The Malaspiga Exit (30 page)

‘In here,' John Driver said, and pulled her towards it. Panic overwhelmed her, a terror so intense that she found herself able to fight. Strength flooded into her, summoned by the rush of adrenalin; she kicked and struck out at him, flailing at his face with her nails. He grabbed her, cursing and struggling; she clung to him, crazy with fear, shrieking wildly as he manhandled her to the door, and managed to swing the wooden bolt upright out of its socket. The door opened; inside was blackness and a gush of fetid air. Katharine made a wild effort to break free of him, but by this time he was in command of her, her body was turned towards that awful gaping doorway, there was nothing she could grip because he had twisted her arms behind her.

‘Okay,' he grunted the word. ‘Okay—in you go! Give my regards to Firelli!'

He gave a violent heave forward and threw her through the opening. The sound of her own horrified scream echoed back at her as the door slammed shut. In the total darkness, her senses failing, the terror was no longer blind. Not panic, but memory overcame her then. The memory of a little girl, so frightened by what she had been told that she hid weeping and trembling under the bedclothes. A story so horrifying to a child that the child had gratefully forgotten it.

Malaspiga Castle. It had always sounded sinister; the signet ring with its wreath and its spike growing out of the corn … Cruelty and death, a death invented by a human monster. She lay in a heap on the floor and sobbed in an agony of comprehension. She knew now why she had fought against going up the spiral stair, why the sight of the door had made her fight like an animal. She was in Duke Paolo's special room.

‘Don't touch that!' Alessandro shouted.

With his fingers reaching for the iron ring in the wall, John Driver jerked round to see Malaspiga standing at the head of the stairs. The gun was pointed at him. The Duke began to walk towards him. ‘Take your hand away from that,' he said. ‘Move away, or I'll shoot!'

‘You can't,' Driver said. ‘You can't touch me.' He hooked his hand through the iron ring. ‘Kill me and she goes too.'

Alessandro stood still. He had heard Katharine's agonized screams of terror as he hurled himself up the last few steps and into the passage.

Driver stood there, his right hand grasping the ring, with a mocking smile on his face. ‘If I fall,' he said, ‘my weight will pull it down. And then what'll happen to your girl friend?'

‘Get away from that door and take your hand out of that ring,' the Duke spoke quietly. ‘Otherwise I won't kill you outright. I'll shoot you, one bullet at a time, in every part of your body.'

‘You don't understand,' Driver told him. He shook his head. ‘She can destroy us all. Me, Francesca and you. You can't afford to let her get away any more than we can. I tried to warn you tonight, but you wouldn't listen. She has to die, Sandro. Put down the gun and let me get on with it.'

‘Don't move!' The Duke took a step towards him.

‘It's not what you think, Sandro,' Driver said. ‘She didn't come here to find out about that. She's a narcotics agent. Drugs! That's what it's all about—millions of dollars' worth of heroin, stashed away in my crummy sculptures!'

‘I don't believe you,' Alessandro said. ‘I don't believe you. Let go of that ring!'

‘You don't believe me …' Driver almost spat the words at him. ‘You arrogant bastard—you think I spent my time here working for you? Wasting my time on your little racket? I'm a millionaire! You want proof? Go and look in the storerooms—one of those little busts has had an accident. That's what she found. We've been running a Mafia operation for the last four years. And you try telling anyone you didn't know about it.'

‘“We”,' Alessandro said slowly. ‘You and Francesca. Working together.'

‘That's right.' Driver had regained his calm; he even managed to smile and shrug a little. ‘Be sensible,' he said. ‘The operation's just about blown, anyway. But we've made millions. I'll talk to New York and they'll cut you in. We'll wind up the business here and nobody will be able to prove anything. She has to die, Sandro. She won't feel anything; it's very quick.'

The Duke didn't move. Under the crude light his face was grey. ‘If you touch that ring again,' he said, ‘I am going to kill you.'

‘She isn't worth it,' Driver said. ‘Jail for life; think of that. Think what would happen to your mother. Poor Uncle Alfredo. You'll get over it, Sandro. Just turn around and go back down that stair.'

