Secrets After Dark (10 page)

I’ve been getting a sweet nightly message from Dominic in the week since we returned from Croatia but two nights ago, he said he was going off on another trip that would keep him busy and not to expect any contact for a few days. There’s been nothing since, and there’s no response now to my little announcement.

You’d better not go AWOL again, Dominic.
The thought makes me feel icy with fear but I banish it.
It’ll be fine. He’ll be back soon.

Within a quarter of an hour we are turning off the busy stretch of Piccadilly by the Royal Academy and into a courtyard in front of a large eighteenth-century house.

‘Here we are,’ says the driver, pulling to a halt. ‘Albany.’

I look up at the large Georgian dark-brick building with huge sash windows. It is at least four storeys high and enormous. Is this Andrei’s house? It’s certainly grand enough but all this for one man? How much art will there be in a house this size? A timescale of a couple of weeks suddenly seems ambitious. I get out, pay the driver, and go up the stone steps to the front door, which stands open. At once I see it can’t possibly be one house, as beyond the door a wide entrance hall leads out the back of the building and into a walkway. As I come in, a man in a dark grey coat trimmed with gold braid steps out of a small room to my right.

‘Can I help you, miss?’ he asks in a friendly manner.

‘I’m here to see Mr Dubrovski,’ I say.

‘Your name, please?’

‘Beth Villiers.’

He goes back into his office to consult a piece of paper and then says, ‘Ah yes. He’s expecting you. This way, please.’

We walk through the tiled hallway, passing polished wooden panels, large mirrors and marble busts, one engraved ‘Lord Byron’. A marble plaque proclaims the titles of famous men who have lived here.

‘Is this a block of flats?’ I ask, curious, as we emerge into a pretty covered walkway with a small garden on either side, one with a pond and tinkling fountain, and little paths leading off at regular intervals. In front of us, along each side of the walk, stretch two long wings of pale-painted buildings.

‘In a manner of speaking,’ replies the porter. ‘This is Albany House. It was turned into gentlemen’s apartments a few hundred years ago.’

‘Gentlemen’s?’ I echo. ‘No women allowed?’

What is it with Dubrovski and men only? First the monastery and now this...

‘Ladies are now permitted to live here,’ the porter says with a smile. ‘There are seventy-four apartments altogether, from tiny studios up to very large sets. You’ll soon see one of the finest. It’s where Mr Dubrovski lives – when he’s here.’

Halfway along, we turn off the walkway and approach a stairwell with a flight of steps that leads down to the basement and up to the higher storeys. We make our way to a large front door behind the staircase.

The porter says, ‘Here we are, this is Mr Dubrovski’s set. Do you think you’ll find your way out again all right?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘Then I’ll leave you here. Good morning, miss.’ With a slight bow of the head, he turns and heads back towards the main building.

I gaze at the door. It’s imposing, with wooden panels and a classical pediment above. A huge brass fish forms a knocker, but there is also a bell to press. My finger hovers over the button for moment and I have the sudden urge to turn on my heel and go back to Mark.

Be brave, be confident,
I tell myself.
You’re going to be fine.
I know I can look after myself. I press down on the bell and hear a chime from within. That’s it. The die is cast. I have to go through with it now.

An instant later I hear footsteps approaching and the door is opened. A burly man stands there, his shaven head and black suit giving him the unmistakeable look of a bodyguard.

‘I’m Beth Villiers. Mr Dubrovski is expecting me.’

The hulk nods and stands back so that I can enter and I step inside. The apartment is decorated in highly polished tawny wood, the floors, walls and ceilings shimmering with light reflected in their surfaces. Everywhere the wood is inlaid with marquetry in colours of black, dark brown and light brown – around the doorways, along the skirting, in symmetrical patterns on the floor. It is all very classical and masculine, and evidently extremely expensive. I can tell that the whole look has been masterminded by an interior designer who has made sure of every last detail. It has a lot more character than the villa in France, which was the kind of thing I was expecting.

