The Heart of Hell (16 page)

A few people braved the drizzle, drawn to the harbour wall by curiosity. Miranda, still in her heavy raincoat but stripped of her sailing overalls and down to her shorts, disappeared into a building not far from where they’d tied up.

Della Torre watched the big motor cruiser slip in and out of the mist, waiting. An albino assassin with windows of smoked glass. He wondered if it went for anything less than a million marks. Or maybe dollars. Only people with the most serious pull in government could afford conspicuous wealth like that. How had Grimston gotten hold of it?

The American had them cornered in this deep bay. Šipan wasn’t big. If he couldn’t get off the island, they’d track him down soon enough. Only three hundred or so people, mostly old, lived here. Della Torre knew the island well enough to know there were few places where he could hide for more than a few days. Strumbić’s secret villa, where the other Americans had died not even two months ago, was on the other side.

Miranda came back shortly and hopped into the boat. “We’re going to give that motorboat the slip,” she said.

“How? What?”

“Just do as I say.”

With a practised hand, she rolled the mainsail around the boom and lowered it into the boat. Then for a few minutes she tinkered with a metal collar at the base of the mast.

“Hold this,” she said. “Now, when I say so, help me walk the mast down the length of the boat.”

It didn’t take long to get the long aluminium spar down along the length of the vessel and beyond.

Della Torre wondered whether she might try to hide the boat but realized what a ridiculous notion that was. Then, from behind the shuttered hotel at the end of the bay, a Massey Ferguson tractor appeared, ancient but massive and still robust, towing a long trailer along the harbour wall. He watched it swing around to face the hill that led from the waterfront. And then it reversed down a stone ramp, slowly easing the trailer into the water until it was fully submerged.

“Here’s our ride,” Miranda said, starting up the boat’s engine.

She steered
Gypsy
to the end of the trailer and then, with a burst of speed, drove it onto the middle of its now-submerged bed. The moment she cut the engine, she hopped off the boat onto the edge of the trailer. Working in the water, she fixed a big strap to the boat’s bow and hooked it to a yoke attached to the back of the tractor. And then, hopping off to stand on the harbour wall with della Torre, she watched the tractor pull the boat out of the water.

It was a relatively slow business, but the operation went smoothly. And the moment the boat was out, she said, “Come on,” and they sat on the big mudguards on either side of the driver as he towed the boat along the harbourfront and up the road.

They were partway up the hill when della Torre looked back to see that the motor cruiser had launched a Zodiac
RIB
. He couldn’t see how many people were on board, but he knew they’d land before long.

“Can we go any faster?” were his first words to the tractor driver. He was a farmer, in blue coveralls and a blue rain slicker. His hair was grey and stubbly, and his thin face was heavily creased. He looked a bit like Libero and, like Libero, he smelled of the farmyard, straw and muck.

“This sort of job is lots of wear and tear on a tractor,” the man said.

“I told him you’d pay a hundred dollars to get us to the other end of the island,” Miranda said in English. “This counts as expenses.”

Della Torre was about to protest at the cost. A hundred dollars to cross eight kilometres was outrageous. But it was their only way out. So instead he asked, “Would another ten dollars encourage you to go quicker?”

“Yup.”

“Then for god’s sake, speed up.”

“Oh, I will,” the farmer said. But he kept the tractor at its pace.

Della Torre could hear the
RIB
’s engine echoing in the harbour below. How long before Grimston’s men found a car and overtook them?

“I thought we had a deal to speed up.”

“Oh, we do. When we get to the top of the hill. Then you’ll be asking me to slow down,” the farmer said.

“Don’t worry,” Miranda said, looking back at the town. “Nobody else on the island has any petrol. Your friends might be able to find some bicycles, but even that’ll take them a while.”

The farmer was right. Once they’d climbed over the crest of the low hill overlooking the fishing port, the tractor sped up, propelled in part by the weight of the boat behind.

The single-track road stretched along a shallow green valley that ran the length of the island. They didn’t pass another vehicle on the way. Centuries before, Šipan had been a holiday island for Dubrovnik’s nobility, but now the Renaissance palaces on their once-manicured grounds were ruins, their roofs long gone, their windows hollow-eyed, the stone columns that had held avenues of shading vines reduced to scattered bones protruding from the damp earth.

The trip took no more than half an hour, even at tractor speed. There was no further sign of their pursuers. The village at the other end of the island was smaller than the one they’d arrived in, and more tightly built around a narrow bay. Turning the trailer was tricky in those confined spaces, but the farmer seemed well practised, and in short order he was backing down a little sandy beach and from there into the water, where they refloated the boat. Della Torre paid the man, who shook his head at their madness.