‘
You
can get away,' Alessandro said. ‘Take Francesca with you. I won't stop either of you. You have so much money—you can go anywhere in the world. Just forget about Katharine. I promise you, she won't say anything.'

‘I never thought you could be so naive,' Driver said. ‘You don't walk out on the Mafia. And you don't think you can open that door and expect her not to say anything? She works for the Narcotics Bureau in New York. She's a trained operator. Like Firelli, that antique dealer who came down here. He got into my workroom. I had to get rid of him the same way. I'm going to pull this handle, Sandro. Like my old dad said, there's nothing like a
fait accompli
for settling an argument.'

The blackness had lost its total density. Slowly Katharine raised her head and lifted herself up from the floor. There was a feeble glimmer of light, and it came from a narrow slit in the wall. She was shaking violently, but the first wild paroxysm of terror was spent.

Numb, exhausted, she dragged herself upright and her legs almost gave way. At any moment it would happen. Perhaps he was delaying this long out of sheer cruelty, leaving her to suffer the ultimate terror and despair. She couldn't see the door or judge how far she had fallen into the room when he threw her inside. She could only find a wall by going to the window slit. The air was foul and thick. A wave of sickness threatened her. Her legs refused to move. Panic attacked her then, keeping her paralysed, like a dreamer in a nightmare who cannot run away.

The crisis came and she heard someone crying out to God for help; the voice was her own, and she began to stumble in the darkness towards that slit of light.

‘Stop!' Alessandro di Malaspiga shouted. ‘Stop! If you touch it I'll shoot …'

‘You won't,' John Driver said. ‘You won't throw everything away for one woman. And I won't let Francesca go to jail. After all, it was a Malaspiga who invited it.' His fingers gripped the ring and with a sudden jerk, he pulled the handle down. Through the thick walls and the door, Alessandro heard a single scream. He shot John Driver through the chest; the scream was echoing round the passage; he fired again, stepping close, shooting into the sagging body, still clinging to the iron ring which was now depressed by several feet, at the end of an iron lever. Driver tried to say something, but the shots cracked into him, slamming his body in jerks against the wall. He toppled over, and the hand gripping the ring loosened and slipped free. He lay dead at Alessandro's feet, and there were no more bullets left. It was a second or two before Alessandro heard the scream again, a further second while its significance sunk in. He cried out, throwing the empty gun aside, and with all his strength he rammed the ring slowly upward into its original position.

Katharine had found the wall; she felt the rough stone against her hands, and she flattened herself against it, her fingers scratching at the surface for a hold. The window slit was above her head, there was nothing but blackness ahead. She didn't think or anticipate; instinct kept her upright, terror kept her still and closed her eyes although she couldn't see. The crash came without warning, a rush of foul air blew up round her and she began to scream and scream. The floor had fallen away; there was a bottomless void at her feet. Now she was living the nightmare which had haunted her childhood. She was going to fall into the pit that lay under the room where Paolo di Malaspiga had imprisoned his victims. It was said to be two hundred feet deep, and at the bottom was a black well with waters that went secretly away beneath the mountain. Her consciousness reeled; she didn't know how close she was balanced to the edge of the void, but if she fainted she would topple into it. There was a thud and everything shook; she gave a single cry of terror and despair before she lost consciousness.

He found her lying face downwards on the floor; the light from the corridor picked her out in the darkness. He stumbled towards her, choking in the fetid atmosphere. When he killed Driver he had thought it was her death cry that he heard. Even when he brought the floor back, with the second and third screams as evidence that somehow, by some miracle, she hadn't toppled into the pit, he hadn't expected to find her. No one had ever escaped … He knew, because he had seen the floor fall in daylight; there was less than three feet of solid flooring round the perimeter of that awful drop into the Castle bowels. He lifted her in his arms and carried her into the passage. He stepped over Driver's dead body. It was lying on its side, one arm bent under it, the eyes still open and the mouth ajar. The floor was patterned with blood.

He laid Katharine down a little distance away and knelt beside her, holding her against him. She was as pale as if she were dead, and her breathing was shallow. Alessandro bent over her.

‘My darling …' His voice called her back, persistent, growing nearer. ‘My darling, you're safe. I'm with you … It's all right.'

