Fault Line - Retail (22 page)

‘Why d’you think there’s a danger he’ll get into trouble?’

‘I see things. I hear things. I understand things.’

‘Such as what?’

‘Someone has tried to break into the villa. Now
il Colonnello
is angry and worried … and going to Napoli. All this is connected. We need to know how it is connected.’ There was that
we
again. Who exactly did he mean? It occurred to me that he might be recruiting me on someone else’s behalf. Luisa’s, perhaps. ‘Will you do it?’

One part of my brain advised me to send him packing. Another urged me to cooperate. It was clear, if nothing else was, that the affable forgive-and-forget routine Francis had treated me to that night was just what Paolo had called it: an act. Something altogether more complicated than buying off Strake was going on. Or else buying off Strake was itself more complicated. Either way, tailing Francis in Naples might lead to the answer. Though whether I’d tell Paolo what I learnt in the process was quite another matter.

‘Will you do it, Jonathan?’ he pressed.

‘You really think it’s important?’

‘
Si, si
.’

‘Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling me everything you know?’

‘Because you are English. You have a suspicious mind. I am worried about
il Colonnello
. You should be too. Vivien would want you to do everything you can to protect her uncle, I think. And you want to please her, I think also.
Dunque
…’

‘What are we trying to protect him from, Paolo?’

‘I am not sure.’
Not sure
, of course, wasn’t quite the same as
don’t know
. ‘When you see where he goes … maybe then I will know. That is why you must telephone me as soon as you find out.’

‘What if he spots me?’

‘He is old. He does not see so good. He will not … spot you. Unless you get too close.’

‘Easy for you to say.’

‘You think I want to rely on you? No. But I have to.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’

‘
Basta!
Will you do it or not?’

He was growing impatient. I had to give him an answer and it was never going to be no. Because I’d be following Oliver as well as Francis through the streets of Naples. The truth was a powerful lure. I nodded. ‘OK. I’ll do it.’

When the alarm woke me at 4.30 the following morning, I was convinced for a moment that I’d dreamt my exchanges with Paolo. But reality repossessed me as I lay staring into the darkness. And when I turned the bedside lamp on, there, beside it, was the small pile of
gettoni
he’d given me for the telephone call he’d be waiting for. He’d also given me several thousand lire to pay for any taxis I needed to take. He wasn’t taking a lot of chances with my competence.

The light was on in Paolo’s room over the garage when I slipped out of the front door of the villa, showered but unshaven, stomach already growling from lack of breakfast. I hurried down to the gate, opened it carefully to avoid setting off any loud creaks and set off into the thinnest glimmerings of dawn.

I’d never been out and about so early. Capri was dark and quiet, with only a few working folk on the move. The funicular had just started running and I made it down to Marina Grande with more than half an hour to spare before the ferry left. I bought my ticket and a copy of
Corriere della Sera
for camouflage, then dived into a bar for coffee and a pastry.

I was out on the jetty before boarding began, even so, and was one of the first up the gangway. I went to the far end of the cabin, opened the newspaper and kept watch from behind it. A few minutes before the ferry was due to sail, Francis came into view on the jetty, hatted and raincoated against the coolness of early morning. He was carrying a small leather briefcase and looked like a man with business to attend to. Paolo was at his elbow, but was soon waved away. He glanced in my direction as he retreated, though whether he caught sight of me was hard to tell.

Shortly afterwards, Francis entered the cabin and took the first free seat he came to, slumping down heavily into it. Dawn starts evidently didn’t agree with him. He pulled one of his airmailed copies of the
Times Literary Supplement
out of his briefcase and started perusing it, but was soon doing more dozing than reading, lulled, perhaps, by the sunlight that began to slant in through the windows. My
Corriere della Sera
became an unnecessary prop.

I spent most of the crossing wondering just what Francis was up to. He’d told me there was no question of his meeting Strake, so who was he going to see in Naples? He’d also told me he wished to spare Luisa any distress, which hardly tallied with the row Paolo reported them having. I’d assumed he meant her to know nothing of Strake’s threats.