The hulk leads me through the hallway and into a drawing room done in the same magnificent if slightly overwhelming style. Over a grand mirror set in the polished wood panels, a golden eagle spreads its wings, an olive wreath in its beak. The chimneypiece holds black marble busts of gods and classical urns carved in alabaster. On one wall hangs a vast oil portrait of Napoleon on his horse, surveying a battlefield in triumph. It seems appropriate somehow. I glance about; no other pictures have been hung and the polished wooden panels are bare. They almost seem to be looking at me expectantly. This is going to be a challenge.

‘Sit,’ grunts the bodyguard, and I obediently take my place on a long black leather Chesterfield sofa that faces the marble fireplace. Large windows overlooking the walk outside are partially obscured by trimmed yew hedges, but light floods in anyway, illuminating the perfect Regency proportions of the room. The guard exits and a moment later, Dubrovski strides in, casual today in jeans and a blue cashmere jumper. I get up at once.

‘Good, you’ve arrived.’ He manages the slightest smile as he sees me and comes over. I go to put out my hand but to my surprise he leans down and brushes his lips against my cheek. ‘Welcome.’

The unexpected greeting makes me falter just a little, then I regain my poise. ‘Thank you. What a wonderful apartment.’

Dubrovski glances about and shrugs. ‘They did what I asked. I like it.’

‘This seems like a very special place to live.’

‘Albany? Yes. It is very English, very soaked in history. Prime ministers and poets have lived here, the very cream of your high society. That amuses me. And it’s very quiet and private. I like that too. There are all types of people here – academics, actors, businessmen, aristocrats – but we all keep to ourselves, as I prefer it.’

‘I had no idea it existed,’ I say politely. Then, after a brief pause: ‘So. Do you have a contract you’d like me to sign?’

‘A contract?’ He looks surprised.

‘Well, the terms of employment. What you expect from me, how long I’m employed by you. What you intend to pay me. That sort of thing.’

‘I imagined a handshake would suffice in this instance. That is how Mark and I decide many things.’

‘I would prefer a contract,’ I say firmly. ‘Just a letter of agreement, if you don’t mind.’

He purses his lips thoughtfully. ‘You’re quite right, of course. You must feel that things are done properly. I will get one sorted out immediately.’

‘Thank you.’ I feel a little burst of triumph, as though I’ve scored a victory over this powerful man. ‘In the meantime, would you like me to get started?’

He stares at me and then laughs. ‘Yes, I would. Come.’ He turns and I follow him across the hall into another room. ‘The office. You are free to use this.’ He opens the door, stands back, and reveals a room, panelled in wood like the rest, but with a pair of facing desks in it, each one well equipped with computers and telephones. At one sits a middle-aged lady with a friendly face, her dark hair streaked with grey and pulled into a haphazard style with some clips. She looks up at me and smiles, and I notice that everything about her looks a little off centre, from her coral lipstick to her green suit. Dubrovski waves in her direction. ‘This is my assistant, Marcia. She looks after the London side of my life, don’t you, Marcia?’

‘I certainly do, sir,’ she says playfully, ‘and what a lot of nonsense there is to sort out!’ She laughs merrily.

She’s certainly at her ease with him. I don’t know if I’d ever feel like giggling if I worked for this guy full-time.

‘Marcia, this is Beth. She’s working on my art collection and she’ll be here for a few weeks. Get her whatever she needs, won’t you? And I’d like you to type up a letter of agreement containing the terms of Beth’s employment. I’ll run you through them later.’

Marcia turns her light brown eyes to me, all the wrinkles in her face creasing as she smiles even more broadly. ‘Certainly I will, sir! Welcome, Beth. We’re a very happy family here.’

Dubrovski shoots her a bemused look.

What an odd match they are,
I think.
She doesn’t seem his type at all.

‘Beth, let me show you over the apartment,’ Dubrovski says, as Marcia carries on grinning away, her hands folded in her lap. ‘Come with me.’

He leads me from room to room, pointing everything out in his terse way. In a small study there is a great mass of pictures on the floor, arranged in neat piles. ‘Here is what you should be looking through.’

