The Blue Ring (A Creasy novel Book 3)

by A. J. Quinnell

  The stewardess smiled.

  ‘No, it’s at least an hour’s drive into the city, but direct buses leave every half hour from the airport, non-stop to the station . . . Or are you rich enough to take a taxi?’

  Juliet smiled and shook her head,

  ‘No, I’ll catch the bus,’

  The stewardess stood up, brushing down her skirt. She said, ‘Then, after you come out of customs turn left and go about a hundred metres. You’ll see the transport desk where you can buy a ticket. The bus waits just outside. Be careful in Naples, young lady . . . it’s a dangerous city.’

  Juliet smiled again.

  ‘Don’t worry. My father and brother are there.’

  Franco Delors followed her through immigration and then through the green lane of customs, saying a silent prayer that he would not be picked out for a spot check. He had sat at the rear of the plane and was confident that she had not noticed him, either during the flight, or in the arrivals hall.

  They both walked unchecked through customs and he slowed down and scanned the waiting crowd. The girl had stopped. She was not looking for anyone in the crowd, but was peering to her left. Delors spotted his man leaning against the Avis car hire counter. They exchanged looks and Delors nodded at the girl. She had started moving, walking slowly down the concourse. Delors felt a stab of elation at the realisation that there was no one to meet her. He quickened his pace and came up alongside her. Her canvas bag was slung over her right shoulder.

  ‘Hello,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Didn’t I see you on the plane from Malta?’

  She looked up at him.

  ‘Yes, I was on that flight . . . but I didn’t see you.’

  He smiled engagingly.

  ‘I was sitting at the back behind you. Are you staying in Rome?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No, I’m going to the railway station. I’m just going to catch the bus.’

  ‘Well, I can save you some money,’ he said, ‘I’m also going to the railway station, A friend is meeting me . . . he’s over there. We’re going by car and there’s plenty of room for you.’

  She glanced at the man moving towards them. He was young, tall and dark-faced. His eyes were fixed on her intently. They had reached the ticket counter when she felt a sudden prickling of danger. Her mind went back over the weeks to the last time a stranger had talked to her, and to what had followed.

  ‘No, thank you. I’ll catch the bus.’

  ‘Such a waste of money,’ Delors said. ‘And the bus takes much longer.’ His hand moved to lift the bag from her shoulder. She gripped the strap tightly and shook her head vigorously.

  ‘No! I’ll take the bus.’

  Suddenly there was another man beside them. He was middle-aged and bald with a round face and a square body. ‘Hello, Juliet,’ he said. ‘Sorry I’m late . . . the damn traffic.’ He spoke perfect English but with an accent she had never heard before.

  The bald man turned to Delors and said, ‘No problem, mate, she’s coming with me.’

  Delors saw the puzzled look on the girl’s face and quickly grabbed her elbow.

  ‘Do you know this man?’ he asked. ‘You have to be careful here.’

  Then everything was happening at great speed. The bald, square man took two short paces and his right fist slammed into Delors’ belly. With an anguished grunt, Delors released Juliet’s elbow and swung his right arm. His fist whistled over the bald man’s head and she heard a sound like a wet towel hitting a tiled floor. Delors went down backwards. Someone began shouting, then the bald man had an arm round her waist, plucking her off her feet. She drew a breath to scream but then heard his harsh voice against her ear, ‘Creasy sent me. Be quiet and run.’

  Her feet hit the ground and his hand gripped hers, pulling her towards the entrance. To her right she saw the tall, dark-faced man running towards them, his hand reaching under his jacket. Then suddenly he too was sent sprawling to the floor from a blow behind. In all the speed and confusion she recognised the face of the man who had delivered the blow. She recognised it from a photograph in one of the files she had studied from Creasy’s safe. She remembered the name printed under the face: ‘Maxie MacDonald’. One of the good ones. She kept running as she saw Maxie pull out a pistol, his eyes darting around the concourse. Then they were outside and a black car was pulling up with the back, nearside door open. She felt herself lifted and tossed into it, then her breath was punched out as a body landed on top of her. She heard the door slam, then the squeal of tyres, and a voice above her saying urgently, ‘Stay down, Juliet. Stay down. We are friends from Creasy.’