Miranda found a woman at a guest house to feed them sandwiches made with her home-cured ham and a coarse loaf of mixed cornmeal and wheat she’d baked that morning.

Della Torre helped as much as he could to rig the boat again. While Miranda finished the preparations, he smoked a soggy cigarette and gazed at the walls of the harbour’s small, dilapidated castle and their arabesque crenellations — another of Šipan’s forgotten palaces.

“I suppose we should hurry,” he said. “That farmer has probably gone back to collect the people who are after me.”

“He’s not collecting anyone else tonight. Your hundred dollars wasn’t just to get us here. You hired the tractor and trailer for your exclusive use until the morning.”

“You made that arrangement?”

“Yes.”

“He’ll keep to it?”

“He’ll keep to it.”

“How do you know? If the Americans can afford to make use of that big boat, they’ll have enough money to persuade your farmer friend.”

“Because they’ll pay as much tomorrow morning to get their Zodiac across. But even if the farmer does break his promise, the Yugoslavs will shoot at the boat as soon as they hear it. Look around.”

It was only then that he noticed there were no other boats in the harbour.

“This is where the blockade starts,” she said. “Anyone with a boat has already taken it to the other harbour, or it’s been sunk or stolen by the Yugoslav navy.”

“So why won’t they sink us?”

“They might, but we’re not going to be on the water long.” She pointed in the direction of the next island, which was lost in the drizzle. “It’s getting late and we’re not going far. I’d rather have gone in the dark, but we’ll take a risk. We’re not going to motor; they’d pick that up quickly. The rain cuts visibility. By the time anyone notices we’ll be in Lopud . . . I hope.”

As they set off, della Torre could make out a nineteenth-century sea captain’s villa. It was a child’s drawing of a house, a square structure of white stone, two storeys high, with a steep-pitched red-tile roof. The front was symmetrical, with the main entrance in the middle, three windows on each side, and seven above. The building was framed by mature cypresses on either side. Strumbić’s villa now had the look of a tomb.

He could remember it vividly. The fig tree that overhung the rear courtyard. The white stone with its veiny rust-brown stain the colour of old blood. This was the place where his own blood had mingled with those of the dead men, where they’d tied him to the table and suffocated him until he talked. He felt again the thirst, the pain of being beaten while tied to a chair.

Snapshots of that night’s turmoil flickered through his memory. Overturned chairs. Broken glass. The musty animal smell of dried piss. They’d concussed him and he’d wet himself. He had a brief atavistic urge to cross himself, as his grandmother might have done. Though he didn’t believe. Or didn’t think he believed.

Could he really be blamed for bearing false witness, for implicating Strumbić to save himself?

Yes
, he thought.
Yes.

He shook himself into the present. There would be new horrors ahead. There was no reason to dwell on old ones.

THE WIND HAD
turned and was blowing from the east, not hard, not a bora, but cold nonetheless. Della Torre made sure his waterproofs were snug. Even so, he felt the chill in his feet, bare in the big rubber sailing boots.

He thought he heard thunder but realized it was the sound of big guns rolling across the water. A drawn-out beat of short bursts followed by long silences.

Behind him, Šipan faded into the mist and drizzle. He knew it was a short stretch of water between the islands, no more than a couple of kilometres, but to cross it still felt like madness. During breaks in the rain he could see three navy warships.

“Do you think they’ll come after us? The Zodiac, I mean,” he asked.

“They might. It’s a big risk. The
RIB
’s engine is very noisy. But even if they don’t get blown out of the water, they won’t find us.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll see.”

It was a choppy crossing; the current running through the channel between the islands kicked up waves against the easterly wind. Despite his waterproofs, della Torre was soggy, bedraggled. Miranda was also wet, and once or twice he saw her shiver.

They slipped past a small, uninhabited island and were quickly in Lopud’s broad bay. But rather than head into the sheltered harbour, Miranda steered the boat towards a distant stone pier. As she rounded the pier with a deft flick of the tiller, she jumped forward, dropped the sails, and hopped ashore.

She showed him how to stow the sails, and they went through the routine of dropping the mast again. And then she pulled the boat along the shore, where della Torre was surprised to see a narrow inlet sheltered by the canopy of a couple of big pine trees.
Gypsy
fitted snugly into that space, a couple of rubber fenders cushioning her from the rocks.

“Seems a clever place to park,” della Torre said.

“You need to know the island well. None of the locals will tell you to keep your boat here. You don’t have to pay mooring or harbour fees. It also means the Yugoslav navy won’t see it.”

“You seem to know a lot about evading the navy.”

She shrugged. “The only downside to this parking place is that we stay up there.” She pointed to the other side of the harbour, up towards a steep hill that towered over the village. “And it’s a walk through the scrub to get to the road.”

