Chapter 31
In the launch, heading into the port of Kytheria, Oxana senses that Emir is watching her, and she lets her face go blank.
She’s sitting between Defne and the crew member who’s steering the boat.
Opposite her, Buse’s head is tilted back, her eyes are closed, and her blonde hair is streaming behind her in the warm evening breeze.
She addresses intermittent comments to Defne, but studiously ignores Emir, while at the same time clearly being acutely conscious of him.
When briefing Oxana, Johnny said that he wasn’t sure how much Emir knew about his father’s activities.
But how can Emir not know where all this money comes from?
How can Defne not know? And Inci? What about her?
At some level, she must be aware of what’s going on all around her.
They all must. Emir’s loaded half-smile could mean anything.
It could be accusatory, it could be flirtatious, it could be merely polite.
Oxana bites her lip, annoyed at how hard she finds it to work him out.
I’ve never found it easy to read people’s expressions, or to pick up on the more subtle cues that they drop.
Has he sussed me out? Has he guessed that my intentions towards his family are hostile, because if so, I’m in trouble.
He’s obviously clever, or he wouldn’t be at that high-powered Paris business school.
Is he clever enough to know that I’m not who I seem?
The island of Kytheria is one of this year’s most fashionable playgrounds.
Its capital is the town of Ephyra, and as night falls, the streets around the port and the marina are thronged with the rich and the beautiful.
Laughing, whispering secrets to each other, checking out the boutiques and art galleries.
There’s an air of ritual in the way that they exhibit themselves, and a weird uniformity in the men’s studied casualness and the women’s breezy femininity.
All that white linen against tanned skin.
All those floaty maxis and Khaite and Tulula silks.
All those shell earrings and layered gold chains.
There’s a smell in the air that Oxana knows of old: the smell of money, excitement and desire.
It’s intense, and it makes her heart race.
Amongst this moneyed crowd, Oxana knows, there will be the inevitable opportunists.
The con artists and thieves, the parasites and gold diggers, all lured by the same smell of money and opportunity.
The most skilful will be calculated risk-takers, not fly-by-night bikini girls and fuck boys.
Men and women who know that you have to pay to play.
That to position yourself alongside the seriously rich, you have to dress like them, talk like them, and act like them.
You need looks, you need charm, and above all you need access.
Access to the Olympian spaces where the super-rich take their ease. Spaces like the Nymphaeon.
Carved into the limestone cliffs above the old port, the Nymphaeon is Ephyra’s most exclusive club.
As Oxana follows Defne, Buse and Emir beneath cascading bougainvillea boughs and into the club, she feels a quiet excitement.
The main hall is circular and not yet crowded.
Its amber-lit walls are veined marble, its glass roof is open to the stars.
Sunken rivulets run along the floor, and the sound of trickling water blends with ambient music, laughter, and the murmur of conversation.
Taking Defne’s arm, Buse marches forward.
They both look striking: Buse in cream-pink with a plunging neckline, Defne in a black pussybow mini.
Halfway across the hall Buse glances back to see if Emir is following them, but he stays with Oxana, and compliments her on the Zara dress which, after a quick ironing by Feris, is getting its second outing in twenty-four hours.
He sounds sincere, as if anxious that she should not feel out of her depth, and she’s struck by his thoughtfulness.
Not many nineteen-year-olds would trouble themselves with the feelings of a woman almost ten years their senior.
‘I was thinking about ordering some food,’ Emir says. ‘I don’t like drinking on an empty stomach. Will you join me?’
‘I’d love to. How about the girls?’
‘They’ll be OK. Teenage girls don’t really eat.’
Ten minutes later they’re sitting in a candlelit alcove, as a waitress dressed as a nymph serves them Cycladic oysters and black truffle saganaki.
‘Defne says you’re involved in art collecting,’ Oxana says.
He shrugs. ‘In a small way, but it’s something I’d like to develop. Old Master paintings are undervalued. People say that it’s a good time to buy.’
‘What sort of things do you like?’