  She had no choice but to stay down. The bald-headed man was lying right across her; she smelt garlic on his breath. She heard another voice from the front passenger seat saying, ‘All clear. We change cars in about a minute.’

  The weight lifted off her and she struggled into a sitting position. Maxie MacDonald was sitting beside the driver, the gun still in his hand. He was looking through the rear window. His eyes flickered towards her and he said, ‘I’m Maxie MacDonald.’ He gestured with the pistol towards the man beside her. ‘That’s Frank Miller . . . The driver’s Rene Callard. We are friends of Creasy and Michael.’

  She collected herself and murmured, ‘I know your names . . . What happened?’

  ‘Wait,’ Maxie said. ‘I’ll explain later.’

  They skidded to a stop next to another black car parked in a layby. Within seconds they had transferred to the other car and two minutes later had pulled off the autostrada onto a side-road.

  Maxie slipped the pistol back under his jacket and said to Rene, ‘It’ll take them twenty minutes to put up road-blocks. We’ll be long gone.’

  ‘What happened?’ Juliet repeated apprehensively.

  Beside her, Frank Miller said, ‘What happened was that you were stupid. You’re going to have one angry father and one angry brother. I expect - and I hope - that they’ll smack your bottom.’

  She turned to look into his stern eyes. ‘What’s your accent?’ she said.

  ‘Australian,’ he answered aggressively.

  She nodded as if that explained it.

  Chapter 74

  The child Katrin was excited. She had never seen the sea before.

  She had never seen a ship. Now she saw the sea - and a ship - big and white. She laughed in simple delight and Sister Assunta and Sister Simona laughed with her.

  Katrin carried a plastic bag with her sole belongings: a change of underwear, two pairs of socks, a pink dress, two T-shirts and another pair of jeans. Plus a large toilet bag containing a bar of soap, a nail brush, a tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush.

  The immigration officials checked the papers carefully. Of course they were in order. Everything perfect; signed and notarised. Sister Simona was to accompany Katrin to Bari and hand her over to the director of the charity and her new parents and, in doing so, establish a link for the future.

  The white ship sailed away with Katrin clutching her plastic bag, and Sister Simona, young, determined and nervous. Sister Assunta turned away, climbed into the car and was driven back to the orphanage, She should have felt a sense of satisfaction, but in the past days there had been a shadow in the back of her mind. A chisel chipping away at a segment of her memory. An itch in a place she could not scratch. It had started with the visit of the benefactor. She had appreciated his kindness and his logic. She had looked at his face and into his eyes and listened to his quiet, persuasive voice and had decided that a closely defined religion such as her own did not exclude goodness in others who held different beliefs.

  The very fact that Gamel Houdris was not of her faith generated her respect. He gave his wealth across religious boundaries. In her mind she saw his face again as she climbed out of the car in front of the orphanage. She saw the thin features and the dark eyes and she should have recalled the soft persuasive voice. But instead she felt a cold irrational prickling of her skin.

  It was dark and late, but she decided
to go through the dormitory. There were two night candles burning, casting dim flickering shadows across the long ceiling.

  The children were asleep, except for one. At the far end of the room she heard a soft whimpering. She moved quietly between the beds towards the sound. It was the child, Hanya. She had arrived that morning from Tiranë. Five years old and thought to be simpleminded. But the simplicity had come from trauma, and Sister Assunta knew that love and security would heal the trauma.

  She sat quietly on the bed and picked up the child and pulled her to her ample bosom. The child sobbed against her, adrift in a flickering world. The nun stroked her dark hair and crooned soft words. The sobbing abated and then stopped, and the child sighed and the rhythm of her breathing settled into sleep.

  The nun held her into the night, wondering yet again if a child conceived in her own womb would not have been more perfect. As she laid Hanya’s head back on the pillow and tucked the blankets around the small body, Sister Assunta decided, yet again, that her womb would have been limited to a volume of love unacceptable to the expanse of her heart. It was why she was a nun.

