The Khufra Run. Jack Higgins

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      Which was an undeniable fact for I had seen Carlo on occasion, training with weights in the yard by the garage at the back, and stripped he resembled Primo Carnera in his prime. Lillie grabbed the Bouvier girl by the arm and took her inside, Carlo bowed slightly and followed them.

      Which left me very much on my own, so I went along to the changing room, found myself a pair of trunks and had a swim.

      The salon was an exquisite room which had been based on an ancient Moorish design. The floor was of black and white ceramic tiles and the ceiling was blue, vivid against stark white walls. A log fire burned on the open hearth. I was sprawled at my ease in front of it, one of Carlo’s generously large gin and tonics in my hand, when Lillie came back in.

      She really was the most amazing creature I’d ever known. Must have been anywhere up to fifty - had to be to have done the things she had - yet even in the harsh, white heat of the day never seemed to look a day over thirty-five.

      Like now, for instance, dressed in a long, black, transparent creation. As far as I could see, she didn’t have a stitch on underneath and her legs must have been giving Marlene Dietrich a hard time for years.

      She draped herself elegantly across me and kissed me, that mouth of hers opening wide enough to swallow me whole. When the tongue was finally tired of moving around she lay back with a long sigh.

      ‘I’ve missed you, lover. Where’ve you been?’

      ‘Working.’

      Carlo appeared, a drinks tray in his gloved hands and gave her a martini. She took it just as she accepted the light he held out for her cigarette, as casually as if he didn’t really exist. He withdrew silently to a position by the terrace.

      She said, ‘Where was it these hippies had a go at the kid?’

      ‘Near the mill at La Grande.’

      She emptied her glass and paced restlessly across to the fire. ‘The dirty bastards. They should drive them off the island, every last one of them.’

      ‘Don’t tell me you’re frightened?’ I said.

      She was almost angry when she turned on me. ‘What if I am? They’ve done some funny things. Broken into people’s homes. This is a lovely place …’

      ‘With Carlo here?’ I demanded. ‘You’ve got to be joking. He’s the original six-at-one-blow man. I thought that was why you kept him around.’

      She changed completely, her face illuminated by that dazzling smile, the famous Lillie St Claire smile, as she moved across to Carlo.

      ‘That’s right. Of course it is. You wouldn’t let them hurt me, would you, Carlo?’

      Carlo took the hand she held out to him and kissed it gently. From the look on his face I’d say he’d have torn the arms and legs off anyone who even tried.

      She patted his cheek. ‘Bless you, Carlo. Let’s have a movie, shall we? What about The Door to Hell.’

      He moved away as silently as usual. She poured another drink and flung herself into the chair next to me. This was a ritual I’d been through many times before. There was a small projection room at the rear of the salon and Carlo handled things at that end, using the smooth white wall next to the fireplace as a screen.

      As the lights dimmed I said, ‘What about the girl?’

      ‘I left her in the bath. She shouldn’t be long. Did she tell you how she came to be mixed up with those creeps?’

      ‘I didn’t ask.’

      ‘I did. She said she’d arranged to meet a friend at the windmill at La Grande at nine o’clock. She went out there by taxi only he never showed. Then those pigs jumped her.’ She shook her head, ‘The whole thing stinks to high heaven if you ask me.’

      ‘Her affair, not ours.’

      She carried on as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘And her hair.’

      ‘What about her hair?’

      ‘I don’t know. It’s not natural. Reminds me of something and I can’t think what. A picture I was in once.’

      ‘Why don’t you shut up?’ I said. ‘… and let’s enjoy this one which, for a change, I don’t think I’ve actually seen before.’

      I think she’d have given me the hard word at that except for the fact that at that moment, her face filled the screen and as usual, she was swept up in the greatest love affair since Antony and Cleopatra. That of Lillie St Claire for Lillie St Claire.

      ‘1938,’ she said. ‘I’d been in Hollywood two years. My first Oscar nomination.’

      She was standing at the top of a great flight of marble stairs in some sort of negligee or other, being menaced by the swords of half-a-dozen Roundheads, who all looked villainous enough to play Capone-style gangsters, and probably did the following week. At the appropriate moment an athletic-looking character in breeches and a white shirt dropped into the picture, a sword between his teeth and proceeded to knock all sorts of hell out of the Roundheads.

      ‘Jack Desforge,’ she breathed. ‘The best there ever was.’

      ‘Better than Lillie St Claire?’ I demanded.

      ‘Damn you, lover, you know what I mean. Dietrich, Joan Crawford. Oh, they were great. Wonderful, wonderful people. They don’t breed them like that any more.’

      ‘Only you were the greatest.’

      ‘Look at my last film.’

      ‘I didn’t know anybody had done.’

      I ducked to avoid the glass she threw at me for the film was very much a sore point, an Italian production of the worst kind; a programmer which had sunk, as they say, without trace.

      Behind us there was a slight polite cough and Claire Bouvier moved down to join us. She wore a pair of slacks and a polo-necked sweater which combined with the short hair to give her a strangely boyish look.

      She looked up in some bewilderment at the sword play on the wall then turned to Lillie and said hesitantly, ‘You have been most kind, Miss St Claire. I will see these things are returned to you tomorrow.’

      ‘That’s all right, darling. You can give them to the deserving poor when you’ve finished with them.’ Lillie told her.

      She didn’t offer to put her up for the night which was much as I had expected for she was never one for competition in that quarter.

      I said to Claire Bouvier, ‘All right. Let’s get moving.’

      She glanced first at Lillie, then at me, strangely diffident, then went up the steps and out into the hall. Lillie said, ‘Do you fancy her?’

      ‘I hadn’t thought much about it.’

      ‘You’d be making a mistake. There’s something funny about that kid.’

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