‘I wish to God I could help you,’ I said. ‘But I can’t. Maxwell’s wrong. I know nothing about your father’s disappearance. If I did I’d tell you.’
‘Then why did you leave Milan so hurriedly?’
‘I told Maxwell last night — because I needed a holiday.’
‘He doesn’t believe you.’ Her eyes were watching me closely and I realised that, however pathetic she might seem, she was a girl of iron determination. She was going to sit there and batter away at me until she got the truth out of me. I felt suddenly ill-at-ease, as though I was faced with something that I couldn’t beat down. ‘Why did you leave Milan?’
‘Look,’ I said. ‘The reason I left Milan has nothing whatever to do with your father’s disappearance. You’ve got to believe that.’
She looked at me hard, and then said, ‘Yes — I think I believe that. But Maxwell is convinced there’s some connection between—’
‘Maxwell knows nothing about it,’ I snapped.
She turned her head and looked out to sea. ‘Would you be willing to tell me about it?’ she asked.
I hesitated. ‘No,’ I said. ‘You’ve got enough troubles without listening to mine.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘I would have liked you to feel you could trust me.’ She paused for a moment and then said, ‘When John Maxwell arrived in Milan he brought a message for me from my father. It was given to him at the airfield before they left — on that flight. My father said, if anything went wrong I was to contact you.’
‘Contact me?’ I stared at her in surprise. ‘Why contact me?’
‘I don’t know, Mr. Farrell. I thought you might know. You were his friend years ago. I think he must have communicated something to you.’
I remembered then the extraordinary telephone conversation I had had with Sismondi.
‘Won’t you tell me what it was, please?’
‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing to tell you.’
‘But surely—’
‘I tell you there’s nothing. I saw him once, that’s all. It was in his office and there was an interpreter with us the whole time. All he did was to give me a message for Maxwell which I delivered.’
‘And you didn’t see him again?’
‘No.’ I hesitated and then added, ‘The night porter at the hotel where I was staying told me your father visited me late one night. If he did, he didn’t wake me. He left no message, nothing. I’ve searched my baggage, even my clothes. I can only imagine the porter made it up in order to blackmail me into giving him some kronen to keep his mouth shut.’
‘I don’t understand,’ she said, looking at me hard. ‘Maxwell is convinced you’re mixed up in this—’
‘Damn Maxwell!’ I said, rising suddenly to my feet. ‘He knows nothing about it. He wasn’t there.’
‘But this business of Sismondi telephoning you about some blueprints you were to deliver to him?’
‘I think it was a try-on.’
‘You went to his house. What happened, please?’
‘Nothing happened.’ I was getting agitated. She was forcing my mind back to Milan, to things I wanted to forget.
‘Alec told me you were very upset when you got back.’
‘I was drunk,’ I said. Damn it, why did she have to cross-examine me like a public prosecutor?
‘Mr. Farrell, please. I have a great deal at stake in this. I love my father very much. I have run his home ever since we have been able to return to Czechoslovakia. He means a great deal to me.’ There were tears in her eyes now. ‘What happened at the flat of this man Sismondi?’
I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to help her. But it wouldn’t help if I started telling her again about Shirer and Sansevino. ‘Nothing happened,’ I said. ‘I met someone I hadn’t seen for a long time, that’s all. It upset me.’
‘Walter Shirer?’
I nodded.
‘Captain Caselli is satisfied he has got nothing to do with it. Also Alec Reece swears that Shirer would never have become involved in a thing like this.’
‘The man he knew wouldn’t,’ I answered.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Nothing.’ I was thinking back now to the scene in Sismondi’s flat. I’d thrust it out of my mind. But now I remembered how Sismondi had been waiting …
‘Walter Shirer is very like the man whose picture you had.’
‘Yes. He was very like Sansevino. Have you — met Shirer?’
‘Yes. John Maxwell took me to see him.’
‘In Milan?’
‘No. Here in Naples. We saw him last—’ She caught hold of my arm. ‘What is the matter?’
‘It’s all right,’ I muttered. I felt for the back of my chair and sank into it.
‘You went quite white.’
‘I’m not at all well. That’s why I had to have a holiday.’
‘It was when I said Walter Shirer was here in Naples.’ She was leaning forward, staring at me. ‘Why did the name Shirer upset you?’
‘I told you, that day in Milan when I was leaving — only you wouldn’t believe me. His name’s not Shirer. It’s Sansevino. Tell Maxwell that. Tell him that the man Reece escaped with was Sansevino.’
I saw her eyes widen. ‘But this Dr. Sansevino is dead — he died in 1945. Besides, Alec has seen Shirer in Milan. He would have known if it wasn’t Shirer.’ She was looking at me oddly. ‘I think that doctor was right. You are ill.’
I felt frustration and anger mounting inside me. ‘Do you think I don’t know who the man is? That last night in Milan — I lay in bed in the dark and felt his hands on my leg. I knew those hands. I’d know them if a thousand hands were touching my leg.’
Her eyes had dropped to my artificial limb. The metal of it was showing beneath my pyjama trousers. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Last night Maxwell told me what happened to you when you are a prisoner. I did not mean to—’ She didn’t finish and got to her feet.
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ I, too, had risen.
‘I think perhaps you were right. You do need a holiday. I didn’t realise it would be such a shock—’
I caught hold of her then. ‘You little fool!’ I snapped, almost shaking her. ‘You come here for the truth. I give it you and you don’t believe me.’
‘ Please, Mr. Farrell.’ She took hold of my hands gently and pulled them away from her shoulders.’ Why not lie down for a bit? I don’t think you should be out here on the balcony. The glare—’
I started to say something, but she stopped me. ‘You mustn’t excite yourself any more.’ Her eyes looked at me sadly. ‘I’ll let myself out.’ Then she turned and went through into the room. I heard the door close. I was alone then with the knowledge that Sansevino was here in Naples.
I dressed quickly, packed my things and checked out of the hotel. Thank God Zina had suggested visiting this villa. I could forget things so easily with Zina. And they’d never find me there. I got a taxi and drove straight out to the Villa Carlotta.
Zina’s big, cream-coloured Fiat was waiting at the door as I drove up. Roberto was in the driver’s seat, lounging over the steering wheel. He didn’t smile at me. His eyes looked black and sullen and I had a sudden feeling that he hated me. The good-looking youth in the bathing trunks seemed to have become coarsened into a surly peasant.
I was shown into the room where I’d met her before. The powder-blue walls and furnishings seemed colder, more artificial. The view from the balcony was bleak and grey and the air was heavy so that my shirt stuck to my body. On a table in a corner was a photograph in a heavy silver frame — Zina in a white wedding dress, her hand resting on the arm of a tall, uniformed man with a drawn, leathery face. The door opened as I was putting the photograph back on the table. ‘You like my husband?’