The Angry Mountain

CHAPTER THREE

I had all afternoon to think it over. And the more I thought about it, the less I liked it. What they’d asked me to do was to let Sismondi think I’d got whatever it was he wanted and by that means to find out what he knew about Tucek’s disappearance. It doesn’t sound much. But then remember, this was Italy, a country where real life crosses the footlights to merge with melodrama. Last time I’d been in Milan I’d seen the mutilated bodies of Mussolini and his mistress strung up by the heels for the public to jeer at. A bloodthirsty mob had cut the woman’s heart out. And the farther south you get the cheaper life becomes. Moreover, it was very different from the wartime Italy. I’d been very conscious of that since I arrived. There was none of that sense of security induced by the constant sight of British and American uniforms.

I had dinner early and went to the bar. I thought if I had a few drinks I shouldn’t feel so unhappy about the whole business. But somehow they seemed to have the reverse effect. By nine o’clock I knew I couldn’t put it off any longer. I called a taxi and gave the driver Sismondi’s address, which was Corso Venezia 22.

It was raining and a cold, damp smell hung over the streets. A tram was the only thing that moved in the whole of the Vittor Pisani. The atmosphere of the city was very different from the morning when I’d sat in the sun in the public gardens. I shivered. I could feel one of my fits of depression settling on me. The stump of my leg ached and I wished I could go back to the hotel, have a hot bath and tumble into bed. But there was no turning back now.

In a few minutes the taxi had deposited me at Corso Venezia 22. It was a big, grey house, one of several that ran in a continuous line facing the Giardini Pubblici. There was a heavy, green-painted wooden door with a light showing through a fanlight. I watched the red tail light of the taxi disappear into the murk. The wind was from the north. It came straight off the frozen summits of the Alps and was bitterly cold. I climbed the half-dozen steps to the door. There were three bells and against the second was a small metal plate engraved with the name Sg. Riccardo Sismondi. Evidently the house was converted into flats. I rang the bell and almost immediately a man’s voice said, ‘Chi, e, per favored The door had not opened. The voice seemed to come from somewhere up by the fanlight. I realised then that I was faced with one of those electrical contrivances so beloved by Italians. ‘Mr. Farrell,’ I said. ‘I’ve come to see Signer Sismondi.’

There was a pause and then the same voice said, ‘Come in, please, Signer Farrell. The second floor.’ There was a click and a crack of light showed down one side of the door. I pushed it open and went in to find myself in a big entrance hall with a hothouse temperature. The heavy door swung to behind me and locked itself automatically. There was something final and irrevocable about the determined, well-oiled click of that lock. Additional lights came on in the narrow Venetian chandelier that hung from the ceiling. Thick pile carpets covered the tiled floor. There was a big grandfather clock in one corner and on a heavily carved table stood a beautiful model of an Italian field-piece in silver.

I climbed the stairs to the second floor. The air of the place was suffocatingly hot and faintly perfumed. The door of the flat was open and I was greeted by a leathery-faced little man with dark, rather protruding eyes and a glassy smile. He gave me a thick, podgy hand. ‘Sismondi. I am so glad you can come.’ The smile was automatic, entirely artificial. His almost bald head gleamed like polished bone in the light from the priceless glass chandelier behind him. ‘Come in, please, signore.’ There was no warmth in his tone. I got the impression that he was upset at my unexpected arrival.

He shut the door and hovered round me as I removed my coat. ‘You like a drink, yes?’ He stroked his hands as though smoothing down the coarse black hair that covered the backs of them.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

The lobby led into a heavily furnished lounge where my feet seemed to sink to the ankles in the thick pile of the carpets. Dark tapestries draped the walls and the furniture was ornate and carved. Then he pushed open a door and we went through into a softly-lit room full of very modern furnishings. The contrast was staggering. A fat pekinese got up from a silk-covered pouff and waddled towards me. It sniffed disdainfully at my trousers and returned to its couch. ‘My wife like those dogs very much,’ Sismondi said. ‘You like dogs, signore?’

I was thinking how very like the dog he was himself. ‘Er — yes,’ I said. ‘I’m very fond—’ And then I stopped. Reclining on the piled-up cushions of a big couch was a girl. Her figure merged into the green of the silk cushionings. Only her face showed in that soft lighting — a pale, madonna oval below the sweep of her jet black hair. The eyes caught the light and shone green like a cat’s eyes. The lips were a vivid gash in the pallor of her skin. I thought I knew then why Sismondi had given me such a glassy smile of welcome.

He bustled forward. ‘Signer Farrell. The Contessa Valle.’

I bowed. The girl didn’t move, but I could see her eyes examining me. I felt the way a horse must feel when it is being appraised by an expert. Sismondi gave an uncertain little cough. ‘What can I give you to drink, Signer Farrell? A whisky, yes?’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

He went over to an elaborate modern cocktail cabinet that stood open in the corner. The girl’s silence and immobility was disturbing. I followed him, very conscious of the drag of my leg.

‘I am sorry my wife is not ‘ere to welcome you, signore,’ he said as he poured the drink.

‘She have — how do you call it? — the influenza, eh?’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It is the weather, you know. It has been very cold here in Milano. You like seltz?’

‘No, I’ll have it neat, thank you,’ I said.

He handed me a heavy, cut-glass goblet half-full of whisky. ‘Zina? You like another benedictine?’

‘Please.’ Her voice was low and slumbrous and the way she said it the word became a purr. I went over and got her glass. The tips of her fingers touched mine as she handed it to me. The green eyes stared at me unblinking. She didn’t say anything, but I felt my pulse beat quicken. She was dressed in an evening gown of green silk, cut very low and drawn in at the waist by a silver girdle. She wore no jewellery at all. She was like something by one of the early Italian painters — a woman straight out of the medieval past of Italy.

When I took the drink back to her she slipped her legs off the couch. It was one single movement, without effort. Her body seemed to flow from one position to the next. ‘Sit down here,’ she said, patting the cushions beside her. ‘Now tell me how you lose your leg?’

‘I crashed,’ I said.

‘You are a flier then?’

I nodded.

She smiled and there was a glint of amusement in her eyes. ‘You do not like to talk about it, eh?’ When I didn’t answer, she said, ‘Perhaps you do not realise what an advantage it gives you? I ‘How do you mean?’ I asked.

She gave a slight, impatient shrug of the shoulders. ‘I think you are perhaps quite an ordinary man. But because of that leg you become intriguing.’ She raised her glass.’ Alia sua salute!’

‘Alla sua, signora!’ I replied.

Her eyes were watching me as her lips opened to the rim of her glass. ‘Where are you staying in Milano?’

‘At the Excelsior,’ I answered.

She made a small face. ‘You must find some friends,’ she said. ‘It is not good at a hotel. You will drink too much and sleep with the chambermaid and that will not be good for your work. You drink a lot. Am I right?’ She smiled. ‘Is it to forget the leg?’

‘Do I look as dissipated as all that?’ I asked.

She put her head slightly on one side. ‘Not yet,’ she said slowly. ‘At the moment it only makes you look intriguing. Later—’ She shrugged her shoulders.

Sismondi gave a little cough. I’d forgotten all about him. He came across the room, pushed the pouff with the peke on it out of the way and drew up a chair. ‘You come to tell me something, I think, Signer Farrell,’ he suggested.

‘A little matter of business,’ I said vaguely.

‘Because of my telephone conversation this morning?’ I nodded.

‘Good!’ He cupped his hands round the big brandy glass and drank. ‘You like a cigar?’

‘Thank you,’ I said. He seemed in no hurry. He went over to the cocktail cabinet and returned with a box of cigars. I looked across at the girl. ‘Do you mind?’ I asked.

She shook her head. ‘I like it. I may even take a puff of yours.’ Her voice was silky, an invitation to be stroked.

Sismondi and I lit our cigars. After that the conversation became general. I think we talked of Russia and Communism and the future of the Italian colonies. But I’m not really certain. My impression is one of soft lights, the night scent of perfume penetrating through the aroma of cigars and the oval of the girl’s face against the green silk of the cushions. I had a feeling that we were waiting for something. Sismondi did not again refer to the matter that had brought me to his flat.