Mulling all that over had got me precisely nowhere by the time we reached Naples and I was soon preoccupied by the practicalities of following Francis. I had to hang well back to let him gather himself together and then hang back again when he disembarked. Fortunately, he was never the swiftest of movers and was even slower this morning. He ambled across the landing area, heading, predictably, though from my point of view, inconveniently, towards the taxi rank.

There was nothing for it then but to let his taxi pull away, before jumping into the one behind and reading out the phrase Paolo had written down for me: ‘Follow that cab’ in Italian. The driver, a lugubrious, lantern-jawed fellow, grimaced at me. I repeated the phrase more loudly. He shrugged and set off with a lurch.

The morning rush was limbering up on the main road along the harbourside in Naples. It seemed to me that following one vehicle through the jockeying, honking traffic was impossible, but my driver managed it while smoking a cigarette, retuning his radio and casting me the occasional leer that suggested he thought I was too young for whatever game this was.

Before long Francis’s taxi took a left into the maze of streets in the old centre. We tagged along behind. I’d have rapidly lost all sense of direction but for the climbing sun periodically dazzling me. As far as I could tell, we were heading north, deeper into the
heart
of the city. My driver stopped grimacing and leering, as if he was beginning to enjoy himself.

Suddenly, he slammed on the brakes. We skidded to a halt. The other taxi had pulled up about thirty yards ahead of us. Francis clambered out as I watched. I glanced at the meter and shoved enough lire into the driver’s hand to cover the fare, then jumped out, keeping my head down, and went after Francis.

He turned into a doorway. As I closed in, I saw the building it served was a hotel: the Albergo Lustrini. It looked cheap but not cheerful. A dusty front window, adorned with an even dustier rubber plant, gave me a partly obstructed view of a drab reception area, across which Francis was steering a straight course for the lift. I slowed, unsure what to do. He reached the lift and pressed a button. The doors slid slowly open. He stepped in.

That was my cue to move. I dodged into the hotel just as the lift doors closed. I kept my eyes trained on the floor indicator as I marched towards it, aware that the stairs were just to the right. The lift stopped at three. Without even a glance in the direction of the desk, I started running up the stairs.

Four flights took me to the right floor. I peered round the corner of the wall next to the lift and there, standing by a door halfway along the corridor, was Francis. He rapped at the door with his knuckles. It opened on a chain. I heard a muffled question from inside. I couldn’t have sworn to it, but it sounded like Strake’s voice.

‘Ways and means,’ said Francis. ‘Are you going to let me in? We can settle this here and now. On terms I think you’ll find attractive.’

There was a pause. Then the door closed and opened again, this time fully. I glimpsed a figure. Strake, almost certainly. Francis stepped into the room. The door closed behind him.

So, that was it. He
was
meeting Strake. Why he’d told me he wouldn’t was a mystery. Technically, I’d now accomplished what Paolo had asked of me. But I wasn’t keen on phoning him with this information. The less he knew about Strake the better. Maybe I’d just claim I’d bungled the job and lost Francis. I reckoned knowing Strake’s room number would be useful whatever I did, though. I trod lightly as I moved along the corridor far enough to see it: 239.
Then,
emboldened by how quiet the hotel seemed, I stepped closer. The door looked cheap and thin. It wasn’t likely to be very soundproof.

All I could hear was a murmur of subdued voices. I couldn’t make out any actual words. Whatever their discussion amounted to, it wasn’t a shouting match. Then, quite suddenly, a radio or television came on in the room at high volume. An Italian pop song was playing, bass notes booming through the woodwork. I recoiled instinctively. As I did so, I heard a loud crack that wasn’t part of the music and a heavy thump of something hitting the floor. It sounded bad. It sounded very bad.

A few yards further down the corridor was the fire escape. I ran to the door, opened it and stepped through on to a narrow landing on a concrete staircase. Holding the door ajar, I peered through the gap. I couldn’t hear the music now. It had either been turned down or off completely. As I watched, the door of room 239 opened. Francis emerged, pulled it to behind him, then hurried towards the lift, tottering slightly as he went. A minute or so later, I heard the lift ping, the doors slide open and close again.

I was tempted to head straight down the fire escape and leave the building as quickly as possible. But I had to know what had happened. I had to find out if Francis had done what I thought he’d done. I stepped back out into the corridor. It was silent and empty. I moved to the door of room 239, hesitated, then pushed the handle down with my elbow and shouldered the door open.