Slowly, unwilling to return to the horror of the conscious world which she had fled, Katharine opened her eyes. The proud face was gaunt with emotion, and in the eyes she saw tears. He drew her tightly into his arms and she felt his kiss on her forehead.

‘My darling,' he repeated. ‘My darling … Thank God! I killed him!' he said. ‘I shot him at the very moment I thought he'd killed you … Again and again.'

‘Don't,' Katharine whispered. ‘I don't want to hear …'

He eased her upright, stroking her hair; he leaned forward and kissed her very gently on her cold lips. ‘I love you,' he said. ‘I want you to do exactly as I say. I'm going to leave you for a moment, and while I'm gone I want you to turn your head and not look after me.'

‘No,' Katharine caught at him. ‘No, don't leave me here—don't go away …'

‘Only a few yards. I have to do something and I don't want you to see it.' She looked past him to the huddled figure lying by the open door. She shuddered.

He laid his hand against her cheek and gently turned her head away. She heard him walk away, and instinctively her eyes closed, her body tensing. There was a muffled crash. It seemed a long time till he bent over her again. He helped her to stand, supporting her with his arm round her waist. The corridor was empty; the door to the little room was closed and bolted, the iron ring was in place, and the bloodstains on the floor had been smeared by something heavy.

‘Oh God,' she whispered.

‘I sent him the way he chose for you,' Alessandro said. ‘I thought it was appropriate. Now we are going downstairs. I have to find my wife.'

Francesca had stayed where she fell; it was some moments before she got her breath. Slowly she picked herself up; she was trembling. She gasped out John Driver's name as though he could hear her and be warned. Then the shots cracked out, echoing down the well of the narrow stair through the open door. She screamed, both hands clenched against her mouth. It seemed loud and shrill to her, but it was a thin cry, like an animal upon whom a trap has suddenly closed. She knew, as if she had seen it happen, that her husband had shot her lover. The firing went on; she moaned and swayed on her feet. She gave a last cry of agony, and then began to stumble down the stairs the way they had brought Katharine. Out through the gunroom, past the passage and into the main hall. It was silent, dimly lit by the light from the wall sconces, empty. For a second she panicked and ran to the main door, struggling with the massive bolts to open it and run out into the night. Weakness and despair defeated her. Driver was dead. She was alone and at the mercy of her husband. She leaned against the door that held her prisoner and wept with terror. For years she had been afraid of him, afraid of his passion when they married, of his anger, his contempt.

She had helped to kill the woman Malaspiga loved. Her punishment would be fitted to the crime. She turned away and began to run up the stairs, not thinking where she could hide; instinct brought her to Driver's bedroom. She slammed the door and locked it. The sight of the room where they had been together, of the bed, his coat across a chair, the objects she associated with him, induced an outburst of hysterical grief, which subsided as suddenly as it had begun. John was dead. Her husband would be looking for her. She was shivering, but she was calm. She wiped her wet face and the kohl she painted round her eyes was smeared. She had to get away. The main door was locked and she couldn't risk going back to it. But there were other doors. The kitchen quarters—and the car was outside, ready to undertake the trip to Florence and establish their alibi for Katharine's murder. She went to Driver's chest of drawers and began searching; she found a roll of money clipped together. If she could get to Rome, to her sister … She thought no further man immediate flight. If she could get downstairs, round to the servants' quarters and to the exits at the back … She hid the money in her blouse. Switzerland. She knew the number of their account in the bank at Lausanne. There were millions of dollars there … She could disappear where Alessahdro wouldn't ever find her.

She opened the door, and slipped outside. She crept along the wall towards the stairs, pausing to listen for any sound that indicated he was near. She was still shivering. Down the stairs, waiting again, holding her breath, and then through the dining room and out, down a long cold corridor leading to the kitchen. Once she thought she heard him and she sobbed with fear. But the sounds changed direction. The old Castle kitchen had been modernized. She had only been inside it half a dozen times during her marriage. The old Duchess was jealous of her privileges. Ordering life at the Castle was something she had never given up and which Francesca had never wanted to take from her. She had always hated the place. She had hated everything connected with the Malaspigas.