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that, Dimitri thought. He liked English women. In bed, they had a certain whore-like quality. Very appealing. And he should know, his mistress for the last eight years was a world-renowned English stage actress. Francesca Fern, an immense talent and flamboyant personality. She was fifty years old with flame-red hair, piercing eyes, succulent lips, and a beaky nose to rival his own. Francesca. What a woman! He loved her power, her dramatic presence, and her passion.
    Ah . . . her passion. She was the most exciting woman he had ever bedded. And that was saying something, since he had slept with many of the most beautiful and cultured women in Europe.
    Dimitri liked expensive women who knew all about the finer things in life. He liked them clad in sable, with jewellery from Cartier and Aspreys and Bulgari. He liked them in Dior clothes with designer underwear and five hundred dollar shoes. He liked them to know all about good food, fine wine, classical music, opera, and the ballet.
    He liked breeding. And he did not mind paying for it.
    During their affair, he had gifted Francesca with a king’s ransom in jewellery. She accepted everything he gave her with a knowing glint in her eye and a husky ‘thank you, darling’ as if the prizes he found for her were no more than trinkets.
    He admired her tremendous style. He did not admire her husband, a puny little man called Horace whom she resolutely refused to divorce. They had enjoyed some of their hotter fights concerning Horace.
    ‘Leave him!’ Dimitri would bellow.
    ‘I can’t,’ Francesca would reply dramatically. ‘It will kill him. I am his life.’ And tears would fill her heavily outlined eyes.
    ‘But I want to marry you,’ Dimitri would shout.
    ‘One day,’ Francesca would husk vaguely, ‘we will be together forever.’
    In the meantime, Horace did not interfere with their tempestuous affair. He put up with it, as he put up with most things in life, and stayed quietly in the background of his wife’s volatile life. Once a year they rendezvoused on Dimitri’s palatial ocean-going yacht. Francesca and Horace, accompanied by her personal maid, her own hairdresser, and sometimes her two ancient Pekinese dogs.
    Dimitri always invited other guests for the August cruise. It was a time he looked forward to, because he had Francesca to himself – well almost. She spent every night in his stateroom. He never had found out how she explained this to Horace. He never really cared. Horace must know. Horace was complaisant.
    Occasionally they met in other parts of the world. New York, Paris, Rome. Even when he married for the second time they continued to meet. His second marriage lasted no longer than his first. Dimitri Stanislopoulos was not an easy man to live with.
    The baccarat game was starting. ‘What’s the limit at this table?’ Dimitri asked one of the steely-eyed croupiers.
    ‘Six thousand dollars, Mr Stanislopoulos,’ replied the man, expressionless.
    ‘Give me two hundred thousand dollars worth of chips.’
    Deftly, the man piled gold five-hundred-dollar chips in neat stacks and pushed them in front of him. Unobtrusively a marker was produced for his signature.
    Dimitri liked to gamble. It relaxed him. And he needed to relax, for Francesca was arriving in two days’ time to attend a televised gala evening in her honour, and he had finally decided. Eight years was long enough. One way or another Horace had to go.

Chapter Six
     
    ‘Hey,’ said Lucky. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
    ‘What’s the matter with me? replied Lennie, outraged.
    They faced each other warily in the opulent luxury of the darkened hotel suite. She had said, ‘You’re just the man I’m looking for.’ Then she had taken him by the hand, added mysteriously, ‘Come with me.’ And led him to the nearest elevator. Once inside the suite she had pressed against him, kissed him long and hard, then groped him intimately.
    He was not yet in a gropable state. In fact he was