by Morris West
He was uncertain of her now. This was no careful comedy of seduction played to protect her husband. She was remote from him and hurt and cold. He bent down and plucked a sprig of grass and began tearing it to pieces with restless fingers.
“I hoped you might have married happily.”
“I married well. I got no less than I expected.”
“What did you get?”
She faced him then, bright-eyed and defiant, her voice a chill mockery.
“Everything a noble Italian can offer to his wife—except love and fidelity.”
“You’ve missed quite a lot.”
“No more than most who make the same bargain. Men like my husband have a nice sense of justice. They demand pleasure from professionals, passion from their mistresses and discretion from their wives. They are prepared to pay for all three.”
“Do they never try to combine the talents?” He grinned, ruefully. “It’s a lot less expensive.”
“According to my husband, American divorce records prove the impossibility.”
“A remarkable fellow.”
“Very.”
The grass stalk was a mangled mess in his hands. He tossed it away and went to her swiftly and kissed her. Then he took her hand gently and led her through the creaking gateway of the shrine.
The grass was green and soft under the ancient olives, and from where they sat they could look through the bars of the gate and a broken section of the wall, to the fall of the hillside and the dazzle of the distant bay.
The air was drowsy with insects under the dappled leaves, and Cosima lay back on the warm grass and pillowed her head on her hands. Ashley sat beside her, hands clasped about his knees, abstracted and half afraid of the revelation he knew must soon come.
They tried to talk of old days in Rome. But the old days were like old kisses—cold and painful to remember. So they fell silent and let the warmth seep into them, content with each other’s presence, and the nostalgia of the lost paradise, half-bitter and half-sweet.
A long time later, Ashley looked down at her and said, quietly:
“Cosima, there’s something to be said.”
“Say it, Richard.” Her voice was drowsy and contented.
“For the past six months I’ve been investigating your husband. I’m printing a story that may well ruin him. What you saw in the lounge today was part of it.”
“I know, Richard.”
“What?”
He sat bolt upright and looked down at her. She lay there placidly, smiling at him.
“I know, my dear. My husband knows too. That’s why he’s coming down today. That’s why he sent Elena.”
“Who is Elena?”
She pouted in amusement.
“His secretary—mistress, too, of course. Attractive, isn’t she?”
“Yes, attractive.”
He looked away from her, towards the crumbling wall and the small vista of sea and sky between the rusted bars of the gate. What did he say now? How did he frame a question that once asked might ruin everything—even the brief happiness of the last hour?
“I’ll answer it for you, caro mio.”
“Answer what?”
“The next question. Why did I come?”
“Well…?”
She sat up, put her arm around his shoulder and turned his face towards her.
“I came because my husband wished it. This is election time. There are appearances to be kept up. I came early because I knew you would be here and because I wanted this—this little time with you.”
“Is that all?”
“Should there be any more, Richard?”
“Only one thing. What do you want me to do about this story?”
“What do you want to do, caro?”
“Print it.”
“Then print it, my dear. It doesn’t worry me in the least.”
Then she kissed him and drew him down to her on the warm and trampled grass. When the time came to go, he was happier than he had been for ten ambitious years.
The cicadas were silent and the first faint breeze was stirring in the grey leaves, as he backed the car out of the track and headed it down the long, winding road that led back to Sorrento. It was clear of traffic. The afternoon sight-seers were gone long since. Because they were late already, because he was relaxed and exhilarated, because there was strength in his hands and power under his feet, he drove fast and dangerously, rolling the long car round the curves, drifting it across the steep camber away from the high embankments.
He braked a little when they came to the last hair-pin bend and they turned on to a mile of straight road, banked high on one side and shaded with gnarled olives and, on the other, dropping away steeply towards the sea. He put his foot hard down on the accelerator and the Isotta leapt forward at full power, eating up the road.
Then Cosima screamed.
Directly ahead of them, there was a man standing and swaying dangerously on the edge of the embankment. Ashley trod on the brakes and swung out. As he did so the man seemed to leap out into mid-air, straight in front of the car. The tyres screamed and the wheels locked, but the momentum was too great and the fenders caught him and tossed him forward and they felt the bump as the car rode on top of him, rolling him over and over in the gravel like a limp rag doll.
Desperately, Ashley wrestled the car away from the edge of the drop and halted it fifty yards down the road. He got out, left Cosima slumped and sobbing in the seat, and went racing back towards the bloody bundle in the middle of the road.
When he turned it over, he saw that it was Enzo Garofano, the informer.
CHAPTER THREE
THE AIR WAS VERY STILL. Time itself was still. No bird sang, and the strident cicadas were dumb. The town in the valley was a painted town, the sea was a backcloth daub. The grey olives were nightmare trees. The sprawled shape in the middle of the road and the man who bent over him were puppet figures, motionless, waiting for the strings to jerk them into life.
Then the breeze stirred again. The leaves whispered and the branches creaked and Richard Ashley leaned forward over the body of Enzo Garofano.
