‘You’ve just said you’ll find out.’
‘Psychology.’
‘Drugs?’ Carlos was immediately suspicious. ‘Injections?’
‘Neither. Subject closed. I had another question but the answer is obvious – why did Alessandro choose to surround himself with such a bunch of incompetents? Camouflage. A dangerous man might well be tempted to surround himself with other dangerous men. Alessandro’s too smart.’ Petersen looked around. ‘No heavy metal objects and only a cat could get out of that port-hole. Carlos, would you have one of your men bring us a sledge-hammer or as near to it as you have aboard.’
The suspicion returned. ‘What do you want a sledge-hammer for?’
‘To beat out Alessandro’s brains,’ George said patiently. ‘Before we start asking questions.’
‘To close this door from the outside,’ Petersen said. ‘The clips, you understand.’
‘Ah!’ Carlos stepped into the passage-way, gave an order and returned. ‘I’ll go and have a look at the fallen hero. Not much I can do for him, I’m afraid.’
‘A favour, Carlos. When we leave, may we go up to your cabin or whatever you call the place we met you first?’
‘Certainly. May one ask why?’
‘If you’d been standing frozen in that damned passage-way for an hour and a half you’d understand why.’
‘Of course. Restoratives. Help yourselves, gentlemen. I’ll step by and let you know how Cola is.’ He paused then added drily: ‘That should give you plenty of time to prepare your intensive interrogation of me.’
He left almost immediately to be replaced by Pietro, bearing a small sledge-hammer. They closed the door and secured one of the eight water-tight clips. One was enough. George struck it with one blow of the hammer. That, too, was enough – not even a gorilla could now have opened that clip from the inside. They left the sledge-hammer in the passage-way and went directly to the engineroom, which was unmanned, as they had known it would be: all controls were operated from the wheelhouse. It took them less than a minute to find what they were looking for. They made a brief excursion to the upper deck then repaired to Carlos’ cabin.
‘A thirsty night’s work,’ George said. He was on his second, or it could have been third, glass of grappa. He looked at the von Karajans’ radios on the deck beside him. ‘These would have been safer in our cabins. Why have them here?’
‘They’d have been too safe in our cabins. Young Michael would never have dared to try to get at them there.’
‘Don’t try to tell me that he might try to get at them here.’
‘Unlikely, I admit. Michael, it is clear, is not cast in the heroic mould. He might, of course, be a consummate actor, but I don’t see him as an actor any more than a hero. However, if he’s desperate enough – and he must have been desperate to try to get off a message at the time and place he did – he might try.’
‘But the radios will be in the safe as soon as Carlos returns. And Carlos has the only key.’
‘Carlos might give him that key.’
‘Oh! So that’s the way our devious mind works. So we keep an eye on our Michael for the remainder of the night? Not that there’s all that much left of it. And if he does try to recover the radios, what does that prove except that there is a connection between him and Carlos?’
‘That’s all I want to prove. I don’t expect either would say or admit to anything. They don’t have to. At least, Michael doesn’t have to. I can have him detained in Ploče for disobedience of orders and suspicion of trying to communicate with the enemy.’
‘You really suspect him of that?’
‘Good Lord, no. But, no question, he’s been trying to communicate with someone and that someone might as well be a spy. It’ll look better on a charge sheet. All I want to see is if there’s any connection between him and Carlos.’
‘And if there is you’re prepared to clap him into durance vile?’
‘Sure.’
‘And his sister?’
‘She’s done nothing. She can come along with us, hang around Ploče or join him in, as you say, durance vile. Up to her.’
‘The very flower of chivalry.’ George shook his head and reached for the grappa. ‘So we may or may not suspect a connection between Carlos and Michael but we do suspect one between Carlos and Alessandro.’
‘I don’t. I do think that Carlos knows a great deal more about Alessandro than we do but I don’t think he knows what Alessandro is up to on this passage. A very simple point. If Carlos were privy to Alessandro’s plans then he, Alessandro, wouldn’t have bothered to bring along a kettle and burner: he’d just have gone to the galley and steamed the envelope open.’ He turned round as Carlos entered. ‘How’s Cola?’
‘He’ll be all right. Well, no danger. His shoulder is a mess. Even if it were a flat calm I wouldn’t touch it. It needs a surgeon or an osteologist and I’m neither.’ He unlocked a safe, put the radio gear inside then relocked the door. ‘Well, no hurry for you, gentlemen, but I must return to the wheelhouse.’
‘A moment, please.’
‘Yes, Peter?’ Carlos smiled. ‘The interrogation?’
‘No. A few questions. You could save us a lot of time and trouble.’
‘What? In interrogating Alessandro? You promised me no torture.’
‘I still promise. Alessandro tried to assault us and steal some papers tonight. Did you, do you know about this?’
‘No.’
‘I believe you.’ Carlos raised his eyebrows a little but said nothing. ‘You don’t seem unduly concerned that your fellow-Italian has been made a prisoner by a bunch of uncivilized Yugoslavs, do you?’
‘If you mean does he mean anything personally to me, no.’
‘But his reputation does.’
Carlos said nothing.
‘You know something about his background, his associations, the nature of his business that we don’t. Is that not so?’
‘That could be. You can’t expect me to divulge anything of that nature.’
‘Not expect. Hope.’
‘No hope. You wouldn’t break the Geneva Conventions to extract that information from me.’
Petersen rose. ‘Certainly not. Thank you for your hospitality.’
Petersen was carrying a canvas chair and the metal box of capsules when he entered the cabin in which Alessandro and his three men were imprisoned. George was carrying two lengths of heaving line and the sledge-hammer with which he had just released the outside clip. Alex was carrying only his machine-pistol. Petersen unfolded the chair, sat on it and watched with apparent interest as George hammered home a clip.
‘We’d rather not have any interruptions, you see,’ Petersen said. He looked at Franco, Sepp and Guido. ‘Get into that corner there. If anyone moves Alex will kill him. Take your jacket off, Alessandro.’
Alessandro spat on the floor.
‘Take your jacket off,’ George said pleasantly, ‘or I’ll knock you out of it.’
Alessandro, not a man of a very original turn of mind, spat again. George hit him somewhere in the region of the solar plexus, not a very hard blow, it seemed, but enough to make Alessandro double up, whooshing in agony. George removed the jacket.
‘Tie him up.’
George set about tying him up. When Alessandro had recovered a little from his initial bout of gasping, he tried to offer some resistance, but an absentminded cuff from George to the side of the jaw convinced him of the unwisdom of this. George tied him in such a fashion that both arms were lashed immovably to his sides. His knees and ankles were bound together and then, for good measure, George used the second heaving line to lash Alessandro to the cot. No chicken was ever so securely trussed, so immobile, as Alessandro was then.