Madrigal for Charlie Muffin

12

Emilio Fantani had a criminal’s ability to distinguish between true wealth and surface glitter, and as he rounded the promontory on the Ostia road to gaze down upon the Billington villa he knew this was true wealth. Unlike Charlie Muffin, who had taken the same route earlier, Fantani slowed and then stopped, using the elevation of the hill for his reconnaissance. The angle prevented his establishing a seafront approach, but there would obviously be one leading up to the grape and flower hung verandah he could just determine at the right-hand side of the house.

With a burglar’s patience he waited for thirty minutes slumped back in his seat, ensuring the information about no ground patrol was correct before releasing the handbrake to coast down under minimal power towards the entrance. He was briefly aware of the men in the gate lodge but his concentration was upon the electrical wiring thatched along the top of the walls.

The sea, he decided, reverting to his original intention. There was a layby almost at the junction of the Pratica road and as he reached it Fantani saw the parked police car. It was unmarked but identifiable from the heavy radio antennae that was always mounted in the roof; as discreet as elephants in ballet slippers, he thought. There were three men inside the yellow vehicle, lounged back with the practice of those who spend a lot of time waiting for things to happen.

Fantani didn’t slow. To his right the sun sparked off the polished water and far out to sea a clutch of fishing boats moved sedately along the skyline, like ducks in a line. The hills were ochre and bald, patched occasionally with thin grass. Hobbled goats, neck bells jangling, nuzzled hopefully and once Fantani had to brake and swerve to avoid one that started into the road to tug at a suddenly discovered tuft.

It took longer than Fantani wanted before he found a cliff break to get down to the beach. He parked and took a towel and the raffia mat from the rear seat. Descending the looped pathway, he set out through the foot-sucking sand and shingle in the direction of the villa. It took an hour and Fantani was glad he had allowed himself so much time. He stopped some way from the barrier that made the ambassador’s beach private. Fantani had come prepared, already wearing a costume beneath his clothes. He spread the mat, undressed and folded everything neatly before stretching out, apparently to sunbathe. For almost half an hour he did, before turning over onto his stomach to begin the examination. The beach fence was high and spike-topped and projected some unseen distance into the water. Fantani did not think it was insurmountable. It didn’t matter anyway, he decided, looking to the cliff face. It might have been possible to scale once, but from the artificially smooth surface of the rocks he guessed it had been blasted away to create the almost perpendicular drop.

Like a black line drawn down it, there was a smoked-glass lift linking the villa to the sea, and alongside the zigzag of emergency steps. It would only need one man at the top to protect both approaches. Fantani squinted up against the sun at the villa, locating more pillars and bourgainvillea. It was at the point where the protective estate wall abutted the cliff that Fantani stopped. The wall had been brought to the edge and from the conduit box which stuck up like a proud thumb he guessed the electrical connection stopped there. The screen was completed by a wide half-circle of meshed spikes, splayed out like a woman’s fan against the wall end and the cliff face, over a drop which Fantani estimated at four hundred metres but accepted would probably be more, because of his shortened elevation. He smiled, seeing the way, and turned over onto his back again to doze in the sun. For another hour he relaxed, then dressed and rolled up his mat, leaving his shoes and socks off for the gritty walk back to the car.

It was still only four in the afternoon so Fantani continued towards Pratica until he found the first roadside cafe. He considered a brandy but decided his nerves didn’t need any help. Instead he took coffee.

Life was good, decided Fantani. And going to get better. A lot better. It had taken long enough; nearly fifteen years of screwing and being screwed, trinket stealing from those who wouldn’t risk complaint, and then the gradual reputation as a competent craftsman. He knew it was the reputation that had prompted the approach. Only two arrests and both unimportant. It was the sort of thing the big organizers liked: style and expertise. Fantani had no doubt whom he was working for; who else but the Mafia had the organization to get the details he’d been provided with? It had been a trial period; with this the final test. When he passed he’d learn who the man was. Fantani was sure the name wasn’t Jacono. But he’d never shown any curiosity or tried to question. They respected attitudes like that. Style, thought Fantani again.