He lay on his back, neck twisted and limbs spread at grotesque angles to his body. His chest was crushed. His face was torn and bloody and a dark pool of blood spread round him, soaking into the tattered dusty clothing. Twenty yards up the road his hat and his brief-case lay pitched against the side of the embankment.
The embankment.…
Ashley looked up. It was ten, twelve, feet high and. the olives grew close to the edge, their branches overhanging the road. A minute ago, Garofano had stood there, swaying on the lip.
There was no footpath there. It was private property. No place for a man to walk. The wall was grey tufa, scarred with the picks of the roadmakers, but sheer and steep. No place for a man to climb.
But Garofano had been neither walking nor climbing. He had been standing there, tottering as if… as if someone had thrust him towards the edge and sent him toppling and flailing in front of the speeding car.
Sick and shaking, Ashley straightened up and walked slowly up the road, to pick up the hat and the brief-case.
The hat was dusty and grease-stained. Mechanicaliy he tried to clean it, rubbing it on his sleeve. The brief-case was intact, the zip-fastener was closed, but when he opened it, there was nothing inside. He looked up marking the spot from where Garofano had come. There was a huddle of small trees and one large fellow with a thick trunk and oddly twisted branches. The police would want to know that. The police would want to come and look for traces of the men who had killed this shabby little cheat with the narrow face and the furtive eyes.
Then it hit him.
The man who had killed Enzo Garofano was himself—Richard Ashley. He had threatened to do it, there were witnesses to prove that. He had done it, not three hours later. By misadventure truly, but there was only one witness to tell how it was done, and her testimony would be that of the biased lover and the faithless wife.
> Or that of a conspirator, party to murder!
It was a horrifying thought, but it came to him with brutal logic. Who else had known which way they would come? Who but she had chosen the way—’up the mountain, it’s lonely there’. How, but from her, would they have known, the men who had brought Garofano to this spot and tossed him out into perdition?
But she had screamed in horror. Now she was huddled weeping in the car. She could not have expected this. But she didn’t have to expect it. She had only to do as she was asked. Meet him, drive him up the mountain, keep him there a while. The rest was in other hands.
The motive? To protect her husband, to maintain the state and the fortune for which she had married him in the first place. But the prelude? The love under the olive trees, the rush of memories relived, the tenderness and the kisses? She had given him those too, in the old times—and then sold him out for Orgagna. If then, why not now, when the stakes were so much greater? Nothing so comforting as a title and a bank balance when autumn comes to the dark beauty of Rome.
Sudden nausea overcame him. His head spun and his face was clammy and he leaned his head against the grey stone of the embankment and retched painfully.
When the spasm had passed, he wiped his face and his hands, picked up the hat and the brief-case and walked back down the road towards the car. When he came abreast of the body, he stopped and looked down at it again. It was time to think of practical matters. He would have to get it into the car—Cosima’s car—and drive it to the Questura. He would have to make a report. They would be questioned, both of them What story would they tell?
‘… We are old lovers, you see. We went out to steal an hour under the olives of Il Deserto. I was crazy, as lovers are. I was driving fast. This fellow was thrown under the wheels of my car by friends of this lady’s husband.… It is a fact that I threatened to kill him. It is a fact that I thrashed him in a public place… but this, this is something different—a snare, you understand. A trap for the unwary pedlar of the truth.…’
Even as he thought it, he knew it for a folly. The story they would tell must be different altogether. The truth, yes, because a lie would entangle them both when the real questioning began. But not the whole truth. And because they both must tell the same story, he must hide his suspicions of Cosima, must still play the lover and the protecting friend. Even, if possible, use her, as others had used her against him.
He had one strong card. Elections were coming up. It was necessary for Orgagna to keep up appearances. A scandal involving his wife and an old lover could do him much harm. If he were prepared to kill to save his name, he would certainly not jib at a convenient lie or two. Orgagna had influence in this country, where influence counted much more than integrity. It would be a sour irony to have him use it for the man who wanted to ruin him.
It was small hope, but it gave him courage to walk back and comfort Cosima, then to back the car up and bundle the limp, heavy bundle into the back seat, lay the brief-case on its chest and cover its face with the hat, so that it might ride back to Sorrento with decency.
Then, very carefully, he explained matters to Cosima. She was white and trembling, her face was ravaged with shocked weeping and she sat away from him in the comer of the seat, eyes carefully averted from the grim burden in the back. But she listened attentively and seemed to understand what he wanted her to do.
“… We drive back to town. I’ll put the hood up and the side-screens. First, I’ll go to the hotel and leave you there. Then I’ll drive round to the Questura, deliver the car and the body and make my report.”
“But—but the police will want to see both of us.”
“Sure. But the police are gentlemen. They will understand that the Duchess of Orgagna is a delicate lady and deeply shocked. They will make their enquiries later, when Her Excellency is rested and has the support of her husband.”
“What will you tell them?”
“The truth. We were driving fast. No point in denying that. The skid marks and the state of the body are clear evidence. My excuse is that you had a dinner date, which is true. And the road was empty, which is also true. I’ll explain how we saw Garofano on top of the embankment; how he seemed to fall right in front of the car; how we picked him up and brought him down to the town. That’s all—no explanations, nothing.”
