Overture in Venice

by Hester Rowan

  I had forgotten that he was an architect. He caught my eye and grinned. ‘A magnificent Scottish Baronial specimen, transplanted regardless of expense,’ he commented. ‘Still, if it was good enough for Queen Victoria’s subjects, it should be adequate for us.’

  Isabel and I found our way to a vast marble-floored washroom where we cooled ourselves by running cold water over our wrists, and then joined the men. The only free table was immediately next to the road, separated from the noise and fumes of the traffic that passed us at elbow level by nothing more than a trough of wilting geraniums; but at least we were shaded from the sun. Henry Lang ordered in his usual broken American and the waiter brought us each a wonderfully long frosted glass chinking with ice and filled with a drink as fresh as the lemon slices that garnished it, though rather less innocent.

  Guy, who sat beside me, lifted his glass to Lang. ‘Here’s to the success of your search,’ he said.

  Henry Lang sat opposite me, his glass raised to his lips. At Guy’s words, his eyes seemed to bulge. For a moment I thought he was going to choke. And then Isabel, who sat opposite Guy, said quickly, ‘It’s a geologist’s dream, to investigate a unique rock structure. It’ll be the highlight of your career, won’t it, Daddy?’

  Lang gulped his drink. ‘It certainly will,’ he said heartily. Too heartily? Had he, for a moment, forgotten his role and imagined that Guy was referring to the true object of his search? As I watched him, wondering, his eyes slid towards mine. Isabel and Guy were talking to each other, preoccupied. Lang turned his head towards me, slowly, never taking his eyes from me; they were hard, speculative, challenging. For a moment I met them boldly, returning the challenge. And then the knowledge that I was entirely without any evidence, that if I was wrong my suspicions about my fellow-guest at the villa were unforgivable, made me turn my head away.

  But not towards Guy. I refused to acknowledge my reason for not wanting to see him in animated conversation with Isabel, but instinctively I turned away from him towards the road.

  When the hotel was built it was no doubt possible for the guests to use the pavement as a terrace from which they could gaze across the promenade to the lake with only the passage of an occasional horse-drawn carriage to interrupt the view. Now the stream of cars, motorcycles, motor coaches and even freight-liners was almost continuous. The only slackening of the flow occurred when the traffic became jammed.

  Just such a jam was in evidence now. A snarl-up somewhere ahead had brought a double line of cars to a panting halt outside the hotel. Fumes rose from exhausts to mingle with heat rising from engines and add to the suffocatingly hot layer of still air that hung low over the valley.

  At least, under the hotel canopy with iced drinks in our hands, we were the lucky ones. The unfortunate occupants of the cars sweltered visibly. Every window was down, every possible roof opened, but I could imagine the clinging heat of the upholstery and the intolerable stuffiness inside the metal car bodies.

  The fat man in the car nearest to us seemed particularly distressed, mopping at his face and then plunging his handkerchief into the neck of his shirt. His lips hung open to suck in the humid air, but keeping them open clearly increased the dryness of his mouth. He glanced towards us, watching enviously as Henry Lang downed his drink, swallowing with convulsive longing, brushing his heavy moustache with the back of his knuckles as if to flick away lovingly-remembered traces of foam.

  And then Lang saw the fat man watching him. Saw, hesitated with his glass half-way down to the table, stared, tightened his handsome jaw. The fat man transferred his gaze from the glass to Lang’s face and started, visibly. For a full minute they gaped at each other in surprised and unwelcome recognition.

  I sat gaping, too. The fat man was Zecchini.

  Without taking my eyes from the occupants of the car, I groped for Guy’s arm. I felt him turn towards me and then stiffen as he saw Zecchini and his driver, Belugi, both peering from the car.

  For a moment we all sat motionless as though we were in a film which had been stopped, staring at each other across the asphyxiated geraniums. Only Zecchini’s bulging eyes moved, turning with chilling speculation from me to Lang and then back to me again.

  ‘Someone you know?’ I heard Isabel ask in unfeigned innocence, and the action resumed: the traffic started to move, Zecchini shouted something to Belugi and began to wrench at the door of the car.