Driving back towards Ostia, Fantani saw that, because of a kink in the coastline, the sun was setting on the landward, not the seaward, side, which was an advantage: already, to his left, the darkness was merging the clifftop blackly with the water. Fantani took the Fiat up a track, so that it would be completely concealed from the road, and stood against the open boot, changing into the clothing in which he worked. Everything was black for concealment, even the canvas shoes. Before putting on the sweater, he taped to one wrist the electrical bypass leads and to the other the glass-cutter. He kept the trouser pockets free for ease of movement but carefully zipped inside the cotton windcheater the collapsible silk bag, the plans of the villa and its burglar protection, the doctor’s stethoscope with a shortened length of tubing, and the tape roll. Satisfied with his preparations, he completed the last part of the ritual, relieving himself against the wheel of the car.

He positioned himself carefully during the final approach to the villa neither too near the road, where he would be visible to passing vehicles, nor too near the cliff edge, where he might be seen against the slightly lighter skyline. Three times cars swept along the coast road but on each occasion their lights warned him long before their arrival and he was crouched low and completely hidden when they passed.

He was adjusted to the darkness when he got to the villa perimeter, conscious of the solid blackness of the wall. Near to it, Fantani squatted, settling himself for the wait, head tensed to one side for any animal or human sound to indicate a regular patrol he’d failed to detect from the overlooking hill. It was thirty minutes before he moved, sure there was none.

Near the clifltop the wind was stronger, blowing harder against him than he had expected. He hoped it wouldn’t cause difficulties. Where the wall ended he crouched again, gazing out at the fan-like half-circle, wanting to impress everything about it into his mind. There were about forty spikes, spear-shaped at their ends and patterned together by looped metal spokes radiating outwards; closer, Fantani saw it exactly like a spider’s web cut in half. He groped about his feet, discarding the first two things his hand encountered and finally locating a stick stout enough for the purpose. He edged closer, so he wouldn’t be defeated by the wind, and threw it at the metal, eyes half closed for a spark of contact if the electrification had been continued in some way he hadn’t identified. The twig hit the metal, without any flash, lodged for a few moments between one of the supporting arms and fell away into the darkness below. Fantani was able to trace its descent, because floodlights had been switched on from the villa. By leaning out slightly he could look down at the ambassador’s private beach. At the foot of the cliff a jetty nosed out into the black water and a speedboat jostled at a mooring.

Fantani spread his hands along his thighs, massaging them in readiness for the jump, taking in deep breaths to calm himself. The wind was gusting and he stayed crouched, waiting for it to drop. He started to go and faltered, settling down again, angry at the hesitation. He squeezed the tension out of his hands, coiled ready, and when the wind lessened launched himself outwards. He leaped spreadeagled, arms and legs wide for any support, aiming for the widest part of the half-circle. The villa floodlighting helped, silhouetting the outline as he arced towards it, over the four-hundred metre drop.

Fantani landed well, both hands connecting with one of the horizontal bars and his left foot slotting into place. He winced as his unsupported right shin hit the metal before he got a foothold there. He was completely exposed now, like some insect trapped in the spider’s web of metal, the wind plucking at his clothing and strong enough to sting his eyes. He hung there, recovering his composure, and then crabbed out further, towards the speared ends. Near the edge he paused, preparing himself for the strain. He propped his right arm inside the furthermost spoke and wedged his foot. For several seconds he hung, with his left arm and leg dangling free and unsupported, then he grabbed around the points, snatching for purchase on the other side. The tips pressed against the entire length of his body as if he were being impaled, and he winced against the pressure; they were sharper than he had expected them to be. First his hand and then his leg connected. He gripped tightly, anchoring his body, then released his right hand and pulled himself in a swinging manoeuvre around the barrier to gain the villa side.

Fantani had to climb up the web to bring himself level with the cliff and feel with his foot, without being able to look backwards, for solid ground. With a toehold, he levered himself further onto the cliff. Fantani was stretched out now, feet on the cliff and hands clinging to the metal struts, his back bent painfully between. Using the strength from his shoulders, Fantani heaved himself up onto the cliff, until there was solid ground to the level of his chest and he could release the metal without overbalancing onto the beach below.

