My clothes were in the wardrobe - shirt and tie, socks and shoes. I washed. Shaved with an electric razor. Dressed and combed my hair. Puffed on the first cigarette of the day. I felt no fear, which surprised me at first. Then I realised why. I was too angry to be afraid. Not blazing come outside and say that angry - but a tight, concentrated burning temper - so that when the door opened I was ready for anything.
"Morning, old boy," said the man called Henderson. "Found everything you want?"
"Next time get me a room with a private bath, will you? And I like a cup of tea before I get up."
"Don't we all." He sat on the bed and watched me finish knotting my tie. "Glad you're an early riser though. We've a busy day ahead of us."
"Doing what? Knocking people cold in restaurants? Jabbing them with needles?"
He smiled. "Nothing so exciting, I'm afraid. Talk, mainly, and a few film shows. But you'll meet some interesting people."
My nerve cracked. "Where the devil are we?" I waved at the window.
"Headquarters," he said simply. He stood up. "Does it matter where it is? Really it's better if you don't know - better for you I mean."
I remembered Lucia and said, "For my own good?"
"Precisely," he smiled again. "Shall we go down to breakfast? One of the benefits of this place is the food is bloody good."
"I'll tell Egon Ronay."
I was right about the country house bit. We crossed a wide landing to a sweeping staircase grand enough for Fred Astaire to dance down. Wood panelled walls were decorated with military crests, and two suits of armour stood to attention in the hall below. Everywhere smelt of deep shine wax and metal polish. It was a bit like Edgar Hardman's pile at Wyndham Manor, but more institutionalised. More like a club than a home. A club, or an officers' mess - especially the dining room.
Three men were already eating at the end of a long table when we arrived. Heads turned and conversation stopped as Henderson ushered me in. I just had time to notice silver serving dishes on the sideboard, and french windows which opened onto a terrace, when the man at the head of the table rose to greet me.
"Mr Harris," he shook my hand warmly. "My name's Llewellyn. It's a pleasure to meet you."
He was a tall, straight-backed man of about sixty, dressed in the kind of tweeds which old English families reserve for the country. Thinning grey hair, strong blue eyes, a clipped military moustache, a very firm handshake - and a voice like Edgar Hardman's.
"Let me introduce two of my colleagues - Bill Kaufman and Enrico Bonello."
"Glad to know you," Kaufman rose briefly, and waved a hand. Then he settled back in his chair and continued eating.
Bonello said, "Mr Harris," and shook hands with stiff formality.
The man called Llewellyn steered me to the sideboard. "Have some breakfast. Ham, eggs, bacon, it's all there. Or smoked haddock if you prefer? Coffee and tea - just help yourself, eh? Make yourself at home."
Henderson grinned and passed me a plate. Make yourself at home seemed odd words for a kidnapper, but it seemed best to go along with them - at least for the time being. I carried a heaped plate back to the table and sat opposite Kaufman. I wondered if Lucia was in the house? But it was only a passing thought - mainly I was memorising their names - Llewellyn, Kaufman, Bonello.
Kaufman speared an egg with a forkful of sausage and munched happily while staring at me. Judging by the food on his plate he would have a weight problem in a year or two, but the prospect appeared not to worry him. He was a pleasant-faced man in his early forties, sandy-haired and green-eyed. He even had freckles. A knitted tie was buttoned under his shirt collar and he wore a casual woollen suit. "You ever shoot craps in those casinos of yours?" he asked.
I recognised another voice from 'my dream' but kept my nerves under tight control. "Some," I said, "but blackjack and roulette were more popular."
He chewed the last mouthful and loaded his fork with another: "French roulette or American?"
"French."
He shook his head. "House gets better odds with American."
"You in the business?"
He looked surprised. "Me?" he said, pointing his knife at his chest. "Hell, no, just a punter. Craps is okay though - it's the only game I can win. Can't understand some of them. That chem de fleur-"
"Chemin de fer," Bonello corrected.
"That's right," Kaufman nodded. "Can't understand it."
