PART I

THE ABDUCTION OF AN ADULTERESS

 

 

Chapter 1 – THE BALL AT THE YACHT CLUB

 

The story so far --

Sheikh Ali bin Faisal al Tufaya is the ruthlessly cruel scion of a junior branch of the ruling family of the oil-rich sheikdom of Shadek.

The senior branch of the family had recognised him as a potential threat and offered him a large income for life on condition he kept out of the country. He had therefore renovated an old palace in North Africa and moved his harem there. It was a strictly fundamentalist Moslem country with the same strict rules regarding women as he was used to in Arabia.

He had long been fascinated by European women and, following an official visit to Britain, by well-bred young Englishwomen in particular. Now he was free to indulge his fantasy of keeping a number of them in his well-guarded and well-disciplined harem, under the strict supervision of Zalu, his chief black eunuch.

 His mental satisfaction in collecting and owning these now helpless but formerly free and indeed often happily married women, was as great as his physical satisfaction in enjoying their bodies. 

He now had seven beautiful, pure bred, upper class Englishwomen in his harem, including a mother and daughter, as well as a pair of half English, half Lebanese, twins and half a dozen lovely Arab girls - all closely supervised and trained by his eunuchs and prevented by them from seeing or being seen by other men. They do not even know where they are or just who their Master is.

All had just mysteriously disappeared without trace into his harem and there had been no scandal - partly thanks to the assistance of Pierre, a young Frenchman. To ensure that they could not get away even if they succeeded in escaping from the harem, all were registered as his numbered Indentured Servants with the North African authorities

It was now time, he felt, that he increased the number of his white women concubines.

 

The ball at the exclusive yacht club on the Costa Esmeralda in Sardinia was a scene of magnificent splendour.

Chinese lanterns lit up the big terrace overlooking the sea. A band was playing romantic music. A new moon was reflected on the still, tideless, Mediterranean Sea. Across the bay numerous visiting yachts lay at anchor, their fairy lights making a carefully planned and beautiful backdrop to it all.

Periodically the Yacht Club’s fast launches would bring yet more guests to the yacht club jetty in one of several small-secluded rocky inlets.

The men all looked splendid in their white dinner jackets, but it was the women who really made the scene with their glittering ball dresses, that showed off slim figures, beautifully dressed hair, sparkling eyes and provocative cleavages.

Some of the dresses were satin covered with sequins that must have cost a fortune to sew on and an even larger fortune to buy. Some were scarcely more than simple wisps of silk. Others were long and graceful in a rainbow of colours. Yet others were perhaps more striking, being all in a simple white, blue, or green colour.

The necks, ears and corsages of the women glittered with diamonds and rubies, emeralds and sapphires.

Standing to one side and watching the dancing was a tall and beautiful dark haired woman in her forties. She was wearing a well-cut green dress of damask silk. She was the Principessa Zorrenti, the wife of a large Calabrian landowner.  She was pointing to a strikingly beautiful, young, blond woman wearing a provocative slip of a dress that hardly seemed to cover her prominent bosom. The Principessa seemed as jealous of the younger woman as only a Southern Italian woman can be.

 Indeed she had reason to be jealous for the younger woman was dancing and flirting with a distinguished looking grey-haired man, who seemed to be besotted with her. He was the Principessa’s husband – the Principe.

‘Oh,’ the Principessa burst out, ‘I’d give anything to get rid of that slut of an adulteress – and to put her where we’d never have to see her again.’

She was speaking to an attractive-looking young Frenchman, Pierre, who was standing attentively at her side.

‘Oh, really?’ observed Pierre in good Italian. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Oh, yes,’ answered the Principessa in an almost hysterical tone. ‘Just look at the way she’s flaunting herself with my husband in front of all my friends and me. Everyone seems to know she’s his Mistress. Of course, he’s had shop girls or servant girls before, but this one is different. This one he parades in public.’

‘Yes,’ murmured Pierre sympathetically. The girl was strikingly attractive with a healthily tanned skin and dark eyes that hinted at some Latin blood. She was tall and slim and her dress scarcely covered her full firm breasts.

‘I hate her,’ went on the Principessa. ‘She’s nothing more than an adventuress – an adulteress.’

‘Adulteress?’ queried Pierre.

‘Yes, she’s a married woman having an affair with a married man.’

‘A married woman?’ repeated Pierre with interest.

‘With a husband who has apparently gone off to Australia with most of her money, leaving her to play around with rich married men like that booby of a husband of mine. She’s even almost persuaded him to divorce me and marry her – so that she can get her greedy hands on his money.’

‘Oh!’ said Pierre. Divorce in Catholic Italy was rare and expensive and usually had to be arranged abroad.

‘He’s been so infatuated by her that he even arranged for her to stay at an isolated flat near our villa, so that he could slip away and see her without anyone knowing – no maids or prying landladies.’

‘Goodness!’ exclaimed Pierre sympathetically. Then he added as if to himself. ‘How convenient.’ 

‘Oh, yes, I tell you I’d pay a fortune to anyone who could get rid of that adulterous slut for ever – and if I could see her suffer as she’s made me suffer.’

‘Well,’ replied Pierre suddenly serious. ‘Perhaps I might be able to help you. What’s her name?’

