The Keys Of Hell

SEVEN

THE LANDING STAGE WAS DESERTED when Chavasse, Orsini and Carlo drove up in the old Ford pickup. The big Italian cut the engine, jumped to the ground and went to the head of the steps.

He turned, shaking his head. “We’re wasting our time, Paul, but we’ll check the house just in case.”

They went down the steps quickly and crossed the landing stage to the door. It opened without difficulty and Chavasse went up first, an old Colt automatic Orsini had given him held against his right knee.

The door to the room in which Kapo had interviewed him stood ajar, light streaming out across the dark landing. Chavasse kicked it open and waited, but there was no reply. He went in quickly at ground level, the automatic ready.

Vodka from the smashed bottle had soaked into the floor mixed with blood and the table still lay on its side. Fog billowed in through the broken window and Orsini walked across, feet crunching on glass, and peered outside.

He turned, respect on his face. “A long way down.”

“I didn’t have a great deal of choice. What do we do now?”

The Italian shrugged. “Go back to the Tabu. Maybe old Gilberto’s remembered something by now.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Chavasse said. “That was a hard knock he took.”

“Then we’ll have to think of something else.”

They returned to the pickup and Carlo drove back to the Tabu through the deserted streets. As the truck braked to a halt, Chavasse checked his watch and saw that it was almost half past two. He jumped to the ground and followed the two Italians along the alley to the side door.

There were still a few customers in the bar at the front and, as they walked along the passage, the barman looked round the corner.

“Rome on the phone. They’re hanging on.”

“That’ll be my call to the Bureau,” Chavasse said to Orsini. “I’ll see what they’ve got to tell me about Kapo.”

“I’ll have another word with old Gilberto,” Orsini said. “He may be thinking a little straighter by now.”

Chavasse took his call in the small office at the back of the bar. The man he spoke to was the night duty officer based at the Embassy. No one of any particular importance. Just a good reliable civil servant who knew what files were for and how to use them efficiently.

He had nothing on Kapo that Chavasse didn’t already know. Incredibly, everything the man had said about himself was true. At one time a high official in the Albanian Ministry of the Interior, he had been marked down for elimination in 1958 during one of Hoxha’s earlier purges. He had been allowed to enter Italy as a political refugee and had since lived in Taranto earning a living as an import-export agent. Presumably on the basis that an Albanian of any description was preferable to a foreigner, Alb-Tourist had appointed him their Taranto agent in 1963. An official investigation by Italian Military Intelligence in that year had indicated nothing sinister in the appointment.

Chavasse thanked the duty officer. No, it was nothing of any importance. He’d simply run across Kapo in Matano and had thought him worth checking on.

AT THE OTHER END OF THE WIRE IN HIS small office in Rome, the duty officer replaced the receiver with a thoughtful frown. Almost immediately, he picked it up again and put a call through to Bureau headquarters in London on the special line.

It could be nothing, but Chavasse was a topliner – everyone in the organization knew that. If by any remote chance he was up to anything and the Chief didn’t know about it, heads might start to roll and the duty officer hadn’t the slightest intention of allowing his own to be numbered among them.

The telephone on his desk buzzed sharply five minutes later and he lifted it at once. “Hello, sir… yes, that’s right… well, there may be nothing in it, but I thought you’d like to know that I’ve just had a rather interesting call from Paul Chavasse in Matano…”

OLD GILBERTO COUGHED AS THE BRANDY caught at the back of his throat and grinned wryly at Orsini. “I must be getting old, Guilio. Never heard a dammed thing. It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes after Carlo had delivered the young woman. One moment I was reading a magazine, the next, the lights were going out.” He raised a gnarled and scarred fist. “Old I may be, but I’d still like five minutes on my own with that fancy bastard, whoever he is.”

Orsini grinned and patted him on the shoulder. “You’d murder him, Gilberto. Nothing like a bit of science to have these young toughies running around in circles.”

They went out into the passage, leaving the old man sitting at the fire, a blanket around his shoulders. “A good heavyweight in his day,” Orsini said. “One with the sense to get out before they scrambled his brains. Anything from Rome?”

Chavasse shook his head. “Everything Kapo said about himself was true. He is the Alb-Tourist agent in Taranto, an old Party man from Tirana who said the wrong thing once too often and only got out by the skin of his teeth. According to Italian Intelligence he’s harmless, and they usually know what they’re talking about.”

“That’s what MI5 said about Fuchs and look where it got them,” Orsini pointed out. “Nobody’s perfect and the good agent is the man who manages to pull the wool over the eyes of the opposition most effectively.”

“Which doesn’t get us anywhere,” Chavasse said. “They’ve gone, which is all that counts, taking Francesca Minetti with them.”

They went into the office at the rear of the bar and Orsini produced a bottle of whisky and three glasses. He filled them, a slight thoughtful frown on his face.

“Whoever took the girl, it couldn’t have been Kapo and his men – the time factor wouldn’t have allowed it. The men who attacked her on the jetty earlier – what can you tell me about them?”

“Judging by the language the second one used when he tried to stick his knife into me, I’d say he was Italian,” Chavasse said. “Straight out of the Taranto gutter.”

“Anything else interesting about him?”

“He had a dark beard, anything but the trimmed variety, and his face was badly scarred. A sort of hook shape curving into his right eye.”

Orsini let out a great bellow of laughter and clapped him on the shoulder. “But my dear Paul, this is wonderful.”

“You mean you know him?”

