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Memories of Midnight
Sidney Sheldon
MEMORIES OF MIDNIGHT - The internationally best-selling 'The Other Side of Midnight' was dominated by the man who is Sheldon's most magnificent creation…'Constantin Demiris'Billionaire, art lover, womaniser…and killer. To Noelle, the woman who betrayed him, and Larry, the man who stole her, Demiris brought a chilling retribution. But Demiris’ terrible revenge is far from complete…'Ioannina, Greece'In the seclusion of a remote convent a young woman emerges from the trauma of memory loss…'Catherine Alexander'Larry’s widow, sees Demiris as a benefactor, the man who restores her faith in the future. How can she know the fate he has in store, or that her life is bound up with other victims of his mighty ego? From the exotic shores of the Mediterranean to post-war London, 'Memories of Midnight' is a passionate, unforgettable story of an innocent woman’s fight against a terrifying destinyIn this deadly game, there can only be one winner…If Judd is to survive he must play the game to win.This is Sidney Sheldon's first novel – a gripping, intense thriller that brought him fame as a bestselling novelist.
SIDNEY SHELDON
MEMORIES OF MIDNIGHT
Copyright (#ulink_1b2699eb-2cc2-5c58-8e1c-4aee8faa322e)
Published by Harper
An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Copyright © 1990 by Sheldon Literary Trust
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Source ISBN: 9780006178699
Ebook Edition © APRIL 2012 ISBN: 9780007381937
Version: 2015-04-27
For Alexandrawith love
Sing me no songs of daylight,
For the sun is the enemy of lovers
Sing instead of shadows and darkness,
And memories of midnight
—SAPPHO
Table of Contents
Cover (#u5dc8eef4-a04a-5dfb-a8a4-59a15e867140)
Title Page (#u808ce0b0-0b58-5c17-98b0-19b40fcb9a1c)
Copyright (#u1073db5a-cd6b-5a89-9fc4-f264e1c4ee63)
Dedication (#u342ad1ed-4e01-533f-8185-a1c05c26d900)
Epigraph (#u0b00cfe0-2b01-5215-b987-60b11a499eb9)
Prologue (#u86ed6646-73b3-56fa-8cc5-1a14ebe7c8a7)
Chapter One (#ubd2aeafa-20b8-5243-b1bb-a7a9a0629734)
Chapter Two (#uc17974c6-d9ad-5af0-84f3-036fedfb08cf)
Chapter Three (#u0f720bfc-a06e-5d9e-85ac-622a47b8c58f)
Chapter Four (#u258a74ec-fbb6-5012-abd9-cca514ca47ff)
Chapter Five (#u7f768c25-6293-5812-8ca2-11cb16e0d72b)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-one (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-one (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirty-three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Books by Sidney Sheldon (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#ulink_d9da85bd-017e-5436-bcf5-bb8414045ec7)
Kowloon—May 1949
“It must look like an accident. Can you arrange that?”
It was an insult. He could feel the anger rising in him. That was a question you asked some amateur you picked up from the streets. He was tempted to reply with sarcasm: Oh, yes, I think I can manage that. Would you prefer an accident indoors? I can arrange for her to break her neck falling down a flight of stairs. The dancer in Marseilles. Or she could get drunk and drown in her bath. The heiress in Gstaad. She could take an overdose of heroin. He had disposed of three that way. Or, she could fall asleep in bed with a lighted cigarette. The Swedish detective at L’Hôtel on the Left Bank in Paris. Or perhaps you would prefer something outdoors? I can arrange a traffic accident, a plane crash, or a disappearance at sea.
But he said none of those things, for in truth he was afraid of the man seated across from him. He had heard too many chilling stories about him, and he had reason to believe them.
So all he said was, “Yes, sir, I can arrange an accident. No one will ever know.” Even as he said the words, the thought struck him: He knows that I’ll know. He waited.