This is going to take a while
. I’ve already seen the drawing room, the dining room, a guest bedroom, this study and the office, as well as the hallways. There is certainly plenty to keep me busy.

In the kitchen, which I can see is exquisitely handmade in the same glowing wood as the rest of the house, a Filipina lady is loading a dishwasher with breakfast things. She is tiny, like a little delicate sparrow, with glossy dark hair.

‘This is Sri,’ Dubrovksi says. ‘She’ll get you anything you’d like. Do you want some tea or coffee?’

Sri waits impassively for me to decide, but I feel too embarrassed to have a maid make me anything, let alone one that looks so fragile, so I say, ‘Oh, no thanks. I’ve had breakfast.’

‘Fine. There’s just one room left. My bedroom.’ We leave the kitchen and he walks ahead of me down another hallway.

Okay – this feels a bit weird now. I’m not sure I want to see his bedroom.
A bedroom is such an intimate space. I feel as though he is inviting me a step closer into his personal life than I want to go. But, I suppose, it’s all part of the remit. I can’t tell him that I’ll do every room but not his bedroom. Ridiculous.
It’s just another room
, I tell myself as he opens the door and goes in.

I needn’t have worried. The room is strangely impersonal, beautiful but without much sign of what makes the person who sleeps there tick. No photographs, almost no books and of course...
No pictures. Because that’s my job.
I gaze around.
Perhaps because he lives all over the world, he doesn’t bother expressing himself so much in places that aren’t really his home.
It’s different to the rest of the apartment in that here, the wood panelling stops. I realise I’m quite glad to see the back of it. It’s impressive but so much of it everywhere is overpowering. It’s a relief to be in a room where the walls are painted a calm dark green. A large four-poster bed without hangings dominates the room, with barrel-shaped tables to either side. There is a small desk and a nearly empty bookcase, and over the fireplace a huge flat-screen television hangs like a big black painting.

‘You’ll know what to do in here. And I want something particular for the bathroom,’ he says, pointing to a grey marble en suite that leads off his bedroom. ‘Something that will make me happy when I see it every morning when I step out of the shower. Just one, perfect picture.’

Like Francis I and the Mona Lisa,
I think, remembering what Mark said. ‘I’ll do what I can,’ I say, trying to sound capable and upbeat.

He fixes me with one of his impassive looks. ‘I’m sure you will succeed,’ he says in tones of finality, as though it will certainly happen now that he has decreed it.

He opens another door that leads into a large walk-in closet, with suits, shirts and shoes lined in perfect order, and rows of drawers and shelves for everything else. ‘No need to worry about in here,’ he says, and then smiles very slightly. ‘Now, let’s get back. I need to get on and I’m sure you want to make a start.’

It’s only an hour or so later and I’m in the study, absorbed in my work sorting through pictures, when the phone buzzes. I look at it, startled, wondering what to do, then it suddenly occurs to me that perhaps I’m supposed to answer it so I pick it up.

‘Beth?’ It’s Marcia. ‘Can you come along to the office, please?’

‘Of course.’

I replace the phone and stride back along the corridor to the office. Marcia has my letter of agreement waiting for me and gives it to me to read. I sit down and go through it. It’s fairly straightforward and I’m glad to see that Dubrovski has limited the employment to a maximum of four weeks, to be renegotiated after that point if the job is not complete.

But it will be. I’m determined.

There are no holidays of course and the hours are left flexible. Then I see the clause dealing with remuneration. I gasp.

‘Everything all right, dear?’ Marcia says, her eyes wide with concern. ‘A problem?’

‘It’s... well...’ I hardly know what to say. I can hardly protest that I think I’m being paid too much, can I? But the amount in the letter practically matches what Mark pays me in a year. For four weeks’ work, or even less if I finish before that time.

‘It’s the money, isn’t it?’ Marcia says kindly. ‘That’s the way Mr Dubrovski is. He makes sure all his employees are very well looked after. That way we’ll never want to work for anyone else.’