalls with laden shopping baskets, and men sitting at cafe tables drinking an evening aperitif. Ordinary people going about their ordinary lives and never guessing the drama that flashed by a few feet from their eyes.

The long street fell away and they were back on the dark, empty road again. On Maya's side rose a background of hills, heavily wooded, broken by the occasional cl.u.s.ter of lights that marked houses and shanty towns. On the other side the road dropped sharply to the coast.

For a few miles they descended, then Diegos turned the car inland again. Another suburban street, another shanty town, and now there were more cars on the road and thickly wooded hills on both sides of them.

Diegos shouted something to Maya above the throb of the engine and Philippa felt the gun dig into her more deeply as the car braked sharply and drove off the road into a car park. A car park! Philippa drew in a breath at the sheer unexpectedness of her reprieve. Whatever Maya's plan, at least here, among other people, she would be safe for a time.

They left the car and, with Maya and Diegos pressing so close to her that walking was difficult, came to a flight of concrete steps leading up to a terrace cut into the hillside. A gang of young boys ran down towards them and more people were coming up behind.

They wouldn't shoot her now. All she had to do was shout and a dozen people would hear her. A rush of hope replaced the apathy that had held her, and as if to test her chance of escape she pretended to miss a step. As she stumbled Maya's arm gripped her and the gun dug deeper into her back. But now there was something subtly different in the feel of it.

"If you try that again," Diegos said softly in her ear, "we'll finish you now."

"You can't - not here. People would -"

"They'd hear nothing." Maya laughed with quiet pleasure. "Don't get any stupid ideas, Miss Smith. There's a gun either side of you, and Diegos's is fitted with a silencer."

As Maya spoke they reached the top of the stairs and came on to a wide terrace that had been carved out of the mountainside. It was lit by brilliant blue- white arc lamps and Philippa saw that above and below them other terraces, some large and some small, had also been hewn out of the rock.

They were all thick with people, either moving along slowly or else standing by the guard rails to look at the view. And what a view it was! Sweep after sweep of heavily wooded land fell away to the sh.o.r.e below. The moonlight turned the variegated greens of the trees and bushes into a uniform carpet of black, but it could not diminish the splendour of the myriad twinkling lights that marked the glorious curving sweep of the bay and sparkled along the wide, straight avenues. Distance lent splendour to the city, making it hard to believe that in close-up it was but a faded, crumbling copy of Lisbon.

A couple jostled against her and Maya pressed the gun harder into Philippa's side, urging her forward through the crowd. Odd s.n.a.t.c.hes of French and German sounded above the sibilant hiss of Portuguese, and from the abundance of cameras slung around necks or dangling from shoulders, she judged them to be tourists. Picture-postcard sellers moved about, thrusting their cards in people's faces; small boys with trays of sweetmeats balanced on their heads rang bells to announce their presence, and vendors peddled food and drink and souvenirs.

Where were they? What was this place? She looked up and gasped. High above her head, spotlighted against the dark sky behind it, a giant statue towered, its sculptured hands spread out to bless the city beneath it. Christ the Redeemer...

Maya pressed still closer. "I told you we were bringing you sightseeing, Miss Smith, and I always keep my promise. Your visit to Rio wouldn't be complete without one last look at it from Corcovado."

Corcovado! As she heard the name a jumble of guide-book phrases crowded Philippa's mind. "Corcovado, otherwise known as the Hunchback... a sharp, rocky peak two thousand feet above the sea...

crowned by the imposing sixty-foot figure of Christ... a perfect vantage point from which to view the panorama of city and bay... favourite spot for Rio's suicides and a deathtrap to the unwary tourist..."

So that was it: murder planned to look like misadventure!

"Keep moving," Diegos hissed.

Philippa saw they had completed a half turn and mounted a short flight of steps to emerge at the back of the statue where the crowd was thinnest. Her leg knocked against a low parapet and looking down she saw a sheer drop in front of her. Her hand caught hold of the slender rail, grasping it so tightly that the blood was forced out, leaving her fingers greyish-white, like a corpse... All it needed was one push and there would be nothing between her and death except the jagged rocks. She shrank back, heedless of the gun against her spine.

"Take a last look," Maya said behind her. "Beautiful, isn't it? But so treacherous. No one can fall from here and live."

"You'll never get away with it!"

"Why not? You came to view the city and accidentally slipped. That's what everyone will think - including Lucas..."

"No he won't." Philippa felt calm and curiously detached from her body. If she had to die, she would make certain they had to shoot her. At least then no one would think it was an accident. She turned her head cautiously. A few yards away a group of people were busily snapping the statue; on the other side, seven or eight youngsters were laughing and shouting above the noise of their transistors, while beyond them a ma.s.s of people were listening intently to a guide. A man detached himself from the crowd and edged towards her. If she called him would he help her ? And equally important, did he understand English?

"Senhor, help me! Help me!" The cry turned into a whimper as his face came into focus. Roland! A sob tore at her throat. It was more than she could bear to see him here. So he had also decided to be in at the kill...

Feeling Philippa's body grow taut, Maya followed the direction of her gaze, and gave a sharp exclamation. But it was Diegos who spoke.