Angel of Death

by Charlotte Lamb

Genres: Action & Adventure; Women's Fiction; Mystery; Amateur Sleuth; Female Sleuths; Action & Adventure Romance; Romantic Suspense; Thrillers; Crime Fiction; Suspense

Synopsis

What do you do when you overhear a murder? You call the police. But what happens if the police send you straight into the danger . . . 'A potent mixture of murder, mystery and intrigue . . . you simply won't be able to put the book down' Woman's Realm Still mourning the death of her husband, Miranda remains haunted by Alex Manoussi, the enigmatic Greek man who rescued her from the same cruel sea that had claimed Tom. But when Alex turns up at her boss's party, she irrationally fears his appearance heralds another disaster. And she's not wrong. Miranda witnesses a brutal murder and is forced into hiding for her own protection. The job in a luxury hotel on the idyllic Greek island of Delephores seems heaven sent. But this Eden contains a serpent. Can it be mere coincidence that Alex is there, too? Is more death on the horizon? And if so, could it be Miranda next?

Release date: March 28, 2013

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 384

Sample

Until three years later.

Miranda drove down to Sussex one bright May morning feeling better than she had for a very long time. It was a lovely day and she was pleased with the way she looked in her new pale mauve suit. She had given herself a little more height by buying high-heeled white sandals. It would be a mistake to try to walk far in them. She knew she was a little unsteady on them but their delicacy and style made her feel really elegant, and what she needed was a boost to her self-confidence, which had been at an all-time low for a long time.

It had surprised her to be invited to the engagement party of her boss’s son. She barely knew Sean, who was eight years younger than her; a good-looking, very sophisticated twenty-one-year-old who already knew it all, judging by his manner and the condescending way he spoke to her, as if she was a halfwit, or an old granny.

She had a sneaking feeling Sean did not even know she was on the invitation list. Her boss had sent out the invitations – to personal friends of his own, or Sean’s buddies, or friends of the new fiancée, and, of course, to relatives from either side. There was a lot of excitement in the firm about who would be invited and who would not, but Miranda had not expected to be on the list.

She had accepted, of course – how could she refuse? Only later did it dawn on her that she had nothing to wear except clothes she had already worn to work and it would never do to wear any of them.

It was years since she had taken any interest in how she looked, but for a party like that she had to have something really good. People might notice. Her boss certainly would. He noticed everything; sharp as a tack, as her mother would say. So, last week she had taken a long lunch hour and gone to Oxford Street. After wandering from shop to shop, walking for half an hour, she had finally seen this suit. The soft colour suited her own pigmentation. She was no beauty, but she knew she had fresh, clear skin, a loose brunette swirl of shoulder-length hair and light hazel eyes. She had not inherited her mother’s stunning looks. As a girl, she had kept hoping her hair would turn that shiny golden blonde colour, that her eyes would go grass green, that she would somehow acquire the ability to make men’s heads turn, but she had her father’s colouring and features, and the magic transformation had never happened. Life was full of disappointments.

In one of those odd coincidences she had spotted the shoes in a shop right next door and known at once that they would be the perfect match. She had been back at her office more or less on time, after all, and had eaten a yoghurt and a pear at her desk before starting work.

She had got a job with the firm six months after Tom’s death. She suspected – no, she was certain – Terry had offered it to her out of a sense of guilt. Tom had worked for Terry’s firm. They had been on the yacht at Terry’s invitation – he had chartered it as a floating conference centre and brought on board a dozen of his top executives, with their wives and girlfriends, as well as some of his best customers. The others had all been saved when the yacht broke up on rocks. Only Tom had drowned.

She had been ill for months afterwards. When she was sent home she found she had lost her post with a large public relations firm. They were apologetic, but explained that they had not been able to keep her job open for ever, especially as they had no idea how long she would be kept in hospital.

The uneasy expression on their faces had told her they thought she was going to make trouble. That she was possibly a bit nuts. And maybe she had been, at first.

But she was back to normal when she left hospital and, after she had spent a fortnight convalescing with her mother down in Dorset, she was calm and rational. She saw there was no point in arguing or protesting. Her firm did not want her back.

She started applying for jobs at once, without much success at first, until, a few days later, Terry had visited her, heard about her predicament, and asked her to take on his firm’s public relations.

‘We haven’t had a PR department, before, but we’re growing, fast, and I think we probably need one now, to handle advertising and dealings with the media.’

