The Malaspiga Exit (19 page)

Francesca di Malaspiga turned towards him. ‘It's a place where the stones cry out,' she said. ‘I hate it.'

A manservant in a dusty black suit had come towards the car. He opened the door for the Duchess. Katharine followed; the sun was going down, staining the sky above the battlements with red. Alessandro's car was parked ahead of them. Nobody came to her or said anything. She stood for a moment looking round her at the great fortress of her ancestors, its stones bloodied by the sunset, and a sense of cold fatality came over her.

‘Katerina,' his voice said by her side, ‘welcome to Malaspiga.' She turned and saw him standing close, smiling down at her. He slipped his hand through her arm. Raphael had warned her that he would kill her without mercy.

Something very old woke in her heart, a sense of dignity before danger, of the contemptuous acceptance of death. It did not belong to Katharine Dexter and the New World across the oceans. She smiled into the face above her.

‘It's magnificent,' she said. ‘But if I weren't a Malaspiga myself I think I'd be afraid.' Still holding his arm, she went inside. The old Duchess had gone upstairs to rest before dinner. She had complained angrily about having to leave her comfortable villa, but her son had insisted. He never raised his voice to her or showed any sign of anger, but she knew that she would give in and do what he wanted. It was inevitable, and she didn't feel anything but a fleeting resentment. All her life she had been bending to the dictates of men, at the same time as she was working to have her own way whenever possible. When he explained why they were going, she had tried to protest.

‘Why does she have to stay—couldn't she go down with John for the day and come back again? Surely all this inconvenience isn't necessary just to show her the Castle …' He hadn't listened. He had reminded her in his courteous way of the hospitality they owed a blood relation and the need for his family to chaperone her. As a result, they were all at Malaspiga, and after the car journey the old Duchess was exhausted. She rested on her bed for half an hour; her pink rose was propped in a glass on the dressing table. A fresh one for the evening was wrapped in wet tissue and foil. She turned her head on the pillows; everything she used was embroidered or edged with lace. It had been so all her life. Delicacy was part of a gentlewoman's equipment. Nothing rough or coarse must touch her, unless it were a man. She had thought of her daughter-in-law Francesca and the sculptor while she dozed; her mouth curled with sensual memories from her own past, induced by remembering the voices in Francesca's room. She couldn't imagine her daughter-in-law as a man's lover. She couldn't see that cold face upturned to a hungry kiss. But then nobody knew or understood the girl, or had ever taken the trouble to find out what she was really like. She was childless and abandoned by Alessandro, and that was all anybody thought about her. Perhaps now that she had become the young man's mistress, she might achieve serenity.

A knock at her door aroused her. It was her son. She moved upwards on her pillows and smiled at him. She had always smiled at men, even if she wasn't particularly pleased to see them.

‘Mother—I hope you're not too tired. Did you sleep?'

He sat beside her on the bed, and took her hand. It was unlike him to be demonstrative and she was surprised. She didn't much like holding his hand, but she refrained from drawing it away. And she was curious to know what he wanted. He knew perfectly well that she was tired, because she had said so when they arrived, and he also knew that she always slept if she lay down.

‘A little tired.' She gave him a lovely smile. ‘It was sweet of you to come and see. You're already changed.'

He wore a dark blue velvet coat, with a silk scarf round his neck. Perhaps Francesca's jealousy wasn't so silly, after all. He was a remarkable-looking man. ‘Where is the cousin?' she said. ‘Americans don't like changing their clothes before dinner. They think it's old-fashioned.'

‘I explained it was our custom,' he said. ‘It didn't surprise her. I want you to promise me something, Mama.'

‘Yes?' This was why he had come, of course.

‘Be very nice to Katerina,' the Duke said. ‘Make her feel happy and at home. I particularly want this; I want her to relax.'

‘Then you shouldn't have brought her here,' she said. ‘This is no place for seduction, my son. You ought to know better.'

He let her hand go. ‘You shouldn't talk like that,' he said quietly. ‘It's not becoming.'

