‘Branston Pickle!’ I slapped his shoulder. ‘You’re a great man, Giuseppe. So – has the time come for me to show you how to make a cheese sandwich my way?’ I’d asked him for the stuff every time I’d come down here. It was the highlight of my day, watching him not having a clue what I was asking for, but turning up his nose at it anyway.
I still remembered the mozzarella masterpiece the chef had run up last time, and how Giuseppe had shaken his head in disbelief as I picked out all the green stuff, then looked at me like I was talking Swahili when I asked for pickle. But that was before I overheard Stefan bawling him out yet again a couple of nights ago.
It was par for the course around here for the staff to be treated like dirt. A day or two back, Stefan was kicking off because he’d caught Giuseppe mimicking him. He took off the boss so well – the rest of the staff had almost had a heart-attack when they’d congregated below stairs to honk about him, and Giuseppe boomed at them from the hallway. I was down there myself at the time, making some toast. I’d been so sure it was Stefan that I’d thrown the toast in the bin before he accused me of thieving. This time, Stefan was going ape-shit that the thirty- year-old malt in the decanter seemed to be evaporating and he was pointing the finger. I went in, told the stupid fucker it was my fault, and said I’d be happy to replace what I’d drunk, if it was a problem. I was Giuseppe’s new best mate overnight, and I hadn’t even had to tell him what I’d done. He’d had his ear to the door. Nothing went on in this house without him knowing about it.
‘Why do you stay and take his crap? Why don’t you just hose down all the whisky and walk out the gate?’
Giuseppe pulled a bag of sliced white bread and a packet of processed cheese from the box. The people at Fortnum & Mason must have cringed. ‘I have my reasons. But I’m going home to Lazio soon, Mr Nick.’ He allowed himself the kind of smile that meant there was a lot more going on in that head of his than his eyes were prepared to give away. ‘Very soon. But, please, do not tell Mr Stefan.’
I peeled off a couple of slices of processed cheese and put them on a slice of dry bread – no butter or spread.
‘Miss Silke seems happier than she’s been for a very long time.’ Giuseppe seemed disgusted by my culinary efforts. ‘And she’s stayed here much longer than usual.’
I opened the Branston and spread a thick layer over the cheese. ‘How long is that?’
He closed his eyes, as if he was doing mental arithmetic – or maybe he didn’t want to see any more food massacres in that kitchen. ‘She comes back maybe once a year, and stays only a week or two. She and Mr Stefan, well – let’s say she’s travelled a lot since her mother died.’
I added another slice of dry bread to the sandwich. ‘How long ago was that?’
I knew Stefan had married her mother in 1976. Silky had been an only child, just two, when her father’s car had wrapped itself round a lamppost in West Berlin. Her mother had moved back to her native Zurich and opened a bookshop. Stefan went in one day to buy a business book – ‘Probably
‘It’s like the drapes have been drawn for eight years. Miss Silke travels a lot, as I said, and comes back here in between. She does her charity work, which Mr Stefan sneers at but tolerates, and he is away on business so much that he sees more of Shanghai than he does of Switzerland.’
I lifted the sandwich and held it out for him to admire. ‘Giuseppe, my friend, the great British sarnie. Want to get amongst it? Better than all that fancy gear you conjure up down here.’
He threw up his hands in mock horror and I headed for the stairs.
3
I was squeaking my way back along the hallway as Stefan came out of the large sitting room that led off it. I sometimes wondered if he had the whole place bugged.
‘So, how did you enjoy lunch?’ His accent was German, with a hint of Middle Eastern rug trader – quite a feat for a little Italian guy to pull off. His expression, as ever, was bored, with more than a hint of ‘You still here, you gold-digging, freeloading lump of English shit?’
I followed him back into the large, impersonal sitting room with its floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake and two enormous red sofas that faced each other across a wooden coffee-table big enough to sleep two. ‘We didn’t manage to meet up.’
Stefan spent most of his time in this room. Giuseppe spent most of his in the one adjacent, with his ear to the large dividing doors. I wondered if he was there right now.
‘No, I can imagine.’ He turned his back to study the drinks table. ‘I saw her when she left this morning.’
How could I respond to that without admitting we’d had a row? I couldn’t, and he knew it. Everything he ever said to me was designed to put me on the back foot. When we first met he even got my name wrong deliberately. Maybe that was how he’d made it to the top of his shitheap.
He looked back. ‘Where is she now?’
‘Still at work.’ I peered at my watch. Fucking hell, ten to seven. Where had she got to? It wasn’t as if Lugano got gridlocked in the rush-hour. And, anyway, she was on a moped.
He tutted. ‘This volunteering thing, it’s such a . . .’ He let it hang while he took the top off the whisky decanter, as if inviting me to say something he could later use in evidence.
‘Credit to her? Worthwhile thing to do?’
He poured the thirty-year-old single malt into a glass. ‘Waste of time. Finance and business, that’s how you effect change.’
The top went back on the decanter and the decanter went back on its tray. Lucky I didn’t like the shit; I wasn’t going to be offered any.
He picked up the glass and took an appreciative sniff. ‘I will show you what changes the world.’ He shook his head disdainfully. It was hard to tell which he was sneering at more, the thought of people doing something for others for free, or my Branston doorstep.
He removed a slim leather wallet from his jacket, and produced an all-black credit card. He flicked it up and down between his forefinger and thumb as if I was supposed to salivate or burst into applause. This card wasn’t the kind that plebs like me used. I had seen one or two before: they were for the
Once he had swiped his finger over the identifier, the LCD displayed six numbers that tumbled like lines of matrix. They settled to show a six-figure code. A password generator at the bank would sync with Stefan’s card. It would change every day, maybe with every transaction.
‘I can cash five million dollars with this one piece of plastic. That is what the world is all about. The bottom line.’
He gave it an admiring glance before it went back into his pocket. No wonder he felt superior – if I tried to take out more than a couple of hundred dollars a day I got referred to my branch.
‘Still.’ He studied me over the top of his glass as it headed for his lips. ‘At least she’s using the seven years of expensive medical education I paid for.’ He watched my face carefully. He knew full well that this was the first I’d heard of it.
I couldn’t pick him up on it. How could I admit I didn’t know such fundamental stuff? My mobile vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and stared at the text.
I waved the phone at Stefan. ‘She sends her love.’
His lip curled. ‘I see.’ He took a sip. ‘So, you think she will be back, do you? You really think you know her that well?’
‘She’s just working late.’
He scoffed. ‘Welcome to the wonderful world of Silke. You two clearly had a – what shall we call it? – an
