Dedication
For Heather Hartz
With love
Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Part Two
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Part Three
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Part Four
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Sidney Sheldon
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
“Was there anything else, Home Secretary?”
Alexia De Vere smiled. Home secretary. Surely the most beautiful two words in the English language. Except for prime minister, of course. The Tory Party’s newest superstar laughed at herself. One step at a time, Alexia.
“No, thank you, Edward. I’ll call if I need you.”
Sir Edward Manning nodded briefly and left the room. A senior civil servant in his early sixties and a bastion of the Westminster political establishment, Manning was tall and gray and as rigid as a matchstick. In the coming months, Sir Edward would be Alexia De Vere’s constant companion: advising, cautioning, expertly guiding her through the maze of Home Office politics. But right now, in these first few hours in the job, Alexia De Vere wanted to be alone. She wanted to savor the sweet taste of victory without an audience. To sit back and revel in the profound thrill of power.
After all, she’d earned it.
Getting up from her desk, she paced around her new office, a vast aerie of a room perched high in one of the Gothic towers of the Palace of Westminster. The interior design was more functional than fabulous. A matching pair of ugly brown sofas at one end (those must go), a simple desk and chair at the other, and a bookcase stuffed with dusty, unread tomes of political history. But none of that mattered once you saw the view. Spectacular didn’t begin to cover it. Floor-to-ceiling windows provided a panoramic vista of London, from the towers of Canary Wharf in the east to the mansions of Chelsea in the west. It was a view that said one thing and one thing only.
Power.
And it was all hers.
I am the home secretary of Great Britain. The second-most-important member of Her Majesty’s government.
How had it happened? How had a junior prisons minister, and a deeply unpopular one at that, leapfrogged so many other senior candidates to land the big job? Poor Kevin Lomax over at Trade and Industry must be spitting yellow, coffee-stained teeth. The thought made Alexia De Vere feel warm inside. Patronizing old fossil. He wrote me off years ago, but who’s laughing now?
Pilloried in the press for being wealthy, aristocratic, and out of touch with ordinary voters, and dubbed the new Iron Lady by the tabloids, Alexia De Vere’s sentencing reform bill had been savaged by MPs on both sides of the house for being “compassionless” and “brutal.” No-parole sentences might work in America, a country so barbaric they still had the death penalty. But they weren’t going to fly here, in civilized Great Britain.
That’s what they said. But when push came to shove, they’d all voted the bill through.
Cowards. Cowards and hypocrites the lot of them.
Alexia De Vere knew how unpopular the bill had made her, with colleagues, with the media, with lower-income voters. So she was as shocked as everyone else when the prime minister, Henry Whitman, chose to appoint her as his home secretary. But she didn’t dwell on it. The fact was, Henry Whitman had appointed her. At the end of the day, that was all that mattered.
Reaching into a box, Alexia pulled out some family photographs. She preferred to keep her work and home lives separate, but these days everyone was so touchy-feely, having pictures of one’s children on one’s desk had become de rigueur.
There was her daughter, Roxie, at eighteen, her blond head thrown back, laughing. How Alexia missed that laugh. Of course, the picture had been taken before the accident.
The accident. Alexia De Vere hated the euphemism for her daughter’s suicide attempt, a three-story leap that had left Roxie wheelchair bound for the rest of her life. In Alexia’s view, one should call a spade a spade. But Alexia’s husband, Teddy, insisted on it. Dear Teddy. He always was a soft touch.
Placing her husband’s photograph next to their daughter’s, Alexia smiled. An unprepossessing, paunchy middle-aged man, with thinning hair and permanently ruddy cheeks, Teddy De Vere beamed at the camera like a lovable bear.
How different my life would have been without him. How much, how very much, I owe him.
Of course, Teddy De Vere was not the only man to whom Alexia owed her good fortune. There was Henry Whitman, the new Tory prime minister and Alexia’s self-appointed political mentor. And somewhere, far, far away from here, there was another man. A good man. A man who had helped her.
But she mustn’t think about that man. Not now. Not today.
Today was a day of triumph and celebration. It was no time for regrets.
The third picture was of Alexia’s son, Michael. What an insanely beautiful boy he was, with his dark curls and slate-gray eyes and that mischievous smile that melted female hearts from a thousand paces. Sometimes Alexia thought that Michael was the only person on earth she had ever loved unconditionally. Roxie ought to fall into that category too, but after everything that had happened between them, the bad blood had poisoned the relationship beyond repair.