They trudged their way through the gloom and drizzle, carrying what they needed in their holdalls. The little port seemed shuttered, closed off from the wider world. They saw no one, though the smell of woodsmoke told them there was life.

The house was modern, crudely built and unfinished, with iron reinforcing rods poking out from between the first and second storeys, where someone might once have contemplated building a balcony.

The woman who opened the door for them was late-middle-aged, heavy though not fat, her apron-like dress patterned with small flowers.

She clucked at them. “Signora, I wasn’t expecting you.”

Miranda smiled. “I’m sorry, I should have warned you.” The woman crossed herself. “Come in, come in. You and the gentleman will catch a terrible cold. Go to the back room and take off your wet clothes and I’ll light the fire for the bath. It won’t take long to heat the water. And then I’ll try to find something for you to eat.”

They entered, bedraggled and sodden. The woman led them to a concrete-floored back room, where they stripped down to their underwear, too tired and cold to be shy. They wrapped themselves in worn terry cloth bathrobes that were hanging on a peg, della Torre’s not quite reaching his knees.

They waited for a quarter of an hour before the woman came back down.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to leave you freezing here. I just wanted to make sure the water was warm enough,” she said, horrified at how pale they looked. “Up, up.” She pointed to the stairs.

“You go first,” della Torre said miserably.

“Come, I think we can put aside chivalry and embarrassment in the name of thawing out, don’t you, Mr. della Torre?” Miranda said.

“Marko.”

“Marko.”

He followed Miranda up the rough concrete staircase to the bathroom. The room was as basic as the one they’d left. The bathtub was the longest della Torre had ever seen. The hot water source was a tall white-enamelled cylinder tank in the corner of the room, fuelled by a wood fire in the stove built into its base. It was a primitive arrangement, but effective.

Miranda shut the door.

“It’s big enough for two,” she said. “I’m too tired, and I hope you are too, to get any ideas. You take one end, I’ll take the other. Keep your feet to yourself, and we can both get the chill out of our bones.”

Della Torre nodded, unable to think of anything other than soaking in some warmth. And sleep.

The water steamed as it filled the bath, condensation beading on the tile walls. When the water reached sufficient depth and was at a temperature just shy of scalding, Miranda stripped and slipped into the tub, her back to him, showing a modicum of modesty. When she leaned back, he could only just see the pink nipples on her pale white breasts. He followed suit, trying not to care how much the cold and tiredness had shrunk him.

They reclined there, each in their own end, mostly submerged, colour seeping into their cheeks, not touching except when their feet bumped against each other.

They were both too tired to talk. Della Torre lay in water to his chin, steam curling up in the yellow light of the smoking kerosene lantern. As with the other islands, the electricity supply from the mainland had been cut off; local generators provided power to only a few central buildings, and even then for only part of the day.

“We ought to get out before we fall asleep,” della Torre said. But Miranda had already nodded off. The water cooled and he woke her.

They dried themselves with thin towels and dressed with their backs to each other. He regretted not bringing more clothes.

Their hostess had spread out a meal for them in the formal dining room, its heavy, dark Italianate furniture made gloomy by flickering candlelight. She’d prepared schnitzels — a neighbour had slaughtered a pig a few days earlier — and served them with thick ribbon pasta and boiled greens. It was just the sort of food their bodies craved after that long day, and was made more welcome still by the local wine, which was light enough to drink neat. The main course was served with hand-sliced home-cured ham and salami and a local cow’s-milk cheese, which della Torre and Miranda picked at throughout their meal.

The woman sat with them, though she declined to eat. She was happy to have company, happy to have some new people to talk to. Her husband had died of cancer a few years before, and her son lived in Sweden with his Swedish wife. They drove down every summer, all that way, for just a week by the seaside. Now and again she’d interrupt her own monologue to ask, “How are we going to survive?” while dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief that looked like a big doily.

After dinner, she brought them cups of tea made with dried chamomile flowers from her own garden, and a bar of milk chocolate, turned white with age, that both her guests politely refused.

Della Torre lit a cigarette. The warm smoke seeped into his lungs, soothing him. Miranda was visibly drooping over the table; the exhaustion of helming a small boat against a steady wind for most of the day and through the previous night was taking hold. As soon as it was polite, she said she’d like to turn in.

“Signora, I’m so sorry,” the old woman said. “But I have only your room. The furniture I have taken from the upstairs rooms and stored away, in case they drop bombs.”

“Never mind. The room still has a sofa as well as the bed?”

“But of course.”

“Then if we could have some extra sheets and blankets, the room will be sufficient.”

The room was warm. The woman had stoked the green-tiled stove in the corner when they’d arrived. Miranda stripped, pulled on a linen nightshirt, and slipped into the bed. The sofa was all right angles, lumpy, and a fraction too short for della Torre’s frame, but it was as welcome as any he’d ever stretched out on.

