Читать книгу The Account - Roderick Mann - Страница 7

It was raining hard. Driving along the Quai du Mont-Blanc in his black Renault, Paul Eberhardt glanced idly towards Lake Geneva, sheathed now in a fine mist that rendered the mountains beyond barely visible.

The man sometimes called the most astute banker in Europe was deeply depressed. Usually on Thursdays his spirits rose. This was the evening he set aside his worries and drove along the lakeside to spend an hour at the house of Madame Valdoni.

Relaxing. Taking his pleasure. Watching the film that now lay on the seat beside him.

But events that afternoon had dampened his enthusiasm for the evening to come. First there was the memo from his partner, Georges di Marco, demanding a meeting. Eberhardt knew what di Marco wanted to talk about; what he had been threatening for weeks now. It could no longer be postponed. Then, to make matters worse, Robert Brand had arrived unexpectedly at the bank. Eberhardt’s relationship with the American billionaire had always been polite. They were, after all, locked in a tight financial embrace that could not easily be broken. But the meeting that afternoon had been unpleasant. Brand, in a bad mood, had queried everything and had barely been civil. Eberhardt, who had always prided himself that he could handle the American, was now not so sure.

He swore and braked hard as a woman, her view hidden by an umbrella, stepped out suddenly to cross the street. He must pay attention. This was just the sort of day when accidents occurred.

Leaving the city he adjusted the speed of the windscreen wipers and switched on the heater to demist the glass. There were few other vehicles about. That suited him fine. The drive along the Lausanne road normally took him forty-five minutes. Today it would be quicker.

An impatient horn behind him interrupted his thoughts. Pulling over he saw he was near the lakeside hotel where he occasionally dined. He drove into the car park and switched off the engine. A drink, he decided, would make him feel better; would calm his nerves. Otherwise the seductive ministrations of Madame Valdoni’s girl would be wasted.

The bar of the hotel was quiet. Relieved, he perched himself on a stool and ordered a double Scotch. The warmth of the drink in his throat made him feel better. Glancing around he caught an unwelcome glimpse of himself in a wall mirror. How pale he looked; how old. Yet he was still an aristocratic-looking man, tall and distinguished in a formal way. Anyone seeing him sitting there nursing his drink would have found it hard to guess his profession. A diplomat perhaps. Or a doctor. He was not an easy man to place on looks alone.

Finishing his drink he paid his bill and left. Outside, he stood for a moment protected by an awning, breathing in the chill late afternoon air. The smell of the lake was quite strong; tangy and pervasive. As he hurried to his car he stepped in a pool of rainwater, soaking one of his highly polished shoes. Damn! Could nothing go right this day? He held the shoe out of the car window, upside down, shaking it.

Just past the town of Nyon, Eberhardt turned up a private road that wound its way through several acres of woodland and pasture. Faded signs warning against trespassing stood alongside the road. Eberhardt knew the road well. It was the landscape of his other self, not the severe banking mandarin of Geneva but the private pleasure-seeking sensualist. At the end of the road was a large, wrought-iron gate. And, beyond, a half-moon shaped driveway fronting a two-storey mansion. The house, which had once belonged to a wealthy Swiss industrialist, had been bought by Italian-born Madame Valdoni twenty years earlier and turned into a maison de plaisir catering to an exclusive clientele of men from Geneva and Lausanne who were prepared to pay 500 Swiss francs for the services of any one of half a dozen spectacular-looking girls.

Eberhardt’s friend, the lawyer Maître Claude Bertrand, the only man in whom he ever confided, had often suggested that the banker take a permanent mistress. But the sense of illicit, furtive adventure stimulated Eberhardt’s libido in a way he knew a regular woman could not.

Anyway, he had lived alone since the death of his wife, Hilde, ten years before, and now had no intention of sharing his life with anyone. Coupled with this was the fact that Geneva banking circles, prim and censorious, would frown on any such liaison.

As he drove through the gates Eberhardt was relieved to note that there were no other cars outside the house. Highly secretive by nature, he preferred to keep these visits private and always used an alias.

Holding the can of film beneath his jacket he hastened towards the front door, which was opened almost immediately by a maid.

‘Good evening, Dr Weber,’ she said. ‘I will tell Madame you are here.’ A moment later she returned with a woman in her mid-fifties, elegantly and expensively dressed in black.

‘My dear doctor.’ Madame Valdoni proffered her hand. ‘What a pleasure.’ She turned to the maid. ‘A drink for Doctor Weber.’ She glanced at Eberhardt. ‘The usual?’

Eberhardt nodded. He pointed to his shoe. ‘Look at that. Soaked. This damn rain. Perhaps you could dry it?’

‘Of course.’ Valdoni motioned to the maid who knelt before Eberhardt and removed both his shoes and socks. ‘I will have them ready by the time you leave,’ she beamed.