‘Oh, Italian and Netherlandish renaissance, Spanish Golden Age… And I love nineteenth century and pre-revolutionary Russian.’
‘Now you’re just being polite.’
He smiles. ‘A lot of people I know invest in contemporary art, because that’s where the action’s supposed to be. But I’m not so sure. Fashions change fast in that field, and reputations fade. And to tell the truth, I just don’t like a lot of it.’
Defne and Buse are suddenly standing by their table. Defne looks anxious, Buse appears to be in the grip of a barely suppressed rage. ‘Well,’ she says, staring coldly at Oxana. ‘This is romantic.’
‘Have something to eat,’ Emir says mildly. ‘I’ll get someone to bring a couple of chairs.’
Buse wrinkles her nose over the truffle and melted feta, then scoops an oyster into her mouth with her fingers. ‘Urghh. Tastes like pussy. And that cheese thing literally smells like shit. So no, thank you very much.’
‘Buse, please. Behave.’ Defne darts an apologetic look at Oxana.
‘I’ll be in the cocktail bar,’ Buse says. ‘Seems you all have plenty to talk about.’ She stalks off.
Emir watches her go. ‘What’s with her tonight?’
‘You,’ Defne says. ‘As always.’
‘Def, it’s not going to happen,’ Emir says. ‘She’s just not my—’
‘She knows that,’ Defne says. ‘It doesn’t make anything any easier. It actually makes it worse.’ She sighs. ‘Sorry, Oxana, you were in the firing line there. Not your fault.’
‘No problem.’ Oxana places a napkin over her oyster fork and surreptitiously transfers it to her bag. ‘Maybe we should go after her.’
In the cocktail bar, guests are sitting on alabaster steps descending to a shallow pool on which pink rose petals are floating. Oxana, Defne and Emir find Buse reclining with her back to them, talking to a powerfully built man of about thirty.
‘Oh my God,’ Defne murmurs to Oxana. ‘Total red flag.’
Oxana nods. She knows the type. The jacked body, the carefully sculpted facial hair, the porn-dulled eyes. Buse is hanging on to his every word, leaning in towards him with her back arched, attentive as a hungry cat.
‘He’s not alone,’ Oxana murmurs.
‘How would you know that?’ Emir asks.
‘These guys travel in packs. He’s rich, but he’s out of his depth. An entourage provides validation.’
‘Interesting range of expertise you have.’
‘Oxana’s right,’ Defne says. ‘He’s way out of his league. I mean, those white jeans. Please.’
‘How about some drinks?’ Emir suggests. ‘We can’t just sit here staring.’
They decide on Siren’s Kisses. Champagne with fig nectar. Defne downs hers in half a dozen gulps. ‘I think I’m gonna dance now,’ she says, rising unsteadily to her feet.
Oxana nods. ‘I’ll stay here and keep an eye on Buse.’
‘I’ll come with you, Def,’ Emir says.
Brother and sister depart, and Oxana shifts to a less conspicuous position.
It’s not long before the guy chatting up Buse is joined by two others.
Much loud, performative banter ensues. The men speak to Buse in English, but to each other in Russian.
Oxana, slowly sipping her Siren’s kiss, guesses that they’re minigarkhi, lower-echelon fraudsters and money launderers.
Buse is revelling in their attention. She’s laughing.
Accepting the drinks they buy her. Throwing her head back and shrieking at everything they tell her.
And not understanding much of it, because the next thing that one of them says, prompting a round of high fives, is davayate vse yeye trakhnem. Let’s all fuck her.
Oxana listens, exasperated. Technically, she’s not here to keep Buse out of trouble, she’s here to safeguard Defne’s supposed virginity.
But Emir’s with Defne, and if Buse gets herself into trouble it’ll be blamed on her.
Perhaps she should approach those dimwits.
Tell them in Russian that she knows exactly what they’re up to, and to back off.
And then they’d laugh in her face and go right back to having their fun with Buse.
At which point she, Oxana, would have a choice.
Intervene, and risk blowing her cover, or throw Buse to the wolves.
