The Armada Legacy

Chapter Twenty-Three

Brooke found herself inside a salon that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the Palace of Versailles. Near one window, a pair of graceful chairs was drawn up to a small table laid with fine chinaware and a silver coffee pot, a basket filled with croissants. But she had other things on her mind than to admire the furnishings or smell the coffee.

In the middle of the room stood a gleaming black grand piano. Rising up from the keyboard and turning to greet her with a smile was a tall, elegant man in beige slacks and a white silk shirt. His thick black hair was swept back from a face that was handsome and lean, slightly olive in complexion. His eyes were dark. There was no smile in them. The intensity of their gaze made Brooke want to look away, but she wouldn’t let herself. As she padded across the polished floor, still barefoot and carrying the high-heeled shoes in her hand, she realised with a chill that this wasn’t the first time she’d seen this man.

He was the man in her nightmare. The tall figure behind the light. The killer of Forsyte, and of Sam Sheldrake. Brooke couldn’t repress the shiver that ran from the nape of her neck all the way down her back.

The man dismissed the guards with a curt wave. They seemed relieved to go. The door closed, leaving Brooke and the man alone in the magnificent room.

He stepped towards her, his dark eyes still watching her intently. ‘My name is Ramon Serrato,’ he said, in the same studiously perfect English with that merest hint of an accent she couldn’t place. ‘It’s my pleasure to welcome you to my home, Dr Marcel. Or may I call you Brooke?’

She forced herself to return his unflinching gaze. Working hard to mask the tremor in her voice, she said, ‘I see you’ve been going through the handbag you stole from me. Was that before or after you killed my friend and her employer, you murdering piece of shit?’

Serrato’s composure remained unruffled. ‘Like many others, you may be ignorant of certain things about Sir Roger Forsyte. He was an evil man, and he surrounded himself with evil people. However, I deeply regret that you were made to witness that unpleasant spectacle. It was not for such beautiful eyes to see.’

He motioned over to the little table. ‘Please. I wish to make your stay here as comfortable as possible. Would you care for some breakfast? The coffee is excellent. Actually,’ he added with a smile, ‘I export the brand myself.’

‘No coffee, thanks. How about a fucking explanation instead?’

Serrato sat down at the table, picked up the silver coffee pot and poured himself a cup. ‘Explanation?’ he asked nonchalantly, tearing a croissant and dunking it into the coffee.

‘I have been kidnapped, haven’t I?’

He looked at her with a wounded expression. ‘Have you been chained up in some filthy hole in the ground and been stripped of all human dignity? No. Has anybody made any threat against your person? Harmed you in any way? No. You are a guest.’

‘A guest!’

‘Yes, a guest. In my home. Are you quite sure you won’t have some breakfast?’ He raised the dripping croissant to his mouth and took a bite.

‘You’re insane. I don’t even know who you are! How did I get here?’

Serrato shrugged. ‘If it pleases you to know, you were brought from the Irish coast in a fast motor launch. We touched at Brest in northern France, then on to the Spanish port of La Coruña. From there an aircraft took us to Casablanca, where we embarked upon my own private jet for the final leg of the journey. I’m sorry you were unable to appreciate its comfort. You were sleeping very soundly.’

‘You mean I was drugged.’

‘A very mild sedative. I felt you would benefit from it, after the disagreeable business to which you had been a spectator.’

Brooke balked at the calmness in Serrato’s eyes. An image flashed up in her mind of the side of Sam’s head disintegrating in a cloud of bloody spray and her body collapsing limply to the ground. She swallowed back the bile and the hatred rising up in her throat. ‘So where am I? Brazil?’

He looked at her approvingly. ‘You are as clever as you are beautiful. You have rightly observed that your maids speak Portuguese, as they themselves are in fact originally from Brazil. But your deduction is false. Consuela and Presentacion have been in my employ for some time. This is not Brazil.’

‘Then where am I?’

Serrato laughed and spread his arms. ‘Where else but Paradise?’

‘Paradise with armed guards and barred windows. Do you imprison all your guests this way?’

‘I will do everything to make you feel at home,’ he said. ‘And to provide you with everything you could possibly require.’

‘Good,’ Brooke snapped back at him. ‘Then I require that you put me back on your private jet and take me home. Today. Right now.’

‘That is one request I regret I cannot grant you.’

‘What’s the idea? To hold me here for ransom? Why me, for Christ’s sake? I’m a single thirty-something freelance consultant with a savings account containing about twelve and a half grand, an eight-year-old Suzuki Vitara with bald tyres, and a flat that I don’t even own and couldn’t get a mortgage to buy. Wait a minute,’ she added as a new thought suddenly came to her. ‘Is this about Marshall Kite?’

‘Marshall Kite?’ Serrato asked with a look of wry amusement.

She stared at him. Was it possible that he’d figured out her family connection with the wealthy director of Kite Investments Ltd? Her sister Phoebe’s husband had already caused Brooke a great deal more trouble than he was worth by thinking he was in love with her and stalking her, leading to the whole breakdown with Ben, who’d been convinced they were having an affair.

‘If that’s what it is,’ she told Serrato, ‘you’re wasting your time. First of all, Marshall and Phoebe probably don’t even know what’s happened to me. They’ve been cruising around in the Bahamas on their boat for the last several weeks, far away from phones and TV and email, and they won’t be back for a while yet. Second, Marshall spends every last penny he earns on himself and his toys. He couldn’t pay out a ransom for me even if he wanted. So if you were looking to extort money out of someone, you should’ve kept Roger Forsyte alive. In fact you might as well let me go right this bloody minute, because there’s nothing whatever to gain by—’

Serrato interrupted her with an explosion of laughter. His shoulders quaked for a few moments, then he took out a silk handkerchief and dabbed his eyes. ‘Such an imagination. Yet I’m afraid you are – what is it you English say? Far off the mark. Further off it than you can possibly imagine.’

His mirth died away abruptly. His penetrating gaze wandered over her face, drinking in and savouring every tiny detail. ‘You must be very hungry. Can I not persuade you to eat something? I will have my chef prepare you whatever you desire.’

‘Maybe you didn’t hear what I said. All I desire at this moment is my freedom. You have no right to keep me here like this.’

He sighed. ‘In time, you will see things differently. You will come to understand that you have nothing to fear from me. Nothing at all. Quite the contrary.’

Brooke balked at his words. ‘In time? What are you talking about? Look, there’s some mistake here,’ she said desperately. ‘Whoever it is you think I am, you’re getting it all wrong.’

‘There is no mistake,’ Serrato replied. ‘I know what I can see with my own eyes.’ He drained the last of his coffee, dabbed the corners of his mouth with a crisp napkin, and glanced at his watch. ‘And now, you must excuse me, but I have some business to attend to.’

The snap of his fingers echoed in the large room. The door opened, and the guards appeared. ‘My men will escort you back to your quarters,’ Serrato said. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you, Brooke. We will meet again very soon.’