‘Is everything arranged?’

‘As soon as you telephoned. We have someone quite special for you tonight …’

‘Not Genevieve?’ He felt a pang of disappointment.

‘She is away. Her mother is sick. But you will not be disappointed.’

When the maid returned with a glass of chilled white wine, Eberhardt, barefoot, followed Valdoni up the sweeping staircase. At the top she took the can of film he handed her and led him down a hallway to a thickly carpeted dressing room complete with day bed and wardrobe. A door led to an adjacent room.

A young Oriental girl stood there. She was perhaps sixteen years old and so incredibly lovely that Eberhardt was astonished. She was wearing black panties and a black brassiere. She too was barefoot.

‘Jasmine,’ the older woman said, handing her the can of film, ‘this is Dr Weber, one of our special friends. I am relying on you to take care of him.’

The girl nodded. ‘My honour, sir.’ She bowed and retreated into the other room.

Valdoni smiled. ‘Enjoy yourself, dear doctor.’ She went out closing the door.

Eberhardt undressed completely, hanging his clothes in the wardrobe, and stepped into the next room, which was in semi-darkness. Uncarpeted, it contained nothing but a wooden chair with a bell push on one arm, a screen some six feet square, and a film projector on a table at the opposite end.

Eberhardt sat in the chair facing the screen. A moment later Jasmine came in. She was naked now, her body and hands slightly oiled. She was carrying two glasses, one filled with hot water, the other with ice cubes. She put these beside the cushion at the foot of the chair. Reaching for a packet beside the projector she took out a crumpled cigarette, lit it and inhaled deeply before passing it to Eberhardt. She watched as he drew the smoke deep into his lungs. He passed the joint back to the girl, who again inhaled. Soon the small room was pungent with the smell of marijuana. Eberhardt began to relax. He stubbed the joint out on the wooden floor.

‘Ready,’ he said.

The girl knelt before him, her tongue flicking across her lips. She took a swallow of hot water and enveloped him with her mouth. His erection swelled. She curled her tongue expertly, making him groan.

Soon she stopped and slipped two ice cubes into her mouth. When she again enveloped him his erection began to subside. He moaned, looking down at her. But with the second mouthful of hot water his erection swelled even more. Three times the girl repeated the process, fingers teasing, tongue flickering, writhing, twisting, hair swaying, each time driving Eberhardt nearer to climax. Finally he pressed the bell push and a beam of light stabbed the gloom. The film began unrolling. Clasping the girl’s head in his hands, pulling her further to him, Eberhardt leaned forward, his eyes fixed upon the screen, reading every word of the German subtitles although he knew them by heart.

The print, old now and scratched in places, never failed to excite him. It was one of many made by the Nazis. The film, much prized, had been given to him by a German friend. ‘Something to warm you on those cold Geneva nights,’ he had joked.

The film depicted a chilling scene. There were four people in a small, cell-like room. One of them, a young dark-haired man, his face and torso bloodied, was in a chair, his hands tied behind him. Two other men, both in black SS uniforms, were taking turns beating him with truncheons.

On a single bed in the background lay a young woman, naked, her hands also tied. She was screaming. When the beating finished the SS men turned the young man’s chair around so that it faced the bed. Removing his tunic and boots one of the SS men dropped his breeches and approached the woman on the bed.

While the Nazi forced himself into her, the young man, struggling violently, tried to look away. He could not. The other captor held his head tightly, forcing him to watch.

Hypnotized by what he was seeing, his pulse throbbing, his breath laboured, the blood pounding in his ears, Eberhardt suddenly groaned and came with such force that he almost slid from the chair. After a moment the girl rose and tiptoed from the room.

When Eberhardt looked at the screen again the other man was on the woman. The prisoner in the chair now sat without moving, apparently in shock. As the SS man climaxed, his body shuddering, the woman beneath him spat in his face. Rearing back, the man struck her savagely causing blood to gush from her nose. He continued striking her.

When his companion finally rose from the moaning woman, the first SS man, dressed now, took out his revolver and fired once into the head of each victim.

Transfixed, Eberhardt watched until the film ran off the spool. He rose shakily. Taking the film he went next door to dress. His shoes and socks, now dry, awaited him. Before leaving he placed an envelope on the day bed.

In an upstairs room Jasmine watched as he accelerated away down the drive. She turned to her employer. ‘That film.’ She shuddered. ‘He’s sick, that man.’

‘You saw it?’

‘Genevieve told me.’

‘He’s a good customer,’ the older woman said.

They stood together watching the lights of the Renault as it reached the end of the drive and turned down the private road.

Madame Valdoni shook her head. ‘And he still thinks we don’t know who he is.’

She laughed softly.