Page 22 of The Island of Lost Girls

10 | Mercedes

The women are cleaning the upper floor. The reception rooms gleam: silver and gold and crystal and marble shining so bright they might have come fresh from the factory. The floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the pool and the sea have been washed and dried and polished with such care that only the air-conditioning tells you that they are even there. Even the fake-tan stain is gone.

The whole house smells deliciously of bleach. She’ll have to cover that up with Jo Malone room spray, of course. If there’s one thing Tatiana hates more than a dirty room, it’s evidence that it’s been cleaned.

Mercedes takes a moment to clear her phone of the photos she transferred to Laurence’s yesterday: the passports, the cards, the Bank of Kastellana slips that the wives who filled this house last week left lying about the place. They’re as helpless as babies in a lot of ways, especially the wives and children. So dependent on other people to do everything.

She goes into the kitchen, where langoustines are being counted and counters polished, and collects an orange-pistachio cake, which she takes down to the security quarters for Paulo. She always assumes he must get lonely down there, and, despite his granite muscles and his hidden sidearm and the fact that he’s a few years older than she is, she can’t help mothering him. It’s a funny old place, as he’s fond of pointing out, for a man of action to finish up. But, after nine years in the SAS, two thousand pounds a day goes a long way towards alleviating the boredom. His days are mostly spent reading Plato, pumping iron and working on his suntan, and he goes home for one week in every six to south London to spend it all on his wife and daughters, who know him as Paul.

‘Ahh,’ he says, spying her gift. ‘Last one of these I’ll be seeing for a bit. Gluten-free from tomorrow, I guess.’

He cuts a large slice and eats it, his arm muscles bulging in his Armani T-shirt. Paulo is amiable if you’re a friend. And he could snap your neck in a single movement.

‘All ready?’ he asks.

She sighs. ‘I wish. The cleaners will be leaving in a few minutes. I came to tell you.’

‘H’okay,’ he says. ‘Just let me finish this first. It’s going to be quite busy in here once the bodyguards arrive. I’m making the most of the peace and quiet.’

‘Bodyguards? You’ve got a list?’

He looks away from his cake for a moment, surprised. ‘Well, yah.’

‘Oh, God, Paulo, have you got a copy? We’re flying blind.’

‘Sure.’

He pulls up a file on the computer, presses CTRL-P. Paper spits from the machine under the desk and he fishes it out.

Mercedes starts to read, greedily.

‘Pity about that Nora,’ he says. ‘She’d never have left you hanging.’

She turns the page to see who is coming in with Matthew on Thursday. Blanches. ‘Is that the movie star?’ she asks, pointing at a name.

Paulo nods.

Jason Pettit. She remembers him from the nineties.

‘But no wife? Didn’t he get married?’

Paulo makes a pffft noise. ‘Lord, Mercedes. I know you grew up on an island, but you’re not that green, are you?’

She blushes, and shrugs. Reads some more. Stops. ‘A prince?’

Paulo takes a final bite of cake. Nods as he chews.

‘Oao.’

‘I know, right? They must be beside themselves. They’ve really hit the big time now. I mean, it’d be better if it was a prince with, you know, an actual country, but still. It’ll be all her dreams come true.’

I must look up what princes expect, she thinks, and gulps. Perhaps he’ll expect us to turn our faces to the wall when he passes by, as the old dukes did.

‘He’s come down in the world,’ says Paulo, ‘if he’s slumming it with the Meades. Or else he wants something.’

‘Can’t think what,’ she says, but he blanks her. The way they all blank each other when the below-stairs banter crosses the undrawn line.

‘Now, this one … ’ He points at a name. Bruce Fanshawe. ‘Film producer. I assume that’s why the actor’s coming. Probably chasing work. Watch him. Not Safe In Taxis, if you get my drift. He’ll hit on anything, apparently, and he’s got arms like a gorilla.’