I was halfway through my cigar when a buzzer sounded outside the room. Sismondi gave a grunt of satisfaction and scrambled to his feet, spilling cigar ash on to the carpet. As he left the room the girl said, ‘You look tired, signore.’

‘It’s been a very busy trip,’ I told her.

She nodded. ‘You must take a holiday during your stay in Italy. Go down to the south where it is warm and you can lie in the sun. Do you know Amalfi?’

‘It is very beautiful, yes? So much more beautiful than the Riviera. To see the moon lie like a streak of silver across the warmth of the sea.’ Her voice was like the murmur of the sea coming in over sand.

‘I’m due for a holiday,’ I said. ‘As soon as I can—’

But she wasn’t listening. She was looking past me towards the door. I half turned in my seat. There was the murmur of voices and then Sismondi came in rubbing his hands. He went over to the cocktail cabinet and poured a drink. A silence hung over the room. Then the door opened again and a man came in. I got to my feet and as I did so he stopped. I couldn’t see his face. It was in shadow and he was just a dark silhouette against the light of the open doorway. But I could feel his eyes fixed on me.

Sismondi came hurrying forward. ‘Mistair Farrell. I wish to introduce you to a friend of mine who is very interested in the matter which brings you here. Signer Shirer.’

I had moved forward to greet him, but I stopped then. Walter Shirer! It couldn’t be. It was too much of a coincidence just after I’d met Reece again. But the man had the same short, rather round figure. ‘Are you — Walter Shirer?’ My voice trembled slightly as I put the question.

‘Ah! So you know each other already?’

The figure in the doorway made no move. He didn’t say anything. I felt the sudden tension in the room. I began to sweat. ‘For God’s sake say something,’ I said.

‘I have nothing to say Jo you.’ He had turned on his heel.

‘Damn it, man!’ I cried. ‘You don’t hold it against me now, surely? At the Villa d’Este you were so decent about—’

But he had left the room, closing the door behind him.

I stood there for a second feeling helpless and angry. Then I brushed Sismondi aside and wrenched the door open. The lounge beyond was empty. Somewhere in the flat a door closed. Sismondi had hold of my arm now. ‘Please, signore. Please.’ He was almost whimpering with fright. I realised then that my drink was no longer in my hand. Vaguely I remembered flinging it on to the carpet. A sudden sense of hopelessness took hold of me. ‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘I must go.’

I got my hat and coat. Sismondi fussed round me. All he seemed able to say was, ‘Please, signore.’

I flung out of the flat and banged the door behind me. The lights brightened in the chandelier in the hall. The front door clicked softly open. I stopped outside, staring at the glistening tram lines of the Corso. The door closed with a final click, and I went down the steps, turned right and hurried towards my hotel.

I had got almost as far as the Piazza Oberdan before the bitterness inside me subsided. My mood changed then to one of self-reproach. Why the devil hadn’t I stayed there and brazened it out? Shirer had probably been as surprised as I had at the suddenness of the meeting. He’d had no time to adjust himself to it. He’d hesitated and I’d flown into a rage. I had slowed my pace up and now I stopped. I’d made a fool of myself and what was worse I’d failed completely to do anything about Tucek. Well, there was nothing I could do about that now. I couldn’t very well go back to the flat. It would have to wait till tomorrow. But I could go back and wait for Shirer to come out. I was certain he wasn’t staying there and I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to set things right between us.

I turned and walked very slowly back along the Corso. I reached the steps leading to the massive door of Number Twenty-two. I hesitated. I had only to walk up to the door and ring the bell. I could speak to Sismondi from the street. But I knew he’d want me to come up — he’d be slimy and ingratiating and then I’d be back in that softly lit room. … I was honest with myself then. I couldn’t face the mocking eyes of that girl. She’d guess the truth and somehow I couldn’t take it. I went on up the street and after walking perhaps fifty yards I turned and walked back.

I suppose I paced up and down outside Number Twenty-two for nearly half an hour. I know a church clock struck eleven, and then shortly afterwards a taxi drew up. The driver got out and rang a bell. I could see him talking to the voice above the door and then he got back into his taxi and sat there, waiting. I strolled forward. I’d have to catch Shirer before he drove off. But suppose he took the girl home? I knew if he came out with the Contessa Valle I wouldn’t be able to talk to him. But perhaps it would be better that way. Then I could go up and see Sismondi and settle the Tucek business.

I had reached the steps now. There was no crack of light down one side of the door. It was still firmly closed. I went on past the house and stepped out into the street behind the taxi. I waited there, screened by the rear of the car. The brilliant light of a street lamp shone on the green paint of the door I was watching.

At last it opened. It was Shirer and he was alone. For a moment he was a black silhouette against the lights of the chandelier in the hall. Then he was out in the full glare of the street light and the door closed behind him. He had on a grey overcoat and a wide-brimmed American hat. He paused on the top step, pulling on his gloves. Then he glanced up at the night and I saw his face. It was still round and chubby with high cheekbones, but the chin looked bluer, as though he had forgotten to shave, and there was a hint of grey at the temples. His eyes caught the light and seemed contracted as though the pupils had narrowed against the glare. He caressed his upper lip with the tip of a gloved finger as though he still…

I was suddenly in a cold sweat of panic. It was as though he were fingering a moustache and making a diagnosis, as though he were saying,’/ think we must operate to-day.’ A hand seemed to touch my leg, caressing it — the leg that wasn’t there. Shirer was dissolving into Sansevino before my eyes. I tried to fight back my sudden panic. This is Shirer, I kept telling myself — Walter Shirer, the man who escaped with Reece. You saw Sansevino dead at his desk with a bullet through his head. I could feel my finger-nails digging into the flesh of my palms and then it was Walter Shirer again and he was coming down the steps. He hadn’t seen me. I tried to go forward to meet him, but somehow I was held rooted to the spot. He vanished behind the bulk of the taxi. ‘Albergo Nazionale.’ The voice was crisp and sibilant and I felt fear catching hold of me again. Shirer hadn’t talked like that surely?

The door of the taxi closed. There was the sound of a gear engaging and then the glossy cellulose-finished metal of it slid away from me and I was staring at a fast-diminishing speck of red.

I passed my hand over my face. It was cold and clammy with sweat. Was I going mad or was I just drunk? Had that only been Shirer or… I shook myself, trying to get a grip on my thoughts. I’d been standing over the exhaust, that was all that had happened. I was tired and I’d breathed in some of the exhaust fumes. My sound leg felt weak at the knee. I was feeling sick and dizzy, too.

I turned and walked slowly down the Corso towards the Piazza Oberdan. The night air gradually cleared my brain. But I couldn’t get rid of the mental picture of Shirer standing at the top of those steps looking down at me, looking down at me and stroking his upper lip with the tips of his fingers. It had been the same gesture. I’d only to think of it to see the blasted little swine leaning over my bed fingering that dirty smudge of a moustache. Of course without that moustache the two would have looked very similar. It was Shirer I’d been introduced to and Shirer who’d come out of Number Twenty-two. It was my damned imagination, that was all.

Reece was waiting for me in the entrance hall when I reached the hotel. I didn’t even notice him until he caught me by the arm at the foot of the stairs. ‘What happened?’ he asked, peering at me.

‘Nothing,’ I snapped and shook his hand off my arm.

He gave me an odd look. I suppose he thought I’d drunk too much. ‘What did Sismondi say?’ he asked. ‘What did you find out?’

‘I didn’t find out anything,’ I answered. ‘I didn’t get a chance to talk to him alone.’

‘Well, what was your impression? Do you think he knows where Tucek is?’

‘I tell you, I didn’t get a chance to talk to him. Now leave me alone. I’m going to bed.’

He caught me by the shoulder then and spun me round. ‘I don’t believe you ever went to Sismondi’s place.’

‘You can believe what you damn’ well like,’ I answered.

I tried to shake myself free, but he had hold of my shoulder in a grip of iron. His eyes were narrowed and angry. ‘Do you realise what that poor kid’s going through?’ he hissed. ‘By God if this wasn’t a hotel I’d thrash the life out of you.’ He let me go then and I stumbled up the stairs to my room.

