Recoil

2

The soles of my trainers squeaked on the marble floor like some sort of intruder alarm. Watch this fucker: he’s not in Gucci loafers . . .

The sun was low, about to disappear over the mountains. It was half six, and Silky should have been home a good hour ago. She never stuffed envelopes for the do-gooders much past five, or signed begging letters or whatever it was she did. I hadn’t quite got round to asking: I was just happy that this beautiful woman still didn’t mind being seen around with me and that her stepdad’s fridge was full of cold Peroni.

Ten-foot-tall statues of Greek gods filled recesses on either side of the hall, each one bathed in its own pool of moody downlighting. Between the recesses, small mahogany tables displayed gem-encrusted ornaments and photographs in crystal frames. When Stefan had furnished this place, the Louis XIV repro department at Harrods must have emptied overnight.

I reached the staircase that swept down to the kitchens. Stefan’s palace was more like a five-star hotel than a home, teeming with staff ready to cook me dinner or polish my shoes and press my suit, if only I’d had one. Even so, I wanted to make my own sandwich if I could get away with it. It felt too weird picking up a phone and having Giuseppe ask the chef to stick a slice of cheese between two hunks of bread.

A lad hurried up the stairs on his way to the front door. I turned and waited in case he was opening it for Silky. That was the sort of thing they did round here.

Just about the whole front of the house was glass, and all I could see to either side of the solid front door was mountains, and at the bottom of the valley, the lake and the financial district. I sometimes wondered if the only reason Stefan had chosen this house was because his money lined a bank vault down the road and he could sit at a window all night and watch it piling up the interest.

The lad opened the door and I heard the crunch of tyres on gravel. The big wrought-iron gates had opened automatically. The radiator grille and solid gold Flying Lady on Stefan’s Rolls-Royce were nosing through.

Now I really was worried. Not only was my girl late home and I had a ring to give away, but I was going to have to spend time with this shit-head. Stefan wasn’t renowned for his small-talk at the best of times, unless it involved leveraged buyouts and P/E ratios, which wasn’t my strong suit. And whenever he spent more than five seconds with me, the look on his face said loud and clear that he wished he was anywhere else.

The highly polished Roller with darkened windows swept up to the house and the lad ran across to open the passenger door.

Out he stepped, olive-skinned and grey-haired, hands like shovels even though they’d never held one. He wasn’t fat, but definitely well-dined. His dark features betrayed his Lebanese roots, but otherwise he looked every inch the European tycoon in his navy blazer and yellow tie.

I took my chance and disappeared downstairs.

‘Yes, Mr Nick, can I help you?’

Shit – I wasn’t going to get away with slicing my own bread. Giuseppe, the butler, was waiting, arms folded. He was the big cheese round here. Well, sort of. He was five foot five on tiptoe. His soles never squeaked on any surface: he sort of glided around the place and materialized wherever he was needed.

‘Hello, mate.’ I hated this Mr Nick business. ‘I’m only after a cheese sandwich. I didn’t want to bother anyone.’

This was his domain, and I was trespassing. ‘It’s no bother, Mr Nick. It’s what we’re here for.’

‘I know, it’s just—’

‘Let me show you something, Mr Nick. Come.’

A mischievous grin spread across his face as he led me to a table loaded with groceries. With his long thin nose above a greying moustache, and large brown eyes, which crinkled up with the rest of his face when he laughed, he reminded me of a cartoon Italian papa in a TV advert for pasta sauce I’d seen over the past couple of months. He should have been playing Papa on TV for real.

‘I ordered a special delivery from Fortnum & Mason. Look.’ He rummaged in an immaculately packed and padded box and pulled out a small jar.

‘Branston Pickle!’ I slapped his shoulder. ‘You’re a great man, Giuseppe. So – has the time come for me to show you how to make a cheese sandwich my way?’ I’d asked him for the stuff every time I’d come down here. It was the highlight of my day, watching him not having a clue what I was asking for, but turning up his nose at it anyway.

I still remembered the mozzarella masterpiece the chef had run up last time, and how Giuseppe had shaken his head in disbelief as I picked out all the green stuff, then looked at me like I was talking Swahili when I asked for pickle. But that was before I overheard Stefan bawling him out yet again a couple of nights ago.

It was par for the course around here for the staff to be treated like dirt. A day or two back, Stefan was kicking off because he’d caught Giuseppe mimicking him. He took off the boss so well – the rest of the staff had almost had a heart-attack when they’d congregated below stairs to honk about him, and Giuseppe boomed at them from the hallway. I was down there myself at the time, making some toast. I’d been so sure it was Stefan that I’d thrown the toast in the bin before he accused me of thieving. This time, Stefan was going ape-shit that the thirty-year-old malt in the decanter seemed to be evaporating and he was pointing the finger. I went in, told the stupid fucker it was my fault, and said I’d be happy to replace what I’d drunk, if it was a problem. I was Giuseppe’s new best mate overnight, and I hadn’t even had to tell him what I’d done. He’d had his ear to the door. Nothing went on in this house without him knowing about it.

‘Why do you stay and take his crap? Why don’t you just hose down all the whisky and walk out the gate?’

Giuseppe pulled a bag of sliced white bread and a packet of processed cheese from the box. The people at Fortnum & Mason must have cringed. ‘I have my reasons. But I’m going home to Lazio soon, Mr Nick.’ He allowed himself the kind of smile that meant there was a lot more going on in that head of his than his eyes were prepared to give away. ‘Very soon. But, please, do not tell Mr Stefan.’

I peeled off a couple of slices of processed cheese and put them on a slice of dry bread – no butter or spread.

‘Miss Silke seems happier than she’s been for a very long time.’ Giuseppe seemed disgusted by my culinary efforts. ‘And she’s stayed here much longer than usual.’

I opened the Branston and spread a thick layer over the cheese. ‘How long is that?’

He closed his eyes, as if he was doing mental arithmetic – or maybe he didn’t want to see any more food massacres in that kitchen. ‘She comes back maybe once a year, and stays only a week or two. She and Mr Stefan, well – let’s say she’s travelled a lot since her mother died.’

I added another slice of dry bread to the sandwich. ‘How long ago was that?’

I knew Stefan had married her mother in 1976. Silky had been an only child, just two, when her father’s car had wrapped itself round a lamppost in West Berlin. Her mother had moved back to her native Zürich and opened a bookshop. Stefan went in one day to buy a business book – ‘Probably Swimming With Sharks,’ Silky laughed – and came out with her phone number. They had married, and she gave up the bookshop because Stefan couldn’t stand the thought of his wife working. All in all, she’d suffered twenty years of loveless marriage with him in Lugano before she detected a lump in her breast. Two years later, despite the best medical treatment Stefan’s wealth could provide, she was history.

‘It’s like the drapes have been drawn for eight years. Miss Silke travels a lot, as I said, and comes back here in between. She does her charity work, which Mr Stefan sneers at but tolerates, and he is away on business so much that he sees more of Shanghai than he does of Switzerland.’

I lifted the sandwich and held it out for him to admire. ‘Giuseppe, my friend, the great British sarnie. Want to get amongst it? Better than all that fancy gear you conjure up down here.’

He threw up his hands in mock horror and I headed for the stairs.