The door opened and two other men came in. Llewellyn bobbed up and made the introductions in the same cordial manner as before: "Tony Hewit and Bob Richardson - meet Sam Harris."
"Hi, Sam."
"Glad to know you."
They smiled and turned to the sideboard with happy anticipation. Holy Christ, it was like a golf weekend! After breakfast we would all troop down to the locker room for a few practice swings! I nodded and concentrated on my food - repeating their names over and over again - Hewit and Richardson - Bonello and Kaufman - Llewellyn and Henderson. I tried to establish a common denominator, some characteristic shared by them all but without success. For a start at least three different nationalities were involved - British, American and Italian - and their conversation was of no help. What talk there was confined itself to the weather or food - 'pass the coffee' and 'have some more toast', and except for Kaufman's opening enquiry about the casino business, my presence went largely ignored. I wondered if it were deliberate? Perhaps they expected me to jump up and demand an explanation. Maybe it was designed to get on my nerves? Whatever it was I steeled myself and ignored them right back - and just got on with finishing my breakfast.
Eventually, when even Kaufman pushed his plate away, Llewellyn suggested I join him for a stroll on the terrace - 'before we get down to business'. The perfect bloody host! But at least it gave me a breath of fresh air and a chance to look round. The house was Edwardian, I think, maybe Victorian - mostly red brick and a lot of high gables. Large but not exactly impressive, though certainly bigger than Ashley Grange. Formal gardens stretched down from the terrace and fifty yards away met the same high wall I had seen from the bedroom window. Llewellyn and I strolled up and down, sniffing the air like pointers on a leash. I watched a jet fighter trail vapour as it climbed high in the sky. Perhaps we were close to an airfield? A military base? Gloucestershire? No - the countryside was too flat - it had to be East Anglia.
Llewellyn watched my face. "Worked out where we are?"
I shrugged. "Hadn't thought about it." I gave him the best smile I could manage. "I'm sure you'll tell me - when it's good for me to know."
Either he was being polite or the answer appealed to his sense of humour, because it delighted him. "Exactly! That's quite the right attitude." He turned back to the house. "Shall we start?"
I wondered what would happen if I said no? But I was more nervous than I was letting on, and I was curious about where this was all leading. Besides, I was struck by another thought. Tomlinson was expecting me at ten thirty. If I missed that appointment he was likely to have every policeman in the country looking for me. It was a comforting thought, so I hung onto it.
We assembled in the room next to the dining room. It was almost as large and laid out for a conference. A top table butted onto a longer one to form a T shape. Water jugs and glasses flanked pads and pencils. A small cinema screen was set into one wall. The other men from the breakfast room were already taking their places at the tables.
"Perhaps you'd care to sit here?" Llewellyn stood behind a single chair at the end of the longer table. "As you're by way of being guest of honour." He smiled as he pulled the chair out. "It will give us a chance of a good look at you - and to hear what you think of our little scheme."
I sat down and Llewellyn walked to the other end of the room. He took the central place at the top table, flanked by Kaufman and Bonello, exactly opposite me, separated by ten feet of mahogany and an avenue of curious eyes. Perhaps it was Llewellyn's bearing, but the atmosphere reminded me distinctly of a court martial.
"Make y
ourselves comfortable," Llewellyn said. "It's going to be a long session and I'm not quite sure where to begin."
I snapped: "Why not start by introducing yourselves? You've told me the name's Llewellyn, but not who you are. Or what you are?"
I cursed under my breath. I had meant to remain silent. Let them, make the running - but the whole thing was playing on my nerves too much for that. Shock I suppose - Lucia's treachery, being kidnapped, a meeting in a house located God knew where. My hand trembled as I reached for my cigarettes.
Kaufman said, "Relax, Sam. Nothing's going to happen to you. You're our guest, that's all."
"Perhaps I don't like the way I was invited?"
"Okay, okay-" he patted the air, as if to say calm down. "We're sorry about last night. We did it that way-"
"For my own good?"
"Right," he smiled. "As to who we are that can come later."
