'It would be natural,' said the police officer, 'in the circumstances. But no doubt the telegram last night was a further shock to you both?'
'Indeed, yes. That was the reason we decided to return home.'
'No argument between you? No difference of opinion?'
'None. We were in complete agreement. My one regret was that I could not go with my wife on this charter flight.'
The police officer nodded. 'It could well be that your wife had a sudden attack of amnesia, and meeting the two ladies served as a link, she clung to them for support. You have described them with great accuracy, and I think they should not be too difficult to trace. Meanwhile, I suggest you should return to your hotel, and we will get in touch with you as soon as we have news.'
At least, John thought, they believed his story. They did not consider him a crank who had made the whole thing up and was merely wasting their time.
'You appreciate,' he said, 'I am extremely anxious. These women may have some criminal design upon my wife. One has heard of such things….'
The police officer smiled for the first time. 'Please don't concern yourself,' he said. 'I am sure there will be some satisfactory explanation.'
All very well, thought John, but in heaven's name, what?
'I'm sorry,' he said, 'to have taken up so much of your time. Especially as I gather the police have their hands full hunting down a murderer who is still at large.'
He spoke deliberately. No harm in letting the fellow know that for all any of them could tell there might be some connection between Laura's disappearance and this other hideous affair.
'Ah, that,' said the police officer, rising to his feet. 'We hope to have the murderer under lock and key very soon.'
His tone of confidence was reassuring. Murderers, missing wives, lost handbags were all under control. They shook hands, and John was ushered out of the door and so downstairs. Perhaps, he thought, as he walked slowly back to the hotel, the fellow was right. Laura had suffered a sudden attack of amnesia, and the sisters happened to be at the airport and had brought her back to Venice, to their own hotel, because Laura couldn't remember where she and John had been staying. Perhaps they were even now trying to track down his hotel. Anyway, he could do nothing more. The police had everything in hand, and, please God, would come up with the solution. All he wanted to do right now was to collapse upon a bed with a stiff whisky, and then put through a call to Johnnie's school.
The page took him up in the lift to a modest room on the fourth floor at the rear of the hotel. Bare, impersonal, the shutters closed, with a smell of cooking wafting up from a courtyard down below.
'Ask them to send me up a double whisky, will you?' he said to the boy. 'And a ginger-ale,' and when he was alone he plunged his face under the cold tap in the wash-basin, relieved to find that the minute portion of visitor's soap afforded some measure of comfort. He flung off his shoes, hung his coat over the back of a chair and threw himself down on the bed. Somebody's radio was blasting forth an old popular song, now several seasons out-of-date, that had been one of Laura's favourites a couple of years ago. 'I love you, Baby…' He reached for the telephone, and asked the exchange to put through the call to England. Then he closed his eyes, and all the while the insistent voice persisted, 'I love you, Baby… I can't get you out of my mind.'
Presently there was a tap at the door. It was the waiter with his drink. Too little ice, such meagre comfort, but what desperate need. He gulped it down without the ginger-ale, and in a few moments the ever-nagging pain was eased, numbed, bringing, if only momentarily, a sense of calm. The telephone rang, and now, he thought, bracing himself for ultimate disaster, the final shock, Johnnie probably dying, or already dead. In which case nothing remained. Let Venice be engulfed….
The exchange told him that the connection had been made, and in a moment he heard the voice of Mrs Hill at the other end of the line. They must have warned her that the call came from Venice, for she knew instantly who was speaking.
'Hullo?' she said. 'Oh, I am so glad you rang. All is well. Johnnie has had his operation, the surgeon decided to do it at midday rather than wait, and it was completely successful. Johnnie is going to be all right. So you don't have to worry any more, and will have a peaceful night.'
'Thank God,' he answered.
'I know,' she said, 'we are all so relieved. Now I'll get off the line and you can speak to your wife.'
John sat up on the bed, stunned. What the hell did she mean? Then he heard Laura's voice, cool and clear.
'Darling? Darling, are you there?'
He could not answer. He felt the hand holding the receiver go clammy cold with sweat. 'I'm here,' he whispered.
'It's not a very good line,' she said, 'but never mind. As Mrs Hill told you, all is well. Such a nice surgeon, and a very sweet Sister on Johnnie's floor, and I really am happy about the way it's turned out. I came straight down here after landing at Gatwick-the flight O.K., by the way, but such a funny crowd, it'll make you hysterical when I tell you about them-and I went to the hospital, and Johnnie was coming round. Very dopey, of course, but so pleased to see me. And the Hills are being wonderful, I've got their spare-room, and it's only a short taxi-drive into the town and the hospital. I shall go to bed as soon as we've had dinner, because I'm a bit fagged, what with the flight and the anxiety. How was the drive to Milan? And where are you staying?'
John did not recognise the voice that answered as his own. It was the automatic response of some computer.
'I'm not in Milan,' he said. 'I'm still in Venice.'
'Still in Venice? What on earth for? Wouldn't the car start?' can't explain,' he said. 'There was a stupid sort of mix-up….'
He felt suddenly so exhausted that he nearly dropped the receiver, and, shame upon shame, he could feel tears pricking behind his eyes.
'What sort of mix-up?' Her voice was suspicious, almost hostile. 'You weren't in a crash?'
'No… no… nothing like that.'
A moment's silence, and then she said, 'Your voice sounds very slurred. Don't tell me you went and got pissed.'
Oh Christ… If she only knew! He was probably going to pass out any moment, but not from the whisky.
'I thought,' he said slowly, thought I saw you, in a vaporetto, with those two sisters.'
What was the point of going on? It was hopeless trying to explain.
'How could you have seen me with the sisters?' she said. 'You knew I'd gone to the airport. Really, darling, you are an idiot. You seem to have got those two poor old dears on the brain. I hope you didn't say anything to Mrs Hill just now.'
'No.'
'Well, what are you going to do? You'll catch the train at Milan tomorrow, won't you?'
'Yes, of course,' he told her.
'I still don't understand what kept you in Venice,' she said. 'It all sounds a bit odd to me. However… thank God Johnnie is going to be all right and I'm here.'
'Yes,' he said, 'yes.'
He could hear the distant boom-boom sound of a gong from the headmaster's hall.
'You had better go,' he said. 'My regards to the Hills, and my love to Johnnie.'
'Well, take care of yourself, darling, and for goodness' sake don't miss the train tomorrow, and drive carefully.'
The telephone clicked and she had gone. He poured the remaining drop of whisky into his empty glass, and sousing it with ginger-ale drank it down at a gulp. He got up, and crossing the room threw open the shutters and leant out of the window. He felt light-headed. His sense of relief, enormous, overwhelming, was somehow tempered with a curious feeling of unreality, almost as though the voice speaking from England had not been Laura's after all but a fake, and she was still in Venice, hidden in some furtive pension with the two sisters.