Fantani was panting and wet with sweat, which was drying coldly against his face and back. He was shaking and knew the coldness was only partially responsible. They’d made the final acceptance job bloody difficult.

At last he stood, vaulted the fence, and pulled into the protection of some trees; cypresses, just like the driveway. They had been planted in a regimented line, close-patterned, and the permanent shadows made perfect cover. It took him almost to the house, sufficiently close to gaze in through the uncurtained windows. It was a kitchen area, with the servants’ quarters alongside. At first he thought there were eight around the table but then a girl appeared, waiting upon the others. So the ambassador and his wife must be at the residence in Rome; that was going to make it easier.

He retreated from the lighted part of the house, still using the tree concealment to gain the darkened wall. He hunched, trying to recall from the plans inside his jacket where he was. The identified kitchen provided the guide. West wing, nearest the drive; that meant the study and drawing rooms. There were breaker points on the window sashes and verandah windows to the study, according to the plans. Fantani moved forward, confirming the layout when he got nearer. He went confidently to the drawing room window, counting first laterally and then horizontally the paned windows, isolating the third from the ground. He unstrapped the glass-cutter from his wrist and incisively arced an area. He gummed tape strips across the cut line, to prevent the glass either shattering or falling noisily into the room, and cuffed it with the heel of his hand. It broke cleanly, swinging inwards on the sticky tape hinges. Fantani eased in his hand, feeling for the connections between the doors which, if broken, would sound the alarm. They jutted out like nipples and Fantani fingered them familiarly. He took the bypass leads from his other wrist, shook out the wire to give him the maximum entry when the doors opened and went in again through the hole, attaching the alligator clips to each nipple. Fantini counted up again to get alongside the latch, and made another entry like the first. He’d been prepared for the lock to be empty, but the key was carelessly in place. He turned it, depressed the handle and, hesitating only momentarily, pushed the door open to the full extent of the bypass leads. There was no jangle of alarms.

Fantani, forewarned, did not walk directly in but short-stepped sideways, avoiding the secondary alarm system activated by the pressure pads beneath the window carpeting.

Clear of the French windows, he went cautiously towards the door leading further into the house, hands held out for any obstruction. At the door he stopped, listening with his head close against a panel. From the other side there was silence. Cautious still, Fantani pushed open the door and waited again. There was no sound. He widened it sufficiently to see out and ensure the corridor was empty, emerging into the brightly lit passageway. He’d been in darkness for so long that the suddenness of the light burst at him. He blinked against it, anxious for darkness again. The approach to the second storey curved around the rim of the vestibule, a broad, sweeping staircase wide enough for at least four people to ascend, all comfortably abreast. Fantani ran up lightly, pausing at the top to regain his sense of direction. Guest bedrooms left and right, master suite ahead with the best view of the Tyrrhenian Sea. At the door he paused, listening again for any noise from inside. Although he heard nothing, Fantani was not satisfied. He gently lowered the handle and eased the door ajar, standing back to run if there was a sudden challenge. There was nothing. Fantani hurried in, securing the door behind him, alert for the deep breathing of someone asleep. He checked that the drapes were closed and actually felt out over the bed, as a final insurance against its being occupied, before he put on the light.

This wasn’t a shared bedroom, Fantani knew at once. Only a man had ever slept here: a proud man, conscious of his success. Near the dressing table there was a bust, which Fantani presumed to be the ambassador. By switching on the light he’d activated the spotlight cleverly mounted alongside one of the wardrobes: it gave the carving a godlike appearance. The Italian’s eyes moved uninterestedly over the pictures and diplomas, stopping at the bed. It was turned back only on one side, with pyjamas neatly laid out. So they weren’t sleeping at the official residence.

