Man on Fire (A Creasy novel Book 1)

by A. J. Quinnell

  “Your father lived in a different world. And if he hadn’t died in bed with those two underage putas, he would have lived to be the most sordid bankrupt this country ever saw.”

  She smiled mockingly.

  “Ah, Papa, he had such a sense of timing and such style. Something you seem to lack even with your impeccable breeding.”

  He brought himself under control.

  “You have to face reality, Rika. You cannot go on spending money without thought. Unless I reach agreement with the banks in the next month or so, I could face great embarrassment.”

  She sat still for a while thinking, and then asked, “What are you doing about it?”

  He answered her carefully — anxious that she should understand.

  “There are two sides to the problem. First, we are losing our monopoly on knitted silk. The Chinese in Hong Kong have already perfected the techniques and they buy their yarn from across the border twenty percent cheaper than I can. So by the end of the year we shall have lost the market for plain silk fabrics. We have to compete by widening the range of both fabrics and patterns. We have to rely on selling fashion and style and leave the low end of the market to them.”

  She had been listening intently and now interjected, “So what’s stopping you?”

  “Machines,” he answered. “Our knitting machines are twenty years old. Very slow, and good only for basic fabrics. We need to equip with new Morats and Lebocés, and they cost thirty million lire each.”

  “And the bank won’t help?” she asked.

  He turned back to the bar and poured more cognac before answering.

  “That brings us to the second problem. The mill is already heavily mortgaged, together with this house, and the apartment in Rome. So I need a new loan to purchase the machinery and it has to be guaranteed from outside. That’s what I’m working on.”

  “Have you talked to Vico?”

  He held down his irritation.

  “Of course I’ve talked to Vico. We meet again for lunch next week to discuss it. Cara, all I’m asking is that you keep these problems in mind. Don’t spend without thinking.”

  “I should change my whole lifestyle,” she asked, “because you can’t compete with a few little Chinese?” Her smile was back, but not mocking any more. “Ettore, bring me a cognac, please.”

  He poured the drink, and walked over and stood behind her, and reached over to put the glass on the table. She remained absolutely still, and his hand left the glass and came to the back of her neck, under her hair. She raised her own hand and covered his and squeezed his fingers and moved her head back until it rested against his shirt and rolled it slowly back and forth, her hair brushing against him. She stood, and turned, and kissed his eyes and his mouth, and said softly,

  “Caro, don’t worry. I’m sure Vico will think of something.”

  In bed she kissed his eyes again and took him into her and soothed his body, and, for a while, his mind.

  Later, he lay back propped up against the pillow in the old ornate four-poster. She had left the bed, naked, to go downstairs to fetch more cognac and cigarettes. He reflected that only after lovemaking did she spoil him so. She always led him when they made love. She directed and guided, but remained female — like a perfect dancer leading a well-coordinated partner. Afterward he felt not drained but weakened. A violin overplayed, its strings slack.

  She came into the bedroom holding a balloon glass of cognac in one hand and cigarettes in the other. She gave him the glass and stood beside the bed lighting two cigarettes — long-stemmed, like a rose with all thorns intact, smelling pungent from the lovemaking. It took an effort to bring his mind back to reality.

  “Pinta,” he said flatly. “She must go back to school. It’s no good for her with a governess. She’s eleven already, and falling behind.”

  She got back into bed, handing him a lit cigarette.

  “I agree,” she said, to his surprise. “I was talking to Gina about it only yesterday. You know, they are sending Aldo and Marielle to Switzerland. It’s a very good school — just outside Geneva, and they teach in Italian. There are many Italian children there.”

  He sat up straighter.

  “But Rika, that makes no sense. She will be even more unhappy away from home, and you know what that school will cost. Vico is a successful lawyer, and makes a fortune, much of it outside the country. Besides, they spend a lot of time in Geneva. It’s almost a second home.”