  She moved back between the beds. All was quiet. She felt at peace. The first of her charges was on her way to a real home. The others would follow. She felt infinitely tired, but had found solace in the thought that in the morning she herself would be travelling back to Malta and to the womb of her own convent for two brief but consoling weeks of rest. She would tend the garden and pretend to watch the lemons grow on the numerous trees in the rolling garden and be at peace until she returned to ply her vocation.

  Her room was small and her bed narrow. She undressed and washed her face in the cold water in the metal basin. She brushed her teeth and then wrapped herself in one of her incongruously bright kikoys that had been a parting present from her congregation in northern Kenya. It seemed a lifetime away.

  She had always slept well - be it on an earthen floor or a straw palliasse or a narrow metal bed. But on this night she could not sleep. She moved and turned on the thin mattress. Images came into her mind and went as quickly. She saw the wide eyes of the child, Katrin, as she gripped the hand of Sister Simona, gazing up at the white ship. She saw the eyes of the other children as they were delivered into her care from the back of an open truck. She saw the love and care in the eyes of her fellow nuns as they received those children.

  As the dawn cast a sprinkling of light on the ceiling of her small room, she suddenly saw the eyes of Gamel Houdris looking out at her from the back seat of that black car.

  The last vestige of sleep left her as that image lanced into her brain and triggered a long-ago memory. She pulled away the blankets and rolled her feet to the cold stone floor. Her skin became damp and cold as her mind sent messages to her body. From the past, she saw again the bundle at her feet. Saw the car pulling hastily away. Saw the pale face and the stricken eyes of the young woman and beyond that face, another. Darker, masculine. Eyes as black and cold as frozen ebony, it had been twenty years ago, but the image was unmistakable.

  Chapter 75

  They waited for two hours in the car park of the roadside café. Maxie went in to fetch coffees and pastry. Juliet slept with her head on Frank’s lap.

  The men had the patience of long practice. The patience of watching and listening and knowing that danger is always as close as the width of a wafer. There was little talk as they drank and ate the cakes, and anyone not within their circle would have found what talk then was incomprehensible.

  ‘The big one tonight,’ Frank remarked,

  ‘Just a puff of wind,’ Rene commented.

  ‘It pole-axed Satta,’ Maxie added.

  ‘He’s a one, that one,’ Frank stated.

  ‘Coming through the hedge backwards,’ Rene observed.

  ‘But with his hair on his head,’ Maxie added through a mouthful of cake.

  Frank chuckled.

  ‘What the hell are we doing? I haven’t had so much fun in a yonk of years.’

  ‘How’s Michael tracking things?’ Maxie asked Rene.

  The Belgian grinned.

  ‘He’s ploughing a furrow accompanied by sighs, groans and sometimes screams. That kid walks on the edge . . . I love the bastard!’

  The BMW crept alongside. They were looking into The Owl’s glasses.

  Frank reached down and, with thumbs and forefinger, closed Juliet’s nostrils. She opened her mouth and then her eyes. The Australian bent down and kissed her on the forehead, smiled and said, ‘You leave these three uncles and go to a couple more. Say hello to your dad and Guido and Pietro. . . . Ciao, kid.’

  She sat up and rubbed her eyes and looked through the window at the BMW.

  ‘Who are they?’ she asked.

  ‘Friends,’ Maxie said from the front seat. ‘You know one of them. You go to Naples now.’

  Frank reached across her and opened the door. She felt the cool air. She leaned over the front seat and kissed Maxie on the cheek and then Rene. She picked up her canvas bag from the floor, reached out a hand and touched her fingers against Frank’s lips, smiled and said, ‘Don’t worry, mate . . . I think your accent’s lovely.’

  They watched her slip into the BMW and watched it pull away. Rene turned on the ignition and they headed back towards Rome.

  ‘Some kid,’ Frank said from the back seat.

  ‘Definitely,’ Maxie agreed. ‘It took her about ten seconds to turn you into a whimpering pussy-cat.’

  ‘Miaow,’ Rene added.

  Frank curled up in the back seat and muttered, ‘Guys like you make an Aussie throw a technicolour spit.’

