North From Rome

by Helen Macinnes

  17

  Maria did not appear. Perhaps she was too busy offering salts of ammonia to the princess. Anyway, the garage door was forgotten. It still gaped open. And still Bill Lammiter stood, making up his mind to cross the courtyard and climb the stairs. And then? Sleep upstairs in that attic, while each minute took Eleanor a full mile farther away? She had gone of her own free will. Had she? What was free will worth when she had not known the full truth? He could blame himself for that. He hadn’t told her much tonight. And yet, he hadn’t been free to talk. It always came back to the same old frustration: the eternal pull between what you wanted and what you had to do.

  He turned and measured the wall behind him with his eye. Difficult, but not impossible. And once over? Try to find out which of the princess’s villas in the country had a care-taker called Alberto. And then? Hire a car and find his way—hell, one man was useless. In trouble, one man was not enough. He heard a light step from the courtyard. Quickly he glanced over his shoulder.

  But it was Joe. The garage door was left open behind him for Maria to find exactly as the princess had left it. He was carrying one of Lammiter’s suitcases, and in the other hand he held his keys ready.

  “What, no typewriter?” Lammiter asked as he took his bag.

  Joe gave him a strange smile, looked up at the wall, and shook his head. Then, in silence, he opened the padlock of the gate and urged Lammiter through. The long street was quiet, except for a few people in the distance, where it ended in some kind of boulevard, a brightly lit corso. Joe set off towards the lights at a quick pace. Apparently, it was all right to talk now, for he said, “You worried me, you worried me.” Suddenly he grinned. “You know, I thought you might even be climbing that damn wall. Here, let me carry that bag. You’re all worn out making decisions. Just leave them to Joe, eh?”

  “I’m all right,” said Lammiter curtly.

  “We’ll get a lift.”

  “Not on this damned street, we won’t.”

  “I phoned for a taxi.” Joe’s smile was broad. He was in bright good humour.

  “Sure,” Lammiter said gloomily. Joe’s little jokes were even worse than his own.

  Joe said, “Hope I grabbed the right suitcase. You have to look pretty when you walk down the main street of Perugia.”

  Lammiter looked at him.

  “But first, we’ll find your little American. You stay with me now, eh?” Joe was amused.

  “Well, that is better than sleeping on an attic floor.”

  “After what happened? Look—it took me a long time getting that place fixed up. I don’t want to have it discovered now.”

  “Sorry if I altered your plans,” Lammiter said more cheerfully, “but I like them better this way.”

  “Yes,” said Joe. “I noticed you were getting kind of restless. Come on, then. Let’s keep moving. Another block, that’s all.” And as he quickened his pace still more, he went on, “Want to know what’s happening back at the villa right now? The princess is mad. She’s good and mad. She’s ordered all the servants out to search the grounds, the garage, everywhere. That’s my guess, but I’ll bet on it. She’s getting angrier every minute. With Pirotta. But she doesn’t know that yet. She thinks it’s you that is making her mad.”

  “I hope she will branch on to Pirotta, before it’s too late.”

  “She will. She will. She’s no fool. How did you know she hated Mr. Big so much?”

  “Mussolini wouldn’t be her idea of God’s gift to Italy.” He built the biggest railway stations and the biggest shell holes, too. And he divided her family: her brother on Mr. Big’s side, the princess and her son against him. “What happened to her son and daughter-in-law?”

  “They were banished to Lipari. Died there.” Joe looked at him curiously. “You’ve stirred a lot of memories tonight. Good! The more she is mad, the better. For then she starts thinking. And after that she acts.” Joe’s admiration was unbounded.

  Lammiter did not share his enthusiasm. “Perhaps. I heard her at Doney’s. But it must have taken her weeks to act on that gossip about Pirotta.”

  “Weeks?” Joe laughed. “She heard that news yesterday with her breakfast tray. Maria tells her everything. And the cook tells Maria everything. And I’m a good friend of the cook. See?”

  Lammiter looked at Joe’s broad grin. He had to smile, too.