Carolyne Everard,’ muttered the Principessa angrily

‘English?’

‘Yes.’

Pierre’s eyes lit up. ‘Even better,’ he murmured.

‘I think her mother was half Spanish. Anyway, she was well educated,’ went on the Principessa, ‘and her father came from quite a good family – though you wouldn’t think so from the way she behaves here. More like a tart or some common pop star.’

‘No close relations then?’ asked Pierre in an interested tone.

‘No, apparently her parents died when she was young and she was brought up by her only close relative, an aunt who died recently, leaving her very little money and quite alone – except for her absentee husband.’

‘Interesting,’ said Pierre. ‘And when is her husband be coming back?’

‘Never, I think!’ replied the Principessa.

‘What do you mean?’ 

‘Oh he’s got another girl.’

‘Better still!’ Pierre’s mind was racing. Then he turned and looked the Principessa in the eye.

‘Supposing,’ he said, speaking slowly and deliberately, ‘supposing she were to disappear for ever into the harem of a rich and cruel Arab Sheikh.’

‘Oh, disappear into a harem!’ gasped the Principessa. ‘Yes, that would be brilliant.’ Then she thought for a moment. ‘But would she suffer? I wouldn’t want her to enjoy it.’

‘How would you like to be a mere concubine, disciplined and under the constant and intimate control of a Sheikh’s strict black eunuchs?’

‘It would be ghastly!’

‘Exactly,’ said Pierre.

‘I see! But is that really possible in this day and age?’

‘It might be well be,’ replied Pierre enigmatically,’ if you’re really prepared to pay for it.’

‘Yes, provided I can actually see her suffer – and being punished.’

‘That might also be possible,’ said Pierre thoughtfully. Again his mind was racing.

‘Oh!’ cried the Principessa clapping her hands with excitement. ‘But I’d want to see her being properly punished for her adultery with my husband.’

‘Well there’s always the canes of her new Master’s eunuchs,’ Pierre said with a smile.

‘But could I watch her being thrashed?’

‘Perhaps,’ replied Pierre, realising that the Principessa was getting really serious. It was time to cast another fly over her.

‘And, of course, flogging is not the only punishment prescribed in the Arab world for adulterous women.’

‘Oh?’ exclaimed the Principessa eagerly. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Well,’ replied Pierre slowly, ‘the Arabs have special, very special, punishments for an adulteress.’

‘Ah yes!’ exclaimed the Principessa, again clapping her hands as she realised just what Pierre was hinting at. ‘Oh yes!  That would indeed be a sweet revenge. But do you really think …’

 ‘Are you sure she’s alone here?’ Pierre interrupted. ‘ No boyfriends?’

‘Apparently not - she came secretly out to Italy to start a new life on her own, when her husband left her, and told no one. Apparently, she had ideas of using her looks and figure to start a new modelling career here – but then, instead, set her cap at my husband, the scheming little bitch.’

‘Well!’ said Pierre slowly. ‘I wonder where her passport is?

‘Oh she always carries that. I saw it in her bag earlier this evening  together with her credit cards and cheque book - and, of course, the key to her flat.’

‘Excellent!’ laughed Pierre. ‘In that case  . . .’

He paused for a moment, deep in thought.

Then he pointed over the terrace to a handsome and rather swarthy looking man in his thirties who was wearing a well-cut dinner white jacket of Shantung silk. There was a distinctly cruel air about him, coupled with a certain self-confident ruthlessness that was accentuated by his short pointed beard and piercing eyes. He was talking and laughing with a group of similar Arab-looking men.

‘That’s Sheikh Ali,’ said Pierre. ‘How would he do?’

‘Well he looks a cruel bastard. I wouldn’t like to be in his hands.’

‘It so happens he has a penchant for well-bred Englishwomen.’

‘What!’ exclaimed the Principessa.

‘They say he even secretly collects them for his harem.’

‘Secretly!’ repeated the Principessa. ‘Good Heavens! You mean … Caroline … could . . . could disappear into his harem? That would certainly get her out of the way.’

‘Indeed,’ said Pierre. ‘But that would not be all. You’d also get further revenge.’

‘Oh?’ asked the Principessa intrigued.

‘Adultery is considered as a very serious matter by certain Moslem courts. He might perhaps agree for her to charged, for the punishment for adultery is, as I said, often … how can I put it? … making sure that her pleasure is much reduced – a treatment that many Moslem men are in any case not adverse to having done to their women … for their own greater pleasure … mental as well as physical.’

‘My God!’ cried the Principessa. ‘You mean? … Yes, that would teach that slut a lesson all right.’

Then she thought for a moment.

‘But how come you know all this? I thought that Arabs never talk about their women.’

‘They don’t, which is why no one would ever know where the beautiful Mrs Everard was.’

‘That’s all very well,’ the Principessa said suspiciously. ‘But you still haven’t told me how you know all this.’

Pierre made no reply. Instead he put his finger to the tip of his nose in a well-known Italian gesture.

‘Well,’ laughed the Principessa, ‘I’ve often wondered just how you earned your income, but I never thought that . . . So you know him well?’

‘Well enough to ask him if he would be interested in acquiring young Mrs Caroline Everard.’

He paused for a moment.

‘And, of course, on condition that you were able to come and watch her humiliation and her punishment for adultery.’