House of the Hanged

‘Where’s my dog?’ Tom repeated in the same flat tone, switching to Italian.

‘The well . . .’

‘Where? In the well?’

‘Buried nearby.’

He only just resisted the urge to swing the branch and administer the coup de grâce.

‘Are you alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who sent you?’ he asked.

‘Alfiero.’

‘Who’s Alfiero?’

‘I can’t move my legs. Am I dying?’

‘Maybe.’

The young man emitted a deep sob. ‘I don’t want to die.’

‘Nobody wants to die.’

Tom struggled to feel any sympathy. The pathetic, broken figure before him had killed Hector, his companion, and only minutes earlier had tried to send him the same way.

‘Tell my mother I love her,’ pleaded the man pathetically.

Tom crouched so that they were almost face-to-face.

‘I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to find your mother and I’m going to kill her very, very slowly . . . unless you tell me who Alfiero is.’

The young man struck out at him weakly. ‘Don’t you touch my mother . . .’

Tom batted the arm aside and seized him by the throat, throttling him. ‘You obviously don’t know who I am,’ he hissed, ‘or you’d answer the question.’

He allowed time for the words to sink in before releasing his grip. ‘Who’s Alfiero?’

‘Alfiero is . . . Alfiero.’

The man wasn’t being evasive; he was teetering on the brink of unconsciousness now, not thinking straight. Tom slapped his face to bring him around.

‘Why does he want me dead?’

‘I don’t know. He never tells me why.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Rome . . . Viterbo . . . Pescara. He moves around . . .’

The words trailed off, replaced by a deep and tremulous groan, unlike anything Tom had ever heard before.

‘What’s his surname?’

The man started to slip away. Tom slapped his face again to bring him back. ‘What’s his surname?’

‘Tosti . . .’ It came out as a low croak. The man then fell slack and silent.

Tom felt for a pulse at his neck. It was there, but weak. He might well be bleeding internally.

Tom glanced up and down the cutting. He remembered the drill: remain focused and deal with the immediate situation. There would be time enough later to weigh the bigger questions.

He had to move the man; he couldn’t leave him lying there. But what if he had lied? What if he had an accomplice? What if the accomplice was waiting out there somewhere in the shadows for Tom to show himself? He went with his gut, taking the man at his word. Everything about him suggested a lone operator.

He checked the man’s trouser pockets so that nothing would be lost in transit. He turned up a key. It was attached to an oval metal fob familiar to his touch, even if he couldn’t see it properly in the darkness.

Shouldering the man proved easy enough, and he tried his best to ignore the unnatural geometry of the shattered limbs bumping against him as he bore the burden back to the villa. For much of the way, he stuck to the level ground afforded by the railway tracks, bearing left into the vegetation just before the crossing that led to the gates of the villa.

Somewhere along the route the man died. Tom couldn’t say when exactly – he had sensed no change in the inert weight – but when he laid his load as gently as possible beside the yew hedge fringing the terrace and felt once more for a pulse, he detected nothing.

So be it, he told himself. It’s probably for the best.

He glanced up at the twisted old vine. Probably no more than twenty minutes had elapsed since the dead man beside him had set about scaling the plant, but he knew in his bones that everything had changed in that brief time, everything he had built here.

He had just heard the first resounding trumpet blast against the walls of his private Jericho.

He smoked two cigarettes in quick succession while the bath was running, and he topped up his brandy glass before climbing into the water. His feet stung like Satan, but there were no deep cuts, just lacerations. His penis – he noted, with a mixture of curiosity and alarm – had shrunk to the size of an acorn.

He dressed in dark clothing then made a methodical tour of the bedroom, first recovering the pistol from beneath the bed. It was a Browning 1922 with a full clip. Common sense dictated that he dispose of it, but a second weapon was a welcome addition to his limited armoury, especially one with more stopping power than his Beretta.

The floor was spattered with blood from the man’s smashed nose, as were the sheets and blue twill counter-pane, but he could use those to wrap the body in. The person he feared most was Paulette, his housekeeper. She might not say anything about the missing counter-pane and African carving, but she would certainly register their absence. Nothing in the house escaped her eagle-eyed notice, and it would be wise to have explanations ready.

The broken carving upset him, for symbolic reasons as much as anything. It was a spirit figure from the Baule people of the Ivory Coast, a woman shaped from wood as black as coal, her skin polished to a silky patina except where it was marked by intricate scarification. She stood on short, flexed legs – now broken off at the knees – her hands resting gently on her protruding belly. Her breasts were full and pointed, and there was something ineffably serene about the gaze of her almond eyes. Even now, they seemed to carry in them the knowledge of what she – his spirit wife, his protectress – had done on his behalf.

She had given her legs for him, and she had taken those of the man outside in payment of her sacrifice.

He pressed the two parts of her together. He would take her to Paris and see her made whole once more, but for now, he carried her downstairs and locked her away in a cabinet in his study, along with the syringe and the small bottle of chloroform which the Italian had left outside on the bedroom terrace. Returning upstairs with a mop and pail, he sluiced the bedroom floor. It was best to do it now, while the blood was still wet. It would be dried and encrusted by the time he returned.

The Italian was definitely dead; his body had noticeably cooled. Tom rolled him in the sheets and the counter-pane, heaved him over his shoulder and set off down the path to the cove.

He felt painfully exposed as he emerged from the treeline into the moonlit glare of the beach, but a few seconds later he was in the boathouse, safe from prying eyes.

He worked by the light of a lone hurricane lamp. First he took a length of rope and trussed up the bedcover bundle. This he then rolled on to a sheet of heavy-duty tarpaulin and laid an anchor on top of it. For good measure, he headed outside, returning with two large rocks which he also placed on the body. Folding over the tarpaulin, he bound it tightly in place with more rope – round and round, and also lengthways – until the finished product looked like some monumental Italian salami.

It was a struggle, but he managed to carry it in his arms to the rowboat, staggering across the sand and dropping it into the bottom of the boat. He kicked off his shoes, rolled up his trousers, and hauled the rowboat towards the water.