It was true. It was real. It was there in front of me. Strake lay at the foot of the bed. He was half dressed, in trousers and vest. His feet were bare. There was a neat bullet-hole in his forehead. The back of his head rested in a dark pool of blood that was spreading slowly as it soaked into the rug beneath him. I stared at him for a moment, knowing he was dead, yet somehow struggling to believe it. There’d been no deal, no pay-off, no compromise. Francis had executed him. It was as simple and as brutal and as final as that.

I pulled the door shut, nervously grasping my sleeve with my fingers to avoid leaving any prints. The precautions seemed important,
though
I wasn’t quite sure why. I was fighting shock now, but I was thinking hard. What would Francis do? Simply go back to Capri and pretend nothing had happened? I started moving.

The lift was attending to another call when I reached it, so I took the stairs, narrowly avoiding a collision on the next landing with a chambermaid so laden with laundry she never even saw me. I paused at the bottom to compose myself, then walked unhurriedly across the reception area to the door. There was a man behind the desk, fiddling with paperwork. He didn’t so much as glance up as I left. I sighed with relief. No one was going to describe me to the police. No one was going to remember me at all.

I turned right outside, for no better reason than it was the direction (as far as I could calculate) of the port. I didn’t know how big a lead on me Francis would have. He might be in a taxi by now, though I couldn’t see any cruising the street. Maybe he’d headed for the nearest rank. I had no way of knowing where that was, but he might know.

Then I saw him. There was a junction ahead, opening on the far side on to a piazza, with steps leading up from it to a plain-fronted church. At the foot of the steps was an old dry fountain decorated with cherubim. And slumped at the base of the fountain, his back resting against the bowl, was Francis. He was clutching his briefcase tightly in one hand. His other hand was pressed to his chest. His hat lay upside down beside him. His hair was awry, his face unusually pale.

He didn’t see me coming as I threaded a path through the traffic to reach him. Then, as I crouched at his elbow, he looked up at me, squinting uncertainly. His breathing was fast and shallow. He didn’t look good. I gently jogged his shoulder. ‘Francis?’

‘Jonathan,’ he said weakly. ‘What … on earth are you … doing here?’

‘I followed you.’

‘You did? How very … enterprising of you.’ He fashioned a smile. ‘Do I take it … you know what …’

‘Yes. I know.’

‘I see.’ He nodded. ‘Oh dear. That rather … tears it. I’d be
grateful
if you’d … keep it to yourself, my boy. Unless that … offends your conscience, of course.’

‘We need to get you away from here.’

‘Before the alarm’s raised, you mean? Yes. Good idea.’ He coughed. ‘But I can’t … move, you see. The whole thing … seems to have knocked the stuffing out of me. Not as young … as I was. Ticker playing up, I’m afraid. Damn thing.’

A shadow fell over us. A large aproned man still clutching one of the chairs he’d been arranging outside a café at the corner of the piazza peered down solicitously at Francis. ‘
Va bene, dottore?
’

‘
No
.’ Francis grimaced. ‘
Io sto … poco bene
.’

‘
Dove le fa male?
’

‘
Qui
.’ Francis patted his chest. ‘
Qui
.’ He was suddenly shorter of breath. ‘
Il cuore. Un …dolore terribile
.’

‘
Il cuore?
’ The man looked alarmed. ‘
É un attacco cardiaco, io penso
.’

‘
Per favore
,’ said Francis, ‘
chiami … un’ambalanza
.’

‘
Si, si. Un’ambalanza. Subito
.’ The man turned and hurried back to the café, absent-mindedly carrying the chair with him as he went.

By now, two street children had come to see what all the fuss was about. They stood staring solemnly at us as Francis bent his head towards me so that he could whisper in my ear. ‘He’s going to call … an ambulance, Jonathan … They’ll … take me to hospital … I’ll be … all right there … Capable hands … and all that … Now, listen carefully … Take my briefcase … Go back to the villa … Put it in my study … Wait, though, until … Luisa’s gone … I’ll get them to … phone her … from the hospital … Then the coast will be clear … Don’t tell her you were here … with me … or that you know … what brought me here … Will you do that for me, my boy?’