Spurred by the warning, Fantani hurried to what was obviously the communicating door, looking for the room that had been identified on the documents he’d studied. The dressing room was a large, square place lined with cupboards, apart from one entire wall elaborately arranged as a woman’s make-up area, with lights fixed carefully around the mirror. Fantani took it all in at a glance, seeking the desk. He drew the safe blueprint from his jacket, laying it out beside him on the floor. There was no disturbance of the carpet to indicate how the pedestal might turn and Fantani felt a momentary lurch of uncertainty. He groped back, beneath the leg area. The securing bolt came snugly beneath his fingers. He slid it easily aside and pushed, lightly at first and then more strongly. The left support swivelled sideways. Fantani stooped low inside the cramped space, positioning the shortened stethoscope against the combination dial. He began to sweat again because of the nervousness and the tightly enclosed space, impatient for the numbers to co-ordinate with their code and snap into place. Around him the house remained quiet and undisturbed.

At the count of seven, Fantani began gently easing the lid: it lifted at nine. He stopped abruptly, taking the thin tip of the glass-cutter and running it gently beneath the rim, feeling for any alarm trigger. Satisfied there was none, Fantani lifted the top off completely, staring down inside the safe, feeling the sharp burst of sensual pleasure more intense than he ever felt gazing at the naked body of a waiting woman. Beneath the circular opening the safe opened into a square retaining area and in it jewel boxes and containers were stacked like bricks in a child’s construction game.

Fantani took the cases individually from the safe, emptying their contents into the silk bag. Every colour in the spectrum dazzled up at him, reds and greens and blues and iced white, and he felt the excitement block in his throat. His hand was shaking when he replaced the safe top and twirled the dial to lock it. He re-positioned the covering pedestal and swept his hand across the carpet to erase any signs of disturbance. He decided to leave as he had entered, through the male bedroom. He turned off the dressing-room lights, crossed the darkened room and eased open the door to the landing and the widely sweeping staircase. He was halfway out when he heard the woman’s voice, talking animatedly, before he snatched back into the bedroom.

He was trapped.

The interrogation rooms were subterranean, far below ground level, but there was no dungeon impression. They were reached by a smooth operating lift and the corridors were rubber-tiled and well lighted by concealed strips behind unbreakable overhead glass, so that it appeared more like a hospital.

Hotovy was in one of the central rooms. Kalenin stopped just inside the door. The man was in a sitting position but not really in a chair. It was a metal frame, moulded to support a human shape. Hotovy was clamped into it, completely naked, with metal bands around his wrists, arms, waist, ankles and thighs, making him utterly immobile. There was also a band around his neck to keep him upright. The finger ends were pulped and crushed and electrodes were pasted to his genitals and nipples. Where he had been forced up against the tethering, in the agony of the current being applied, his body was purpled and bloodied. There were some haphazard whip marks across his chest and thighs, and his face was swollen and bruised. The eyes moved, although dully, at Kalenin’s entry. There was a telephone just inside the door and Kalenin used it to summon the waiting doctors. There were three of them.

‘What exactly do you want?’ asked the physician in charge.

‘Complete awareness,’ said Kalenin. ‘He’s got to recognize others can suffer as he has.’

‘For how long?’

Kalenin shrugged. ‘A brief confession. There’s only one thing I really want to know.’

‘Any concern about lasting effects?’

‘None.’

They set up an intravenous drip and then examined Hotovy for internal injuries. There was some spleen and liver enlargement, which they diagnosed as bruising, but an encephalogram disclosed no brain damage. Hotovy was already stirring when they prepared the other injections. The first stimulant they put into his arm, but the second, larger, dose they pumped directly into the aorta, an insertion only normally used for resuscitation after a heart collapse. Hotovy’s recovery was dramatic and complete, to full consciousness. Kalenin had expected the man to show fear: certainly there was apprehension but there was still a sullen resistance.

‘Thirty minutes,’ estimated the chief surgeon.

‘Bring him,’ ordered Kalenin, striding from the room.

Supported by guards on either side Hotovy was hauled, feet dragging, behind the KGB chief. It was only a few yards to the other side of the interrogation area. Here the chambers were larger and partitioned, so that observers could watch questioning unseen from a soundproofed box. Behind the glass, Hotovy’s wife and two sons sat cowed on a central bench. The woman wore a shapeless prison dress and the boys were clinging to her, terrified. As they watched, one gave way and began to cry and the woman pulled him into her shoulder to comfort him.

