Bloody Passage

‘You tried writing thrillers, which brought you only a modest return, and then you were approached in London by an ex-British Intelligence officer who knew something of your background. There was a man in prison in Birmingham, one of a number who had robbed a train of several million pounds, most of which had never been recovered. With only a thirty-year sentence to look forward to, he was happy to pay fifty thousand pounds into a Swiss bank account to anyone who could get him out and you couldn’t resist the challenge, could you, Major Grant?’

‘I wish you wouldn’t keep calling me that,’ I said. ‘Under the circumstances it’s almost obscene.’

‘After that, you never looked back. A reasonably constant demand for the services of someone with your very special talents. When you retired last year you had over four hundred thousand pounds in your Geneva account. Would you like the number, by the way?’

There was a longish pause as if he actually expected an answer. I glanced at Langley who smiled beautifully. ‘You’re really quite a card, aren’t you, old stick?’

‘So there you were,’ Stavrou said, ‘with all the money in the world, or so it seemed, so that when someone approached you three months ago and offered you one hundred thousand dollars to get a young American named Stephen Wyatt out of a penal colony in Libya where he was recently sentenced to life imprisonment, you refused.’

There was a long pause and then the whole thing suddenly clicked into place. ‘You?’ I said.

‘Stephen Wyatt is my stepson, Major Grant,’ he told me softly. ‘My dead wife’s son. A stupid, misguided boy who dropped out of Yale after war service with the Paratroops in Vietnam, came out to the Mediterranean and got mixed up with some counter revolutionary organization in Libya aimed at overthrowing Colonel Gaddafi.’

‘And they gave him life?’ I said.

‘Exactly. I want him out.’

My anger was like a fuse slow-burning. I said, ‘Are you telling me this whole thing was a set-up from the beginning? The guy in the marsh at Cape de Gata with his Lee Enfield, for instance?’

‘Now he did get a little over enthusiastic,’ Stavrou said. ‘All he was supposed to do was rattle you. Leave you a little worried, but he went too far.’

‘And bit off more than he could chew.’

‘An impressive performance, major, I must say. He was actually supposed to be resting, isn’t that the term theatricals use? A young man who’d had a considerable success as a sniper in Ulster with the Provisional IRA.’

‘And everything since? The Hole, for example?’

‘You’re surely familiar with brainwashing techniques, particularly as practiced by the Chinese? Pavlovian in concept. First of all it is necessary to bring about the complete alienation of the individual, destroy his confidence in any kind of order or pattern to his life. Degrade him if at all possible.’

Langley said, with a grin, ‘We certainly did a good job of that, old stick, credit where credit’s due.’

I gave him some old-fashioned Anglo Saxon, tried to reach him and tripped over my chains. Stavrou said, ‘I wished to show you that I hold you in the hollow of my hand, my friend. That was the sole purpose of the exercise. There is nowhere you can run. Nowhere you can be certain of safety. No single person you can trust.’

‘You go to hell,’ I said.

He smiled patiently. ‘I’ll prove it to you. The final and ultimate truth.’ He reached for a small handbell and rang it.

A moment later, Simone Delmas came through a gate in the wall and stood beside him, a hand on his shoulder, her face calm, untroubled. She wore a silk mini dress in olive green open at the throat.

‘Is she not lovely, Major Grant?’

She leaned down to kiss him, he slipped a hand under the edge of the skirt, stroking her thigh, and opened the file.

‘August 10th, Subject returned from Almeria with Miss Delmas at ten-thirty. They made love on the terrace. Four-thirty, subject returned from swimming with Miss Delmas. They made love on the terrace. Do you want me to go on? We do have some rather excellent film also.’ He smiled up at Simone, his hand steadily stroking the thigh. ‘She does enjoy this kind of thing so.’

By then, of course, nothing was even halfway funny anymore. I said, ‘You’re wasting your time. I won’t play.’

‘Oh, but I think you will.’ He levered himself to his feet. ‘If you’ll be kind enough to follow me, I’ll show you why.’