His mother shrugged; the diamonds on her wrapper glittered in the light. ‘I'm too old to be a hypocrite,' she said. ‘And much too old old for family scenes. You've formed some plan for this girl, Sandro. If it isn't seduction, then what is it? You've never behaved like this with any of the others—why bring her here, to the Castle? Why come and ask me to be nice to her, as if I didn't know how to behave in my own home? What is between you—are you already lovers?'

‘No,' he said. ‘We are not. I just want her to enjoy her stay. I hoped you'd help.'

‘Sit down,' she said quickly. ‘Don't go away angry. I'll do what you want,
caro
. I like you to be happy. If you want her, then I'll make it easy for you. But I must warn you. This girl isn't like the others. They understood the situation. She doesn't. She could be very troublesome. Think very carefully before you get yourself involved.'

‘You don't understand, Mama,' he said gently. ‘But it doesn't matter. Just do as I ask. Be very nice to her. Because I ask you. I'll see you downstairs.'

When Katharine came into the small salon she thought at first that nobody else had come down. She felt nervous and expectant, as if something significant were going to happen. Her bedroom was filled with flowers. The hand of Alessandro was unmistakable; they were all roses and out of season. As she came into the room, she heard a noise behind her and turned quickly. A tall man was standing directly in line with the door; he had been sitting in an armchair placed to the left of it, so that when anyone entered the room he was invisible. Almost as tall as Alessandro, with a beautiful head, crowned by thick white hair and, perched on top of it, an ancient fez with a black silk tassel. He didn't move; he stood and looked at her, and on the patrician face there was the shy expectancy of a child. Katharine came towards him and held out her hand.

‘Uncle Alfredo?' He nodded. ‘I am your cousin, Katharine. I am so glad to meet you.'

The smile was like a sunburst. He put his head back, with the incongruous Eastern hat, its tassel swinging, and gave a loud laugh of delight.

He took her hand, bowed, kissed it, and then shook it.

‘The pleasure is mine, my dear! All mine. Alessandro told me about you. But he didn't say how beautiful you were! You remind me so much of someone … I can't remember who. No matter. No matter. Will you sit down? Excellent! Excuse me. I shan't be a moment. Then we can have a little talk. Before the family come down. Before
she
can try and send me up to my room.'

The smile had gone; he scowled, but it only made him look pathetic. ‘I hate her,' he said simply. ‘But Alessandro protects me. I shan't be long!' Katharine walked to a chair by the fireplace and sat down. When the door opened a moment later, the old Duchess came towards her, swathed in dark green velvet, and behind her was John Driver. In the background, hovering near the doorway, she saw Alfredo di Malaspiga. She understood the local nickname. He had replaced the fez with a British solar topee.

Dinner was a long, formal meal, taken in a small stone room that was untouched since the fifteenth century. The only concession to the present was the strip lighting over a superb Gothic tapestry. They ate by candlelight; the manservant who had met them on arrival was wearing white livery and gloves, and he served the food with a slowness that grated on Katharine's nerves.

She looked round the table, and the faces seemed to belong to people from another age; Alessandro, seated like a medieval prince at the head of the table, watching over them, paying special attention to her, the bland, senile smile of Uncle Alfredo as he chattered to John Driver: the sense of unreality was sinister, as if she were playing her part in a charade. The conversation was general, and trivial; much of it referred to local people and affairs which she didn't understand. She saw that the eccentric old man was watching her, and pretending not to do so; while he talked to Driver he kept glancing quickly at her and then away if she looked up. She got the impression that he was much less unbalanced than he seemed. There was a furtive intelligence that he couldn't quite hide, a look that was at variance with his parade of senility. When they left the table he came up to her; his vacant smile was ready, and she responded, waiting for him to speak. ‘How do you like my hat?'

‘I think it's very unusual,' Katharine said. He nodded.

‘It was given to me by an Englishman, years and years ago. He knew I liked collecting different kinds of hats. I have over sixty—what do you think of that?'

‘Marvellous,' she said. They were the last to leave the room, and she could see her cousin waiting for her just beyond the doorway.

‘You're nice,' the old man said in a suddenly low voice. ‘I like you. Be very careful here. I'm not such a fool as people think.' Then he bowed and stepped back to let her pass. The warning was repeated in a whisper as she went towards the Duke.

