The Modigliani Scandal - Ken Follett [41]
The dark man came out of the bedroom again, still naked. Sarah followed in a robe, and the spotty one came last, dressed only in a pair of obscenely small briefs.
The dark man wiped blood from his nose with the back of his hand. He looked at the red smear on his knuckles, and said: ″I could kill you.″
Julian proffered the photographs. ″You′re very photogenic,″ he mocked. Hatred blazed in the man′s dark brown eyes. He looked at the pictures.
″You filthy little pervert,″ he said.
Julian burst out laughing.
The man said: ″What do you want?″
Julian stopped laughing, and set his face in a hard sneer. He shouted: ″Get some fucking clothes on in my house!″
The man hesitated, his fists bunching and relaxing spasmodically. Then he turned on his heel and went back to the bedroom.
The other man sat on a chair and curled his legs up underneath him. Sarah took a long cigarette from a box and lit it with a heavy table-lighter. She picked up the photographs where the dark man had dropped them. She looked at them briefly, then tore them into small pieces and dropped them in a waste-paper basket.
Julian said: ″The negatives are in a safe place.″
There was a silence. The blond man seemed to be enjoying the excitement. Finally the dark man came back, dressed in a fawn safari jacket and a white polo-necked sweater.
Julian addressed the two men. ″I′ve nothing against you,″ he said. ″I don′t know who you are, and I don′t want to. You′ve nothing to fear from these pictures. Never come into this house again, thatʹs all. Now get out.″
The dark man went immediately. Julian waited while the other went into the bedroom, and came out a minute later, dressed in elegant Oxford bags and a short blouson jacket.
When he had gone Sarah lit another cigarette. Eventually she said: ″I suppose you want money.″
Julian shook his head in negation. ″I′ve taken it,″ he said. Sarah looked at him in surprise.
″Before all ... this?″ she said.
″I sold your car,″ he told her.
She showed no anger. There was a faintly strange light in her eyes which Julian could not interpret, and the trace of a smile at the comers of her mouth.
″You stole my car,″ she said flatly.
″I suppose so. Technically, I′m not sure a man can steal from his wife.″
″And if I do something about it?″
″Such as?″
″I could ask my father.″
″And I could show him our happy family snapshots.″
She nodded, slowly, her face still unreadable. ″I thought it would come down to that.″ She got up. ″I shall get dressed.″
At the staircase she turned around and looked at him. ″Your note ... You said you would be out all day. Did you plan all this? Did you know what you would find when you came back early?″
″No,″ he replied casually. ″It was what you might call a lucky break.″
She nodded again, and went into the bedroom. After a moment Julian followed her.
″I′m going to Italy for a few days,″ he told her.
″What for?″ She slipped out of her robe, and sat in front of her mirror. She picked up a brush and began to run it through her hair.
″Business.″ Julian looked at the large, proud globes of her breasts. The image of her lying on the bed with the two men came unbidden into his mind: her neck arched, her eyes shut, her grunts of passion. His eyes wandered to her broad shoulders, her back narrowing sharply to her waist, the cleft at the base of her spine, the flesh of her buttocks flattened on the stool. He felt his body stir in response to her nakedness.
He walked over and stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders, looking in the mirror at her breasts. The areolae of her nipples were dark and distended still, as they had been on the bed. He let his hands slide down from her shoulders until they touched her breasts.
He pressed his body into her back, letting her feel the hardness of his penis, a vulgar signal that he wanted