October Men (11 page)

Ordinarily he was not subject to such odd notions. He was a city-dweller born and bred, with a natural contempt and suspicion for the peasant countryside—he knew those gut reactions of old, and allowed for them. But this place was neither city nor country; nor, without the colourful crowds of tourists and the surrounding noise and bustle of a busy city, was it like the antiquities he was used to back in Rome. It was much more like a bombed and plague-emptied town, something which had been alive yesterday and was newly-dead—a corpse unburied, rather than an old skeleton disinterred … an obscenity. No sooner had he formulated that thought than he was overtaken by embarrassment with it: it was the sort of mental absurdity he would never have dared admit to his colleagues and for which his wife invariably prescribed a laxative. Even the unshockable Father Patrick, his favourite Dominican, had warned him against it:
too
much imagination, Pietro—a good measure of it is a great blessing, but too much is a weakness
…

“Give me the guide, then—wake up!”

Villari whipped the book out of his hand, flipped it open, ripped out the folded map from it and thumped it back into his possession before he knew what was happening.

“Hmm…” Villari scanned the map, frowning at its complexity. Then he turned to the second policeman, who had accompanied him through the entrance, running a slender finger over the paper. “You go ahead along the main street—the Decumano Massimo here—until you spot Depretis. Then you wipe your face with your handkerchief— I assume you’ve got a handkerchief?”

A muscle twitched in the detective’s cheek, high up and very briefly, as he nodded. He was careful not to look at Boselli, who knew nevertheless with certainty that the Clotheshorse, running true to form, had made another lifelong enemy in the last five minutes. It might not be wholly deliberate now—it might have started as a defence designed to keep inferiors in their place and become second nature over the last few years—but without doubt Villari had perfected the art of being offensive.

“Very well. You will go on past the theatre—there—“ the finger stabbed the map “—and wait for me to catch up if the theatre is a high building and there is a stairway on it. If there is then I shall climb it and you will wait until I have seen what there is to see—is that understood?”

Again the detective nodded.

“Then you will continue down the Decumano Massimo—that is, unless I wipe
my
face—as far as the Porta Marina.”

“And if I do not see him by then, signore?” the detective inquired neutrally.

Villari stared at him for a moment, as though slightly surprised by the question. “Then you will come back, and I will tell you what to do,” he said coolly. “But the important thing for you to remember now is that you are no longer interested in the Englishman—you and Depretis. It is his contact you are interested in: who he is and where he goes—do you understand? Once Depretis is spotted, then you come back here and cover the entrance. When the contact comes out Depretis will be following him, and then it’s up to you both not to lose him. Now—move!”

The detective took one last glance at the map, and then turned away down the avenue without a word. As he went he slipped off his jacket and loosened his tie; he did not, thought Boselli, look very much like a student of antique remains, but neither did he look like a policeman, although there was a shiny, threadbare air surrounding him which proclaimed the minor and underpaid government functionary—a guide employed by the Ministry of Public Instruction, maybe, nosing the excavations in search of gratuities.

He watched the thickset figure dwindle among the pines, then faced Villari. “And what do you wish me to do, signore?”

“Watch him,” Villari nodded down the avenue. “And keep from under my feet if anything happens.”

“Something will happen, then?”

Villari shrugged.

“But you know that Audley is meeting someone here?”

Villari shrugged again.

“But—“ Boselli persisted desperately “—you know something is going on?”

The Clotheshorse shifted his glance from Boselli to the detective and then, lazily, returned it. “The Englishman is being watched.”

Boselli frowned at him, perplexed.

“Not just by us, idiot—by others.”

“By whom?”

“We are not sure.”

Not sure, Boselli digested the tiny fragments of information, trying to make a meal of them.

By others
. Logically, Ruelle would be continuing his surveillance, but they were quite properly more concerned with Audley at this point—and with his contact—than with Ruelle, so they hadn’t risked trying to find out who was watching on the Aventine for fear of blowing the whole thing, for the contact himself might be keeping an eye on Audley too. That “others” implied as much, anyway, though the English themselves might also be maintaining a protective watch on their man if he was as important to them as the file suggested.

