Territorial Rights (18 page)

‘Well, give them the money and let us remain in peace.’

‘With your man cut in two in the garden,’ Curran said.

‘Now we can see the mean side of him,’ Katerina said to Eufemia. ‘Always so courteous, so condescending. Now he’s going to turn on us rather than pay.’

‘Really, we should stick together,’ Curran said. ‘It’s a moral issue. We need courage.’

‘You’ll need more courage than we do,’ said Eufemia. ‘How do we know you didn’t kill Pancev?’

‘You know quite well,’ Curran said, and hurriedly left the place.

Violet, he thought, is the only friend I can share this trouble with. She’s the only person I can count on. It was getting on for evening as he turned into the square of the Santa Maria Formosa. The church was closed. He walked all round it, then suddenly saw the man he was looking for. He recognised, sure enough, the middle-aged man who, with the young woman, had been following Robert and Lina, and who Curran had imagined was some foreign agent trailing Lina. That had been, in fact, when Curran had himself followed the young people about Venice, obsessed as to what his Robert was doing with the girl.

Now, the man, stocky and bald, standing at the side entrance to the church, simply stared at Curran. The man wore a dark blue windjammer. He looked poor in his dress, but his expression was sophisticated, not that of a poor man. He looked at Curran as if the look alone were a message. Curran looked away and walked on into the dusk, increasing his pace as he walked, making up his mind to acquire a gun to protect himself. The newspapers of Italy were fed by continual kidnappings. Curran thought: Why should I be spared? And he thought again, as he made his way across the bridges and down the small alleys, to Violet’s house: If this were a dream, then I would wake abruptly with fear. But it isn’t a dream. A water-taxi arrived at Violet’s landing-stage as Curran came round the narrow footpath that led to it from the streets behind the house. In the lamplight Curran saw a stout, youngish man coming down the steps from the hall and as he entered the motor-boat the man looked at Curran with a smile. Curran didn’t recognise him at all. But then he noticed the man was smiling at the driver and smiling to himself, and, in fact, it was a built-in expression that Curran had noticed, not a smile at all.

Arnold sat opposite Lina at nine o’clock that night at Harry’s Bar. He felt great satisfaction. Mary had put up no opposition to his going out to dine ‘on his own’; in fact, she had positively encouraged him to do so; she wanted an early night herself, she had said, for she felt a cold coming on. Now, Lina, with a snow-white shawl replacing her everyday brown one, was proving to be an excellent companion. He had already told her that he gave her full marks, and as she had misunderstood this compliment ‘What kind of a mark? A mark on my face?’ he had exuberantly explained that she went to the top of the class. ‘Like Mary Tiller?’ she said. ‘Well I give Mary six out of ten.’

He then pointed out that Lina herself got ten out of ten, for which she thanked him, and she toasted him in the last of the champagne.

Arnold said, ‘I bet you can’t spell “psychedelic”.’

To his amazement and joy she not only could spell it but she knew what it meant. He ordered another bottle of champagne.

Lina told him about the impending loss of her grant from the refugee fund: ‘… because they say I don’t suffer and fight. Those dissidents who stay at home are the ones who suffer. What have we here got to suffer about?’

He quite agreed. He unburdened himself on the subject of his wife Anthea until Lina announced that it was past eleven.

‘Must you go home so early?’ Arnold said.

‘Not at all,’ said Lina, and made up her mind triumphantly to a course of action which had been struggling in her thoughts since she had received that telephone message from the unknown woman and those roses with that message also at second hand. She was now full of champagne and courage as she said, ‘I have an idea!’

‘Let’s hear it,’ he said, hopefully.

‘We’ll go for a walk in a garden by moonlight. It’s a beautiful, clear night and we’re alone in Venice, the two of us.’

‘A garden? Won’t that be rather chilly?’

She sipped her champagne. ‘If it’s chilly, Arnold, we’ll run, we’ll dance.’

She laughed a lot as he paid the bill, which itself for a few moments spoiled the smile on Arnold’s face, he being unused to the going rate for champagne at the best restaurants. However, he paid with a half-smile which, when that was done, soon turned eager again.

‘It’s years,’ he said, ‘and years, my dear, since I walked with a lovely lady in a garden. Where is this garden of yours? Is it near your home? Perhaps, afterwards, we could slip indoors. …’

To cool him down a little, as they walked through the alleys she told him the sad story of her father’s death and burial in Venice all those years ago, and how she had looked in vain for his grave. At last they came to the wall that ran along beside the Pensione Sofia, with the canal gleaming by its side. She led him along the footpath till they came to the wooden side-gate. ‘Here’s the garden,’ she said.