I didn’t get much sleep that night. Whenever I dozed off the figures of Shirer and Sansevino kept appearing and then merging and changing shape as though in a trick mirror. I’d be running through Milan in a sweat of fear with first one and then the other materialising from the crowd, appearing in the lighted doorways of buildings or seizing hold of my arm in the street. Then I’d be awake in a clammy sweat with my heart racing and I’d begin thinking over the events of the evening until I fell asleep and started dreaming again.

I have a horror of going mad — really mad, not just sent to hospital for treatment. And that night I thought I really was going round the bend. My mind had become a distorting mirror to the retina of my memory and the strange coincidence of that meeting with Shirer became magnified into something so frightening that my hair literally crawled on my scalp when I thought about it.

I got up with the first light of day and had a bath. I felt better then, more relaxed and I propped myself up in bed and read a book. I must have dozed off after a time for the next thing I knew I was being called. My mind felt clear and reasonable. I went down and ate a hearty breakfast. Shafts of warm sunshine streamed through the tall windows. I steered my mind clear of the previous night. I’d obviously been drunk. I concentrated all my energies on the work that had to be done. I could see Sismondi again that evening.

When I had finished my breakfast I went straight up to my room and began a long session of telephoning. I had the window on to the balcony open and the sun lay quite warm across the table at which I was seated. A maid came in and made the bed, managing, like most Italian servants, to make me conscious of her sex as she moved about the room.

I was about halfway through my list of contacts and had just replaced the receiver after completing a call when the clerk at the reception desk came through. ‘A lady to see you, Signer Farrell.’

I thought of the scene with Reece the previous night and my heart sank.

‘Did she give you her name?‘I asked.

‘No, signore. She will not give me her name.’

I suppose she’d been afraid I wouldn’t see her if she said who she was. ‘All right. I’ll come down.’ I replaced the receiver and got to my feet. Her arrival had broken the spell of my concentration on work and I found myself thinking again of the events of the night before. The sunlight seemed suddenly cold. There was a slight breeze blowing on to the table and ruffling the papers that spilled across it from the open mouth of my briefcase. I shut the windows and then went out down the corridor to the main stairs, mentally bracing myself to face Tucek’s daughter.

She wasn’t in the entrance hall and I went over to the reception desk. The clerk gave me an oily smile. ‘She is gone to the bar, Signor Farrell.’ I turned and went up the stairs again.

But it wasn’t Hilda Tucek who was waiting for me in the bar. It was the girl I’d met at Sismondi’s flat — the Contessa Valle. She was dressed in a black coat and skirt with a fur cape draped round her shoulders. Her black hair was drawn tight back from a central parting and it gleamed in the sunlight. Her oval face was pale by comparison and the only spot of colour was a blood-red carnation pinned above her left breast, the colour exactly matching the shade of her lips. She still looked like a painting by one of the early masters, but in the morning sunlight her madonna features seemed to have a touch of the devil in them.

‘Good morning, signore.’ Her voice was soft like a caress. The lazy smile she gave me made me think of a cat that has found a bowl of cream. She gave me her hand. I bent and touched the warm flesh with my lips, and all the time I knew her green eyes were watching me. ‘I hope you do not mind my coming to see you, like this?’

‘I’m delighted,’ I murmured.

‘I wait for you in the bar because I think perhaps you need a drink — after what happen last night.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I could do with a drink. What will you have?’

‘It is a little early for me. But to keep you company I will have a creme de menthe.’

I sat down and called a waiter. All the time I was trying to control the sudden sense of excitement that her presence had induced and at the same time to figure out just why she had come to see me. The waiter came over and I ordered a creme de menthe and a cognac and seltz. Then I said awkwardly, ‘Why have you come to see me, Contessa?’

A glint of amusement showed in her eyes. ‘Because you interest me, Signor Farrell.’

I gave a little bow. ‘You flatter me.’

She smiled. ‘It is a pretty scene you make last night, throwing your glass on the floor and walking out on poor little Riccardo. Also Walter was very upset. He is sensitive and—’ She must have seen the tenseness in my face for she stopped then. ‘Why do you behave like that, signore?’

The unexpected directness of the question took me by surprise. ‘I was drunk,’ I answered tersely. ‘Suppose we leave it at that.’

She smiled and shrugged her shoulders. The waiter arrived with the drinks. ‘Salute!’ She raised the glass to her lips. The green of the creme de menthe was a shocking contrast to the red gash of her lips, but it matched her eyes. I emptied the bottle of seltz into my glass and drank.

There was an uncomfortable silence which was broken by her saying, ‘I do not think you were drunk last night. You were very strung up and you had been drinking. But you were not drunk.’

I didn’t answer. I was thinking of Shirer, seeing him again in the glare of the street light stroking the side of his upper lip with the tips of his fingers. ‘Have you known Walter Shirer long?’ I asked.

‘Two or three years perhaps. I am from Napoli and he has a vineyard there. He is producing a very good Lachrima Christi. You know him before you meet him last night, eh? That is why you are so upset.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I knew him during the war. We were in the Villa d’Este together.’

‘Ah, now I understand. That is the place he escape from. But you are not the Englishman who accompany him.’

‘No.’

‘Are you angry with him because he go and you cannot?’

Damn the woman! Why couldn’t she pick on some other subject. ‘Why should I be?’ My voice sounded harsh.

‘You do not like to talk about it, eh? I hear from Walter that there is a doctor in the Villa d’Este who is not very kind.’

‘Yes. There was a doctor.’ I stared at my drink, thinking of the tone in which Shirer had said Albergo Nazionale as he’d directed the taxi driver. ‘He was very like Shirer,’ I murmured. And then suddenly I remembered. God! Why hadn’t I thought of it before? Upstairs amongst the files in my baggage I had a photograph of il dottore Sansevino. I’d liberated it from the files of the Institute Nazionale Luce. Some perverse sense of the morbid had made me keep it. I got to my feet. ‘I have a photograph I would like you to see, Contessa,’ I said. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and get it. I won’t be a minute.’

‘No, please.’ Her hand was on my arm. ‘I have to go in a moment and I did not come here to look at photographs.’

‘I’d like you to see it,’ I insisted. ‘It won’t take a second for me to get it.’

She started to argue, but I was already walking away from the table. I took the lift up to my floor and went down the corridor to my room. The next door to mine was open and I could see the maid making the bed. As I put the key in the lock of my door something banged inside. I entered to find that the windows to the balcony had blown open. The sudden through draught slid my papers across the table and on to the floor. I shut the door quickly, retrieved the papers and closed the windows again.

Then I stood stock still, remembering suddenly that I had closed them and locked them before going down to meet the Contessa. I turned quickly to my bags and checked through them. Nothing seemed to be missing and I cursed myself for being so jumpy. I found the photograph and shut my case again.

As I left my room the maid came out of the next door. She stopped and stared at me, mouth agape in astonishment. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ I asked her in Italian.

She stared at me stupidly and I was just going to go on down the corridor when she said, ‘But il dottore said you were ill, signore.’

The words il dottore brought me spinning round on her. ‘How do you mean?’ I asked. ‘What doctor?’

‘The one who come through this room when I am making the bed, signore.’ She looked pale and rather frightened. ‘He say that the signore is not to be disturbed. But the signore is not ill. Please — I do not understand.’

I took hold of her by the shoulders and shook her in my sudden, intuitive panic. ‘What did he look like — the doctor? Quickly, girl. What was he like?’

‘I do not remember,’ she murmured. ‘He came in from the balcony, you see, and he was against the light so that—’

‘From the balcony?’ So that was why the french windows had been open. Somebody had been in my room. ‘Tell me exactly what happened?’

She stared at me, her eyes very large. She was frightened. But I don’t think she knew quite why she was frightened.

‘What happened?’ I repeated in a more controlled voice, trying to calm her.

She hesitated. Then she took a breath and said, ‘It was whilst I was making the bed, signore. I had opened the windows to the balcony to air the room and then this man came in. He frightened me, appearing suddenly like that.

But he put his fingers to his lips and told me I was not to disturb you. He said he was a doctor. He had been called because you were taken ill, signore, and he had given you some medicine. He added that you had gone to sleep now and he had come out by way of the balcony because he was afraid the door might make a noise when he closed it and wake you.’

