From the expression on Katya’s face, she was equally surprised and maybe even a bit miffed. Maybe even jealous? However, before she could chime in, Erasmus swallowed the last of his smoothie and jumped remarkably nimbly to his feet. ‘And now I have to meditate.’
Remembering what Ethan had said about the link between meditation and bowel movements, Emma had a shrewd idea what this might portend, so she stood up hastily and ushered him to the lift. As they got there, Katya reaffirmed her authority, pressing the call button before Emma had a chance.
‘Thank you, Emma, I’ll take it from here.’ She shepherded Erasmus into the lift and as the doors hissed shut, Emma felt a wave of relief.
‘Hey, boss, is it safe to come out now? We’ve been hiding.’ She turned to see Rich peeking out from behind a lemon tree in a terracotta pot in one corner of the lobby. Marina’s head emerged alongside him, a broad grin on her face. Rich was also grinning by now. ‘I was terrified I’d burst out laughing. My father told me some stuff about Erasmus, but I had no idea he was quite so wacky.’
Emma laughed out loud and the release of pent-up tension felt good. ‘He’s a hoot, all right, but there’s no doubt he’s one of the best in the business. After all, they say the dividing line between genius and madness is a very fine one. I remember reading that back in the Forties, Howard Hughes locked himself in his screening room for four whole months, living off nothing but milk and chocolate bars and peeing into bottles. Erasmus is a little weird, but not that weird, and he’s very good at his job.’
Just then the glass doors hissed open and Mark appeared. If Emma had had any doubts about the depth of feeling building up inside her, the involuntary warm glow his arrival spread throughout her body provided all the proof she needed.
‘What’s the joke?’ He walked across to them.
Emma and Rich gave him a brief thumbnail sketch of Erasmus and he shook his head in disbelief. ‘This I’ve got to see.’
Together, they walked back into the orangery where Ethan was already on his second beer. Sinclair, on the other hand, was still nursing his first bottle.
‘Hey, Mark, how’s it hanging?’ Ethan sounded in good spirits.
‘I’m fine thanks. Apart from being pushed into the pool by my dog.’ Naturally he then had to recount what had happened and they all had a good laugh at his expense.
Ethan was sitting alongside Emma, while Mark had opted for an armchair nearby. She was secretly relieved, fearing that she might find herself squeezed between two men, one of whom she fancied, and one who allegedly fancied her. That could have been complicated. The conversation flowed and any fears she might have harboured that Ethan was about to get a bit more familiar were soon allayed. He kept a discreet distance and behaved impeccably. She began to relax, starting to believe that maybe his query in the car about her love life had just been nothing more than curiosity.
* * *
Dinner, as promised by Mark, was excellent and it was also hilarious. They took their places in the dining room and there was an immediate hiccup, before they’d even sat down, when Katya took Emma to one side to whisper sternly in her ear.
‘We have a problem, Emma. The napkins are green.’
In fact, the napkins were white with just a narrow green border, but Emma remembered what Ethan had said about Erasmus never wearing green. Without batting an eyelid, Emma immediately took the matter in hand.
‘Of course, leave it to me, Katya.’
She went over to where Claudio and his staff were hovering and outlined the problem. He went up considerably in her estimation as he managed to keep a perfectly straight face, while issuing orders for the offending napkins to be replaced by plain white ones. Emma gave him a little wink, returned to the others, and invited them to be seated at the large round table in the centre of the room. She decided to put Erasmus on one side of her with Ethan on the other. The others then settled down so that Mark was alongside Katya – Emma had whispered a warning to him to be wary of her handshake – with Marina, Rich and Sinclair completing the circle.
It soon transpired that Erasmus’s dislike of dead things didn’t extend to food and Emma breathed a sigh of relief. Although Claudio had assured her that they had a vegan plan B up their sleeves, it was going to make life much easier for everybody if they all could all eat the same thing. What she hadn’t bargained for was his preference to start the meal with a short bout of meditation. As they all sat silently, trying to avoid looking at him as he clasped his palms together and muttered to himself, Emma found herself hoping that this meditation would not spark off any bodily functions. She hastily identified the location of the door marked Servizi to one side of the room, just in case.
During the meal they chatted and Emma was delighted to find Erasmus, once he had completed his meditation, actually joining in almost like a normal human being, and she heaved a silent sigh of relief. As Ethan had warned her, he ate the whole meal with a spoon and his fingers, and his white napkin was soon far from pristine. One unexpected discovery came when Katya changed during the course of the meal from cold and impassive to positively jovial. The reason for this can’t have been alcohol, as there was only water in her glass. Instead, it appeared to be the fact that in Mark she had found somebody who spoke her native language remarkably fluently. As the two of them chatted animatedly in what might have been Polish or Czech – Emma had no idea really – she had to come to terms with the fact that there was a lot she still didn’t know about this man. Somehow this mystery rendered him even more appealing – if such a thing was even possible.
At the end of the meal, they all separated and Emma invented a headache in order to disappear up to her room to get some work done and avoid any kind of embarrassing confrontation with a potentially amorous Ethan. As she did so, she caught a glimpse of the expression on Mark’s face. It was definitely one of concern for her well-being and she shot him a reassuring little smile. Whether this concern was just out of simple friendship or a sign of something deeper was a question that occupied her for much of the rest of the night, but without any kind of answer.
Chapter 15
Next morning dawned bright and sunny, the sky once more a clear cloudless blue. As she was just debating what to do, her phone beeped. It was a message from Mark.
Feeling better? Coming for a run? M
Using the excuse of the aftermath of last night’s fictitious headache, she declined the invitation, but suggested he might like to take the others out for a jog around the estate. She then checked her emails and found the one she had been waiting for. It was from Dexter, informing her that Laney and her minder would be arriving at Perugia in a private jet at eleven o’clock that morning. He didn’t ask how things were going, but when she replied to confirm they would be at the airport to greet her, she added a couple of lines.
Ethan’s already here and Erasmus arrived unexpectedly last night. After a tricky start (he is a little quirky), all went well and he seems genuinely pleased with what we’ve managed to find so far. All good with Richard. All well with Sweet Memories?
By the time she returned from the shower with a towel wrapped around her, there was a reply already waiting. She checked her watch. It was almost eight o’clock. That meant it was one o’clock in the morning in LA. Did he ever sleep? She laughed out loud when she read what he had written.