“Do I know him?” Orsini turned to Carlo. “Tell him about our good friend Toto.”

“He works for a man called Vacelli,” Carlo said. “A real bad one. Runs a couple of fishing boats out of here, engaged in the Albanian trade, the town brothel and a café in the old quarter.” He spat vigorously. “A pig.”

“It looks as if Kapo must have employed Vacelli to get hold of the girl for him,” Orsini said. “The sort of task for which Nature has fitted him admirably. Unfortunately, you arrived on the scene and messed things up.”

“Which doesn’t explain why Kapo went to the trouble of having me pulled in for a personal interview.”

“He probably thought he could do some kind of a deal, you made a break for it and he had to leave in a hurry in case you decided to whistle down the law on him. No other choice.”

“And in the meantime, Vacelli and his boys picked up the girl?”

Orsini nodded. “And Kapo had to leave before they could get in touch with him.”

“So you think Vacelli may still have the girl?”

Orsini opened the drawer of his desk, took out a Luger and slipped it into his hip pocket. He smiled and the great, ugly face was quite transformed.

“Let’s go and find out.”

VACELLI’S PLACE FRONTED THE HARBOR ON the corner of an alley that led into the heart of the old town. The sign simply read Café. Inside, someone was playing a guitar. They parked the pickup at the entrance, and when they went in, Orsini led the way downstairs.

There was a bead curtain and the murmur of voices from the bar beyond. The guitar player sat just inside the entrance, chair balanced against the wall. He was young with dark curling hair, the sleeves of his check shirt rolled back to expose muscular arms.

Orsini pulled back the curtain and looked down at the legs sprawled across the entrance. The guitar player made no effort to move and Orsini hooked the chair from under him, the sudden clatter stunning the room to silence.

There was a narrow, marble-topped bar, the wall behind it lined with bottles, and a few small tables, chairs ranged about them. The floor was of stone, the walls whitewashed, and there were no more than a dozen customers, most of them men.

The guitar player came up fast, a spring knife in one hand, but Carlo was faster. His hand tightened over the wrist, twisting cruelly, and the youth screamed, dropping the knife. He staggered back against the wall, tears of pain in his eyes, and Orsini shook his head.

“God knows what’s happened to the youth of this country. No manners at all.” He turned, looking the other patrons over casually. The bearded man with the scarred face, the one they called Toto, sat at the table by the wall, one arm in a sling.

Orsini grinned. “Eh, Toto, you don’t look too good. Where’s Vacelli?”

There was a scrape of a boot on stone and a surly voice growled, “What the hell do you want?”

Vacelli stood at the top of the flight of stone steps in the corner leading up to the first floor. He was built like Primo Carnera, a great ox of a man with a bullet-shaped head that was too small for the rest of his body.

“Hello there, you animal,” Orsini cried gaily. “We’ve come for the Minetti girl.”

Vacelli’s brutal face reddened in anger and he obviously restrained his temper with difficulty. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What a pity.” Orsini picked up the nearest chair and threw it at the shelves behind the bar, smashing the mirror and bringing down a dozen bottles. “Does that help?”

Vacelli gave a roar of rage and came down the steps on the run. Orsini picked up a full bottle of Chianti from a nearby table, jumped to one side and smashed it across Vacelli’s skull as he staggered past.

Vacelli fell to one knee. Orsini picked up a chair and brought it down across the great shoulders. Vacelli grunted, started to keel over. Orsini brought the chair down again and again until it splintered into matchwood. He tossed it to one side and waited.

Slowly, painfully, Vacelli reached for the edge of the bar and hauled himself up. He swayed there for a moment, then charged head-down, blood washing across his face in a red curtain. Orsini swerved and slashed him across the kidneys with the edge of his hand as Vacelli plunged past him.

Vacelli screamed and fell on his face. He tried to push himself up, but it was no good. He collapsed with a great sigh and lay still.

“Anyone else?” Orsini demanded.

No one moved and he turned to Carlo. “Watch things down here. We won’t be long.”

Chavasse followed him up the stairs and the big Italian pulled back a curtain and led the way along a narrow passage. A young woman in a cheap nylon housecoat leaned in a doorway smoking a cigarette.

“Eh, Guilio, have you killed the bastard?”

“Just about.” He grinned. “He’ll be inactive for quite a while. Time enough for you to pack your bags and move on. There was a girl brought here tonight. Any idea where she is?”

“The end room. He was just going in when you arrived. I don’t think he meant her any good.”

“My thanks, carissima.” Orsini kissed her lightly on one cheek. “Go home to your mother.”

Chavasse was already ahead of him, but the door was locked. “Francesca, it’s Paul,” he called.

There was a quick movement inside and she called back, “The door’s locked on the outside.”

Orsini stood back, raised one booted foot and stamped twice against the lock. There was a sudden splintering sound, the door sagged on its hinges, rotten wood crumbling. He stamped again and it fell back against the wall.

Francesca Minetti stood waiting, her face very white. She was still wearing Chavasse’s old sweater and looked about fifteen years old. Chavasse was aware of the breath hissing sharply between Orsini’s teeth and then the Italian was moving forward quickly.

His voice was strangely gentle and comforting, like a father reassuring a frightened child. “It’s all right now, cara. There is nothing to worry about anymore.”

She held his hand, gazing up into the ugly, battered face and tried to smile, and then she started to tremble. She turned, stumbled across the wreckage of the door and ran into Chavasse’s arms.