‘And he said he was a doctor?’

‘Si, si, signore. He was not the hotel doctor. But sometimes guests call in other doctors. Are you better now, signore?’

‘I haven’t been ill and I didn’t call a doctor,’ I told her.

She stared at me, her eyes like saucers. I could see she didn’t believe a word of it. Probably I looked pretty wild. I was in the grip of a horror that seemed to come up from right deep down inside of me. I had to fight all the time to keep myself under control. ‘Can you describe this man to me?‘I asked her.

She shook her head. She was beginning to edge away from me. At any moment I felt she’d run away down the corridor. ‘Was he short or tall?’ I persisted.

‘Short.’

I suddenly remembered the photograph I was still holding in my hand. I covered the uniform with my hand and showed her just the head. ‘Was that the man?’

Her gaze slid reluctantly from my face to the photograph. ‘Si, si, signore. That is the man.’ She nodded her head emphatically and then frowned. ‘But he do not have a moustache.’ Her voice had become uncertain. ‘I cannot tell, signore. But it is very like him. Now, please, I must go. I have many, many rooms—’ She edged away from me and then hurried off down the corridor.

I stood there, staring at the photograph. Sansevino’s dark, rather small eyes stared back at me from the piece of pasteboard. It wasn’t possible. Damn it, Sansevino was dead. I’d seen him myself with his brains spattered from his head and the little Beretta gripped in his hand. But why should Shirer want to search my room? And then there was that story about being a doctor. In an emergency a man thinks up something that appears reasonable to him. Shirer wouldn’t have thought of calling himself a doctor. But Sansevino would. It would leap automatically to his mind as a perfectly natural excuse for his behaviour.

I felt a shiver run up my spine: a tingle of horror, of anticipation — an unholy mixture of glee and instinctive fear. Suppose it was Sansevino I’d met last night? Suppose…. But I discarded the idea. It was too fantastic, too horrible.

I turned and walked slowly along the corridor and down the stairs. But all the way back to the bar I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind. It would account for the man’s odd behaviour the night before. It would account, too, for my involuntary sense of fear. But I wasn’t afraid now. I had a feeling of exultance. Suppose it were Sansevino. Just suppose that it was Sansevino who had escaped from the Villa d’Este. Then I had him. Then I could repay all he’d done to me, repay the pain, the hours of mental torture waiting for the …

‘What is the matter, Signer Farrell? Has anything happened?’

I had reached the table where I had left the Contessa. ‘No,’ I answered quickly. ‘Nothing has happened.’ My glass was still half-full and I drained it at a gulp.

‘You look as though you have seen a ghost,’ she said.

‘A ghost?’ I stared at her. Then I sat down. ‘What made you say that?’

Her brows arched slightly at the abruptness of my tone. ‘Have I said something wrong? I am sorry. I am not good at idiomatic English. What I mean to say is that you look upset.’

‘It’s nothing,’ I said, wiping my face and hands with my handkerchief. ‘I get these attacks sometimes.’ I was thinking of that time in Naples when I’d been waiting at the Patria for a boat to take me home. I’d had the same feeling of tightness inside my head. It had been like an iron band being slowly screwed down across the brain cells. I’d been two months in hospital then. Was I going the same way again? ‘Hell! I can’t be imagining it all.’

‘What is that you say?’ She was staring at me curiously and I realised I must have spoken aloud.

I called the waiter. ‘Will you have another drink?’ I asked her. She shook her head and I ordered a double cognac.

‘You should not drink so much,’ she murmured.

I laughed. ‘If I didn’t drink—’ I stopped then, realising that I was in danger of saying too much.

She reached out and her fingers touched my hand. ‘I am sorry,’ she said softly. ‘I think something terrible has happen in your life.’

The waiter brought my drink and I gulped at it thirstily. ‘Do you recognise that man?’ I asked and thrust the photograph across the table towards her.

She stared at it, her forehead wrinkling in a frown. ‘Well?’ I said impatiently. ‘Who is it?’

‘I do not understand,’ she said. ‘He is in Fascist uniform.’

‘And he has a moustache, eh?’

She looked across at me. ‘Why do you show me this?’

‘Who is it?‘I asked.

‘You know who it is. It is the man you meet last night.’

I knocked back the rest of my drink. ‘The name of the man in that photograph is Dottore Giovanni Sansevino.’ I picked up the pasteboard and slipped it into my wallet.

‘Sansevino?’ She stared at me uncomprehendingly. ‘Who is Sansevino?’

I thrust my leg out. ‘He was responsible for that.’ My voice sounded harsh and blurred in my ears. ‘My leg was smashed up in an air crash. He could have saved it. God knows, he was a good enough surgeon. Instead he did three amputations on it, two below the knee and one above — all without anaesthetics.’ Anger was welling up inside me like a tide. ‘He deliberately sawed my leg to pieces.’ I could see my fingers whitening as they tightened on each other. I had them interlaced and I was squeezing them as though they were closed around Sansevino’s throat. Then suddenly I 7S had control of myself. ‘Where will I find Walter Shirer?’ I asked her.

‘Walter Shirer?’ She hesitated. Then she said, ‘I do not know. I think he is not in Milano to-day.’

‘He’s staying at the Albergo Nazionale, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, but—’ Her fingers were on my hand again. ‘You should learn to forget the past, signore. People who think too much of the past—’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Every one has things inside them that are better forgotten.’ Her eyes were looking beyond me, not seeing the details of the room.

‘Why do you say that?’ I asked her.

‘Because you are all tense inside. Walter reminds you of the man in that photograph and you are bitter.’ She sighed. ‘I also have the past that I must forget,’ she said softly. ‘I have not always been dressed like this, you see. Life has not been easy for me. I was born in a slum off the Via Roma in Napoli. You know Napoli?’ She smiled as I nodded. It was a wry, hard smile. ‘Then you know what that means, signore. Fortunately I can dance. I get to know a man at the San Carlo and he gets me into the Corpo di Ballo. After that it is much better. Now I am a Contessa, and I do not think too much of the past. I think I should go crazy if I think too much of what my girlhood is like.’ She leaned towards me and her eyes were fixed on mine. They were large eyes — pale brown with flecks of green and the whites were not quite white, more the colour of old parchment. ‘Think of the future, signore. Do not live in the past.’ Her fingers squeezed my hand. ‘Now I must go.’ Her voice was suddenly practical as she reached for her handbag. ‘This afternoon I go to Firenze.’

‘How long will you be in Florence?’ I was thinking it was a pity she was going. She was exciting, unusual.

‘Not long. I stay two nights with some friends and then I motor to Napoli. I have a villa there. You know the Palazzo Donn’ Anna on the Posillipo?’

I nodded. It was a huge medieval building, the base of its stone arches planted in the sea just north of Naples.

‘My villa is just near the Palazzo. You will come and see me I hope when you are in Napoli. It is called the Villa Carlotta.’

‘Yes, I should like to,’ I said.

She had risen to her feet and as I escorted her to the entrance hall, she said, ‘Why do you not take a holiday? It would do you good to lie in the sun and relax yourself.’ She glanced at me with a swift lift of her brows. ‘Milano is not good for you, I think. Also I should like to see you again. We have something in common, you and I — our pasts.’ She smiled and gave me her hand.

I watched her as she went out and got into the car that was waiting for her. Then I turned and went back into the bar. Milano is not good for you, I think. What had she meant by that? And why had she come to see me? I realised then that she had not given me any really satisfactory reason for her visit. Had she come by arrangement with the man who had searched my room?

What did it matter anyway? The bug eating into my mind was Shirer. The idea that he was really Sansevino clung with a persistence that was frightening. I had to know the truth. I had to see him again and make certain. The thing was ridiculous, and yet … it was the sort of thing that could happen. And if it were Sansevino. … I felt anger boiling up in me again. I had another drink and phoned the Albergo Nazionale. Signer Shirer wasn’t there. He wasn’t expected back till the evening. I rang Sismondi at his office. He told me Shirer had said something about going out of town.

I had lunch then and after lunch I called on various firms. I didn’t get back to the hotel till nearly eight and by then the whole idea seemed so fantastic that I discarded it completely. I had a quick dinner and then went into the bar. But after a few drinks, I began to feel I must see him and make certain.