  Guy snatched my hand and pulled me to my feet. ‘Someone I don’t want Clare to meet,’ he said quickly. ‘Excuse me, Isabel – I want to get Clare away from here. Do you mind staying here with your daughter, Dr Lang? I’ll be back as soon as I can.‘

  ‘But what –?’ I began as he hurried me between the tables.

  ‘Don’t argue now, for heaven’s sake,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t know what’s in Zecchini’s mind, but I do know that he’s dangerous. I intend to find out what’s going on but I’m getting you out of here first. Come on back to the car.’

  He ran me across the road, under the nose of a monster refrigerated container truck and hustled me into the car.

  ‘It would be today that I had to borrow this old thing,’ he muttered between his teeth as the engine failed to fire at the first go. ‘They’re driving an Alfa, did you notice? We haven’t a hope if they try to follow. Can you see where they are? Oh, come on, you brute, get going!’

  The engine of the car coughed in protest, then started. I craned my neck to look across the road to where we had last seen the Alfa. Belugi had managed to cram it into the hotel forecourt car park and was standing beside it, his dark glasses turning this way and that. Zecchini was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Belugi’s alone and he hasn’t spotted us yet,’ I reported, wincing as the hot seat of the car touched my bare arms and the back of my knees. ‘You can probably sneak past – he won’t recognize the car.’

  Guy edged the Fiat out into the sluggish stream of traffic. We were almost past the hotel forecourt, level with the Alfa when Belugi’s searching sun-glasses seemed to focus on us.

  I stiffened in my seat, conscious that my fair hair was conspicuous enough to catch his attention. He bent his knees, peering into our car from across the bonnet of the Alfa. The dark glasses, hiding his eyes completely, gave his long narrow face a blind and sinister appearance. It was impossible to tell whether he had recognized me until he straightened and drew his lips back in a wolfish smile of confirmation.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The road cleared. Guy accelerated, pushing the saloon car up to its limits as we left the resort and headed north. ‘We’ve made it,’ he said with satisfaction.

  ‘We haven’t, you know. Belugi recognized me as we passed – and now he knows the car.’

  Guy scowled. ‘I buy you a scarf so that you won’t be recognized,’ he said bitterly, ‘and then you haven’t the sense to wear it!’

  ‘In this heat? Anyway, surely you can get off on to a side road before they’ve time to catch us up?’

  ‘My dear girl, use your eyes. We’re on the corniche road – sheer rock on one side, lake on the other.’

  ‘Don’t “dear girl” me,’ I snapped. ‘It isn’t all sheer rock on the left – I can see that for myself. There are side roads – look, there’s one –’

  ‘Yes, with an unmade surface and a one-in-four gradient. This isn’t the Haflinger, you know. Look, I’ve come this way because I’ve got friends who live near the lake at Limone. If I can leave you with them, Zecchini will be welcome to catch me if he can. Only for goodness’ sake stop arguing and let me concentrate. It’s hellishly difficult to adjust your eyes when you’re driving in and out of these tunnels.’

  I could see his problem and was thankful that I wasn’t the driver on this road with or without Zecchini at my heels. Guy kept his headlights on but even so to enter the rock tunnels at speed was like having a blindfold dropped over one’s eyes. And no sooner were our eyes accustomed to the gloom than we were out again in the dazzle with sun-reflecting rock and glittering water splin
tering our vision.

  I glanced at Guy’s face. Had he realized that Lang and Zecchini had recognized each other? I couldn’t be sure, and dared not upset his concentration by asking him. Besides, what did it mean? A criminal association? Not a friendly one, certainly – and after all, the fact that Zecchini knew me by sight didn’t make me a criminal, so what right had I to assume that Zecchini’s recognition of Lang confirmed my own suspicions?

  Guy was frowning, his eyes flicking regularly from the road to the rear mirror and back again. When he held his glance at the mirror for an extra second, I twisted in my seat to look behind.