The gate was locked. She lifted her skirts and started to climb over. ‘This is the Pensione Sofia, isn’t it?’ said Arnold.

‘That’s right. Don’t worry. The two old ladies have gone to bed. It’s nearly midnight.’ She landed on the other side of the gate. ‘Come on’ she said.

‘I wonder if my old bones can manage. …’ He managed fairly well with the steadying help of her hand. Someone shouted from a barge. Arnold started and looked guiltily over the gate towards the shouter but the shout was evidently meant to carry up the canal to another barge which returned the unintelligible cry.

‘How lovely it is here. Look at the roses,’ Lina said. She was walking up the path towards the dark house with its shuttered windows. Only a few of the guests were still up, faint creaks of light showing between their shutters. The ground floor was in darkness except for a dim light penetrating the back of the long room from the porter’s place.

‘We’re quite alone,’ said Lina, pulling her white shawl about her. The sound of a paddle from a rowing-boat or gondola came from the canal, as if approaching the gate.

Arnold said, ‘This is quite an adventure, I must say.’ He had an overcoat buttoned up. He sniffed in the chilly air and looked up at the stars.

‘I wonder,’ said Lina, ‘if there’s anyone watching us from the house.’ She ran down the path to peer in through the ironwork which protected the large glass door into the house. Arnold followed her. The night porter could not be seen; only the dim light from his room.

They set off again down the path. Suddenly Lina said, ‘Quiet! I can hear someone coming by the canal. Perhaps they’re coming home to the Pensione by the back gate.’

She ran to the wall beside the water-gate, leaving Arnold on the path. The boat paddled gently in to the side of the canal and stopped. ‘Are you there?’ said a woman’s voice in Italian. She answered, in Italian, ‘Yes, it’s me, Lina.’

‘But you’re not alone’

‘No. Why should I be? I’ve got my man with me.’

The voice said, ‘Your friend wants you to dance for him. He wants you to dance in those centre rose-beds, the special enclosed ones. Dance on the far one and then on the near one.’

‘Where is
Roberto
?’

‘Not far away’

‘I want to speak to him.’

She jumped to see over the wall.

She saw a long heavy boat with a makeshift tarpaulin hood at the prow under which someone darkly disappeared with a scurry as Lina’s head bobbed up. A woman in dark trousers with long blonde hair was bending to rest one of the oars. Lina went to the gate to have a better look, but this time the woman was sitting in the boat with a scarf over the lower part of her face.

‘Do as he says,’ the woman muttered from under the scarf, in a way that sounded as if she were impatient with the business.

‘All right. I’ll dance with my man-friend,’ Lina said out loud.

By this time Arnold was beside her, peering at the boat, unable to follow this exchange of Italian. ‘What’s going on?’ he said. ‘Are they guests at the Pensione?’

‘No, they’re just nobodies,’ she said. ‘They’re looking for somewhere to tie up their boat.’ She took his hand and started to guide him back to the path.

‘What are they going to do?’

‘What do you think?’ said Lina. ‘Forget them.’ She started to skip. ‘Do you know, I feel cold and you look cold, Arnold. I’m going to dance. Let’s dance together.’

She jumped right into the nearest hooped enclosure and swung her white shawl wide. ‘Dance?’ he said. ‘Oh, dear,’ he said. But he laughed with delight and stepped over the railing into the magic rose-bed ring. All round the rose-bed they tripped, she flapping her shawl while Arnold took off his scarf and waved it wildly in the air. They jumped a sort of polka-step hand-in-hand, all round the grass surrounding the roses. ‘Now the other side of the path, their other private rose-bed,’ Lina commanded. ‘It’s fun. Only you and I. The two old women will never know.’ She had seen two figures at the landing-stage, crouching, peering through the gate.

Arnold leapt after her to the other rose-bed. ‘What does it matter,’ she cried in Italian, ‘who sees us?’

‘My dear, I don’t follow your Italian. You talk so fluently and I’m slow. But I tell you I’m having the time of my life. Sorry if I’m a bit breathless.’

She began to sing a song in another language strange to him, probably Bulgarian, and danced by herself with her white shawl flying. Arnold followed as best he could. ‘Hooray!’ he cried.