I got a taxi and went straight over to the Nazionale. It was a small and rather luxurious hotel almost opposite La Scala. There was an air of past grandeur about it with its tapestried walls and heavy, ornate furnishings. In this setting the lift, which was caged in with a white-lacquered tracery of wrought-iron, seemed out of place whilst at the same time adding to the expensive impression already given by the furnishings, the deep-piled carpet and knee-breeches uniform of the servants. I went over to the hall porter’s desk and asked for Shirer.

‘Your name, please, signore?’

‘Is Mr. Shirer in?’ I repeated.

The man looked up at the sharpness of my tone. ‘I do not know, signore. If you will please give me your name I will telephone his suite.’

I hesitated. Then some devil in me prompted me to say, ‘Just tell him a friend of Dr. Sansevino wishes to see him.’

The porter picked up the telephone. He gave my message. There was a pause and then he was talking fast, looking at me all the time, and I knew he was describing me to the person at the end of the line. At length he put down the receiver and called one of the pages. The boy took me up in the lift to the top floor, along a heavily carpeted corridor and rang the buzzer of a door marked B. It was opened by a manservant, or it might have been a secretary. It was difficult to tell. He was neatly dressed in a lounge suit and his small button eyes were quick and alert. ‘Please to come in, signore.’ He spoke English in a manner that suggested he hated the language.

He took my hat and coat and then showed me into a large, surprising modern room. It was decorated in white and gold, even the baby grand was white and gold, and it was lit by concealed lighting. The floor was carpeted in black. The effect was startling in contrast with the rest of the hotel. ‘So it’s you, Farrell.’ Shirer came forward from the fire, his hand held out in greeting. ‘Why in the world didn’t you say who you were?’ His voice was irritable, his face pale and his eyes searching my face.

I looked past him and saw Zina Valle in a big armchair by the electric fire, her legs curled up under her and a sleepy, rather satisfied smile on her face. She looked somehow content and relaxed, like a cat that has been at a bowl of cream. ‘A friend of Dr. Sansevino.’ Shirer patted my arm. ‘That’s rich coming from you.’ He caught the direction of my gaze and said, ‘You know the Contessa Valle, I think.’

‘Yes,’ I said. And then as Shirer took me towards the fire I said to her. ‘I thought you were in Florence.’

She smiled. ‘I could not go to-day. I shall go tomorrow instead.’ Her voice was slurred and languorous.

‘Queer running across you again like this,’ Shirer said. ‘It takes me back to things I’d rather forget. I guess you’d rather forget them, too — eh? Sorry about last night. Afraid you caught me off balance. It was just that I wasn’t expecting to find you there. Care for a drink?’

‘Thank you,’ I murmured.

‘What will it be? Whisky and soda?’

‘That’ll do fine.’

He had turned to an elaborate cocktail cabinet. ‘I had no idea you were in Milan. I suppose you’re here on business. Sismondi never entertains any one unless there is some business behind it.’

He_was talking too fast — too fast and with a sibilance that did not belong to Shirer. The room, too. Walter Shirer had been an ordinary, simple sort of person. Maybe he’d reacted against his environment. He’d been a coal miner. But even then the room didn’t seem to fit and I was filled with uneasiness.

He handed me my drink. Then he raised his glass. ‘Up she goes!’ I remembered Shirer in agony over those gas blisters raising a glass of filthy medicine to his lips and saying ‘Up she goes!’ He’d always said that as he drank.

An awkward silence developed. Zina Valle had closed her eyes. She looked relaxed and almost plump. A clock on the mantelpiece ticked under a glass case. ‘How did you know I was at the Nazionale?’ Shirer asked.

‘Oh — somebody told me,’ I replied.

‘Who?’

‘I’m not sure.’ I couldn’t tell him I’d overheard him give the address to the taxi-driver last night. ‘I think perhaps it was the Contessa, this morning when she came to see me.’

He turned quickly towards her. ‘Zina. Did you give Farrell my address this morning? Zina!’ She opened her eyes. ‘Did you tell Farrell I was at the Nazionale?’

‘I heard you the first time, Walter,’ she replied sleepily. ‘I don’t remember.’

He gave an impatient shrug of his shoulders and then turned back to me. ‘Well now, suppose you tell me why you’re here?’

I hesitated. I wasn’t really sure. I wasn’t sure about anything, the room, the man himself — it was all so strange. ‘I’m sorry,’ I murmured. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have come. It was just that I didn’t want to leave it as it stood between us last night. I quite realise how you must feel. I mean — well, at the time I thought you’d understood. I stood two of their damned operations, but the third—’ My voice trailed away.

‘Forget it,’ he said.

‘But last night. … I felt—’

He didn’t let me finish. ‘I was surprised, that’s all. Damn it, Farrell, I don’t bear you any grudge for what happened. It wasn’t your fault. A guy can stand so much and no more. I wouldn’t have stood up to even two of that little swine’s operations.’ He said that little swine’s operations so easily that I found myself relaxing.

He turned to Zina Valle. ‘Can you imagine what it’s like to have your foot amputated without any anaesthetic? The foot was damaged when he crashed. But it wasn’t badly damaged. It could have been saved. Instead they let it become infected with gangrene. Then they had an excuse for operating. Once it was gangrenous they had to operate in order to save his life. And then when they got him on the operating table they found they’d run out of anaesthetic. But it was made perfectly clear to him that if he cared to talk, to tell them who he’d dropped behind the lines and where, the anaesthetic might be found. But he kept his mouth shut and they strapped him down and gagged his mouth and sawed his foot off. And he had to lie there, fully conscious, watching them do it, feeling the bite of the saw teeth on his own bones. …”

I wanted to tell him to shut up, to talk of something else. But somehow I couldn’t say anything. I just stood there, listening to him describing it with every nerve in my body shrieking out at the memory of it. And then I saw his dark eyes looking at me, watching me as he described how they’d done everything possible to hasten the healing of the wound. ‘And then, when it was nearly healed, they artificially infected the stump with gangrene again. Within a few days—’

But I wasn’t listening now. I was staring at him with a sense of real shock. I’d never told any one that they’d infected the leg with gangrene each time to give them an excuse to operate. I’d told Reece and Shirer about the operations, of course. But I’d never told them about the gangrene. It was bad enough knowing that they were there in that ward through my weakness without giving them any reason to think that the operations had been necessary. Of course, it was possible one of the orderlies, or even Sansevino himself, had told Shirer, but somehow I was sure they hadn’t. If they had, Reece at any rate would have made some comment.

I stared across the room with a sense of growing horror. The man was watching me, telling the story of my operations for the sheer pleasure of seeing my reaction. I felt suddenly sick. I finished off my drink. ‘I think I must go now,’ I said.

He stopped then. ‘You can’t go yet. Let me give you another drink.’ He came across the room and took my glass. As he bent to pick it up from the table where I had placed it, his neck was within reach of my hands. I had only to stretch forward…. But in the moment of thinking about it he had straightened up. Our eyes met. Was it my imagination or was there a glint of mockery there? ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise how the memory of pain would affect you.’ He turned to the cocktail cabinet and I wiped the sweat from my face. I saw Zina Valle glance from me to the man she thought was Walter Shirer. Her eyes were suddenly sharp and interested. Had she guessed the truth?

‘Zina. Another drink?’

‘Please. I will have a whisky this time, Walter.’

‘Do you think that wise?’

‘Perhaps not. We are not always wise.’

‘I really think I should be going,’ I muttered. I was feeling dazed, uncertain of being able to control myself. It was Walter Shirer I’d seen dressed up in Fascist uniform sitting dead at that desk. Anger rose up and choked me. The words il dottore were on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to say them, to see him swing round under the shock of discovery and then to close with him and choke the life out of him. But I stopped myself in time. I’d never get away with it. I’d never convince the authorities. And anyway he’d be armed. And then suddenly I knew that if he realised that I was aware of his true identity I’d never get out of the room alive. The ghastly game had got to be played out to the end now. That, and that alone, was clear in my mind. He was coming over to me now with the drink in his hand. ‘Here you are, Farrell. Now just you sit down and relax.’