“You’re a puzzling person,” he said as she blew out the kerosene lamp, leaving them in total darkness. “Is it really just the money?”

“Goodnight, Mr. della Torre,” she said.

“Goodnight.”

“And thank you for not taking advantage of the situation in the bath,” she said in a tone that precluded any more conversation.

She woke him early the next morning. She was dressed and the blinds were partly drawn, the wooden shutters open slightly. The sun was bright, but there was a chill in the room. The faint smell of coffee pricked his attention.

“Your friends are here,” she said. He sat up sharply and looked out the window in the direction she pointed. The water on the bay shimmered like fish scales. Beyond was a hilly ridge. It took him a while to spot the Zodiac in the harbour.

“How?”

“They must have crossed the channel after us.”

“But I thought the farmer —”

“He must have gotten a good offer.”

“Fuck,” he said. “Have they found the boat?”

“Unlikely.”

“It was unlikely they’d make the crossing in the Zodiac.”

“True,” she said.

“I don’t suppose we could sneak out?”

“Tonight. We’ll have to go in the dark,” she said. “But we would have had to anyway, because of the navy ships.”

“They’ll be looking for us.”

“I know, but there aren’t too many people to ask. The town’s mostly abandoned, and there are plenty of empty houses to search.”

“What about the landlady here?”

“I’ve asked her to say nothing about us if strangers come calling.”

“Will she?”

“She said she’s spending the day up the hill digging her potatoes and harvesting the rest of her beans. She’s got chickens and pigs that also need tending to. It’ll be a long winter and the supplies are pretty uncertain. So it’s us on our own. And if we don’t answer the door, would they really break in?”

“Best we don’t move around the house too much.”

They shuttered the blinds and had a simple breakfast of bread with homemade plum jam and chamomile tea, then settled in to wait out the day in their room.

“I thought I smelled coffee,” della Torre said.

“It’s not on offer.”

Della Torre lay back on the sofa, Lucky in hand, watching the smoke snake, blue in the dim light. Miranda sat patiently, uncannily still, lost in thought.

Sometime in the mid-morning they heard a knock on the door. Della Torre slipped onto the floor, out of sight of the window, and pulled the Beretta out of his bag, priming it with a pull on the slide.

They heard whoever it was crunch across the gravel, trying to look in. The shutter was latched from the inside; the man on the other side made only a cursory effort to pull it open.

They heard him walk back down the path, no doubt to try the house next door. Depending on how many people were searching, it would take most of the day to check all the houses on the island.

Della Torre and Miranda stayed quiet for a long time. Even their breath was inaudible.

Miranda broke the silence. “Would you have shot him?”

“Maybe,” della Torre said.

“You’re playing a dangerous game. For a while I thought you were going to Dubrovnik to get somebody out. But now I’m wondering whether you’re going there to get away.”

“Does it matter?”

“You mean, because I’m being paid?” Without waiting for the answer, she said, “No, it doesn’t matter.”

He was silent for a while, scrutinizing her in the dimness of the room. She wasn’t what passed for beautiful to most people, but she was striking, with her symmetrical, elegant features and self-possession. And she had that hard-as-nails quality della Torre had observed before.

“You’ve got me stumped, Ms. Walker. I keep wondering whether you’re really that broke, or if you’re one of those suicidal types who don’t care about themselves, or if you’re just crazy. And I can’t really believe you’re any of those things.”

“What about you?” she asked.

“I’m not sure.”

“Except you’ve got to get to Dubrovnik.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, why don’t we keep it to that simple transaction, Mr. della Torre. And you don’t need to worry about me.”

He was glad they’d been exhausted in the bath, because he’d have been tempted. And he knew he would have been rebuffed in the most direct and unequivocal manner. No gentle letdown, no coquettishness, no half-flattery or suggestion that at another time, under different circumstances . . .

He put the gun down on the floor next to him, lit a cigarette, and waited for the day to tick by.

Their hostess came back for lunch. “A couple of men came asking if I’d seen you,” she said. “They described you. I told them you don’t see many strangers about these days. A neighbour told them I’d gone up to my vegetable garden.”

“What language did they speak?” della Torre asked.

“Croatian, of course. What language did you think they would speak?”

“What did they look like?”

“The one who talked was tall, the other one wasn’t so tall. Middle-aged. The quiet one dressed like a German.” She shrugged. “Before this war you couldn’t move for the tourists in the summer, all sorts. Even at this time of year. My house would be full all summer with foreigners and people from all over our country. An honest person could make a living. What will happen to us now? I’ll have to go. The radio says boats are coming to rescue us. But where can I go? My daughter-in-law won’t have me in Sweden. What’s to happen to us?”