After the photographs it was time for the congratulations cards, which had been arriving in a steady stream since Alexia’s shock appointment was announced two days earlier. Most of them were dull, corporate affairs sent by lobbyists or constituency hangers-on. They had pictures of popping champagne bottles or dreary floral still-lifes. But one card in particular immediately caught Alexia’s eye. Against a Stars-and-Stripes background, the words YOU ROCK! were emblazoned in garish gold. The message inside read:
Congratulations, darling Alexia! SO excited and SO proud of you. All my love, Lucy!!!! xxx
Alexia De Vere grinned. She had very few female friends—very few friends of any kind, in fact—but Lucy Meyer was the exception that proved the rule. A neighbor from Martha’s Vineyard, where the De Veres owned a summer home—Teddy had fallen in love with the island whilst at Harvard Business School—Lucy Meyer had become almost like a sister. She was a traditional homemaker, albeit of the über-wealthy variety, and as American as apple
pie. Alternately motherly and childlike, she was the sort of woman who used a lot of exclamation points in e-mails and wrote her i’s with full circles instead of dots on the top. To say that Lucy Meyer and Alexia De Vere had little in common would be like saying that Israel and Palestine didn’t always see exactly eye to eye. And yet the two women’s friendship, forged over so many blissful summers on Martha’s Vineyard, had survived all the ups and downs of Alexia’s crazy political life.
Standing by the window, Alexia gazed down at the Thames. From up here the river looked benign and stately, a softly flowing ribbon of silver snaking its silent way through the city. But down below, Alexia knew, its currents could be deadly. Even now, at fifty-nine years of age and at the pinnacle of her career, Alexia De Vere couldn’t look at water without feeling a shudder of foreboding. She twisted her wedding ring nervously.
How easily it can all be washed away! Power, happiness, even life itself. It only takes an instant, a single unguarded instant. And it’s gone.
Her phone buzzed loudly.
“Sorry to disturb you, Home Secretary. But I have Ten Downing Street on line one. I assume you’ll take the prime minister’s call?”
Alexia De Vere shook her head, willing the ghosts of the past away.
“Of course, Edward. Put him through.”
South of the river, less than a mile from Alexia De Vere’s opulent Westminster office but a world apart, Gilbert Drake sat in Maggie’s Café, hunched over his egg and beans. A classic British greasy spoon, complete with grime-encrusted windows and a peeling linoleum floor, Maggie’s was a popular haunt for cabbies and construction workers on their way to work on the more affluent north side of the river. Gilbert Drake was a regular. Most mornings he was chatty and full of smiles. But not today. Staring at the picture in his newspaper as if he’d seen a ghost, he pressed his hands to his temples.
This can’t be happening.
How is this happening?
There she was, that bitch Alexia De Vere, smiling for the camera as she shook hands with the prime minister. Gilbert Drake would never forget that face as long as he lived. The proud, jutting jaw, the disdainful curl of the lips, the cold, steely glint of those blue eyes, as pretty and empty and heartless as a doll’s. The caption beneath the picture read Britain’s new home secretary starts work.
Reading the article was painful, like picking at a newly healed scab, but Gilbert Drake forced himself to go on.
In an appointment that surprised many at Westminster and wrong-footed both the media and the bookies, junior prisons minister Alexia De Vere was named as the new home secretary yesterday. The prime minister, Henry Whitman, has described Mrs. De Vere as “a star” and “a pivotal figure” in his new-look cabinet. Kevin Lomax, the secretary of state for trade and industry, who had been widely tipped to replace Humphrey Crewe at the home office after his resignation, told reporters he was “delighted” to hear of Mrs. De Vere’s appointment and that he “hugely looked forward” to working with her.
Gilbert Drake closed his newspaper in disgust.
Gilbert’s best friend, Sanjay Patel, was dead because of that bitch. Sanjay, who had protected Gilbert from the bullies at school and in their Peckham public housing project. Sanjay, who’d worked hard all his life to put food on his family’s table and faced all life’s disappointments with a smile. Sanjay, who’d been imprisoned, wrongly imprisoned, set up by the police, simply for trying to help a cousin escape persecution. Sanjay was dead. While that whore, that she-wolf, Alexia De Vere, was riding high, the toast of London.
It was not to be borne. Gilbert Drake would not bear it.
The righteous will be glad when they are avenged, when they bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.
Maggie, the café’s eponymous proprietress, refilled Gilbert’s mug of tea. “Eat up, Gil. Your egg’s going cold.”
Gilbert Drake didn’t hear her.
All he heard was his friend Sanjay Patel’s voice begging for vengeance.
Charlotte Whitman, the prime minister’s wife, rolled over in bed and stroked her husband’s chest. It was four in the morning and Henry was awake, again, staring at the ceiling like a prisoner waiting to face the firing squad.
“What is it, Henry? What’s the matter?”
Henry Whitman covered his wife’s hand with his.
“Nothing. I’m not sleeping too well, that’s all. Sorry if I woke you.”
“You would tell me if there were a problem, wouldn’t you?”
“Darling Charlotte.” He pulled her close. “I’m the prime minister. My life is nothing but problems as far as the eye can see.”
“You know what I mean. I mean a real problem. Something you can’t handle.”
“I’m fine, darling, honestly. Try and go back to sleep.”
Soon Charlotte Whitman was slumbering soundly. Henry watched her, her words ringing in his ears. Something you can’t handle . . .