I took the drink and sank into the nearest armchair. If I was to get out of the room alive I’d got to convince him that I still thought he was Shirer. ‘Funny thing,’ I said. ‘I only discovered a few days ago that you and Reece were alive. The hospital authorities gave out that you’d both been shot while trying to escape.’.

He laughed. ‘We damn nearly did get shot. The ambulance we got away in broke down and we had to take to the hills. Didn’t you ever come across Reece? I thought you and his sister—’

‘She broke it off.’

His eyebrows lifted. Shirer had never looked like that. This man was considering the mental impact of a thing like that, considering it as a doctor.

‘That was not very kind of her,’ Zina Valle said.

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘I would like my drink, please, Walter.’

He took it across to her and went back to the cabinet for his own. Zina Valle slid her feet to the floor and came across to me. ‘You do not seem to be very lucky in love, signore,’ she said.

I didn’t say anything. She placed her drink on the table where I had placed my own. ‘Perhaps you make a lot of money with the cards?’

‘I don’t play cards,’ I replied.

She laughed. ‘Always I am trying to prove that proverb. I do not think it is a true one.’ She yawned. ‘I am getting sleepy, Walter.’

He looked at his watch. ‘It’s only half-eleven.’

‘Yes, but I must be up early tomorrow.’ She glanced down at me. ‘Perhaps you would see me home, Mr. Farrell?’

It was almost as though she were offering me a means of escape from that room. ‘Of course,’ I said.

Shirer rang the bell and as the door opened behind me, he said,’ Pietro. Order a taxi.’

Zina Valle had moved back to her chair. I reached out for my drink. And then I glanced across at her, for my glass wasn’t where I’d placed it. She had taken mine and left me hers on the far side of the table. I was about to mention it, but something in her expression made me keep silent. Anyway, she had already finished the drink.

The man, Pietro, came in to say that the taxi was waiting. I got up and helped her on with her wrap. ‘How long will you be in Milan, Walter?’ she asked.

‘I can’t say. But don’t worry. I’ll see you get what you want. Farrell. You’ve left your drink.’ He held the glass out to me. ‘Scotch is too valuable these days to be wasted.’ He watched me while I knocked it back. Like a doctor seeing that his patient takes his medicine, I thought. And then I saw that Zina Valle was looking at him with an odd expression in her eyes.

He took the glass and put it down for me on a side table. Then he accompanied us to the lift. ‘It was nice of you to come and see me, Farrell,’ he said. His hand held mine and I felt a tingle run up my spine. The touch of his smooth fingers made me want to jerk him towards me and break him, smash him into little pieces. The hand I held, I knew, had never mined coal. I dropped it as though it was something that was dangerous to touch. ‘I hope this won’t be the last time we meet.’ He smiled. The lift gates closed and we went down. My last sight of him was peering down at us as we descended, the light catching his eyes and making them appear black like sloes.

In the taxi, Zina Valle took my arm and leaned close. ‘You do not like Walter, eh?’

I didn’t answer and she added: ‘You hate him. Why?’

I didn’t know what to say. To change the subject I said jokingly, ‘You took my drink, you know.’

‘But of course. Why do you think I take the trouble to get up when I am very happy sitting in my chair?’

I stared at her. ‘Do you mean you did it purposely? Why?’

She laughed. ‘Because I do not think it is good for you. Tell me, why was Walter so strange to-night? And that name — Sansevino. It frightened him. When he hears that a friend of Dr. Sansevino is wanting to see him, he turns very white. And when you come in — for a moment I think he is afraid of you. Is he afraid of you?’

‘Afraid of me?’ The phrase echoed in my mind like a peal of bells. Afraid of me! Sansevino afraid of me! I felt a sudden surge of power, of exultance. I had him now. I knew his secret. I could play the same game with him that he’d played with me. There was a saltness in my mouth; the taste of revenge.

‘Well? Is he?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Why?’

‘One day, if I get to know you better, I may tell you.’

‘Is it because of something he has done — something he has done to you?’ Her voice was eager, questing, as though she wanted the power that I possessed.

‘Why do you ask?’ I said. ‘Don’t you like him?’

The taxi stopped with a jerk. She was looking straight into my face, her eyes very wide and luminous. ‘I hate him,’ she breathed. Then the door was opened and she got out. ‘Don’t forget — if you come to Napoli I am at the Villa Carlotta.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I won’t forget. Good night.’

‘Buona notte.’ She blew me a kiss and was gone, swallowed by a big modern block of flats.

‘Whereto, signore?’

‘Albergo Excelsior.’

‘Bene.’

The taxi turned into the Corso Buenos Aires, and I sat, watching the street lamps flash by, hugging to myself the thought that I had Sansevino alive and in my power. It was a mood of elation that took me back to my hotel and stayed with me when I reached my room. I was too tensed-up to think of sleep. I paced up and down, my imagination running ahead of time, picturing just how I would handle the situation.

Looking back on it now I think my mood must have been a very queer one. I was excited, fascinated and afraid, all at the same time. For over a year I had lived in daily fear and dread of what this man could do to me. I had thought him dead. And now I knew that he was alive. Unless I were stark, raving mad, the man I had met was Sansevino. It was a frightening thought.

But even whilst my nerves cringed the mood of elation in which I had returned to the hotel still remained with me and I kept on repeating to myself: Sansevino is alive. I’ve got him now. This time he is in my power.

What should I do? Go to the police? No, no. That would be too straightforward. Let him learn what it was like to be afraid. Yes. That was what Zina Valle had said — I think he is afraid of you. Afraid! That was the thought that filled my mind. Sansevino was afraid of me. And he’d go on being afraid. All the rest of his life he’d be afraid.

I laughed out loud at the thought. No, I wouldn’t go to the police. They might not believe me, anyway. I wouldn’t say anything. But I’d keep in touch with him. And from time to time I’d let him know that I was still alive, that I knew who he was. Let him sweat it out through the long nights as I had sweated it out in the heat of summer on Como. Let him know what it was not to sleep for fear — fear of the rope that I could put round his neck.

And then I thought of Tucek. God! Has he anything to do with Jan Tucek’s disappearance? I remember how Sismondi had been waiting for him that night. Was there some connection there? A man who could do what Sansevino had done — who had cold-bloodedly organised….

There was a sudden knock at the door.

I swung round, my breath caught, gazing at the plain painted panels. Was it a knock, or had I imagined it?

Then it came again. It was real enough. Suppose it were Sansevino? The palms of my hands pricked with sweat and I was trembling.

‘Who is it?’ I called.

‘My name’s Hacket. I’m in the next room to you. I’m trying to get some sleep.’ It was an American voice, but much deeper than Shirer’s. I crossed the room and opened the door. A big, broad-shouldered man emerged from the shadows of the corridor blinking his eyes sleepily behind rimless glasses. His grey hair was ruffled and he had the appearance of a surprised and rather angry owl. He peered past me into the room. ‘Are you alone?’

‘Yes. Why?’

He looked at me rather oddly. ‘I thought you must be having an all-night conference. Suppose you go to bed and let other folk get some sleep.’

‘Have I been disturbing you in some way?’ I asked.

‘Disturbing me?’ His voice was almost a snarl. ‘Just take a look at this.’ He tapped the wall that separated my room from the next. ‘Paper thin. Do you realise I’ve been listening to your voice for nearly two hours now? I guess maybe I’m a little peculiar — I like it quiet when I sleep. Good night to you.’

His purple dressing-gown merged again into the shadows of the corridor and I heard his door close. It was only then that I realised that I must have been talking aloud to myself. I glanced at my watch. It was past two. With a rather guilty feeling I closed my door and began to undress. Now that I was going to bed I realised that I was terribly tired. I didn’t even bother to unstrap my leg. I just fell into bed and switched off the light.

