And as I stood there, hesitating, there was a sudden shout from my room. ‘Roberto! Agostino!’
The lavatory was right opposite the head of the stairs. The door was ajar and I stepped back into the shadows as footsteps came running out of my room. A torch flashed in the corridor. ‘Roberto! Agostino!’ Somebody went hurtling past and flung himself down the stairs. I had a brief glimpse of a short, angry figure. Then a door opened along the corridor, near the red glow of the window. I peered out and saw the silhouette of a man hurrying down the corridor towards me. As he passed me he switched on a torch and in the reflected light from the walls I saw it was Roberto. His black hair was tousled and his features coarse and puffed with sleep. He wore a singlet and was buttoning on his trousers. He left behind him a faint smell of sweat mingled with the scent of a perfume that I recognised as Zina’s.
He went to the door of my room, peered inside and then came quickly back and ran down the stairs. I left the shelter of the lavatory then and went along the corridor. I think I knew in my heart who it was that had entered my room. But I had to know the truth. Zina had brought me here. She’d filled me up with liquor so that I couldn’t stand. I suddenly felt utterly callous and quite sure of myself. This was the end of it all, here in this villa. And if I had to throttle the little bitch, I’d get the truth out of her.
I reached the door from which Roberto had emerged and I went in. The shutters were closed. It was quite dark and very hot and airless. My breath was coming in quick pants. But it was excitement, not fear. Below, the silence of the villa was torn by running feet. I closed the door of the room behind me, shutting out the sounds. There was a key in the lock and I turned it. A voice murmured sleepily, ‘Che e successo?’ It was Zina all right. I switched on my torch and swung the beam to the big double bed.
She sensed something was wrong, for she sat up, clutching the bedclothes to her in an effort to hide her nakedness. Her hair looked damp and straggly and her mouth was thicker. ‘Chid?’ she whispered.
‘Farrell,’ I answered and wondered why I’d ever thought her attractive. ‘Get some clothes on. I want to talk to you.’ My voice showed my disgust. ‘Make a noise and I’ll hit you. The door’s locked.’
‘What do you want?’ She tried to give me an alluring smile, but her voice was hoarse with uneasiness and her smile was fixed and brassy like a prostitute’s.
Her dressing-gown was lying in the middle of the floor. I picked it up. It smelt faintly of the perfume I’d smelt on Roberto. ‘Put this round you,’ I said and tossed it over to her.
She flung it over her shoulders and pulled it round her under the bedclothes. I went over to her then and sat down on the bed. I kept the beam of the torch full on her. ‘Now then. Whose villa is this?’
She didn’t answer, but lay back, shielding her eyes from the glare of the torch. I leaned forward and pulled her arm roughly away from her face. ‘Whose villa is it?’ I repeated. She lay quite still, staring up at me. My disgust had turned to anger — anger at myself for being such a damned fool. I caught hold of her arm and twisted it. She gave a gasp of pain. Perhaps she sensed the violence of my anger for she said, ‘Please. You do not have to break my arm. It is the villa of someone you know. You meet him with me in Milano.’
‘Shirer?’ I asked.
‘Si, si. Signor Shirer.’
So I’d been right and I had walked straight into the trap. I suddenly wanted to hit her. I got up quickly and went over to the window, flinging back the heavy shutters. I heard a gasp from the bed as the lurid glare of Vesuvius invaded the room. I stared out across the balcony to the flat land below that showed quite clear and saffron-tinted, part moonlight, part glare of the mountain. It was like the sunset glow on snow. I saw figures moving by the outhouses. They were searching for me down there. I turned back to the bed. I had control of myself now. ‘Did he ask you to bring me here?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice was scarcely audible. Her eyes were very large as they stared up at me out of the pallor of her face.
‘And you were to get me drunk?’
‘Yes. Please, Dick. I couldn’t help—’
‘I thought you hated the man?’
‘I do. I do. But—’
‘Why did he want me here? Was he going to kill me? Was he afraid I knew—’
‘No, no. He was not going to hurt you. It was only that he wanted something.’
‘Wanted something?’ I had caught hold of her arm again. ‘What did he want?’
‘I do not know.’
I shook her angrily. ‘What did he want?’
‘I tell you, I do not know what he want.’
I remembered something then — something that suddenly had significance. ‘When we went to Casamicciola that day — why were you so worried about my leg?’ She didn’t answer and I repeated the question. ‘You wanted to get my leg away from me. Did he ask you to do that?’
She nodded.
‘Why?’
‘Please. I do not know. He ask me to take it. That is all I know.’
‘He was there, at Casamicciola?’
‘Si.’
The thing took shape then. I remembered how my leg had stood propped beside me that night I’d lain drunk on my bed at the hotel in Pilsen. I heard myself laughing, laughing at myself. What a bloody fool!
‘Why do you laugh like that?’ Her voice sounded scared.
‘Because now I know what it’s all about.’ I stood looking down at her, wondering why she’d trapped me like this. ‘Are you in love with this man?’ I asked her. It seemed to me the only possible reason.
She sat up then, regardless of the way her dressing-gown gaped. ‘I tell you once before — I hate him. He is — he is a cretin.’ She spat the words at me.
‘Then why do you do what he tells you?’
‘Because otherwise he will ruin me.’ She lay back again, pulling the dressing-gown round her. ‘He knows things about me and he will tell my husband if I do not do what he ask.’
‘Because of Roberto?’
‘No. Not because of Roberto.’ She dropped her eyes. ‘It is because — because he has something I need.’ The sound of voices came through the open window. She listened for a moment. Then she said, ‘I think you should go now.’
But I paid no attention. I was thinking of Walter Shirer. He’d been tough. But he wouldn’t have blackmailed a girl, whatever she was. And he wouldn’t have got involved in the Tucek business. Reason confirmed now what instinct had already told me. I knew beyond any doubt who it was searching for me in the grounds of the villa. ‘His name is Sansevino, isn’t it?’
She stared at me. ‘Please. I do not understand.’
‘His real name,’ I said impatiently. ‘It’s Sansevino, isn’t it?’ But the name apparently meant nothing to her. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter. But I’d keep clear of him in future. His name’s Doctor Sansevino, and he’s a murderer.’
‘Doctor Sansevino.’ She frowned. ‘You say he is a doctor?’ Then she nodded her head slowly. ‘Yes, I think perhaps he is a doctor.’
il dottore. My hands clenched. If I could only get hold of him! I thought of Hilda Tucek then, frantic over the disappearance of her father. Had he killed him? Or was he just torturing the poor devil? ‘Where is Jan Tucek?’ I asked her.