It was going to be good, it had to be and I shuffled after him, giving Simone a wide berth, and they all followed. We passed through the garden to the far end. Someone somewhere was playing the piano, a piece I recognized for once, April from a little suite by Tchaikowsky called The Seasons. My throat went dry and I think I was already ahead of him as we paused by the barred window in the end wall.

‘Your sister, Major Grant,’ he said calmly, ‘who you imagine to be in London at this very moment pursuing her studies. Take a look inside.’

And she was there, of course, as I had known she must be, sitting at a grand piano in the centre of what was obviously the library.

She was a small, quiet girl with a generous mouth, high cheekbones, black hair parted in the centre and tied back tightly. Only a slightly vacant look in the dark eyes hinted at her condition.

I didn’t see her very often, mainly because I had a vague superstitious feeling that in some way she might be tainted by what I had become. By the life I led, and I loved her too much for that. I’d contented myself over the years by providing for her every need and leaving her to my grandmother’s care, safe and secure in her own small world in the house in St John’s Wood.

I’d last seen her at the Festival Hall in London nine months previously playing the final movement of Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto in a Royal College of Music student’s concert. There was the same look of total concentration on her face now.

The far door opened and a woman entered, a black and tan Doberman at her side. The animal crossed to Hannah, who stopped playing for a moment to fondle it.

‘Amazing,’ Stavrou said. ‘Usually Frau Kubel is the only one who can even get near the beast.’

Langley said, ‘His favourite trick is pulling people’s arms off. I’d advise you to remember that, old stick.’

Frau Kubel looked about sixty with a grim, bleak face, hair drawn back tightly into a bun. She wore a black bombazine dress and white apron and her legs were slightly bowed. If she’d ever been in a concentration camp it could only have been as a guard.

She said something to Hannah who stood up. Frau Kubel took her arm and they walked to the door and went out.

I said slowly, ‘How did you get her here?’

‘She’s supposed to be spending a holiday with you. It was easy enough to arrange. A phone call to your grandmother with a message from you. She saw the girl off at Heathrow and when she landed at Palermo yesterday, Justin at his most charming was there to greet her with a tale of your having been delayed.’ He smiled gravely. ‘You get the picture now, sir?’

The anger, the black, killing rage rose inside me like a living thing, but I fought to control it. ‘I think so.’

‘So long as we understand each other. From those ramparts down to the beach is all of four hundred feet. A long way to fall.’ He put a cigar in his mouth and Langley lit it for him. ‘Yes, a dangerous place.’ He blew out smoke in a long column. ‘Especially for someone with your sister’s difficulties.’

I tried to get at him, tripped over those damned chains and found myself on my hands and knees in front of him again. By some small miracle, Langley had an automatic in his right hand and screwed the muzzle into the side of my neck.

Stavrou gazed down at me dispassionately and I was aware of Simone standing behind him, hands on the back of the wheelchair, face wiped clean of all expression.

Stavrou said slowly, ‘All right, Grant, you were right. I’ve been in the rackets all my life. Al Capone, O’Bannion, Frank Nitti, Legs Diamond. I knew them all, only they’re long gone and I’m still here. You know why? Because when I say it, I mean it. I always carry it through, no matter how rough.’

He stopped talking for a moment and it was very quiet and then he continued, ‘My wife, Major Grant, was a lady, and I mean a lady. Boston Society and all that kind of stuff. When she said she’d marry me, I couldn’t believe it. And the years we had together …’

He ran a hand wearily over his face. ‘This son of hers was always trouble, but before she died I promised her I’d see him through.’ He sighed, a brief ironic smile on his mouth. ‘I’m going to tell you something. That kid hates my guts, but it doesn’t matter a damn. I’m going to get him out of that place for her sake, and you’re going to see to it for me. Understand?’

To which there was little I could say – for the moment. He swung the wheelchair round in a circle and said to Langley, ‘All right, bring him along.’

Gatano pulled me to my feet, the two characters in the fisherman sweaters got an arm each and we all went back through the garden to the terrace. Someone positioned him at the table and filled a glass with more wine.

He sipped a little and looked up at me. ‘I’ll make the point again. If you even attempt to step out of line, your sister takes a fall. You understand me?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘Good.’ He nodded to Gatano. ‘Unchain him.’