It was packed tight. Every pew was occupied and extra chairs had been arranged just inside the doors. I collided with a brown robed monk, cannoned into two nuns, one of whom lost her balance. There was no time to apologise. Children wandered aimlessly up and down the centre aisle, calling and waving to their friends. I caught a blurred glimpse of the spectacular richness of the interior and the blaze of tall candles - but it was only a fleeting impression. I searched for Darmanin. Then I saw him, hopping at speed towards a side door half way down the nave. I risked a glance over my shoulder. The police had given up but one of the hunters was bearing down on me, his shotgun under his arm and bandoliers of cartridges bouncing on his chest. And beyond him I saw Lucia - white-faced and breathless as she entered the church.
Bells tolled above, children got under my feet. I dodged and jinked, aware of the sacrilege, regretful of it - but over and above everything else I was terrified of losing Darmanin. I remembered his defiance in the bar. "I spit on Is-sajjied," he had shouted. The Fisherman? As if The Fisherman were a man, not a place. A man? What had Kay said, that night in the boat house? Brooks had gone to The Fisherman. I thought she meant the hotel. But suppose it was a man? The man in the skiff perhaps? The man with the diamond ring? Had he been The Fisherman?
I gasped aloud as if in pain, vaguely aware of the shocked expressions on people's faces. Then Darmanin bobbed through the side door and back out into the night. I hurried after him, gaining on him, just as the hunter behind was gaining on me.
The door led to a courtyard. Benches were scattered over a widely paved area fringed by palm trees and decorated with coloured lights. The courtyard was built on the same level as the church, higher than the surrounding streets. Lamps spluttered on two diverging pathways, like flares flanking runways. The whole place was crowded with people, but not as tightly packed as the square at the front of the church. I could even run, if you count two steps forward and one sideways to avoid a collision, as running. But even so Darmanin managed to stay twenty yards ahead of me. He swung along on his crutches, throwing an occasional look backwards to mark my progress. The roar of the crowd reached us from the adjoining streets, fireworks still painted the sky and the bells tolled without let up. It was like a sequence from a dream - that running dream where you end up spinning through space.
Darmanin was descending some steps to the street. People blocked my path. I bumped and barged my way through. When I reached the top of the steps I was clutching my side with stitch. I had lost him. There was no sign of him in the street below. Instead it was crowded with a procession. Choirboys in white surplices carried a forest of candles, followed by men in scarlet robes trimmed with gold, and others dressed in blue, followed by yet more in yellow, all carrying richly embroidered banners and flags. And behind them a squad of twenty men heaved and strained under a huge gold statue of St Paul. Ticker tape streamed from balconies, people reached out to touch the statue, leaning from windows and hanging from the railings - and all the time, the great roaring cry of "St Paul, St Paul."
Then I saw Darmanin. He had crossed the street and was on the opposite corner, looking up at the balustrade which flanked the steps. We saw each other in the same instant. A flicker of recognition crossed his face. He turned and scuttled down a side street.
When I looked back there was no sign of Lucia - or Kaufman or Lino Cassar. But to delay - to wait for them - would mean losing Darmanin. His knowledge was of vital importance. I barely hesitated. I was down the steps and waiting for a break in the procession, dodging church officials in ornate costumes to cross the street. The side road was no more than an alleyway. I could almost reach out and touch the shuttered houses on either side. It was dark, lacking the coloured lights which decorated the main thoroughfare. Tall houses, built so closely together that the light from the night sky was muted and filtered in the alleyway. It was quiet, empty of people, full of dark shadow. I cursed aloud. I had no flashlight, no gun, no weapon - and I was alone. The alley made a sharp turn to the right. I eased round the corner, pressed tight against the wall. My eyes adjusted to the darkness. Already the crackle of fireworks sounded a long way off, the roar of the crowd no more than a murmur. The alleyway was empty! But Darmanin had to be here. I heard footsteps behind me - turned quickly, but saw no-one hurried onwards, walking on tip-toe, following the old stone walls as they twisted right and left. It was like a maze. Suddenly - twelve yards ahead - a door opened on a latch. A shaft of light splashed across the cobblestones - for a split second - but long enough to see the splinter of light reflected down the length of an aluminium crutch. Then the door closed softly and the latch dropped back into place.