  “That’s good,” Joe said with approval. “And from now, we tell each other the truth, eh? That makes our lives much simpler, my friend. And one more thing, don’t call me a policeman. And never call Bevilacqua that, either. If you meet him.”

  “If.” Lammiter said, and changed his suitcase to his other hand. He was feeling better now. In every way. It was strange how depression could slow up the body, too. “Good for you, Joe,” he said as he now noticed which bag had been chosen. It was the one that had clean shirts, shaving kit, and a suit. “How did you guess? You certainly hadn’t time to look.”

  “Not tonight,” Joe admitted. “Your talk with the princess was too interesting. And then, afterwards, I had to telephone.”

  “Next time I go travelling, I’ll have special locks made.”

  “But you had nothing to hide, my friend,” Joe said soothingly.

  “I bet I disappointed you when you looked inside.”

  “Sometimes Rosana trusts too easily. She likes you. So—I was suspicious.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Pirotta sent her north.”

  “Pirotta?” He couldn’t hide his alarm.

  “He telephoned her about nine o’clock. I was with her when she got his call. He wanted her to meet his car—and drive north. We thought she was travelling with him. Now, it seems he just sent her ahead.”

  “You let her go?”

  “Look, she’s the one who gives orders. I’m only a chauffeur,” Joe said angrily. “Besides, we had a chance to have someone in Pirotta’s car, going to his destination. Do you think we would let that chance slip?”

  “But Rosana’s only a girl. My God—” He broke off as he noticed a car coming towards them.

  “Girls can deal with Pirotta better than—”

  “Watch out!” Lammiter interrupted. “That car is travelling too slowly.” It was a grey Fiat. A Perugia licence plate, he noticed. A long quiet street of sleeping houses, a few people walking, the lights and traffic nearer now but still a full block away. The car was slowing down still more.

  “Take it easy,” Joe said. “Don’t you recognise the old bus? We’ve changed the plates, that’s all. Now, in! Quick!”

  The car barely stopped. A thin little man in a blue suit stepped out from the left-hand door as Joe slipped across the front seat to take over the wheel. Lammiter was closing his door even as the car moved forward again. He leaned over to drop his bag on the rear seat. Through the window he saw the little man strolling towards the bright light of the corso. “Neat!” Lammiter said with approval.

  “We practise in the long winter evenings,” Joe said. He pointed happily to the princess’s house as they passed the gateway. The lights were still blazing, and there were two servants on the driveway. “What did I tell you? She’s nobody’s fool, that old girl. Nobody’s.” And then, as the car made a right turn and Lammiter was still silent, he added, “But what she’d do to Pirotta is one guess Joe does not make.” He thought about that. “What would I do if my nephew, my only remaining relative, was a man like Pirotta?” He shook his head. “It would take courage, much courage. That worries you, my friend?”

  Lammiter shook his head. He could only think about Eleanor. No good, no good to keep his mind paralysed like this. Much better to think of other things, to fill in the gaps and learn what and why. Problems were never solved blindly. First, he must know whatever Joe could tell him, and only then would he begin to see what lay ahead. Whatever Joe could tell him. He glanced at the serious-faced Italian. “I’m glad I’m on your side,” he said with a sudden smile.

  18

  The car had turned into the
upper stretch of the Via Vittorio Veneto. The cafés were still bright, the tables crowded. There, just over there, was where Lammiter had sat with Eleanor and Pirotta. And here, at this table so near the roadway, he had met Rosana.

  “Tell me,” he said quietly, “was Pirotta ever in love with Rosana?”

  Joe shrugged his shoulders. “It would be natural. She is beautiful. She was seeing him every day. That was the job we gave her. She did it well.”

  “Perhaps too well.”

  Joe gave him a quick look.

  “Is she in love with him?”

  The car swerved. “That was nearly an accident,” Joe said angrily. “Stop these worries. Let me drive. She hates him, doesn’t she?”