I remembered Henderson saying 'Home Office' and flashing an identity card, but that made no sense at all and I was about to say later wasn't good enough when Kaufman added, "Sam, this is going to be hard for you. We've a lot to tell you and mostly we're only going to say it once. When we finish you're going to have to make a big decision. A very big decision. So listen real good, huh?" He smiled again. I was too far away to see the freckles but I knew they were there, hiding in the creases around his eyes. He finished by saying, "After that you'll be taken back to that elegant little pad of yours - all safe and sound. Okay?"
"What happens then?"
"That depends on your decision," he said, still smiling.
I was reminded of the time Charlie Weston came to see me to discuss the casino business. When he brought his team of advisors. But it was no comparison really. Charlie was a businessman. His people had been bankers, accountants, other professional men. Whoever - whatever - these people were, they certainly were not bankers. Bill Kaufman might be doing his friendly downtown salesman bit but it was faked. Freckles or not, something in his expression worried me. Then I realised what it was. However far that smile spread across his face it would never reach his eyes. They remained as cold as ice.
I cleared my throat. "So I'm to be given a choice?"
Kaufman chuckled: "Everyone gets a choice in life. Isn't that your philosophy - Winner?"
He dropped the old nickname in so softly that I thought he was being sarcastic. But I was being too sensitive. It was just his way of saying he knew all about me - everything about me. He turned and looked across Llewellyn to Bonello. "Enrico, why don't you start? After all, it all began at your end."
Bonello nodded sadly. Watching him, I was reminded of Charles Aznavour. The same wiry frame, brooding, unhappy eyes, quick mobile face. Perhaps he was French or Armenian, not Italian as I imagined? But his opening words proved me wrong.
"I am a Sicilian, Mr Harris," he said. He smiled shyly, as if worried about how I would take it. When I sat blank-faced and silent he continued, "Most people only know of my homeland because of the Mafia. It is our curse, a stain on our ancestry. The Honoured Society. I suppose you've heard it called that? You've heard the words? Omertà - manliness, the code of secrecy unto death. Ripeittu - the Mafia law of keeping hands off one another's property." He sneered. "Viciousness disguised as chivalry, that's all - folktales for peasants. We almost stamped it out before the war. Ceasare Mori fought the Mafia to a standstill in the twenties. Mussolini trampled them underfoot in the thirties. But then the war came and afterwards -" he shrugged. "The Mafia was back in Sicily, stronger than at any time in its history."
Why tell me, I thought? But I remained silent. He screwed a cigarette into a black holder and sat playing with it, rolling it in his fingers, looking at it with brooding eyes. Then again the brief, shy smile. "No offence is meant to my American friends when I say they helped the Mafia regain power in Sicily. When the Allies invaded, the Mafia facilitated their advance. One capo-mafia in particular, Don Calogero Vizzini, was of such great help that in the immediate post-war years he became the American advisor. He even persuaded them to appoint former Mafiosi as mayors in many towns in Sicily. Oh, I don't blame the Americans - they never knew the histories of the men they appointed. How could Americans be expected to sort the goats from the sheep on our little island?"
He smiled forgiveness at Kaufman who shrugged and made no effort to reply. I glanced quickly at the other faces. They expressed polite interest, but nothing more than that. As if they had heard the story before and were faintly bored by it.
Not that Bonello was discouraged. "After the war, democracy made things even worse," he said. "One man, one vote, was new to Italy. Many Italians - many Sicilians - were unsure about it. But the Mafia caught on. They realised that voters could be organised. Soon it became known that the Mafia could deliver the vote at election times. After that no political candidate had a chance in Sicily, unless he bought his votes from the local Mafia chief. And the price, Mr Harris?" Bonello raised his solemn eyes to mine. "Political connivance in Mafia dealings."