It took me a minute to make up my mind. I left the door open behind me. It seemed the sensible thing to do - if Kaufman and Lino Cassar were following down the alley, they would see it. I stripped off the safari jacket and dropped it across the threshold. Then I stepped over it and into the tiny walled garden. Lemon trees flanked a narrow path. The dense black bulk of a building loomed up in front of me, its shuttered windows clearly visible in the moonlight. I crept forward, step by step along the path. A cricket started up in a nearby bush, other insects rustled in the foliage of the lemon trees. Cracks of light made an outline around the shutters on the ground floor. I wondered if I could edge close enough to hear what was going on inside. That was as far as I would go - that would be enough - Darmanin's voice would be enough - then I could wait for Kaufman to arrive - Kaufman and the bloody army he was supposed to have looking after me. But I was still a yard from the house when the twig snapped behind me. I turned quickly, spinning in my tracks - quickly enough to see one of the hunters behind me, quickly enough to see his shotgun swinging towards me - but not quickly enough to avoid it. The stock smashed into the side of my face with enough force to break my jaw. I remember crying out, remember the coppery taste of blood, remember thinking that half my jaw had been taken away and falling. But that's all I remember...until some time later.
Chapter Fourteen
Richardson was impressed. Not only the Gendarmerie but also the Surete Nationale had been pressed into service in the search for Maria Green, and by the time Richardson arrived in Lyons the local top brass were assembled to greet him.
His two assistants were sent off to a local cafe, but Richardson himself was made comfortable in the Chief Inspector's office and up-dated over a glass of cognac. Paul Mason's report had been acted on long since, and a nationwide alert was out for the black Citroen. Mafon himself was summoned, introduced, questioned, congratulated and then dismissed. And just after that the telephone rang on the Chief Inspector's desk.
The Frenchman listened patiently, asked some questions, checked his watch and replaced the receiver. He smiled thinly at Richardson across the desk. "The Citroen has been located," he said, then shrugged, "but alas not Madame Green."
Richardson felt sick with disappointment. He set the cognac aside, unable to finish it.
But the Chief Inspector was far from finished. With the thin smile still at the edge of his lips he said, "Two men were picked up with the car. They made an unsuccessful attempt to escape. I'm quite sure they are implicated."
Richardson waited, not daring to interrupt. He thought of Bonello in Rome, Kaufman in Malta, Llewellyn in London - all searching desperately, all worried sick by the passing of time.
"Both men have criminal records," the Chief Inspector continued, "and not surprisingly perhaps, one is known to have links with the Mafia."
Richardson found his voice. "Why not surprisingly?"
"Because they were picked up in Marseilles, my friend. The rat hole of France. The only place in the country where the Mafia have real power."
When I recovered I was in a room with a very high ceiling. It was the first thing I noticed. Even so it took time to work out what it was. It was so far away - a creamy white background with thick black tramlines drawn across it. Then I realised it was whitewashed plaster, supported by heavy timbers, like oak beams in a Tudor
tea shop. Just opening my eyes made my head spin. I closed them again, but not before Lucia said, "Oh thank God - he's come round."
Sounds came and went. The murmur of voices, angry at times, shouts - threats - someone pleading, close to tears. Kaufman was there - I could hear him in the background. My jaw throbbed painfully. I explored my teeth with the tip of my tongue. An upper tooth had been loosened, but that seemed the extent of the damage. Except that my bottom lip was split and swollen to twice normal size. Speech would be difficult. Not that I contemplated saying anything. I just lay there, with my head in Lucia's lap while she bathed the side of my face. Gradually my strength returned. My brain shook itself free of cotton wool, and tried to make sense of the immediate past. The flight to Malta. The Oyster Bar. Darmanin! Chasing him - through the church - the alley - the hunter with the upraised shotgun!