Neither of them mentioned Tom’s death. She had looked into Terry’s warm, brown eyes and decided she liked him. They had first met on the yacht and she barely knew him, but she sensed he was a good man.

Big, muscled, with a pleasantly ugly face which was angular, bony and confident, he had a strength and cheerfulness which was instantly likeable. His very short, brown hair curled all over his head in little curls like the horns of a small goat. His grins and barks of laughter aroused answering smiles from most people he met.

He wore casual, light suits, in shades of blue or cream, with coloured shirts, pink or turquoise, and expensive silk ties. Conventional businessmen in striped grey city suits found his outfits worrying. Could he be serious when he dressed like that?

The success of his company was sufficient answer. Terry Finnigan was an electronic genius and understood both what he sold and how to make money selling it. He had founded his company ten years ago with a small legacy from the sale of his dead father’s house.

Miranda wasn’t sure how he had made a living before that. She had the idea that he hadn’t been well off. Everything in his house was new, oddly impersonal in spite of being bright, modern, and very expensive.

Today, the company was worth millions, and Terry owned a majority of the shares. He also owned a large country house, a number of very expensive cars, and leased an office complex in which he had a flat that he and his son used when they were in London. Divorced, Terry dated quite often, but did not seem interested in marrying again, although he liked women.

His preference seemed to be for tall, curvy, showbiz girls, curiously similar in type to his first wife, Sandra, a nightclub singer. Maybe men always picked the same sort of women?

Sandra was now living in Spain with her second partner, to whom she was not married.

‘A crook,’ Terry always said of Jack Lee. ‘And a cheap crook at that. You could buy him outright for a packet of crisps and a glass of beer. What does she see in him?’

Miranda never attempted to reply, she knew he was talking rhetorically, but she imagined Sandra liked Jack’s party-going attitude to life. He joked, laughed, took nothing seriously, and he had a rough sort of sexuality, an instinctive body language with women.

He was, Miranda had decided long ago, very like Terry except that he didn’t have Terry’s brains or aptitude for business. So perhaps women also chose the same type, too? It wouldn’t be surprising – it was all based on character, wasn’t it? Everyone saw through their own eyes, and chose a partner accordingly.

Jack had money, and spent it with a free hand – but it was never clear how he made it. Maybe Terry was right. Jack might well be a crook. Was that why he lived in a villa somewhere in Spain? Miranda had heard the stories about British criminals migrating to Spain to spend their loot outside the reach of the British police.

She had only met Jack and Sandra a couple of times. They were both deeply tanned, wore a lot of gold, bracelets on wrists, necklaces around throats, rings on fingers. They glittered when they moved, and they hated the cooler temperatures of southern England.

‘They can’t wait to get back to Spain,’ Terry commented, last time they were in London and called at the firm. ‘Thank God. The less I see of them the better. If she wasn’t Sean’s mother I’d never let her through the door.’

Sean, though, seemed very fond of his mother. His taste in girls reflected this – he clearly liked the showy blondes his father did. Yet the girl he planned to marry was very different.

Nicola was nineteen, tiny, fragile, sweet; with sleek black hair which framed a heart-shaped face dominated by big, wide, innocent, blue eyes. She was the only child of a wealthy merchant banker, Francis Belcannon, whose bank had been very involved with Terry’s company from the beginning.

Wearing an elegant blue and white organza outfit which made her look like a Barbie doll, she met Miranda at the front door of Terry’s country house, Blue Gables. Behind her the rooms swirled with people in beautiful clothes, talking, laughing, drinking champagne.

‘Thank you so much for coming,’ Nicola said with such warmth that Miranda almost believed she meant it, except that they had only met a handful of times and Nicola probably hadn’t even known she was invited.

She handed over the silver-wrapped box of wine glasses she had bought and Nicola eagerly unwrapped it, held one of the glasses up to the light to watch it sparkle.

‘Oh, they’re gorgeous, so classy – thank you so much, I love them. Sean will adore them too.’

She looked round and waved a hand at one of Sean’s friends, a great hulk of a boy with cropped gingery fair hair and features set in concrete.

‘Georgie, will you get Miranda a drink and take care of her for me?’

‘Sure,’ George Stow growled. He might look like a stone wall but Miranda saw from his glance at Nicola that he worshipped the girl. She was so very much his opposite – tiny, where he was huge, gentle where he was tough, articulate where George was barely able to utter a word.