  Immediately after us came a motor coach, cruising at speed and blaring its horn musically every time we approached a tunnel. Behind that, as I could see on the bends, came a procession of cars.

  ‘See them?’ Guy asked.

  ‘Third one back after the coach, I think.’

  ‘I was afraid so – he’s just sitting on our tail to see what we do. Look, I’ll never shake him off, this wretched car hasn’t got the speed. So I’m going to do something absolutely stupid – with your co-operation.’

  I felt suddenly queasy. ‘Oh yes?’

  We were about to enter a tunnel. The brake lights of the car ahead stabbed on and Guy stamped his foot down. There was a chain reaction as all the cars behind us slowed abruptly, and then we all moved forward again as though drawn by elastic.

  ‘You see what I mean?’ he went on. ‘We’re all driving at an even speed because the road’s too narrow for overtaking. And our vision’s restricted by the tunnels. So when some idiot stops or slows unexpectedly, there’s danger of a pile-up. And that’s what I’m going to do, stop to let you out.’

  ‘To let me out –? For heaven’s sake, Guy …’

  ‘Just listen! There’s no sense in letting them chase us both in to Limone – they’re murderers, Clare, we’re pretty sure of that even if we haven’t got enough evidence to have them charged, and I’m not going to let them get their hands on you. So I’m going to drop you off at one of the parking places between the tunnels – all right?’

  ‘But they’re all full, you’ve seen that yourself.’ It was true. Every available stopping place overlooking the lake was crowded with weary travellers trying to escape for a few moments from the heat of their cars.

  ‘I know. That was probably why we all slowed abruptly just now – someone must have seen an empty space and slotted in without any warning. As I say, it’s absolutely stupid on a road like this, but it’s a chance we’ve got to take. We’ll do it three tunnels from now – there’s a very short stopping place, hardly room for a couple of cars and it may not be in use.’

  ‘But if it is – if there’s no room for you to stop?’

  ‘I don’t intend to pull in anyway. It’s the car they’re chasing, they’ll assume you’re still in it. I’ll go in as fast as I can, and make an emergency stop. You brace yourself, and roll out the minute I say so. And get straight off the road, Zecchini mustn’t see you. You’ll find a slope below the parapet, grass and rocks going down to the water. Drop out of sight of the road until you’re sure he’s passed.’

  ‘And what will you do?’

  ‘There’s a little fishing village a bit further up the road, with a square by the quay where I can turn. After that, it depends what Zecchini does, but I’ll try to go straight back to Gargnano for the Langs, and then come and pick you up when it’s all clear. I’ll come by boat, though. It’ll be easier, only you may have to wait a bit. All right?’

  Of course it wasn’t all right, it was idiotic, a crazy escapade. But then, nearly everything I had been involved in since I sat by myself in St Mark’s Square had been rash, uncomfortable, undignified and often frightening. I wanted to protest, to say that I had no intention of taking any further part, to insist that Guy should drive me straight to the nearest British Consul. But goodness knows how far away that was; and meanwhile, Belugi with his thin, cruel smile was following us, just fifty yards behind …

  My mouth was dry. I moistened my lips. ‘Say when,’ I said, bracing my hand against the rim of the fascia.

  For a brief moment Guy took one hand from the wheel and pressed it on mine. ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘At the end of this tunnel –’

  He accelerated suddenly, leaving the coach further behind. We shot through the gloom, round a bend. Daylight gleamed ahead, beyond the jagged semi-circle of rock that formed the mouth of the tunnel. ‘Get ready –’

  We burst into the sunlight and Guy hit the brakes, stopping in a shuddering straight line. ‘Now!’

  I wrenched down the door handle, slid out almost before the car had stopped, slammed the door shut, stumbled, nearly fell in the dust, scrambled up and ran for the parapet. I heard the blare of the coach horn, the squeal of its brakes, the howl of Guy’s engine as he accelerated away, and then I slipped through the guard rails on to the slope above the water and crouched behind the concrete parapet, counting the passing cars.

  One, two, three – that must be my Venetian followers. I raised my head cautiously, saw the rear of their red Alfa Romeo disappear into the next tunnel and sat down on the dusty grass to catch my breath.