Boselli shivered in the heat at the memory of that file, with its cold little facts and hot little theories. He knew so little about what was going on, but he also knew too much for his own peace of mind. Audley and Ruelle, and above them Sir Frederick Clinton and General Raffaele Montuori—they all had one thing in common: they were dangerous men. He thought nostalgically of his little airless room back in the city: by now it would be almost as hot as Ostia Antica, but it would be much safer.

As they advanced down the Decumano Massimo he began to grasp the principle on which Villari was searching the excavations. He was using the two detectives as hunting dogs—what were they called, pointers?—Depretis to cover the minor streets which ran at right angles to the main thoroughfare, and the threadbare man to watch for him. So long as Depretis kept sight of Audley and remained in sight of the Decumano Massimo at the same time he would serve as a moving signpost to the Englishman.

The trouble was that not all the side streets were absolutely straight, and there were lateral alleys branching off them, so that they needed luck as well as logic. In fact the farther they progressed the more unlikely it seemed to Boselli that they would see anyone at all, certainly anyone who didn’t want to be seen, in that maze of walls. The Clotheshorse had delivered his briefing decisively and confidently, but the frown of concentration on his forehead indicated that his self-esteem was drying up fast.

Still, he had been right about the theatre: it was a substantial—or substantially restored—building, with a series of arcades facing the street and a stair leading up to the seating on the other side. But when Boselli made to follow Villari up the stairs, the Clotheshorse gestured angrily down the street towards the detective, who was now loitering fifty metres ahead of them.

“You watch
him—can
’
t
you remember a simple order?” Villari hissed.

Chastened, Boselli made for the shadow of the arcade, reaching in his pocket for his handkerchief, and then remembering just in time that the one thing he mustn’t do was to mop his genuinely sweaty face with it. He must make do with his equally sweaty palm.

“It’s hot, eh?”

Boselli jerked as if stung, and then relaxed, his heart still thumping: one of the arcades had been turned into a refreshment room, and the serving man in it was standing in the shadow just inside the doorway, watching him hopefully.

“Yes,” he muttered.

“And it will get maybe just a little hotter.” The man squinted up at the sky. “You want a cool drink, eh?”

Boselli was about to refuse when it occurred to him that so sharp an eye for custom might have intercepted earlier prospects.

He pretended to consider the question. “Pretty quiet today.”

The man nodded. “It is the mezzogiorno, though.”

“I reckon we must be the only ones here,” Boselli surveyed the scene with a dissatisfied sniff, as though it didn’t surprise him now that it was no tourist attraction. “Except for him, at least,” he nodded towards the detective in the distance.

The conflict in the refreshment man’s expression suggested that he was torn between loyalty to Ostia Antica and the proposition that the customer—especially the would-be customer—was always right.

In the end he compromised, as Boselli had hoped he would. “Almost the only ones, signore,” he said.

“You mean there are others here?” That was just the right note of not-quite-polite disbelief: “I haven’t seen anyone.”

“Oh, yes—“ the refreshment man was on his honour now. He stepped out into the sunlight and stared down the Decumano Massimo —“just a few minutes ago there was a foreign couple—a big bull of a man and a woman in a big hat, slender like a model-girl—“

“Well, they seem to have disappeared,” murmured Boselli. “Perhaps they knew where to go—where the best things to see are, eh?”

“But there is much to see, signore!” The refreshment man spread his hands. “Behind here there is the Piazzale delle Corporazioni— they come from all over the world to see the mosaics there—and—“ He stopped suddenly as though it had dawned on him that only a barbarian could have come so far and remained unmoved by his surroundings.

“Where did they go, then, the foreigners,” persisted Boselli, like a man who has had what he believes to be a sharp idea which he intends to pursue to the exclusion of better advice.

The man shrugged, disillusioned. “I think maybe they turned off to the right, to the House of Diana or maybe the Temple of Livia. Or they may have gone to the Museum—but it is closed now.”