Miranda hoped Sean loved the girl that way, but she wouldn’t bet on it. She had a sinking feeling that Terry had put the idea of marrying Nicola into his son’s head because it would be so very convenient for the business. Nicola was going to inherit a great deal of money one day, and meanwhile her father was vital to the firm’s finances. Medieval as it might be, the idea of the marriage made a lot of sense – but would Sean make Nicola a good husband?

George steered her through the throng, produced a glass of champagne for her and hovered.

‘You work for Terry, don’t you? Are you his secretary?’

‘No, I run the PR department. Nicola looks happy, doesn’t she?’

George shot her a glower. ‘Sean had better make her happy or I’ll smash his face in.’

Startled but liking his honesty, Miranda smiled at him. ‘I know what you mean. Hurting her would be like running over a kitten, wouldn’t it?’

George made a growling noise in his throat. ‘She’s too good for Sean, that’s for sure.’ He was clearly besotted by the girl and very jealous of Sean – did Sean realise it?

A moment later, Miranda saw the angel of death on the other side of the room and stopped in her tracks, taking a sharp, indrawn, painful breath.

It couldn’t be! She closed her eyes, took another deep breath, and opened them again.

She wasn’t imagining it. It was him. He was wearing black again, but with a difference. Today he was wearing an immaculate black jersey wool suit, with a crisp white shirt, a dark blue silk tie. She saw other women in the room watching him with eager, covetous eyes. Couldn’t they see that brooding air of threat about him?

‘Something wrong?’ George asked.

She swallowed, managed to wave a hand. ‘Who is that? The guy talking to the woman in a pink hat.’

George looked, frowned. ‘Never seen him before in my life. He must be a friend of Terry Finnigan or maybe Nicola’s father. Or do you think he’s a gatecrasher? Shall I go and ask to see his invitation?’

‘No, leave it. I think he’s probably a friend of Terry’s.’ He had been on the yacht after all – and Terry must have invited him. She knew he was not one of the company excecutives, she hadn’t seen him at work, either before or since the yacht foundered.

She had been introduced to him briefly, during the cruise, but couldn’t remember his name. That was weird, wasn’t it? He had haunted her dreams ever since, yet she didn’t even know his name.

Terry pushed his way through the crowds of guests, bringing another glass of champagne for her. He was wearing a rainbow: sunshine yellow shirt, blue jacket, hot pink and green tie, blue trousers.

Huskily, tearing her gaze away from the angel of death, she managed to smile. ‘You look . . . dazzling!’

He grinned. ‘You mean I have vulgar tastes in clothes! I know. But I love bright colours, they cheer me up when I’m feeling down.’

He threw a glance over her. ‘You don’t look bad yourself. A bit subdued, all that mauve and white, but it suits you. My old Gran used to wear mauve all the time – it was what widows wore fifty years ago. Black at first, then mauve after six months.’

Their eyes met and he groaned.

‘Hush my mouth! Sorry, Miranda. I spoke without thinking. I’d forgotten Tom.’

‘That’s OK,’ she managed to get out, thinking, how could he forget Tom? But three years is a long time and people do forget. She wished she could, but Tom still showed up in her dreams, especially when she was very tired or under a strain.

‘You look lovely,’ Terry said in a sweetly obvious attempt to change the subject and cheer her up. ‘What are you doing this Sunday?’

‘Nothing much.’ Was he going to ask her out? Now and then she picked up the impression that Terry fancied her and might be going to ask her for a date, but so far it hadn’t happened, and she was not certain whether or not she would welcome his approach if it came.

She liked Terry, but she did not want to get involved with anyone. She was sure she would know if she were ready for a new relationship. So far she wasn’t.

He gave her a coaxing smile. ‘I’d like you to work on projected publicity for the new printer. I don’t want anyone to have an idea what we’re doing, yet, which means you can’t do this during the week with people walking in and out of the office all day. Could you do it on Sunday afternoon?’

‘OK,’ she said, laughing at herself silently. So much for her daydreaming. It had been work on Terry’s mind, after all, not romance. She should have known it would be. Terry was a workaholic.

The day to day workload for her job was not exactly heavy. She had to arrange advertising and publicity, of course, but Terry kept a very small budget for either of those. Advertising was largely in trade magazines, and bought in blocks for so many weeks or months, and publicity came up only from time to time, usually when they introduced a new product.