  Rene glanced at Maxie with a raised eyebrow. Maxie smiled and explained, ‘We make him vomit.’

  Chapter 76

  The black one came first. He was very large.

  Laura opened the door, sighed and said, ‘Creasy sent you.’

  The black face split into a white smile.

  ‘Sure thing, Ma’am. And I’m told you make the meanest rabbit stew north of the Equator.’ He was carrying a black Samsonite suitcase. She opened the door wide and gestured, and he walked through. He put down his suitcase and studied the interior of the large and old room and sighed contentedly. ‘How old is it, Ma’am?’

  ‘This room? About four hundred years, but of course there are newer extensions. Can I get you tea or coffee, or a glass of wine?’

  He smiled at her again and said, ‘Coffee would be fine, Ma’am. I’m sorry to say that I drink quite a lot of it,’

  She moved into the kitchen, asking over her shoulder, ‘Are you American?’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am. From Memphis, Tennessee, Though the fact is I’ve been out of the States for many years.’

  He had followed her to the door of the kitchen. She turned and said, ‘All this “Ma’am” business is going to be too much. My name is Laura. My husband is called Paul.’

  He ducked his head in acknowledgement. ‘Pleased to meet you, Laura. My name is Tom . . . Sawyer.’

  She smiled, and he smiled back.

  ‘Well, actually my real first name is Horatio, but somehow ever since I was a kid I’ve been called Tom.’

  She filled the large coffee-pot to the top and gestured to a seat. ‘How many are you going to be?’

  He sat down and the cane chair creaked ominously. ‘By tonight we’ll be five,’ he answered.

  The alarm showed on her face. ‘Are you all going to be staying here?’

  He laughed and shook his head.

  ‘No, Laura, there’ll only be me here. Another will be staying with your son Joey and his wife down the valley. The other three will be kind of roamin’ around.’

  ‘Roaming where?’ she asked curiously.

  He waved a hand airily at the window, ‘Oh, out there, Laura. You know kinda just roamin’ around, takin’ in the scenery.’

  She laughed and sat down across the kitchen-table from him. ‘Tom, this is a small island. If you have three hard-looking strangers roamin’ around, as you put it, then the loc
als are going to start to talk.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘No problem Ma’am . . . Laura. We all have a good cover.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  He smiled.

  ‘We’re all dedicated bird-watchers.’

  She threw back her head and laughed at the ceiling and then said to him seriously, ‘There aren’t too many birds on Gozo any more, thanks to our dedicated hunters. They shoot anything that moves.’

  He shrugged and said seriously, ‘Like I said, we’re dedicated. It just makes it more of a challenge.’

  ‘What about at night?’ she asked. ‘Will you all be roamin’ around at night?’

  ‘Sure thing.’

  ‘Looking for birds?’

  His white grin came again. ‘Looking for owls, Laura . . . me and the boys are real keen on spottin’ owls.’

  She shook her head in amusement. The coffee was perking. She stood up and poured him a large mug and a smaller one for herself. ‘Milk and sugar?’ she asked.

  ‘No thanks. I take it just as it comes . . . as black as me.’

  He took a sip and nodded in appreciation just as the phone rang. She picked it up and had a brief conversation with Joey. It ended by her saying, ‘No, mine’s an American . . . as black as the coffee I just gave him.’

  She laughed at Joey’s answer, put the phone down and said, ‘My son tells me a Chinese man just arrived on his doorstep.’

  ‘Vietnamese,’ Tom corrected, ‘Do Huang . . . we call him Dodo.’

  ‘A Vietnamese bird-watcher?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Where do the other three come from?’

  ‘Two Brits and a South African . . . Good men . . . You and your family will be safe, Laura. We don’t expect to be around too long. Just a matter of days. I’ll try to be as unobtrusive as possible.”

  She nodded thoughtfully and said. ‘You’ll stay in the guest wing, but of course take your meals with us, and, please, make yourself completely at home. I’ll cook rabbit tomorrow. Tonight we’re having roast baby lamb.’ A thought struck her. ‘By the way, what do I tell people? After all, we’re not used to being visited by oversized black Americans.’