The oars by the water-gate began to splash. Lina stopped to listen and put out her hand to stop Arnold, too. ‘It’s only that couple going away,’ she said.

From the canal came a burst of a man’s laughter. It was a convulsed sound. Then the effort of rowing must have overtaken the man, for his laugh became intermittent as the boat receded down the canal. A woman’s laughter mingled with the man’s, in the distance, before the boat turned the corner.

Lina, too, was laughing, standing on the path, pulling her shawl about her. And Arnold laughed with her.

Those people must have watched us,’ Lina said, and laughed again at the thought.

He said, ‘As well they don’t know us, isn’t it? Well, that was a Venetian adventure, my dear you’ve made my holiday. Golly! As well my wife Anthea can’t see us.’ And he laughed to himself as one who, having been cheated of many things, has in some small way recuperated his loss.

‘H
IS NAME IS
B
.,’ SAID
V
IOLET,
‘so far as I’ve ever known or, I suppose, ever will know. The organisation, as you know, is called GESS which stands for Global-Equip Security Services.’

‘But you sent for him,’ said Curran.

‘No, I did not.’

‘I can’t believe that you did not.’

‘Believe or not believe,’ said Violet. ‘He was annoyed, in fact, that I had not sent for him. I didn’t tell you at the time; it wasn’t important. I had one little job to do: investigate Arnold Leaver and Mary Tiller. When I found out that it was a perfectly banal affair with no prospects I sent back a message to GESS saying just that. I didn’t mention you; I had no reason to. He thinks I should have done.’

‘Mention me? Why?

‘Because you were connected with Arnold Leaver’s son and you are rich, and I knew it.’

‘Violet, I don’t know if I can trust you. What brought him here?’

‘He heard from someone else that you were involved with Robert and that Robert’s missing. Word gets round.’

‘What is he here for? What’s his purpose?’

‘Business.’

‘Violet, you have a sinister side and I’ve always known it. You mean, blackmail.’

‘Persuasion,’ she said, ‘is the phrase he prefers.’

‘Does he know what Robert’s doing to us? Does he know where Robert is?’

‘Yes, he does,’ she said.

‘My God! How did he find that out?’

‘I told him,’ Violet said. ‘And I want you to understand that I’ve acted for the best. GESS are professionals, whereas Robert and the Butcher are amateurs. B. of GESS can put them in their place. He can give us immunity at bargain price.’

‘It’s a trick,’ Curran said. ‘I hate being a wealthy man; I hate it.’

‘Easily remedied,’ Violet said.

‘I suggest,’ said Curran, ‘that you start first. Give away your palazzo. Give away your jewellery. Give—’

‘What palazzo? What jewellery? I’m nothing but a landlady and my jewellery’s in pawn for safekeeping.’

‘Pay Mr B. of GESS the bargain price yourself,’ Curran said. ‘Why should I pay?’

‘Sooner or later,’ she said, ‘you’re going to be kidnapped.’

‘Here in Venice, it wouldn’t be easy.’

‘But somewhere else in the world—’

‘Not necessarily,’ he said. ‘I don’t have regular habits. I’m here, I’m there and I’m everywhere. It’s the people with regular habits who generally get taken.’

‘You don’t have bodyguards.’

‘Bodyguards are a kind of prison. I find this conversation distasteful.’

‘And me,’ said Violet. ‘It’s as if we’ve fallen into a calculated trap.’

‘It’s exactly,’ he said, ‘as if Robert had planned our reactions.’

‘Don’t you detest Robert?’ she said.

‘Perhaps I always did,’ he said.

‘But he’s surprised you.’

‘Yes. Oh, yes. He’s more interesting than I thought. From the objective point of view I’d rather read those notes and letters of his than listen to his wild ideas for theses that he never got down to. I’ve listened for two years, one after the other. From the objective point of view—’

‘How I envy,’ she said, ‘your being rich enough to take an objective point of view in a case where you’re involved.’

‘It’s only because of my money that I’m involved in the first place,’ he said. ‘And, I have to admit, it’s only because of my money that you are involved, and Mary Tiller—’

‘That’s why,’ she said, ‘I confided in B. of GESS. I did it on impulse, and I’m glad. I was stunned when he called here this evening; he had just arrived in Venice and came straight here.’

‘He questioned you about me.’

‘Oh, yes. He knows all about you. He seems to know your very banking secrets. Maybe he doesn’t know everything, but he seems to. He was resentful I hadn’t told him before that I know you.’