She had to have a certain technical literacy in order to work out copy for advertising, although Terry usually gave her a sketch of what he wanted her to write, puffing new features of a machine. She would have to know all about the new printer when she dealt with the marketing campaign later that year, so it made sense for her to familiarise herself with the details now.

Somebody loomed up beside them and her nerves leapt.

‘Hello, Terry.’

‘Alex! Great to see you, thanks for coming.’ Terry beamed from ear to ear. He either liked this man a lot or the man was rich and important. Or both.

Seeing the other man staring at her, Terry introduced them. ‘Alex, this is the head of our Public Relations department, Miranda Grey. Miranda, this is Alex.’

‘Alexandros Manoussi,’ the other man expanded, proffering his hand. ‘But we’ve met before, haven’t we?’

So that was his name. It sounded like the hiss of a snake. Sibilant, yet frighteningly sexy. She was sure she had never heard it before. She hesitated to take his hand, to touch him; long enough for Terry to notice.

‘Alex is one of our best customers,’ he told her pointedly, frowning. ‘We make all the navigational computers Alex puts into his yachts.’

‘Of course,’ she said, realising she had dealt with queries about such instruments, which were being put into boats in countries other than Greece, including Britain.

She had no choice; she had to put out her hand, let it be taken into the cool, supple fingers. A shiver went down her spine at the touch of his skin.

‘I’m a boatbuilder,’ he explained and the sound of his voice was bitterly familiar. She had never forgotten it; had heard it in her dreams for years.

‘Alex makes his boats over in Greece, at Piraeus,’ Terry told her. ‘I’ve been there to see how he works, and discuss with his designers what they need the computers to do for them.’

She was looking into Alex Manoussi’s dark eyes. ‘You built the yacht?’ Had he built the yacht they had been sailing on when it was wrecked and Tom drowned. There had been an inquest some months later but she had not been present, she had been too ill.

Only afterwards did she hear that the firm from whom Terry had chartered the yacht had been accused of negligence. That must have been Alex Manoussi’s firm.

What had happened after the inquest? She had never been told. This man must be rich and powerful. Had he had to face consequences? Or had his employees been blamed?

Over the years since, she had never wanted to discuss it, with Terry, or anyone else. When she came out of hospital she had only wanted to forget. The doctors had told her to put the past behind, try to forget, and she had not wanted to think too much about what happened after the wreck, although sometimes she was not sure the medical advice had been sensible. Perhaps refusing to think about something so traumatic allowed it to fester in the mind?

Terry interrupted before the Greek could answer her. ‘Have you seen Sean, Miranda? He should be taking care of Nicola. Why is she alone, over by the front door? Find him and tell him to stick beside his fiancée for the rest of the party, would you? We don’t want her getting upset at being neglected, do we? Her father would be furious.’

Miranda nodded. ‘Of course.’ She half-glanced at Alex Manoussi with a polite pretence of regret. ‘Would you excuse me?’

Did he guess how relieved she was to escape? There was a spark of cynicism in those eyes of his. Or was he simply noticing the way Terry coolly despatched her, like a servant, to do his bidding? Sometimes she resented Terry’s habit of treating her that way, but since her illness she never had the energy to protest or argue.

It didn’t take her long to find Sean in the Victorian-style conservatory at the back of the house, joking and drinking with his friends.

She whispered her message and he groaned. ‘OK, OK, I’ll go and find her. Why doesn’t my father get off my case?’

She frowned disapproval at him. ‘She’s so sweet, Sean; be nice to her.’ It didn’t sound as if Sean cared much about Nicola and Miranda found that sad. The girl deserved better than a reluctant, indifferent fiancé.

‘Don’t you start! Dad’s bad enough.’ Sean glowered, his lower lip petulant. He hated being criticised.

He had his mother’s colouring – blond hair, rough and curly, bright, selfish, vain blue eyes, and a fresh complexion. If he didn’t stop drinking he would run to fat, his face would turn blotchy, those good looks of his would be destroyed and his liver would start giving him problems.

It was not her problem, though. She was paid to keep the firm in the public eye and make sure it had a good reputation. She was not paid to keep an eye on her boss’s son.

Shrugging, she rejoined the party, keeping well away from Terry and the Greek man, who were still talking on the other side of the room.