My mind was still hammering away at the same problem. At what point I went to sleep, I don’t know. Probably almost at once, for I barely seemed to have turned the light out before my thoughts had merged into fantasy and I was off on a crazy chase after Sansevino through a ward planted with cacti that all looked like Shirer. I cornered him in an operating theatre where lights started as far-off pinpoints and came rushing towards me till they burst in blinding flashes inside my brain. I had Sansevino in a corner. He was the size of a mouse and I was wrestling with the spring of a trap baited with my own foot. And then he began to swell. In a moment he had filled the cockpit of my plane and was looking down at me as I descended slowly into the ground. His hands reached out towards me. They were huge hands, long-fingered and smooth. They touched my clothes, undoing the buttons, and then I felt them against my skin.

I woke then, my body rigid, all the muscles tense as though I’d been subjected to an electric shock. A slight draught touched my face and I knew the windows to the balcony were open. The bedclothes had been flung back and I was cold, particularly round the stomach where my pyjama trousers had been pulled away. There was a slight movement to my left and the sound of breathing.

Somebody was in the room with me.

I lay quite still. My muscles seemed frozen. I wanted to run, but it was like it is in a nightmare when you try to run but can’t. I was rigid with terror. The breathing came nearer, bending over me. Hands touched my bare stomach, sliding across the cringing flesh till they touched the stump of my left leg. They felt where it fitted into the cup of my artificial leg. Then they began to move up my body, feeling their way in the darkness as though they knew the shape of every muscle, every bone.

I stiffened in sudden, mortal terror. I knew those fingers. Lying there I knew who it was bending over me in the dark. I knew the touch of his hand and the way he breathed as certainly as if I could see him, and I screamed. It was a scream torn from the memory of the pain those hands had caused me. And as my scream went shrieking round the room, I lashed out with the frenzied violence of a man fighting for his life. But all I hit was air.

I thought I heard the sound of soft shoes on tiles and then a click of the windows closing. The air in the room no longer stirred. I sat up, gulping for breath in great sobs. My chest was heaving so that I thought my lungs would burst. I couldn’t still my panic.

Therewith a shock the windows flew open. Somebody floundered against the table. I screamed at him to go away. I could hear him moving blindly across the room. Panic gripped me so that I could scarcely breathe. And all the time I was screaming at him the only sound that came out of my mouth was an inarticulate retching for breath.

The central light clicked on and I was blinking at a figure in scarlet pyjamas. It was the man from the next room. 標hat’s the trouble?’ he asked. ‘What’s going on?’

I tried to explain, but I couldn’t get any words out. My heart was pounding and I seemed to have no control over my tongue. My breath just came in great sobs. Then I was sick, a dry retching. ‘Are you ill? Would you like a doctor?’

‘No,’ I gasped. I could feel my eyes dilating in horror at the suggestion. ‘No. I’m all right.’

‘Well, you don’t look it.’ He came over and stood staring down at me. ‘You must have had one hell of a nightmare.’

I realised I was half-naked and fumbled with the buttons of my pyjama jacket. ‘It wasn’t a nightmare,’ I managed to get out. ‘There was someone here, in the room. His hands were—’ It sounded so absurd when I tried to put it into words. ‘He was going to do something to me. I think he was going to kill me.’

‘Here, let me pull the bedclothes round you. Now then, you just lie still and relax.’

‘But I tell you—’

‘Take it easy now.’

‘You don’t believe me,’ I said. ‘You think I’m making it up.’ I thrust my artificial leg out from beneath the bedclothes. ‘Do you see that? A Dr. Sansevino did that. It was during the war. They wanted to make me talk. To-night I met him again, here in Milan. Don’t you see — he was here in this room. He was going to kill me.’ I remembered how Zina had changed the drinks over. Of course. It all fitted in. ‘He thought he’d drugged me. I tell you, he came here to kill me. If I hadn’t woken up—’

I stopped then. He had picked up a packet of cigarettes and was holding one out. I took it automatically and he lit it for me. ‘You don’t believe me, do you?’

‘Just draw on that and relax,’ he said.

I knew he didn’t believe me. He was so solid and practical. But somehow I’d got to make him believe me. It was suddenly very important. ‘Have you any idea what it’s like to have three operations on your leg and be conscious all the time?’ I stared at him, trying to will him to believe what I was telling him. ‘The man was a sadist. He enjoyed doing it. He’d caress my leg with his fingers before he operated. He liked the feel of the flesh he was going to cut away.’ I could feel the sweat breaking out on my forehead. I was working myself up into a lather again in my effort to convince him. ‘I know the touch of those fingers as I knew the feel of my own. They touched me to-night. I was dreaming about him, and then I woke and his fingers were moving over my body. It was dark, but I knew they were his hands. That’s when I screamed. You’ve got to believe me. It was Sansevino. He was here in this room.’

He pulled up a chair and sat down, lighting one of my cigarettes. ‘Now, listen to me, young fellow. There was no one in this room. I came in here as soon as you started screaming. The door was locked. The room was quite empty. You’ve had—’

‘But I tell you Sansevino was here,’ I shouted at him. ‘He was here, in this room. He was bending over me. I could hear his breathing. He went out by the windows. I know it was him. I know it, I tell you. I know it.’ I suddenly stopped with my hand in mid-air. I had been beating at the bedclothes in my agitation.

‘All right. He was here. But in your imagination. Not in reality. Listen. I was skipper of a LST at Iwo Jima. I know what war neurosis is like. And afterwards — you get relapses. You had a tough time. You lost a leg. All right, but don’t let it prey on your mind. What’s your name?’

‘Farrell.’ I lay back against the pillows, feeling utterly drained of energy. It was no good trying to explain to him. He just wouldn’t believe me. Probably no one would believe me. I wasn’t sure I believed myself. It all seemed so vague now as though it were part of that nightmare. There had been a mouse and an operating table and that lift descending slowly as Sansevino peered down at me. Perhaps I’d dreamed it all.

The American was talking again. He was asking me something. ‘I’m sorry,’ I murmured. ‘What did you say?’

‘ I asked what you were during the war.’

‘I was a flier.’

‘Are you still flying?’

‘No. This leg—’

‘What are you doing in Milan then?’

‘I represent a firm of machine tool manufacturers.’

‘When did you last have a holiday?’

‘A holiday? I don’t know. I was looking around for a job for a long time and then I joined this firm. That was about fourteen months ago.’

‘And you haven’t had a holiday?’

‘Not since I’ve been with them. I can take one when I like now. The managing director said so in his last letter. But I don’t need a holiday. What happened just now has got nothing to do—’

‘Just a minute. Answer me one more question first. Have you ever had a nervous breakdown?’

‘No. I — don’t think so.’

‘Never been in hospital because you were upset mentally?’

‘I had a couple of months in hospital before I left Italy. That was after the war ended and I was released from the Villa d’Este, the German hospital where they amputated my leg.’

He nodded. ‘I thought so. And now you’re all wound up like a clock that’s ready to burst its mainspring. If you don’t take a holiday you’re going to have a nervous breakdown.’

I stared at him angrily. ‘You’re suggesting there’s something wrong with my mind. That’s what you’re suggesting, isn’t it? My mind’s all right, I tell you. There’s nothing wrong with it. You think I imagined all this to-night. But it happened just as I told you. He was here in this room. It wasn’t a nightmare. It was real.’

‘Reality and nightmare sometimes get confused, you know. Your mind—’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my mind,’ I snapped.

He pushed his hand through the tousled mop of his white hair and sighed. ‘Do you remember me knocking on your door earlier to-night?’

I nodded.

‘Would it surprise you to know that you had been talking to yourself for two solid hours?’

‘But I was—’ I lay back then, a wave of exhaustion sweeping over me. What was the good? How could I possibly explain to this stolid, practical American the mood of elation I’d been in? It would be as difficult to convince him of that as it was to convince him that Shirer was Sansevino. Perhaps he was right anyway. Perhaps my mind was getting out of control. They say it’s possible to believe anything, if you want to. Perhaps I’d wanted to believe that Shirer was Sansevino. No, that didn’t make sense. Perhaps the shock of meeting Shirer suddenly like that had been too much for me.

‘See here, Farrell.’ The American was talking again. ‘I’m over here on a vacation. Tomorrow I’m flying down to Naples. Why don’t you come, too? Just wire your outfit that you’re under doctors’ orders to take a rest. No need to actually go and see a doctor. They’ll never check up. You come down to Naples with me and take a week or so lying out in the sun. What do you say?’

