Now, regardless of the Italian custom of upping even the most cobwebby doctorate to professorial status, the suspicious expressions on the faces of those passengers nearest to him suggested that they were mentally bracketing him with Professore Moriarty, as another master-criminal caught at last.
But after that it was simpler, with no Heathrow labyrinth to negotiate, only a car waiting for him, with Paul Mitchell standing beside it.
Or, rather, three cars —
Or, rather . . . half the Italian army?
'Hi there, David.' In dark glasses and open-necked shirt Mitchell looked like any late-season English tourist, in striking contrast to Audley's Italian escort, whose shiny crumpled suit had shouted 'Policeman' in confirmation of those recent passenger-suspicions. 'Good flight?'
'What are all those soldiers doing?' Audley pointed past Mitchell.
'Don't worry. They're not your reception committee.' Mitchell waved an acknowledgement to shiny suit, who was hovering beside the rearmost car. 'There's some sort of anti-terrorist scare in progress . . . although they're calling it "an exercise", like the SURE one you must have seen at Heathrow.' He re-directed the wave to the front car. 'So everyone's being screened and searched.' Now he opened the passenger door.
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'Everyone except us, that is . . . Get in, David, there's a good fellow . . . No, we're cleared to go out by the back entrance, with these special branch types for protection.'
Audley regarded the small battered Fiat with distaste.
'Yes . . . well, I'm sorry about the transport.' Mitchell grinned ruefully at him. 'Only, I wanted to drive you, so we could talk.
And this was all they could find at short notice. But... it is unobtrusive. And I have put the seat back as far as it'll go, anyway.'
'What about my bags?' Mitchell's rather strained cheerfulness was almost as irritating as the Fiat. 'And where's Elizabeth?'
'Elizabeth is chatting up the local cops and the Guardia di Finanza.' Mitchell circled the car. 'She'll be meeting us along the coast. And your bags are being held at the airport. Don't worry.'
So that was the last of his luggage, thought Audley. But, although he couldn't see what the Italian customs service had to do with Peter Richardson, it was perhaps as well that Elizabeth was elsewhere, because there certainly wasn't room for her in the back of this car. 'I'm not worrying. Just tell me about Peter Richardson.'
The car started with a jerk which banged his knees against the dashboard.
'Damn! Sorry!' Mitchell struggled with the gear-box. 'This isn't exactly what I've been used to — it drives in Italian ... or dummy1
maybe Neapolitan — ah!'
Mitchell's pride and joy at home was a second-hand Porsche, which he had got cheaply for cash after the stock market crash, Audley remembered. Tell me about Peter Richardson, Mitchell.'
'Major Richardson — ?' Mitchell flogged the car to catch up with the unmarked police vehicle ahead. 'I thought you were the expert on the elusive Major, David?'
Audley's heart sank. So far from being an expert, he still thought of Peter Richardson as Captain, not Major. But, of course, that last promotion had been Fred Clinton's work at the time of the fellow's departure, as a sop to their mutual feelings of still more-or-less friendly regret. But that wasn't what mattered so much as the adjective Mitchell had added.
'What d'you mean "elusive"? Haven't you found him?'
The Fiat juddered to a halt, within inches of the leading car which had stopped at what was now a heavily defended exit, complete with a brace of light tanks.
'Yes . . . well . . . "yes-and-no" is the answer to that, David.'
Mitchell peered through the dirty windscreen, watching the Italian special branch arguing with the Italian army. 'Or, rather, "no-and-yes", more accurately.'
Audley felt his temper begin to slip, but then checked it. Of all his colleagues, apart from Jack Butler himself, he knew Paul Mitchell best. So now he could recognize the tell-tale signs under that accustomed casualness, for all that the dummy1
man's eyes were concealed behind sunglasses. And the 30-millimetre cannon which was more or less pointing at them at this minute no more accounted for those whitened knuckles on the hands of the steering-wheel than did the little car's gearbox account for that bruising start.
'Uh-huh?' If Paul Mitchell was frightened, then perhaps Jack Butler was right — and perhaps he ought to be properly frightened too. But fear was in itself a debilitating influence, so whatever was scaring Mitchell, a display of Audley-temperament would serve no useful purpose.
'Uh-huh?' As Mitchell turned to him he just had time to compose his own expression into what he hoped was one of innocent inquiry. 'Is he safe and sound, Paul?'
Mitchell frowned at him, as though such unexpected mildness was just another burden, and a rather unfair one. 'I think . . . so far as I know he is — yes.'
It was going to be very hard to keep up this Butler-like equanimity. And, in any case, overdoing it would only worry Mitchell more. 'You think — ?'
Activity ahead mercifully distracted Mitchell. The police seemed to have convinced the army that they were not terrorists making their getaway, and barriers were being variously raised and moved.
Audley braced himself, but this time Mitchell recovered his Porsche-driver's skill, launching them after the lead car as though they were at the end of a tow-rope, yet still leaving dummy1
himself half-a-second in which to grimace at his passenger.
'You know that all this has been happening rather quickly, David — hoicking you back from the States and me from . . .
where I was — ?'
Where Mitchell had been was probably Dublin, thought Audley. And that wasn't a place for rest and recreation. So, until he'd met Elizabeth, he might actually have been cheering up. But after that he might suspect that he'd exchanged the frying pan for the fire. Only that wasn't what he was about to enlarge upon. 'Something's already gone wrong, you mean.' He tried to sound resigned to such an accustomed turn of events rather than angry.
Mitchell made a face at the thickening traffic ahead. 'There was a misunderstanding, let's say.'
'Oh yes?' Resignation was actually more appropriate: since no one yet understood what was happening, what else could be expected? 'Go on.'
'London sent an SG to Rome, warning them that I was coming — and that you were also en route, and that you wanted to talk to Major Richardson.' Mitchell massaged the steering-wheel. 'To be fair to them in Rome, David ... the SG
wasn't all that explicit. It didn't specify any sort of emergency in asking them to locate Richardson.'
'It didn't mention Berlin, you mean?' That was hardly surprising. 'So what did they do?'
Mitchell half-shrugged. 'They had his address in Amalfi of dummy1
course. And a bit more than that, seeing he'd been in the business himself in the old days. So they didn't think twice about picking up the phone and calling him up with the good news that you were about to drop in at his palazzo — ' He glanced at Audley ' — is it really a palazzo — ?'
'They mentioned my name?' Audley brushed the question aside.
'They didn't at first — ' The slipstream of an enormous lorry made the little car shudder ' — they didn't actually get through to him, only to some servant at the palazzo . . . what do palazzos have? Butlers — ? Major-domos?' The vision of a sun-bathed palace on the Amalfi coast, complete with a uniformed staff, animated a curiosity tinged with envy in Mitchell. 'And it's the old family place too, isn't it? His mum was a marchesa or a principessa, or something, wasn't she?'
'They mentioned my name?' There was no particular reason why Mitchell should know anything about Richardson.