Boselli acknowledged the information with a nod as he heard Villari’s footfall on the stair.

But the man was a trier. Even as Boselli turned away from him he called out: “You want for me to get you that drink now, signore?”

Boselli raised a negative hand. He wanted a cool drink, it was true, but it would only make him want to urinate more than he did already —it was that damned drink he had had back at the fountain in the city which was already beginning to discomfort him. Nevertheless— he had made progress, and a good deal more of it than had Villari, who appeared round the corner of the theatre with a face like thunder.

“They went—“

Villari cut him off. “I heard. Come on.”

He strode off, bristling. Not a word of approbation, thought Boselli hotly, panting after him—not even an encouraging look could he manage. It was childish, even allowing for the fact that Villari had always worked alone in the past, but more than that it might soon become positively dangerous and he could not afford to allow it to go on much longer.

A few metres farther on Villari stopped to examine the map again.

But this time Boselli closed up on him and craned over his shoulder.

“The House of Diana—which is that?” he asked. The map was crudely drawn, and although the streets were named the buildings along them were numbered according to a key which was under Villari’s thumb on the far side. “And the Temple of Livia—“

Villari refolded the map just as Boselli had managed to identify a
Via di Diana
, which seemed to run parallel to the main thoroughfare. There was no way of telling from the numbers where any of the actual buildings were.

“Signor Villari, this is ridiculous—“ he began.

“Be quiet!”

It was not the order that stopped Boselli, but the fact that Villari had embarked on a curious sequence of hand signals to the detective ahead of them. But curious or not, the detective seemed to understand what he was trying to convey, for he bobbed his head before starting off again.

“Now—“ Villari turned back to him “—what the devil is the matter?”

Boselli swallowed, then nerved himself. “I cannot—Signor Villari —I cannot continue like this, not knowing what is happening. You do not tell me anything—and you do not show me anything—“ the words foamed out as though a dam had broken “—you ignore me, you treat me like a child! I must insist—“

“Insist?” Villari showed his teeth.

“Yes, signore—insist!” Boselli was desperate now. “If things go wrong—General Montuori spoke to both of us—if things go wrong then I shall be held responsible just as much as you—“

He paused, aware that his voice was rising towards a plaintive squeak.

“If there is nothing for me to do here, then I will return to the city,” he said firmly. “And I will report to the General that you have no use for me.”

As a final statement of intent that was not wholly without dignity, he decided. From the spreading smile on Villari’s face, however, it seemed to lack something as an ultimate threat, though under the face-concealing glasses it was difficult to make out what species of smile it was.

“Then you have a long walk ahead of you,” said Villari equably. “But I have never said I had no use for you—you must have patience, little Boselli. This is a game of patience, you know, is it not?”

“What use am I, then?” Perversely Boselli found the Clotheshorse’s amiability as off-putting as his insolence: it made him wonder whether his real usefulness was not in truth simply as someone to carry half the responsibility for failure. Perhaps he had underrated the man after all. …

“You can put names to faces for me, I’m told. And that’s what we need at the moment, a few more names to add to this Englishman’s. Then we can really get started.” Villari sounded almost friendly now. “Does that answer your question?”

Boselli stared at him wordlessly, conscious once more of the insistent pressure on bis bladder.

“Is there anything else you’d like?” asked Villari.

“I—I—you must excuse me for one moment,” Boselli muttered. “The call of nature—“

He stumbled down the nearest alleyway until he was just out of sight of the main street, fumbling as he went for the zip fastener on his fly. It was partly nerves, of course, as well as nature, but it was also hugely humiliating. Why did people like Villari never,
never
need to do it, though?

He sighed with relief at the little lizard staring at him with bright eyes from a crack in the wall just above his head. To his right he had a part view of a little courtyard with a faded black and white geometric mosaic pavement already half covered by modern detritus. Around it were splintered columns like a line of tree stumps felled by inexpert foresters.