  Rika rearranged the pillows behind her back, and settled down to what she knew was going to be a difficult argument.

  “Ettore, I have worked it out. We sell the apartment in Rome, prices are very good right now, and Rome has become boring lately anyway. Then we use the money to buy an apartment in Geneva. It’s only a thirty-minute flight from Milan, and it takes you that long just to get here by car.”

  He sighed, but she carried on.

  “Besides, I get very bored here in winter, and you are away so much, or staying over in Milan. I could spend a lot of time in Geneva and be with Pinta at weekends and you could fly over at weekends as well.”

  She ended on a rising note of utter reasonableness.

  Ettore said impatiently, “Cara, the apartment in Rome is mortgaged, as I told you. If I sell it, all the money goes to the bank. They will not relend it to me, especially to buy property outside the country. Also, Geneva is the most expensive city in the world. Property prices there are double those in Rome. Even if I could do as you wish, all we could afford would be a very small place that you, of all people, could never bring yourself to stay in. Even for a weekend.”

  There was a long cold silence while Rika digested this. Finally she lay down in the bed and pulled the sheet up to her chin and said, “Well, you’ll have to think of something. My child’s safety is at stake. I will not allow Pinta to be at risk. Look what happened to the Macchetti child. He was taken right outside his school.” Her voice rose. “Right outside — in broad daylight. In Milan! Have you no thought for your daughter? You have to find a way.”

  He spoke patiently.

  “Rika, we have been through this before. The Macchettis are one of the richest families in Milan. Nobody is going to kidnap Pinta. God knows we are not rich — and so do the people who plan such things.”

  His tone was bitter. He knew that his problems were becoming known in financial circles in the city.

  She was not deterred.

  “How could they know? We live as well as the Macchettis, or better. They are a mean family who hide their money. Look where it got them.”

  He persevered.

  “You don’t understand, Rika, it is not amateurs who arrange these kidnappings. It’s very big business, carried out by professionals. They have their sources of information and they don’t waste time taking children whose fathers are virtually bankrupt.”

  “Then what about the Venucci child?”

  She had a point. Eight-year-old Valerio Venucci had been kidnapped six months before. The Venuccis were in the construction business and had come on bad times. The boy was held for two months while the kidnappers reduced their demands from one billion lire to two hundred million, which the family finally scraped together.

  “That was different,” he said. “It was done by outsiders. Frenchmen from Marseilles. They didn’t know enough about the Venucci family, and they were stupid. They were caught two weeks after they got the money.”

  “Maybe,” she conceded, “but young Venucci lost a finger and has been a mental case ever since. Is that what you want for Pinta? Is that all you care?”

  It was hard to argue against such a line and he felt his temper rising again.

  He turned to look at her. The sheet had slipped to her waist, and even lying on her back her breasts retained their shape, high and firm.

  She saw him looking and rolled onto her side away from him.

  “Anyway,” she stated emphatically, “I will not allow my daughter to go back to school in Milan unless she has protection.”


  “What are you talking about?” he demanded. “What protection?”

  “A bodyguard.”

  “A what?” He pulled her over to face him.

  “A bodyguard.” Her face was set and determined. “Someone to be with her, and protect her — maybe against Frenchmen,” she added sarcastically.

  He threw his arm up. The discussion was going all wrong.

  “Rika, you are being illogical! A bodyguard will cost a fortune, and what better way to attract attention? There are thousands of children going to school in Italy whose parents are richer than we are, and they don’t have bodyguards.”

  “I don’t care,” she said flatly. “They are not my children. Do you only care about what it costs? You put a price on Pinta’s safety?”

  He tried to get his thoughts together, find a line of argument that would convince her. There was something here that he didn’t understand.

  He spoke quietly and reasonably.

  “Rika, we discussed the financial situation earlier. Things are very bad. How will I afford what is, after all, another silly extravagance?”

  She glared at him.

