Free 4.Little Victim by R. T. Raichev

refer to cocktails with rather exotic names. Ice-cold cocktails. Julian’s mouth started watering. He felt his hand rummaging inside his pocket, scooping up change.
     
    He bought another bottle of Kingfisher.
     

10
     
    The Garden Party
     
    ‘Terrorism and cricket, that’s right.’
     
    ‘I said tourism – not terrorism.’ Major Payne raised his voice. Mrs Depleche, he suspected, was a bit deaf. ‘ Tourism and cricket.’
     
    ‘So you did, Hugh. I am being naughty,’ Mrs Depleche confessed with a cackle. ‘One shouldn’t say such things, I know. The locals might kick me out or have me beheaded or something. I quite agree with you. Their only salvation. Yes. Yes. Poor benighted country. Lovely house and all that, but things aren’t much different from when I was here last all those years ago, really. Still, they can’t all be waiters and cricketers, can they? Or can they? I suppose some of them could be rent boys – don’t you think? We seem to have got the finest specimens here.’ She meant the waiters.
     
    ‘Perhaps some of them are – in their off-hours,’ Major Payne said.
     
    The waiters were hurrying about on the sun-drenched terrace, handing round drinks. They all sported toast-golden tans and wore red boots with upturned toes, black baggy trousers and green and highly ornate tunics, bearing name tags. They had the grace of dancers. Ganymede himself couldn’t foot it more featly, Payne thought. They tended to overdo the prancing a bit, though. Judging by their names – Manolo, Marcello, Faustino, Felicio and so on – they were all of Portuguese extraction.
     
    ‘ Love is the sweetest thing ,’ Mrs Depleche hummed. ‘You don’t fancy any of them?’
     
    ‘No. I know it’s extremely boring of me, but one either does,’ Major Payne said, ‘or one doesn’t.’
     
    ‘How interesting . . .’
     
    ‘There’s more to life than sex, Charlotte.’
     
    ‘ Is there?’
     
    Mrs Depleche was tall, with a ramrod back, and she was dressed in a long dress of pale blue silk, with two strings of pearls at her throat and some more wound round her left wrist in a chunky tangle. In addition she wore a sola topi , whose brim almost touched the bridge of her beaky nose. She had a pair of diamond-encrusted opera glasses hanging round her neck. Major Payne saw her raise the glasses to her eyes and subject the waiters to a hawk-like scrutiny.
     
    He looked round. Coconut Grove, frequently described as a ‘jewel of a house’, was built on a cliff overlooking the ocean, with terraced gardens hanging as in a theatre set. There were baskets of red roses everywhere, their heavy scent wafting through the heat-laden air. Heart-shaped balloons in all the colours of the rainbow and streamers fashioned as Cupid’s darts fluttered above their heads in the light breeze.
     
    The song that was being transmitted through the loudspeakers was ‘Love is the Sweetest Thing’. Earlier on they had been treated to ‘Les Yeux d’Amour’, which of course was the French version of ‘The Look of Love’ . (Major Payne and Mrs Depleche hadn’t been able to agree which James Bond film it came from.) The welcome party given in their honour had a St Valentine’s theme. It had been their host’s idea. At nine o’clock in the evening they were going to be treated to a ‘spectacular’ firework display on the beach below. Mysteriously, their host hadn’t appeared yet . . .
     
    ‘I do feel the stirrings of romance . . . Such poppets . . . I know I am being deliriously silly. Shall I tell you what they remind me of? I don’t think you’d ever guess.’
     
    ‘The genie from Aladdin? Sans the yatagan.’
     
    ‘Yes! How clever of you! Would they fulfil all my wishes?’
     
    ‘If you paid them, they might.’ I shouldn’t give her ideas, Payne thought at once.
     
    ‘Would have been dangerous if they did have yatagans. Nervous guests might not like it.’
     
    ‘Would have interfered with their waiting too.