They were on the second floor of a building in the walled city of Kowloon that had been built in 1840 by a group of Chinese to protect themselves from the British barbarians. The walls had been torn down in the Second World War, but there were other walls that kept outsiders away: Gangs of cut-throats and drug addicts and rapists roaming through the rabbit warren of crooked, narrow streets and dark stairways leading into gloom. Tourists were warned to stay away, and not even the police would venture inside past Tung Tau Tsuen Street, on the outskirts. He could hear the street noises outside the window, and the shrill and raucous polyglot of languages that belonged to the residents of the walled city.
The man was studying him with cold, obsidian eyes. Finally, he spoke. “Very well. I will leave the method to you.”
“Yes, sir. Is the target here in Kowloon?”
“London. Her name is Catherine. Catherine Alexander.”
A limousine, followed by a second car with two armed bodyguards, drove the man to the Blue House on Lascar Row, in the Tsim Sha Tsui area. The Blue House was open to special patrons only. Heads of state visited there, and movie stars, and presidents of corporations. The management prided itself on discretion. Half a dozen years earlier, one of the young girls who worked there had discussed her customers with a newspaperman, and she was found the next morning in Aberdeen Harbor with her tongue cut out. Everything was for sale in the Blue House: virgins, boys, lesbians who satisfied themselves without the “jade stalks” of men, and animals. It was the only place he knew of where the tenth-century art of Ishinpo was still practiced. The Blue House was a cornucopia of forbidden pleasures.
The man had ordered the twins this time. They were an exquisitely matched pair with beautiful features, incredible bodies, and no inhibitions. He remembered the last time he had been there … the metal stool with no bottom and their soft caressing tongues and fingers, and the tub filled with fragrant warm water that overflowed onto the tiled floor and their hot mouths plundering his body. He felt the beginning of an erection.
“We’re here, sir.”
Three hours later, when he had finished with them, sated and content, the man ordered the limousine to head for Mody Road. He looked out the window of the limousine at the sparkling lights of the city that never slept. The Chinese had named it Gau-lung—nine dragons—and he imagined them lurking in the mountains above the city, ready to come down and destroy the weak and the unwary. He was neither.
They reached Mody Road.
The Taoist priest waiting for him looked like a figure from an ancient parchment, with a classic faded Oriental robe and a long, wispy white beard.
“Jou sahn.”
“Jou sahn.”
“Gei do chin?”
“Yat-chihn.”
“Jou.”
The priest closed his eyes in a silent prayer and began to shake the chim, the wooden cup filled with numbered prayer sticks. A stick fell out and the shaking ceased. In the silence, the Taoist priest consulted his chart and turned to his visitor. He spoke in halting English. “The gods say you will soon be rid of dangerous enemy.”
The man felt a pleasant jolt of surprise. He was too intelligent not to realize that the ancient art of chim was merely a superstition. And he was too intelligent to ignore it. Besides, there was another good-luck omen. Today was Agios Constantinous Day, his birthday.
“The gods have blessed you with good fung shui.”
“Do jeh.”
“Hou wah.”
Five minutes later, he was in the limousine, on his way to Kai Tak, the Hong Kong airport, where his private plane was waiting to take him back to Athens.
Chapter One (#ulink_24c4c35c-4f1a-5f42-88cb-3f38789f4040)
loannina, Greece—July 1948
She woke up screaming every night and it was always the same dream. She was in the middle of a lake in a fierce storm and a man and a woman were forcing her head under the icy waters, drowning her. She awakened each time panicky, gasping for breath, soaked with perspiration.
She had no idea who she was and she had no memory of the past. She spoke English—but she did not know what country she was from or how she had come to be in Greece, in the small Carmelite convent that sheltered her.
As time went by, there were tantalizing flashes of memory, glimpses of vague, ephemeral images that came and went too quickly for her to grasp them, to hold them and examine them. They came at unexpected moments, catching her off guard and filling her with confusion.
In the beginning, she had asked questions. The Carmelite nuns were kind and understanding, but theirs was an order of silence, and the only one permitted to speak was Sister Theresa, the elderly and frail Mother Superior.
“Do you know who I am?”
“No, my child,” Sister Theresa said.