  “Pinta’s wellbeing is not an extravagance, not a painting on the wall or a dinner party or a new dress. Besides, the Arredos and the Carolines — even the Turellas — have hired bodyguards for their children “

  It was out in the open now. Not a simple concern for Pinta’s safety, but an important social adjustment. She couldn’t live with the idea that they should be thought unable or unwilling to match her social rivals. He wondered how many other Italian industrialists had been brought to their knees by the same incredible conceits that afflicted their society.

  She remained glaring at him and he knew that the limits of communication had been reached.

  “We’ll talk about it later.”

  She immediately relaxed.

  “Caro, I know you worry about the money. But it will be alright and I’m only thinking about Pinta.”

  He nodded. His eyes closed.

  “Will you talk to Vico?” she went on. “He knows about these things, he gives advice to many people.”

  He opened his eyes and asked sharply, “Have you mentioned this to him?”

  “No, caro, but at lunch yesterday, Gina told me that Vico was advising the Arredos. He has such good connections. They are our best friends, Ettore, and you always tell me he is such a good lawyer.”

  Ettore thought about it. Maybe there was a way out. If Vico were to tell her what a crazy idea it was, perhaps she would listen.

  He reached out and turned off the light. She snuggled up against him, her back to him, warm bottom easing close.

  “You will talk to Vico, Caro?’

  “Yes. I’ll talk to Vico.”

  She snuggled still closer, happy in her victory and pleased with her cunning. She had side-tracked him with her talk of Geneva and slipped under his defences. Who would want to live among all those cold Swiss?

  She turned over and reached a hand down but Ettore was asleep, above and below the waist.

  Chapter 2

  Guido Arrellio moved quietly onto the terrace of the Pensione Splendide. In the dawn light he could just discern the bulk of the man sitting in the chair. The sun had risen behind the hills but here, facing the bay, it would be a few minutes before the light developed enough to see the man clearly. He wanted to see him clearly.

  Pietro had called him at his mother’s house in Positano just after midnight to tell him that a stranger had arrived. A man called Creasy.

  Guido watched as the man’s features became defined. Five years, he thought, and there’s been a change. A year earlier someone passing through, he forgot who, had told him that Creasy was going downhill and was drinking. The light now showed the empty bottle.

  He sat slumped in the chair, his body slack, somnolent, but he was not asleep. The eyes, heavy-lidded in the square face, looked down the hill as the light turned the terraced houses into clear shapes. Then the face turned and Guido stepped out from the shadows.

  “Ça va, Creasy.”

  “Ça va, Guido.”

  Creasy pulled himself up and stretched out his arms and the two men embraced and laid cheek to cheek and held each other for a long moment.

  “Coffee,” said Guido, and Creasy nodded, but before letting him go held the smaller, younger man at arm’s length and studied his face. Then he dropped his hands and sat down.

  Guido went to the kitchen, deeply troubled. Creasy really had let himself go and that indicated things were very wrong, for he was a man who had always kept himself well, always cared for his body and his appearance. They had last met just after Julia’s death.

  The memory added to Guido’s troubled mood. But then Creasy had been well, looking hardly older than when they had first met. As the coffee warmed, Guido calculated: twenty-three years, it would be, and Creasy had always seemed ageless — fixed at a young forty. He calculated again. Creasy would be nearing fifty now and looked it, and more. What had happened in those five years?

  The last time, Creasy had stayed two weeks, silent as usual, but his quiet presence had given Guido strength when he needed it, putting a link back into a broken chain.

  The sun was over the circling hills as he came back onto the terrace, and Naples was waking up, the noise of traffic dull but distinct. A warship lay at anchor in the bay and, beyond it, a large liner showed its stern. Guido put the tray on the table and poured the coffee and the two men sat quietly, drinking and looking at the view.

  Creasy broke the silence.

  “Did I interrupt anything?”

  Guido smiled wryly.

  “My mother, having one of her mysterious and periodic illnesses.”

  “You should have stayed with her.”