“How do you explain—us?”
“We are old friends. Your husband and I have met. You wanted to show me the beauties of the hill drive. It’s the truth—part of it at least—and it involves us in no lies. Do you understand that? We mustn’t lie. We mustn’t embellish. If we do, we’re in difficulties, both of us.”
“I—I understand.”
“The point is, will your husband understand? Will he support your story? And claim me as an old acquaintance entitled to the courtesy of your company?”
She smiled at him then, wanly.
“He hasn’t much choice, has he?”
“None at all,” said Ashley grimly. He switched on the ignition and started the engine. Cosima laid a detaining hand on his arm.
“Richard, there’s one thing.…”
“Yes?”
“How do you explain it to the police?”
“Explain what?”
She gestured vaguely at the embankment.
“How he came to be up there—how he fell. I mean it sounds so silly and unreal. The sort of thing that makes us both look ridiculous, as if we’re inventing a story to excuse our speeding.”
“Look, sweetheart!” He turned to her and laid it down bluntly. “We tell it that way because, however it sounds, it’s the truth.”
She shook her head wearily.
“You don’t understand Neapolitans. You certainly don’t understand the Neapolitan police. Give them half a line of drama, they want to turn it into an opera. What is true is not so important as what looks true. It makes it easier for the police, and it makes it easier for us. You have to help them to a convenient way out. A simple accident with no complications, nothing for the journalists to make into a story.”
‘What do you want me to tell them, Cosima?”
‘Why, simply that… that this man was walking up the hill with his eyes on the road. You saw him too late. You sounded your horn. He jumped the wrong way and you hit him. A simple story that worries no one and no one can disprove. An accident, you see?”
“No,” said Ashley flatly, “I don’ t.”
“But, Richard.…”
“We tell it the way it happened.” His eyes were hard. His mouth was tight as a trap.
“You don’t understand. You don’t know the way things work here.”
He didn’t bother to reply. He revved the engine and eased the Isotta out into the middle of the road. He understood all too well. To kill a pedestrian on a mile of empty road is culpable homicide in any codex. Given the motive, you can make it look like wilful murder. He knew now, for certain, that Cosima had betrayed him.
Slowly, very slowly, he drove down the winding, mountain road.
Captain Eduardo Granforte was a large soft man with tiny hands and feet. He had a round, innocent face, a velvet voice, an oblique smile and gentle eyes. He liked his job, because it was easy. He wanted it kept that way. He was a courteous fellow, who understood how to deal with foreign visitors and particularly with representatives of the foreign press. He helped Ashley over the first rough passages with a speed and efficiency that left him gasping.
The Isotta was whisked swiftly away from public view, to be washed and cleaned. The body of Garofano was deposited in a spare cell of the prison to await an autopsy. A telephone call to the hotel brought clean clothes for Ashley, whose shirt and trousers were bloody from his handling of the body. Coffee was brought and American cigarettes and the questioning proceeded with an unexpected charm.
“… The car, you say, is the property of Her Excellency the Duchess of Orgagna?”
“That’s right.”
“She had asked you to drive it?”
&nbs
p; “Yes.”
“You have an international licence?”
“Yes. I wasn’t carrying it, but…”
Captain Granforte smiled gently and waved a deprecating hand.
“Enough that you possess it, signore. We do not stand on minor ceremonies—unless we have to, of course.”
“You’re very kind.”
“Prego, signore!” The Captain bowed to the compliment. “Now, you went out for your drive. You were returning in a hurry as Her Excellency had a dinner engagement.”
“Yes.”
“What was your speed at the time of the accident?”
Ashley shrugged:
“I couldn’t say. I hadn’t looked at the meter. It was quite fast.”
“But, there are so many curves on the road, it could not have been excessively so.”
Ashley was quick to seize the line that was flung to him. The Captain was playing it carefully. Orgagna was a big fellow. The sort of fellow who could do much for a provincial police captain—provided he knew how to behave himself.
“No, that’s true—the curves do slow you down.”
“So, you are proceeding at reasonable speed along this stretch of the road. What then?”
“Her Excellency screamed. It startled me because the road was clear. I looked up and saw a man right on the edge of the high embankment. He was swaying. I swung out. The next minute he—he seemed to leap out into the air, right in front of the car. I braked, but the fender hit him and we went over him. I stopped the car, ran back, found he was dead. Then I backed up, loaded him into the car and brought him here. And—and that’s all.”
The Captain frowned. His gentle eyes clouded. His soft fingers drummed on the desk. The smooth stream of his questions was checked. He looked thoughtfully up at the ceiling. Then he put it to Ashley.
“The circumstances, as you describe them, are rather unusual.”
“Yes.”
The Captain looked at him sharply.
“Did you think so at the time?”
“At the time, no. I was trying to control the car. I had no time to think of anything else.”
“But afterwards?”
“Afterwards when I went back, I looked up the embankment. I saw that it was private property. There was no footpath. There was no way to climb up there. I wondered about how he got there and what he was doing so close to the edge and how he came to fall.”