Hotovy gave a cut-off, strangled moan and pushed forward against the glass. The guards were ready and held him back. The Czech’s head moved, like a boxer who has taken too much punishment. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Please no.’

‘Rome,’ demanded Kalenin. ‘What did you tell the British about Rome?’

Hotovy looked round bewildered. ‘Rome?’ he said. ‘I told them nothing about Rome.’

It was a genuine confession, thought Kalenin. ‘You made a query to your ministry in Prague. About British concern at our expansion in Africa. There’s a file record.’

‘Only for the designation of source,’ whimpered Hotovy. ‘And that was Cape Town: Rome was never mentioned.’

Kalenin went to the microphone linking him to the men standing over the woman and boys, on the other side of the screen. Hotovy moaned again when he saw the Russian reach out for the control switch.

‘What about Rome?’ persisted Kalenin.

‘I don’t know anything about Rome!’ wailed Hotovy. ‘On my life!’

‘It’s not your life,’ said Kalenin, ‘it’s theirs.’

‘I don’t know anything about Rome. For God’s sake, believe me!’

Kalenin did. Which meant the damage was no more extensive than he already knew it to be. Abruptly he turned on his heel and left the room.

The chief doctor caught up with him at the lift entrance. ‘That was a massive stimulant,’ said the man. ‘I’d guess a collapse, almost at once. It’ll be severe.’

Kalenin turned, as the doors opened. ‘He’s not important any more,’ he said.

Richard Semingford was a precise, neat man, given to blazers with club buttons and ties, club-striped too. He had a close-clipped beard, and on the first night they had slept together in her apartment Jane Williams had produced a picture of her bearded father in naval uniform, and they’d tried to remember the opposite of an Oedipus complex and failed. They had made love there again tonight but not well and now they lay in the darkness, side by side but untouching.

‘You didn’t have to buy the meal,’ he said.

‘I know things aren’t easy,’ she said.

‘It costs a lot, maintaining Ann’s mother in that damned old people’s home. And there are a lot of things the Foreign Office doesn’t pay for, with the kids’ schooling.’

‘I said I don’t mind,’ she reminded him.

‘I do.’

She felt out for his hand. ‘You shouldn’t. I love you and I understand.’

‘I want to ask Ann for a divorce.’

‘Is that sensible?’

‘No.’ He kissed her on the cheek. ‘She might have relaxed her Catholic principles to marry a Protestant but I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t about divorce.’

‘So what’s the point?’

‘Permission isn’t necessary any more.’

‘She could still make it unpleasant: the Foreign Office doesn’t like personal unpleasantness, you know.’

‘She might not, if she thought she was being properly provided for.’

She squeezed his hand. ‘And how could you do that, darling? You can’t manage as it is.’

His hand tightened upon hers. ‘That’s the bloody problem,’ he said. ‘It’s always money.’

She tried to think of something to break his mood and said, ‘We had an awful man out at the villa.’

‘Who?’

‘Some insurance assessor, checking Lady Billington’s jewellery. Frightful person.’

‘What was wrong with him?’

‘Cocksure, for a start. Literally. I could practically feel his hand up my skirt.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘I never bothered to find out. I used to see men like him wandering the streets of Portsmouth and Chatham when daddy was on base, stumbling from pub to pub and leering at any girl they saw.’ Once more, the morning’s indignation was building up within her. ‘Bloody cats made him sneeze and I had to look after the damned things.’

‘What did Lady Billington think?’

‘You know her. The social conscience of the world! She thinks everyone’s wonderful.’

‘Mustn’t it be marvellous to have the Billingtons’ money?’ said Semingford. ‘Never again having to bother about end-of-month sums on the backs of envelopes.’

‘I’ve never thought about it.’

‘Because you never had to.’ He regretted it at once and said, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does and I’m sorry: really I am. I’ll get the money and divorce Ann.’

‘Of course,’ she said.

‘Don’t patronize me.’

‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘But you did.’

‘And you were rude.’

‘I meant it, about divorcing Ann,’ he said.

‘Don’t do anything silly, darling,’ she said. ‘I’m happy enough, the way things are.’

‘I’m not,’ he said grim-faced.