  Guido shook his head.

  “Elio will arrive this morning from Milan. She gets these bouts when she feels we’re neglecting her. It’s not so bad for me, only forty minutes’ drive, but it’s a hell of a nuisance for Elio.”

  “How is he?”

  “Good. They made him a partner last year, and he had another baby, a son.”

  They sat in silence again for several minutes. An easy silence, only possible between good and long friends who don’t need talk to hold the link. The liner was almost over the horizon before Guido spoke.

  “You’re tired. Come on — I’ll find you a bed “

  Creasy roused himself.

  “What about you? You haven’t slept all night.”

  “I’ll nap after lunch. How long can you stay?”

  Creasy shrugged. “I have no plans, Guido. Nothing on. I just wanted to see you, how you were.”

  Guido nodded. “That’s good. It’s been too long. Have you been working?”

  “Not for six months. I’ve just come from Corsica.”

  They had been walking to the door, but, hearing this, Guido stopped and looked a question.

  Creasy shrugged again.

  “Don’t ask me why. I didn’t even see anyone. I just happened to be in Marseilles and on an impulse jumped on the ferry.”

  Guido smiled. “You did something on an impulse?”

  The smile was returned, tired and wan. “We’ll talk about it tonight. Where’s that bed?”

  Guido sat at the kitchen table, waiting for Pietro to get back from the market. The pensione had only six rooms, but it was busy, and at lunch and dinner they had a good local trade. Julia had started that, quickly building a reputation for simple, well-cooked food. Her Maltese style rabbit stew had become well-known in the district and she had soon mastered the local dishes. After her death Guido had carried on and found to his surprise that he too had a touch. The clientele had stayed, first, perhaps, out of sympathy, but later because of the merits of the food.

  Guido wondered what had happened to Creasy. He had never been easy to understand, but Guido knew him better than anyone. He doubted it could have been a woman. In all the years there had never been a woman to affect Creasy in mor
e than a passing way. Even twenty years before, when Creasy had taken up with a French nurse in Algeria. Guido thought that she had been special, but after three months she had moved on.

  “It’s like trying to open a door with the wrong key,” she had remarked to Guido. “It goes into the lock but it won’t turn.”

  Guido had repeated the remark to Creasy, who had just said, “Maybe the lock’s rusty.”

  Guido also doubted that Creasy had been involved in any event which had traumatically marred him. After a lifetime of events that would leave few men unmarked, Creasy had always been just Creasy.

  He lay sleeping now in Guido’s own room. After ten minutes Guido had looked in on him. He had lain on his side, the sheet at his waist in the heated room, and Guido had examined him covertly. The body was slack with a faded tan and all the scars were old scars. The back laced with faint pale weals which curved round to each side of the stomach. The small puncture marks under the left ribs. The backs of the hands mottled with the marks of old burns. He knew that underneath the sheet one leg had a badly stitched scar above the knee, stretching almost to the groin, The face had not escaped, a thin scar going vertically from the right eyebrow to the hairline and another, smaller, on the left side of the jaw.

  They were all familiar to Guido and he knew their histories. There was nothing new. The body of the sleeping man had been much abused, but that abuse had never before been self-inflicted.

  Pietro interrupted his thoughts, coming into the kitchen with two baskets under his arms. He stopped in surprise at seeing Guido.

  “I expected you later in the day,” he said, putting the baskets on the table.

  “An old friend,” said Guido, standing up and peering into the baskets.

  Pietro started to unload the fruit and vegetables for Guido’s inspection.

  “Some friend, to bring you from your mother’s sick bed so quickly.”

  “Some friend,” agreed Guido. “He’s sleeping now.”

  Pietro was curious. He had worked for Guido for four years, ever since Guido had caught him stealing the hubcaps off his car. He got a severe beating and some questions. Then, learning that he had no home, Guido had taken him back to the pensione and given him a meal and a cot under the stairs.