  They had reached the top of the Via Vittorio Veneto. Joe was intent on the streams of traffic still converging on the Pincian Gate. As they passed through, Lammiter glanced back at the long rows of hotel windows overlooking the Aurelian Wall. There was someone on his balcony: a man standing, smoking a cigarette, looking out over the wall into the Borghese Gardens, and no doubt cursing Joe’s sudden blast on the horn.

  “Just there last night,” said Lammiter, “Rosana came to meet Pirotta. Does a girl go out at three in the morning to meet a man she hates?” He thought for a moment. “Does any girl, brought up as carefully as Rosana, go out at three o’clock in the morning unless she’s in love?” People in love did fantastic things.

  Joe was silent. He seemed only to be concentrating on entering the broad highway through the Borghese Gardens.

  “Or perhaps she was acting on your orders, last night?”

  Joe shook his head. The car, freed from cross-traffic, now sped along the avenue of trees. The dark peace of the park surrounded them.

  “What are you trying to say?” Joe asked suddenly. “Rosana has betrayed us?”

  “No.”

  “That’s better, my friend.” Joe relaxed a little.

  “But she may have betrayed herself. At least, she has been removed. That was tried last night, and it failed. Tonight, she went of her own accord. And all because she still can’t quite believe that Pirotta would ever harm a woman. What did she hope to do, anyway—convert him? My God—women!”

  Joe’s brow was deeply furrowed. “Did she know about your Mr. Evans?”

  “Not mine,” Lammiter said quickly. “I want no part of him.” Then he looked at Joe carefully. “Who told you about Evans? Bevilacqua?” Was that the news Joe had heard over the telephone?

  “She knows about Evans?” Joe persisted.

  “Yes.”

  “Mannaggia!” Joe took a deep breath. “If I had known that, she’d never have met Pirotta tonight.” Then, suddenly angry, “Why didn’t Brewster tell us about Evans? Why?”

  “Evans was not your business.”

  Joe brooded over that. At last, very quietly, he said, “I don’t think they will kill her. Or the American girl. They will hold them, yes. Until the meeting in Perugia is over. Then—perhaps it does not matter what Rosana or the American knows.”

  “You don’t believe that,” Lammiter said bitterly, and fell silent. Joe said nothing. “What will happen, once the meeting is over?” That was the question that had paralysed Lammiter for the last half-hour. His mind could not, or would not, let itself think beyond it.

  Joe said, “That is always the trouble with men who do violence. There is no point where it is easy to stop. The men who killed Brewster find they have to crush me out, too, just in case I knew about Evans. And Rosana must disappear so that the police will think she ran away from Rome. And you are to be held by the police for questioning. And the pretty American must not be allowed to speak.”

  “And Salvatore? What’s happening to him?”

  Joe shrugged. “So it goes on,” he said softly. “Step by step the violence spreads. Too many dead people make too many headlines.”

  “I wonder where you would have ended?”

  They had left the Borghese Gardens now, and cut through a vast and imposing square. Piazza del Popolo, Lammiter noted. Joe concentrated on swinging the car into a brightly lit street, now fairly quiet, but obviously a main artery of the city, before he answered. “In the Tiber. One body in the Piazza Navona is enough for one night’s work. The man who planned Brewster’s killing knows that. He is not a stupid man.”

  “One man?”

  “He has plenty of help from people who are willing to take orders and ask no questions. And you, my dear friend—” Joe’s voice lightened “—ask too many questions. That is how I know you are not one of them.”

  Was that a polite hint to stop being curious? Lammiter wondered. He didn’t take it. “Evans—is he this unstupid man?”

  “Violence is not his business. He has his own problems, his own mission. What his bodyguard will do to protect him is their business. The N.K.V.D. keep their own secrets. Evans will keep his.”

  “But he must sense that they will commit any violence to protect him.”

  “And he will pretend to himself that they don’t. He always has. Do you think Brewster was the first to die so that Mr. Evans could complete his mission?”