Miranda circulated, picking up discarded glasses and taking them out to the kitchen to be loaded into the dishwasher by one of the catering team in charge of the party.

The buffet was served half an hour later. She got herself a plate of food and retreated into a corner with it.

Prawns and curls of white turbot crusted with red peppercorns; strips of chicken in a creamy lemon sauce, a few spoonfuls of warm rice mixed with peas and ham and chopped tomato – and a lot of salad. A perfect summer buffet.

While she ate she watched the other guests. The Greek was talking to Sean now, standing beside Nicola who looked faintly nervous of him. Her long eyelashes flickered up and down, her mouth was a little open, as if she had trouble breathing but she kept a polite smile on her mouth, which Miranda found touching.

She really was far too young to cope with Sean, who might not be much older than her but was much tougher. He stood there, one hand in the pocket of his white jacket, while he held a glass in the other, apparently listening to the Greek but all the time looking around the room with those bold, over-bright blue eyes at any attractive woman in view. Miranda felt anxious for Nicola. Someone like her should be cherished and protected, probably had been all her life. Sean would do neither. He would hurt her and make her miserable.

What was the girl’s father doing, allowing this match? Couldn’t he see what sort of man Sean was turning into?

Come to that, why didn’t Terry see the way his son was shaping? Terry wasn’t a fool, surely he must realise the danger of allowing Sean to run wild this way?

But it wasn’t her business, she just worked for the company. Miranda decided to leave. She had run out of things to say to people she barely knew and she wanted to get home.

She saw Sean walk away, towards the hall, and went out to tell him she must be on her way but just before she reached him she heard the shrill peep-peep of a mobile in his pocket. He got it out, flipped it open.

‘Hi. Of course it’s me.’ He frowned. ‘I can’t. No, I can’t.’

Miranda waited, unsure what to do. Sean saw her hovering and gave her a nod.

‘Hang on,’ he said into his mobile, then looked at Miranda. ‘Yeah? What now? Not another summons from my dad?’

‘No, I just wanted to say I have to be going, I have to drive back to London early. Will you give my apologies to Nicola?’

He cut her short. ‘Sure, fine. Thanks for coming. I’ll tell Nicola goodbye for you.’

She smiled politely and walked out of the house, hearing Sean talking into his mobile again.

‘Look, I told you, I can’t see you this weekend, OK? You know what’s happening – I can’t just walk out on my own party.’

He sounded even drunker now. Well, at least he did not need to drive anywhere. No doubt his father would help him up to bed before he fell over.

Miranda had been careful not to drink too much of the champagne so freely on offer and had just swallowed a mug of strong black coffee. Not that she ever did drink more than a glass or two of wine. But tonight it would have been irritating to have to get a taxi to the station and take the train back to town. It would leave her with the problem of picking up her car some other time.

Sean, however, was not in the habit of thinking about consequences. All his life his father had made his life easy. Miranda did not have parents to do that favour for her. Her father had vanished when she was ten, her mother had not been the sort of parent who believes in mollycoddling offspring. Miranda had left home at eighteen to get a job in London, and had only had herself to rely on for years. It would do Sean good to have to do his own thinking for once.

As she drove away, she caught a glimpse in her wing mirror of Alex Manoussi coming out of the house. From the way he stared after her car she guessed he had followed her, was looking for her, and shivered. Thank God she had escaped before he caught up with her.

He still had the same effect on her as he had had, even before the yacht foundered. Always in black, his face set in strong, hard lines, his manner cold, he was not a man anyone would take to on sight.

When he walked up to her and asked her to dance one evening, on the yacht, she had found being in his arms a disturbing experience and afterwards had avoided him whenever they were in the same room. He had not spoken to her during the dance; she had learnt nothing about him and been left curious.

‘Who is he?’ she had asked Tom.

‘No idea. Obviously the boss knows him. Not exactly the life and soul of the party, is he?’

‘He looks like the angel of death.’

Tom had laughed. ‘You do say the oddest things, darling. What do you mean, the angel of death?’

‘I saw a picture once, when I was about eight. My grandfather had it hanging on his wall. There was a little girl, lying on a bed, and beside the bed a man all in black.’

‘An undertaker? A clergyman?’

‘No, a man like that one there – with a face like stone, wearing some sort of armour. And he had big, black wings. Grandad said he was the angel of death, who had come for the child. It was really spooky. I hated it. And that guy looks just like the angel. Al. . .