‘Be very careful …'

Ben Harper had been called back from Chicago. He took over the interrogation of Taylor, and found that he was having no more success than Carpenter. He had a brief interview with Nathan; nothing hit him as hard as a crooked agent, and what he said was short and bitter.

‘You'll get the maximum,' he told him. Nathan jeered, his bruised face full of ugly defiance.

‘You've got nothing on me,' he said. ‘You can't prove a damned thing and you know it. You can threaten till you drop dead!'

‘We'll prove it,' Harper promised him. ‘We'll prove it because we'll break Taylor. He'll end up hanging you to save himself.'

But Taylor was unexpectedly resilient. He knew his rights and he insisted on them; neither Carpenter nor his chief could get him to admit to any connection with the Malaspigas or to knowing Nathan. Unlike many engaged in pushing heroin, he was not frightened by the sentences involved in turning States witness and betraying his fellows. He sat in Harper's office, very pale and agitated, insisting that he see his lawyer and refusing to say anything.

Carpenter was called in to Harper's office as Taylor was taken away. ‘Any luck?'

‘Nothing. He's clammed up tight. We can't hold him much longer without getting a lawyer; the same goes for Nathan. You shouldn't have beaten him up, Frank.'

‘I should have killed him,' Carpenter said. ‘If you'd stood there and listened while he passed on the message about Kate, and seen the smile on his face when he'd done it … Why don't you let me try Taylor? Give me half an hour and don't let anybody come busting in, and I'll get it out of him! We've got to know if that message has gone one stage further and got to Italy!'

‘He couldn't have called; there wasn't time between Nathan's tip-off and his arrest. We checked with International: there was a three-hour delay in calls to Italy at that hour. Relax, Frank. I don't think there was any way he could have got a message through.'

‘I didn't think there was any way for Nathan to pass it on, but there was,' Carpenter said. ‘They'll kill her, just like they killed Firelli!'

‘Give it time,' Harper said. ‘We'll use one against the other; somebody will crack. My money's on Taylor. I'll wait ten minutes till he thinks the heat's off and I'll have him up again. You can sit in on it, if you like. But no heavy stuff.'

‘I think we should get on to Interpol; somebody should get Kate out of there!'

‘And wreck what she's doing? You'd have Raphael up there with a squad of
carabinieri
, and there wouldn't be a grain of heroin in any shipment—they're not fools. There's nothing we can do about her till we know whether that message stopped with Taylor. If it
was
Taylor he called. Let's hope so.'

‘I know it was.' Carpenter lit a cigarette; the knuckles of his right hand were red and puffy. ‘If anything happens to her …'

‘You shouldn't have got involved,' Harper said slowly. ‘It's going to make it very rough for you if we have to let Taylor walk out of here. And so far we've nothing we can charge him with—the same goes for Nathan. We know they're in it, but we haven't any proof. We're stretching the law by holding either of them. Stop thinking about Kate. Get us both a cup of coffee and then we'll give Taylor another work-out.'

He looked at his watch as Carpenter went out to the dispensing machine in the corridor. It was ten twenty-eight. They could stall on the lawyer till late afternoon. It didn't give them enough time and he knew it.

Over on West 40th, Marie Nathan was ironing her husband's shirts. She had finished cleaning the apartment and done some shopping for herself by ten-fifteen. She made coffee and set up the ironing board. She laundered everything for him by hand; she wouldn't allow him to wear drip-dry shirts.

She didn't understand why Frank Carpenter had called her so late the previous night, asking if she'd heard from Jim. She didn't understand why she hadn't heard, because if he was ever away from home he always telephoned her. Carpenter had been reassuring. There was nothing to worry about. He must be very tied up. She tried not to worry and woke up early the next morning. She cleaned the apartment extra carefully, and comforted herself by doing his laundry. She loved housework and enjoyed a routine. So much of her life had been spent in shiftless wandering and casual jobs; no settled home, no future, no background. Only heroin to offer an escape route. The glow at the end of life's dark tunnel had been the entrance to hell. Nathan had made her see that. He had loved her and saved her. She would have lain down and died for him.