He put a light to his cigarette and puffed in silence. Then he said, "Old style Mafia like Vizzini ran Sicily until the early sixties -"
Suddenly Kaufman interrupted. "Fix that date in your mind, will you, Sam? The early sixties, right. You're in London laying the foundations of your business empire, while in Sicily-"
"Vizzini was still in power," Bonello said quickly. I threw Kaufman a look of surprise but before I could say anything Bonello was continuing. "Vizzini worked in the shadows - dispensing favours granting protection, wielding political influence. But then came a new generation - young Mafiosi who flaunted their wealth and importance - men who drove flashy Alfas and who lived a more open, cafe society style of life. And when the young Mafiosi clashed with the old, the streets of Sicily ran with blood. For example, in 1962 fifty-six people were shot dead over two months in Palermo alone."
"1962, Sam," Kaufman said with strange emphasis.
"That's got nothing to do with me!" I said sharply.
"Oh, but it has," Kaufman insisted softly. "This is your story, Sam. Believe me. There are men in this room from all over the world - Milan, New York, Palermo - and for why? Because of your story." He smiled, and stifled my astonished denial by saying, "Oh, not that crap you've been handing Lucia. That's only a part of it. The rest is where your life crossed other people's - that's a lot more fascinating."
I stared at him in complete bewilderment. Blank astonishment. There had to be a mistake. Whoever - whatever - these men were, they had confused me with somebody else. But Bonello was already continuing, "Other things were happening in Italy. For instance, there was a great migration of Sicilians to the north. Industry was hungry for labour. More than a quarter of a million Sicilians exchanged their dirt patch in the south for a job at Fiat's in the north. But wherever the Sicilians went, they took the ways of the Mafia with them. Disrespect for law and order, this conspiracy of silence - ah-" he waved a hand. "Only when you've spent a lifetime fighting it can you really understand."
I was understanding nothing.
Kaufman met my astonished gaze for a second, then turned back to Bonello. "Tell him about the family, Enrico."
"I was just about to," Bonello said, faintly irritated. He looked at me. "A man named Vito lived in Milan. A northerner, important, successful - a businessman from an old family. When he was young he studied in Rome and became friendly with people who owned land in Sicily. One summer his friends invited him to stay in Sicily, and during his visit he met the daughter of one of their neighbours. The two young people fell in love and wanted to marry. But marriage in Italy is a complicated affair - less so today of course, but then-" he waved a hand into the distance. "Many things had to be taken into account. But both families were wealthy and the two young people persevered - so in the end they were married. Gifts were exchanged and, as was the custom then, the name of the newly-weds was linked to incorporate the names of both families."
He paused to sip some water. For the tenth time in as many moments I
asked myself why I was being told all this? What had Kaufman meant about it being my story? How could it be? I had never even been to Italy, let alone Sicily.
Bonello swallowed his drink. "Vito qualified as an engineer and took his young bride back to Milan to live. There he inherited the family construction business. They survived the war and even prospered from it. Afterwards they had a child and seemed set to live happily ever after. The wife, Franka, kept in touch with her parents, but less so than most Italian daughters." Bonello shrugged. "Palermo and Milan are far apart and the lives of the people quite different - and besides, the wife had kept something secret from her husband. That her family was Mafia - and she kept this from Vito for twelve long years."
"Until when exactly?" Kaufman asked, with one eye on me.
"June, 1952. She had to tell him then. There was a power struggle in Palermo between the two largest Mafia families. Many people were killed, among them Franka's parents and her sister-in-law. Her eldest brother, Guiseppe, fled to the hills with his two small children - a boy and a baby girl who was just a few months old. Somehow Guiseppe got a message to the Sicilian colony in Milan, who passed it to Franka. Would she take the baby girl and bring it up as her own? Of course Franka had to tell Vito everything. He listened, forgave her, and agreed to take the child - which is what happened."
Kaufman interrupted again. "How old was the other child when this happened? Vito and Franka's own child?"
"About seven."
Kaufman nodded, looking at me but still speaking to Bonello. "Who was also a girl?"
"Yes," Bonello agreed. "Luckily she took to the new baby and Vito and Franka grew to love the child as their own. Whatever one child had, the other also had-"
"Two young girls, growing up in a wealthy household," Kaufman summarised, looking at me. "An enlightened household, would you say, Enrico?"
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 48