Thanks to him, Alexia De Vere’s face was on the front page of every newspaper. Speculation about her appointment was rife, but no one knew anything. No one except Henry Whitman. And he intended to take the secret to his grave.
Was Alexia De Vere a problem that he couldn’t handle? Henry Whitman sincerely hoped not. Either way it was too late now. The appointment was made. The deed was done.
Britain’s new prime minister lay awake until dawn, just as he knew he would.
No rest for the wicked.
Part One
Chapter One
Kennebunkport, Maine. 1973.
Billy Hamlin watched seven little boys in swimming trunks run squealing toward the water, and felt a surge of happiness. The kids weren’t the only ones who loved summer at Camp Williams.
Billy had been lucky to get this job. Most of the camp counselors were Ivy League kids. Tuckers and Mortimers and Sandford-Riley-the-Thirds on a “break” between Harvard College and Harvard Business School. Or the female equivalent, Buffys and Virginias passing the time between graduation and marriage by teaching swim class to the cute sons of the New York elite. Billy Hamlin didn’t fit the mold. His dad was a carpenter who’d built some new cabins at Camp Williams last fall, earning enough goodwill to land his boy a summer job.
“You’ll meet some interesting people up there,” Jeff Hamlin told Billy. “Rich people. People who can help you. You gotta network.”
Billy’s dad was a great believer in networking. Exactly why, or how, he thought a summer spent rubbing shoulders with spoiled bankers’ sons was going to help his charming, unqualified, and utterly unambitious boy get ahead in life remained a mystery. Not that Billy was complaining. By day, he got to hang around on the beach playing the fool with a bunch of sweet little kids. And by night, Camp Williams had more freely available drugs, booze, and what his grandma would have called “fast” women than a New Orleans whorehouse. At nineteen years old, Billy Hamlin didn’t have many skills. But he did know how to party.
“Billy! Billy! Come play pothum in the middle with uth!”
Graydon Hammond, a knock-kneed seven-year-old with a lisp brought on by at least five missing upper teeth, waved for Billy to come into the water. Graydon would grow up to inherit a majority of shares in Hammond Black, a boutique investment bank worth more than most small African countries. Waving people over to do his bidding would be a big part of Graydon’s future. But right now he was so sweet-natured and lovable, he was tough to resist.
“Graydon, leave Billy alone. It’s his afternoon off. I’ll play possum with you.”
Toni Gilletti, unquestionably the sexiest of all the Camp Williams counselors, was supervising Graydon’s group. Watching Toni run into the surf, her Playboy Bunny body barely contained by her white string bikini, Billy was mortified to feel the beginnings of an erection start to stir in his Fred Perry swimming trunks. He had no choice but to dive in himself and use the ocean as a fig leaf.
Like all the other boys at camp, Billy lusted wildly after Toni Gilletti. Unlike the other boys, he also liked her. T
hey’d slept together once, on the very first night at camp, and although Billy had been unable to persuade Toni to repeat the experience, he knew she’d enjoyed it and that she liked him too. Like him, Toni was something of an outsider. She was no workingman’s daughter. Toni’s old man owned a string of thriving electronics outlets along the Eastern Seaboard. But neither was she a prissy freshman from Wellesley or Vassar. Toni Gilletti was a wild child, a thrill-seeking troublemaker with a taste for cocaine and unsuitable lovers that had gotten her in deep shit back home in Connecticut. Rumor had it she’d only avoided a prison sentence for credit-card fraud because her father, Theodore Gilletti, paid off the judge and donated a seven-figure sum to pay for a new bar and wet-room at the local country club. Apparently Toni had stolen the gold AmEx from a neighbor to keep her latest dealer boyfriend in the style he’d become accustomed to. The Gillettis had packed their daughter off to Camp Williams as a last resort, no doubt hoping, like Billy’s dad, that Toni might “network” her way to a better future; in her case, marriage to a decent, well-bred white boy—ideally one with a Harvard degree.
Toni had kept half of the bargain, dutifully sleeping with every Harvard grad at camp who wasn’t completely physically repulsive, before settling on Charles Braemar Murphy, the richest, handsomest, and (in Billy’s view) most obnoxious of them all. Charles was out on his parents’ yacht today. The Braemar Murphys had “stopped by” on their way to East Hampton, and Mrs. Kramer, who ran Camp Williams, had given Charles the day off. It was irritating, the way Old Lady Kramer favored the rich kids. But every cloud had a silver lining. Charles’s absence gave Billy his best chance yet to flirt with Toni Gilletti uninterrupted and try to persuade her that a second night of passion with him would be a lot more satisfying that sticking with her stuck-up stiff of a boyfriend.
He already knew he had a chance. Toni was a free spirit with a libido like a wildcat. Only a few days ago she’d come on to Billy outrageously in front of Charles. It was a crass attempt to make her boyfriend jealous, but it worked. Later, Billy had heard Charles Braemar Murphy grilling Cassandra Drayton, another of the girls Billy was known to have slept with, about his appeal.