Bloody Passage

‘All right,’ I said. ‘Help yourself to a drink and let’s talk. Have you read this file?’

‘I don’t need to, signor.’

‘Okay, tell me about it.’

‘The prison is about fifteen miles away from Zabia, signor, on the coast high above the cliffs. Râs Kanai, they call it. Cape of Fear. It was originally an Italian fortress.’

‘Yes, I know all that,’ I said impatiently. ‘How many prisoners does it hold?’

‘Five hundred.’

‘And guards?’

‘Since Gaddafi’s time it has been guarded by the military. Usually around six hundred troops under the command of Colonel Masmoudi.’ He shook his head. ‘A very bad man, signor. He has been known to beat prisoners to death personally.’

I thought about it for a while and it didn’t look good. The ratio of guards to prisoners, for example, was better than one for one, which was incredible.

‘You’re sure of those figures?’

He nodded. ‘A great many political offenders, signor. Some of them are very important people or were. Security is most strict. Colonel Masmoudi is a fanatical supporter of the Gaddafi regime. He would execute every prisoner in the place if ordered to.’

Something else which didn’t make the overall situation look any brighter. I said, ‘Stavrou’s stepson, this Stephen Wyatt. He’s twenty years old and they’ve given him life. What are his chances?’

‘The average time served by those sentenced to life is three years, signor, because at the end of that time they are usually dead. They spend most of their time working in the chain gang in the salt marsh and Masmoudi allows no rest during the heat of the day. Men die like flies.’

There was a plan of the fort in the folder and a map of the surrounding area. I unfolded them on the floor and we started to go over them. The walls on the land side were forty feet high, well protected by floodlighting and heavily guarded. On the side facing the sea, the fortifications were much simpler, the cliffs being a hundred and fifty feet high at that point and quite unclimbable, or so Zingari insisted.

‘You’re certain of this?’ I asked him.

‘Oh, yes, signor, I have been inside many times on business. I supply the officers’ mess with wine and spirits.’

I frowned. ‘Aren’t they all Muslims? Isn’t alcohol forbidden?’

‘Not at Râs Kanai. Not since Masmoudi turned Communist and has ceased to practice his religion.’

Which was interesting. Supplies were brought in by a military train, another relic of Italian Imperialism.

I said, ‘Does this thing unload inside the fortress?’

He nodded. ‘Oh, yes, signor, but believe me, there is no hope there. The train is searched most thoroughly with the aid of dogs each time it enters. In any event, it only carries military personnel or new prisoners.’

I frowned down at the plan. ‘Doesn’t anyone other than the military get into the damned place? Aren’t there any civilian workers?’

‘The military handle everything, signor,’ he said firmly and then pulled up short as if at a sudden thought and chuckled. ‘Of course, there are the women, signor. The Friday-night women. I was forgetting those.’

‘And which women would those be?’

‘Another innovation of Colonel Masmoudi’s. He’s fond of the ladies and reasonable enough to realize that plenty of his men are in the same boat, so every Friday night they bring in a couple of truckloads of women from Zabia.’

‘Whores?’

‘But of course, signor.’ He looked bewildered. ‘They must, after all, be capable of serving more than one man. It requires very special talents.’

‘I bet it does,’ I said. ‘And who supplies these ladies?’

He contrived to look suitably modest. ‘Why, I do, signor, and it is no easy matter, I can tell you. After a month or two a change is looked for. I have to bring girls from as far away as Tripoli.’

‘And the trucks?’ I said. ‘Are they allowed in?’

‘Oh, no, signor.’ He shook his head. ‘The women have to dismount outside and are checked in through the gate.’

I sat there for two or three minutes, staring into space and he waited patiently. After a while he said, ‘Is there anything else, signor?’

I shook my head. ‘If I need you again, I’ll send for you.’

He moved to the French window and hesitated. ‘I have been of help, signor?’

‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘I think you could say that.’

He went out quietly and I lay back, eyes closed, going over it all in my mind and after a while, I dozed.

When I awakened it was evening and just before dusk. It was heavy and oppressive, a hint of rain in the air. I crossed the terrace and took the steps down into the garden. Palms swayed in the slight wind, their branches dark feathers against the evening sky that already showed a star here and there.

I moved on, taking a flight of steps up to the ramparts and found Simone leaning over the wall, staring down at the sea, outlined against a sky the colour of brass. Perhaps she’d noticed me out of the corner of her eye down there in the garden as I approached, but she certainly gave no sign.

I lit a cigarette and flicked the match far out into the darkness. ‘Well?’

‘Well what?’ she said. ‘If you think I’m going to apologize, you’ve come to the wrong shop.’

‘No apologies needed,’ I said. ‘But a few facts would be appreciated.’

‘Such as?’

‘Why you did it would do for starters.’

‘All right, Oliver.’ She turned to face me. ‘It was a job, that’s all. Just another assignment.’

‘Well, you’re a great little actress. I’ll say that for you. You were particularly good at simulating orgasms, by the way. I’ll be happy to give you a reference to that effect any time.’

She struck out at me furiously, but I got a hand up to block the blow. ‘Damn you!’ she said. ‘And just how honest were you with me, anyway?’

‘A fair point,’ I said. ‘Strangely enough I can forgive you nearly all of it, but not Hannah. Never that. That was unforgivable and that was one side of me you did know about. One side of me I never hid from you.’

Which hit home rather satisfactorily. Her shoulders sagged a little and she turned away to look out to sea. ‘Why Stavrou, for God’s sake?’ I said.

‘Because I owe him,’ she replied. ‘Because he’s been good to me. About three years ago I was in love with a man in Paris who trafficked in heroin. I didn’t know it at the time, but when the police moved in, they were going to pull me down with him. I could have got ten years.’

‘And Stavrou saved your hide?’