  There had been no other cars at the tiny stopping place; which was just as well, I reflected. Difficult to explain, even to anyone who spoke English, exactly what I’d been doing – let alone what I proposed to do now, perched on this sparse slope above Lake Garda.

  There was very little of it: rocks, dry sandy earth, a looming cypress, some mauve scabious flowering among the scanty grasses, a couple of ancient olive trees clinging precariously to the slope, a thriving pink and white oleander that provided me with a welcome patch of shade just under the parapet. On either side of the slope – formed presumably by a long-ago landslip – the rocks ran sheer down to the lake. I was virtually cut off. The road through the tunnel was far too narrow and dangerous to walk through, and that left me entirely dependent on rescue by car or boat.

  And the sooner the better. The sun was hidden behind a thick grey haze and the tops of the northerly mountains were invisible; there was no doubt that we were in for a storm.

  Where was Guy now? To the north, the direction in which he had been heading, the lake coast curved giving me a glimpse of a little port not more than a mile away. If that was where he had hoped to turn, it wouldn’t be long before he was back – and if he had managed to shake off Belugi by turning, there was no reason why he shouldn’t stop and pick me up.

  The thought was cheering. I would have liked to stand on the parapet by the guard rail waiting for a glimpse of his car but the traffic was almost continuous and at the thought of the dust and exhaust fumes that would be blown at me I decided to stay where I was. Guy knew the road and knew where he had left me. I sat patiently under the oleander, watching the darkening water of the lake, and in a few minutes I was rewarded by the sound of a slowing engine.

  I jumped to my feet and was about to pull myself up on to the parapet when I remembered that the car was not necessarily Guy’s. After all, this was one of the few vacant parking places overlooking the lake; the car might belong to anyone who knew the road, and I was reluctant to reveal myself to strangers. I crouched just as a car swerved into the parking bay. A low red car with the distinctive lines of an Alfa Romeo.

  There was only one possible place to hide, and I was there already. I squeezed myself down between the foot of the parapet and the base of the oleander, pressing my back against the hot concrete. Above me, the car door slammed. Footsteps strode to the edge of the parapet. Looking up through the leaves and blossoms of the shrub, I could see the toes of their thin town shoes projecting into space as Zecchini and Belugi leaned on the guard rail scanning the slope.

  I held my breath. A broken branch dug painfully into my arm, my right leg twinged with cramp.

  The men were arguing. Zecchini’s well-oiled voice was, I suspected, telling Belugi to search the slope and if he came down from the parapet I knew he couldn’t fail to see me. But
Belugi’s reply was impatient. The slope was so small, so open, that it would be unreasonable to expect to find anyone there – that at least was what I prayed he would think. And in a moment, still arguing, they retreated to their car and accelerated away.

  I breathed out thankfully, staggered to my feet and massaged my knotted calf muscles. Obviously the men had tailed Guy to the next village, seen him turn, realized that I was no longer with him. But they could not have known where he had stopped to let me out, they were still guessing; following his Fiat would probably seem a better bet than looking for me.

  And that left me stuck here for an indefinite period, with no shelter from the threatening storm. The dark sky pressed down on the long narrow valley like the lid on a pressure cooker. The heat was stifling, with no breath of wind to provide relief. A strange lurid light, all that managed to seep through the dark haze that would otherwise have turned midday into midnight, gave the lake an eerie clarity. I could see the houses, two miles away on the opposite shore, in distinct detail.

  The lake itself was very still, the colour of polished pewter. The fishing boats had wisely returned to their various ports, the pleasure and speedboats had not put out. Only the steamer, zig-zagging gradually northwards across the width of the lake from one resort to another in pursuit of its regular timetable, ruffled the oil-smooth water.

  I watched it for some time, the sound of its engines carrying clear across the lake. The traffic on the road above me had diminished as the holidaymakers retreated to their hotels in anticipation of the storm. The sky darkened. From the north, where the mountains loomed up into the clouds, there came an ominous rumble of thunder.