Emir reappears and sits unsteadily beside her. His face is shining, and he smells faintly of women’s perfume.
‘Was she cute?’ Oxana asks.
‘Cute enough.’ He grins. ‘Why?’
‘Where’s Defne?’
‘Dancing,’ Emir answers, with the careful articulation of the nearly drunk. ‘Dancing the night away with an extremely good-looking…’ His voice tails off.
‘Can you keep an eye on Buse? I don’t much like the look of her friends.’
‘Sure.’ His brow furrows. ‘Where—’
‘Over there. Watch her, please.’ Oxana slips out of the cocktail bar and makes her way to the dance floor, where fifty or sixty people are dipping and swaying to the now-familiar remix of Declan McKenna’s ‘Brazil’.
She blinks, taking in the spectacle. As the music and the lighting pulse in unison, mist jets emit a perfumed haze, and violet laser threads spiral above the dancers’ heads like constellations in slow orbit.
It takes her a minute or two to spot Defne in the throbbing near-darkness.
She’s dancing with a tall, dark-haired guy. Or something like dancing.
Oxana begins to thread her way through the crowd towards her. The guy is lithe and smiling. He has his hands on Defne’s waist and his hips pressed to hers, and she’s leaning back, slowly waving her long arms. But there’s something blank about her. She’s out of it. Drunk, or worse.
Oxana beckons to the guy, who inclines his head towards her irritably. ‘My friend’s seventeen,’ she shouts into his ear. ‘She’s off her head. Let me take her home.’
The guy frowns. ‘No speak English.’
‘I said she’s seventeen.’
‘No understand.’
‘I think you do. And I’m taking her home.’
‘Fuck you, bitch.’
Oxana smiles. Everything has suddenly got so much simpler.
She steps in close to the guy, blocking off Defne, and slips her fingers into his dark curls.
He smiles in surprise, thinking Oxana’s trying some kind of counter-intuitive sex move, and he’s still smiling when she punches the oyster fork into his throat half a dozen times in very fast succession.
As his eyes widen in shock, she tightens her fingers in his hair and turns his head away so that his carotid artery, by now jetting blood like a showerhead, is pointing away from her.
A lot of the blood goes onto the back of someone’s Stella McCartney silk and lace jacket, causing Oxana a brief pang, but there’s no time to lose, and she grabs Defne by the arm and starts to drag her towards the exit.
Looking back, she sees the guy flailing, and dancers pushing him away, and then she and Defne are out of there.
Defne’s not in a good state. She’s moving sluggishly, so that Oxana has to propel her forward.
She’s trying to speak but doesn’t seem to be able to form the words.
In the now-crowded cocktail bar, Buse and Emir look up in concern.
They’ve separated themselves from the Russians, and hurry to Defne’s side.
‘Out of here, now,’ Oxana orders. ‘She’s been drugged, and we need to get her back to the Medusa.’
Emir stares at her. ‘Was it… that guy she was dancing with?’ He half-turns in the direction of the dance floor, eyes wild with fury.
‘Did he give her anything to drink?’
‘Yes, a Coke, half an hour ago. Motherfucker.’
Oxana grabs his sleeve. ‘Leave it. He’s gone. Look after your sister.’
He stands there for several seconds, panting heavily.
‘Emir, look at me.’ She tightens her grasp on his sleeve. ‘Help. Defne.’
He nods mutely. Ten minutes later they’re manhandling Defne into the launch. Buse and Emir are both quite drunk, but faced with the near-incoherent Defne, they manage to pull themselves together.
‘Those Russian guys…’ Oxana begins, tightening her arm around Defne’s shoulders as the launch speeds out to sea.
‘They were cool, actually,’ Buse drawls. She grins sheepishly at Emir. ‘But I didn’t mind being rescued.’
‘Trust me, they were not fucking cool,’ Emir mutters.
‘You’re so boring,’ Buse says. Moving along the seat towards him, she nestles her head into his shoulder. Emir hesitates for a moment, and then, with the air of a man surrendering to the inevitable, inclines his head against hers.