Naples! The blue peace of the Bay came to my mind like a sunny picture postcard. We’d sailed out between Sorrento and the Isle of Capri. We’d been homeward bound then. Perhaps he was right. At least I’d be right away from it all then — from Shirer and Reece and that business of Jan Tucek’s disappearance. Lying in the sun I could forget it all. And then I began to think of Hilda Tucek. Her freckled, determined little face was suddenly there in my mind, desperate and unhappy, accusing me of running away. But I couldn’t help her. There was nothing I could really do to help her. ‘I’ll think it over,’ I said.

But he shook his head. ‘No. You make the decision now. Thinking it over is the worst possible thing. You decide now. Then you’ll sleep.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll come.’

He nodded and got to his feet. ‘That’s fine. I’ll fix your passage for the same flight first thing in the morning. Now you just relax and go to sleep. I’ll leave the balcony window open, and mine, too. If you want me, just call out.’

‘It’s very kind of you,’ I muttered.

He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s nearly four. It’ll be light in an hour. Shall I leave the light on?’

I nodded. I’d be happier with the light on. I watched him go out through the windows. For an instant his pyjamas were a scarlet patch against the velvet darkness of the night outside. Then he was gone and I was alone. I felt exhausted and strangely relaxed. I think I was asleep almost before he’d reached his room.

I must have slept like a log because I don’t remember anything until Hacket woke me. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Fine,’ I murmured.

‘Good. I booked your passage on the plane. It leaves at eleven-thirty. It’s now just after nine, so you’d better hustle. Shall I tell them to send some breakfast up?’

‘Thank you.’ It was slowly coming back to me, all that had happened during the night. It seemed vague and unreal with the sun streaming in through the windows. ‘I’m afraid I gave you a rather disturbed night,’ I murmured.

‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘It was lucky I was in the next room. I know a bit about this sort of thing. You’ll be all right when you’ve nothing to do but lie in the sun and watch the girls.’

When he had gone I lay back, trying to sort the whole thing out. Had Sansevino really been in this room or had I dreamed it? But whether it was a nightmare or not didn’t seem to matter. It was real enough to me and I was glad I was going to Naples, glad the decision had been taken out of my hands. Hacket was so solid, so reasonable. I felt like a kid running away from something seen in the dark, but I didn’t care. Lying there, waiting for my breakfast, I knew that I was scared. There had been a moment early on in the night when I’d been exultant with the thought of revenge. But that was gone now. The touch of those hands had swept all sense of mastery away as though I had been plunged back five years in time to the hospital bed in the Villa d’Este.

I was still going over in my mind the events of the night when my breakfast arrived. I had some toast and coffee and then dressed and packed my things. Then I went down to the entrance-hall and cancelled my room. As I drew out the lire to pay my bill the photograph of Sansevino fell to the floor. I bent down to pick it up and a voice said, ‘Mr. Farrell.’ It was Hilda Tucek. ‘I must speak to you, please.’

I straightened up. Facing her in the act of settling my bill I felt as though I had been caught doing something I shouldn’t. ‘What is it?’ I asked. She had someone with her; an Italian in a wide-brimmed American hat.

‘This is Captain Caselli. He is investigating the disappearance of my father. Alec Reece thought you might be able to help him.’

‘Why?’ My tone was automatically defensive. I didn’t want to get involved in this — not now.

‘ 93 ‘I do not understand you.’ She was staring at me with a puzzled, frustrated look. ‘The other day you are willing to help and then—’ She hesitated and I could see she didn’t know what line to take. ‘What happened when you go to see this man, Sismondi?’

I couldn’t face the look of helplessness in her eyes and my gaze fell. I saw then that I was holding the picture of Sansevino in my hand.

Caselli was talking now. He said, ‘We have spoken with Signor Sismondi. He said you behaved very strangely. The only persons present were the Contessa Valle and Signor Shirer, an American. Perhaps you can tell us why you behave so strangely, yes?’

An idea took hold of me. Caselli was a police officer. I knew that. If I could implicate Shirer, if I could start them making inquiries. … I thrust the photograph towards him, my thumb over the uniform. ‘Do you recognise that man?’ I asked him. He peered forward. His breath smelt faintly of garlic. ‘He has no moustache now.’

‘Yes. That is the American the signorina speak of. It is Shirer.’

‘You think it’s Shirer,’ I said. ‘But it isn’t. His name’s Sansevino. You go and see this fellow you think is Walter Shirer at the Nazionale. Go and talk to him. I think maybe—’

‘Ah, here you are.’ It was Hacket who had interrupted me. ‘I’ve just ordered a car so maybe we can go out to the airport together, eh?’ He had halted, looking from me to Hilda Tucek and the police officer. ‘Is anything wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ I said quickly. And then to Caselli, ‘You can keep the photograph. It may help Shirer to remember what he did at the Villa d’Este.’

Caselli stared at the photograph and then at me.

‘Wasn’t Shirer the man who escape with Alec?’ Hilda Tucek asked.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘And you are suggesting this Walter Shirer has something to do with my father’s disappearance?’

‘No. I mean—’ I shrugged my shoulders. Probably he had nothing to do with it. But I wanted Caselli to investigate. That was all I wanted. ‘Reece thinks he escaped with his friend, Shirer,’ I said. ‘But he didn’t. He escaped with that man.’ I pointed to the photograph. ‘He was an Italian doctor. He wanted to escape from being tried as a war criminal. Now he pretends he’s Walter Shirer. But he isn’t. He’s Doctor Sansevino. Go and see him,’ I told Caselli. ‘Check the details of his escape. You’ll find—’

‘I do not have to,’ Caselli interrupted. His small eyes were looking at me hard. ‘I know Signer Shirer.’

I turned to Hilda Tucek. She was staring at me blankly. I felt suddenly as though they were all against me. It was no good telling them the truth. They didn’t believe it. No one would believe it.

‘Steady.’ Hacket’s hand gripped my arm. Then he turned to Caselli. ‘A word with you,’ he said. He shepherded them across to the other side of the entrance hall. I could see him talking to them and they were staring at me. Then he was coming back to me and they were leaving the hotel. Hilda Tucek paused momentarily in the doorway, looking at me with a strange uncertainty as though she were reluctant to leave. Then she was gone and Hacket was at my elbow.

‘What did you tell them?’ I asked angrily.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I just explained that you were a little upset this morning — that you weren’t yourself. It’s all right. They won’t worry you now.’ He grinned. ‘I said I was your doctor and had advised a holiday. Have you settled your hotel bill?’

I felt helpless as though I had no will of my own and was drifting on the tide of Hacket’s good nature. I turned and looked at the bill the clerk was pushing towards me.

‘I hope you are not in trouble, signore?’ The clerk beamed at me as though he had said something funny.

‘How do you mean?’ I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Do you not know who that is? It is il capitano Caselli of the Carabinieri. A very clever man, Capitano Caselli — very clever indeed.’

I handed him four thousand lire notes. ‘You can keep the change,’ I said and picked up my bag. ‘I’m ready now, Mr. Hacket,’ I told the American. ‘Can we stop at a post office? I must send off a cable.’ All I wanted now was to get out of Milan.

‘Sure we can. We’ve plenty of time.’

We arrived at the airport at ten to eleven and the first person I saw as I went into the passenger hall was Reece. He was talking to a stout little man with a bald head and long sideboards. He didn’t see me as we went through. We checked our bags and passports and then sat waiting for our flight. Shortly after eleven the flight from Prague was announced and I saw Reece go out to meet it. I wondered whether Maxwell was arriving. I didn’t see why else Reece should be meeting the Prague plane. A few minutes later our own flight was called and we went down the ramp to the aircraft.

For the second time in the space of a few days I felt a sense of great relief as I found a seat and sank back into it, safe inside the fuselage of an aircraft. The door was fastened and we began to taxi out to the runway. We had a smooth take-off and as the plane rose and Milan vanished below us in a haze of smoke, a great weight seemed to be lifted from my mind. Milan was behind me now. Ahead was Naples, and all I had to do was lie in the sun and relax, just as Hacket had said. Almost for the first time since I’d met Jan Tucek in his office at the Tucek steelworks I felt safe and free.