  No, not the first. There had been Brewster’s informant, knifed to death at Tivoli only a few nights ago. Then Lammiter looked quickly at Joe. “Did you know anything about Evans before tonight?” It had been a pity, he thought now, that Brewster and Joe had not got together for a frank exchange of bits and pieces of knowledge. Yet, in their kind of business, allies could be as difficult to identify as enemies. In their world, danger and disaster stood at each man’s elbow, ready to strike. Suspicion was not something ugly or uncharitable, it was a necessity to keep them alive. Where had Brewster made his mistake?— Then Lammiter realised that Joe had never answered his last question.

  Nor did he now. “Pirotta—” Joe was saying “—there’s another who lives with pretence. He organises narcotics smuggling but does he ever let himself think of the human beings he has turned into animals? He is helping men like Evans, but does he let himself think of the people who are murdered or abducted? No, he looks the other way. The thugs and the murderers are around him, but he persuades himself he is different: he has ideals, he is a rebel, a man in advance of his time. He is a very great persuader. Like your Mr. Evans. They have persuaded so many innocent people all their lives. But most of all, they persuade themselves.”

  “If it is not Evans, if it is not Pirotta, who—”

  “No, no. They have their own jobs. They may not even know the man who directs them to this meeting in Perugia, watches over them. His job is security.” Joe frowned. “It is—how do you say?—divide the labour?”

  “Division of labour.”

  “Division of labour,” Joe repeated, memorising, as he increased speed. They were travelling fairly fast now, although the street, stretching so straight in front of them, was still lined with apartment houses. “We’re going north from Rome,” Joe said with satisfaction. “No one following us, so far.” Then he nodded at the blocks of modern buildings they were passing. “The Roman legions would never believe me, but this is the Via Flaminia. Yes, this is where they marched, all the way to the Adriatic.”

  “That’s a long haul.” It was two hundred miles or better, right over the spine of Italy. And the spine was all mountains, with hills on either side. Lammiter glanced at his watch. It was just after two o’clock now. “What’s the driving time on that distance?”

  “We only go half-way,” Joe reassured him. “As far as the hills of Umbria. Perugia is the capital, and—”

  “I know, I know,” Lammiter said impatiently. “But where does the princess keep her country cottage?”

  “In Montesecco, not far from Perugia.” Joe was amused by something. “Cottage.” He let his amusement burst into a broad grin. “And questions, questions. You like them, eh?”

  “Dammit all, the only information I get out of you is prised out with a question mark.”

  Joe said softly, “And I think you ask the little questions to keep your
self from thinking about the big ones.”

  Lammiter was lighting a cigarette. He wasted three matches, three thin little sticks of wax that snapped too easily. The fourth attempt was successful.

  “Don’t worry,” Joe said. “We’ll find the American girl. At Montesecco.” He had been constantly watching the rear window. Now he relaxed. “We’re clear. Not one car behind us for the last half-hour. Light me a cigarette, too.” He stretched his shoulders, took a new grip on the wheel. The car leapt forward at full power.

  Around them, there were vast stretches of black countryside, occasionally broken by small clusters of farmers’ cottages standing together at the side of the road, in darkness and silence. The road was straight and long. And very quiet. “Now,” Joe said, “we will be able to hear the march of the legions’ feet and the songs they sang.” Then, brusquely, “We’ll stop each hour to stretch our backs. This car is too small for your legs, I know, but try to get some sleep.”

  “No. I’ll spell you at the wheel.”

  Joe shook his head. “I know this road. Get some sleep.”

  “It’s better if we talk.”

  “So that I won’t fall asleep?” Joe was amused. “I like you, my friend, I like you very much. I’ll even answer some questions. Or shall I tell you the story of my life?”

  “Which life?”

  Joe laughed. “Well,” he admitted, “there’s the one in Sicily. There’s the one in America. There’s the one in Rome. Take your choice.”

  “In which did you meet Salvatore?”

  There was a sudden moment of stillness, only broken by the steady hum of the smooth-running engine.

  Tactfully bridging the silence, Lammiter added, “Salvatore... What’s his second name, anyway?”