My eyes opened in alarm. The room turned over as I tried to sit up. Lucia restrained me with gentle hands. I brushed her aside to prop myself upright. My surroundings came into focus. The hunter who had knocked me senseless was almost next to me - no more than a couple of yards away. Next to another man who had been in the Oyster Bar. Darmanin sat beside them; awkwardly, with his chin crooked at a strange angle and an expression of pure terror on his face. Then I saw why. A necktie had been knotted round his throat. The other end was attached to the trigger guard of a shotgun...and Kaufman held the shotgun. Both barrels were pressed into Darmanin's neck and Kaufman's fingers rested across the triggers. A sharp movement - almost any movement - and Darmanin's head would be blown off his shoulders.
Kaufman glanced my way. "Easy boy - everything's under control."
Beyond him heavy bolts were rammed into place across a big wooden door. The shutters were closed. Below them a man lounged in a chair, with another shotgun cradled in his lap. It was Cassar's man, the one who had read the newspaper in the Oyster Bar.
Lucia dabbed the side of my face with a flannel. "It's stopped bleeding, but you could do with a stitch in that lip."
Darmanin and his friends were arranged in a semi-circle on one side of a coffee table, opposite Lino Cassar. Kaufman sat alongside, resting the butt of the shotgun on the table, allowing the barrels to press into Darmanin's neck. Various documents were laid out on the table.
Lino Cassar was talking. He had never stopped, I realised that now. Even with my eyes closed I had registered his voice in the background talking softly in Maltese. Kaufman had been the one doing the shouting.
"What's happening?" I asked. My split bottom lip distorted my voice.
Kaufman's gaze remained fixed on Darmanin's face. "Lino's laying our credentials on the line," he said grimly. "Telling them what happened to the kid's old man - and what will happen to him unless he co-operates." He jerked the shotgun to emphasise his meaning - Darmanin winced and looked more frightened than ever.
I swung my feet off the sofa and lowered them slowly to the floor.
Lucia whispered, "We were only a few minutes behind you." She sounded suitably apologetic.
I worked my jaw left and right, and up and down. It hurt like hell.
Suddenly Darmanin screamed, "Is-sajjied will kill me if I tell you."
"He'll kill you anyway," Kaufman snapped brutally. "He's already murdered the rest of your family. What more proof-"
"But I kept quiet," Darmanin protested. "We all kept quiet. Don't you understand? Why did he do it? Why-"
Kaufman jerked the gun again. The skin beneath Darmanin's chin was already chafed sore with red blotches. He looked on the verge of collapse, licking his lips and demanding querulously, "I must have protection-"
"You ain't got none now," Kaufman pointed out spitefully. "You are dead unless you co-operate. Your chances of being alive this time tomorrow-"
"I am co-operating. I will co-operate," Darmanin pleaded, trembling. "But you must help me."
Kaufman's shrug conveyed his indifference. He was deliberately frightening Darmanin, I realised that - the kind of trick a trained interrogator would use. I remembered the bad time Kaufman had given me at the big house. But now the murderous look in his eye made me wonder how much was for effect and how much was genuine.
"Listen, you gutless little creep," he hissed, "they wasted your family on your account. Right now I'm treating you as a hostile witness in the murder of-"
"NO!" Darmanin twisted his head to escape the gun, "No ... no
Lino Cassar cut in with a burst of Maltese, but his voice was persuasive rather than angry. I guessed he was playing good guy to Kaufman's heavy - another interrogator's trick. He spoke to the hunters as much as to Darmanin - perhaps appealing to their judgement, their common sense. One of the men answered, then turned to Darmanin, obviously pleading with him to co-operate. God knows what he said but it certainly helped because a moment later Darmanin embarked on his story. His head moved back so that the gun no longer pressed into his skin, and he swallowed compulsively from nervousness.
"Start with Is-sajjied," Kaufman ordered.
"He came to see us, three years ago. We ... we ran a garage then, in Balzan. My father, my brother and me. Repair work, panel-beating, the usual things."
Kaufman eased the shotgun back a few inches and Darmanin's voice was less strangulated than before. "My brother...my brother was the best mechanic in Malta. And I was the best panel beater ... trained by the British REME. Everyone said I was the best, you can ask-"
"I'll take your word for it," Kaufman said with studied indifference.
"He wanted some work done ... in Sicily. It was unusual ... to be asked to work in Sicily, but he explained they lacked the skills-"
"Panel-beating?" Kaufman sounded doubtful.
"And welding...welding to very high standards. Seams had to be invisible. Is-sajjied was very exacting. He even gave me a test piece before he would employ me."
"Go on," Kaufman grunted.
Darmanin's white face strained into a faint smile. "I was to take a team of four men to Sicily. For three weeks. I was in charge, you understand. The pay was good, very good - we were to get half before we left Malta and the rest when we returned."
Kaufman nodded but made no comment.
"We went over on the ferry - to Siracuse." Darmanin's speech was almost normal now - now the shotgun was no longer pressed into his windpipe. But he was still very frightened. "A transit van collected us at Siracuse and took us to where we were working. It was hard work - difficult, tiring, long hours. We worked non-stop, never went out, stayed at a farmhouse next to the garage, had our meals there, slept there, everything. Twenty days hard labour it was - but none of us minded because-"
"The money was good," Kaufman said drily.
Darmanin bobbed his head. Perhaps his continued shrugs and head nodding helped his super-human effort to stop trembling. "The day we finished he came to inspect our work. It-"
"He? You mean this fisherman?"
"Is-sa called The Fisherman. It is the only name we know him by. None of us know his real name."
Kaufman scowled in evident disbelief. "You're doing all this work and you don't even know the man's name?" He fingered the bruise on his face but the fingers of his other hand never strayed from the trigger guard of the shotgun.
Darmanin swallowed. "It is not necessary to know a man's name to take his money."
"Is that right?" Kaufman sounded bored. "Okay, so he inspected the work - then what?"
"It was all good. He passed it. We might have gone out that night to celebrate but it was late when the inspection finished and we were tired. Besides there was plenty of wine in the farmhouse. And next morning we returned to Siracuse, to catch the ferry home."
I exchanged a quick glance with Lucia. Spots of my blood stained her crumpled suit and a damp patch showed on her thigh where she had cradled my head.
Darmanin slid a sideways look at the hunters. An expression of pain flickered in his toffee brown eyes. And when he spoke he addressed his friends, not Kaufman. "Joey Grech drove on the way back to Siracuse. Ju
st the five of us in the Transit. Is-sajjied told us to follow his Mercedes - one of his drivers would bring the Transit back later. Well, we set off, but he drove the Merc, too fast. Joey had trouble keeping up with him - through the mountains, all twists and turns, hairpin bends - Is-sajjied only had one passenger in the Merc., there were five of us in the Transit. Not that it mattered - a van could never have kept pace."
He seemed to be apologising, and even more strangely, now seemed as frightened of his friends as of Kaufman. He kept throwing them timorous looks as if he were about to reveal something they wouldn't like. Kaufman sensed it as well because he brought the muzzle of the shotgun up to Darmanin's ear and growled a warning for him to continue.
Darmanin shuddered. "It wasn't Joey's fault. He was trying to catch the Mercedes. But ... we took this tight bend, high in the mountains ... and, and there was this truck - parked right across the road. Joey never had a chance. We were going too fast. The road was very narrow and ... and we crashed through the railings at the side-"
One of the hunters swore. "Shut up," Kaufman snapped. He looked at Darmanin, "Go on."
Darmanin would have preferred not to, that was clear from his face. He wanted to explain something to the hunters, but the shotgun changed his mind.
"It was a very long drop," he said. "Six hundred - seven hundred feet. The van hit the mountainside on the way down. I don't know ... I don't remember much. The passenger door next to me buckled and burst open...and I was thrown out. Then...then the van blew up. It just disintegrated, like...like a bomb. Flames as hot as hell, flying metal, screams for a moment ..." He put his hands to his ears as if to shut out the noise.
Kaufman shifted the gun until the muzzle rested on the lobe of Darmanin's left ear.
Ian St James Compendium - Volume 1 Page 72