The Memory Trap (10 page)

Then the taxi began to nose its way through the crowd.

Mitchell wasn’t stupid, of course: his last shot had been a bull, right in the centre of the target. And his previous shot had been an inner, too close to the bull for comfort maybe.

But then he had been on-target all along, towards the end of the exchange: the whole thing had been a cock-up, from start to now, from London-and-Berlin to London-and-Capri—

There was a map in a plastic folder, prudently attached to a piece of string, on the back seat. And, translating kilometres into miles, Capri wasn’t very big, mercifully.

‘Villa Jovis?’ He inquired politely.

The taxi-driver shrugged. “
Piazza
, signor.’

Audley found the
Piazza
on the map. Cuccaro had said it was
“
a long walk
”
to the ruins, hadn
’
t he? But it was no more than a mile-and-a-bit, maybe even less. And distances on land always confused naval men.

Or had it been Mitchell who had said that? But it didn’t matter, anyway. Because he no longer wanted to think about either Mitchell or Cuccaro—

He paid the driver off eventually, with what seemed a lot of Mitchell’s Monopoly-money. But presumably the clock had been ticking down there, in the Marina Grande, far below.

It was no good looking around: he wouldn’t spot anyone if he’d miscalculated, or if Mitchell hadn’t held Cuccaro. And it wasn’t because the place was too crowded, the narrow streets and tiny squares, because they weren’t and it wasn’t—not this late in the season, and in the middle of the day—the
mezzogiorno
so beloved of all Mediterranean peoples (and maybe Richardson had calculated that, too?). It was, simply, that he was in the middle of his own calculated risk now, so that there was no one he would know, friend or foe, to be able to spot, in any case.

Except Peter himself. And it was Peter’s job to spot him now, not the other way round.

Peter Richardson
—

The truth was that he hadn’t really known the man very well, all those years ago, whatever Butler and everyone else might think from the record, either from what Fred Clinton might have chosen to add to it by way of footnotes, or because of his established reputation for never-forgetting. But he could feel his memory expanding under pressure (as it always did) … and he knew more now, of course—however surprising Cuccaro’s information had been—

Mitchell had said it would be a long walk. But that hadn’t meant anything: he could walk anyone off their feet, any time. And it was a small island, with small (but mercifully well-signposted!) paths directing him to the Villa Jovis, with anything like an actual road soon left far behind—narrow paths winding among desirable holiday residences tucked behind walls and gardens, or separated by tiny hillside vineyards—But it
was
a long walk, by God!

Maybe not surprising, at that … Or, trying to imagine Richardson short of cash was the first challenge: with Peter the money had always been evident if not just short of flashy—not just the always-new car (and the always new, but never serious, girl), but also the throwaway asides (that first time he had known more about Cheltenham racecourse than Cheltenham GCHQ). And it had been old money too, everyone had assumed (of the sort old Fred Clinton notoriously preferred in his recruits): old blue-blooded maternal money, derived from the legendary
principessa
and her
palazzo
inheritance. Fred had been almost as happy with that as with the alpha-plus results from the aptitude tests … although, as it had transpired, someone had blundered there too, in not discerning that there had been no true inclination towards scholarship, let alone the happy drudgery of research, to go with those special aptitudes—

There were blue flowers here, trailing in wild profusion in an overgrown hedge beside a vineyard, with the harbour below like a mill-pond full of toy boats. But in fact … they weren’t flowers at all: they were weeds—he could remember them from the distant past of long-ago Italian holidays, festooning the farm hedgerows on the approaches to Paestum. And they had stirred his pale Protestant English gardener’s soul with a curious mixture of admiration and envy and disapproval then, that mere weeds could be so spectacular: weeds were entitled to be both rare and beautiful, but had no right to be so outrageously colourful. But then, of course, they had been
Italian
weeds—

Richardson was half-Italian, that was what he must take account of. And wasn’t it always said of Anglo-Italians that they could be the very devil?

He was getting close to the Villa Jovis now: he could even make out what might be the ruins among the trees on the skyline, surmounted by the statue of Tiberius which he had first seen from far below. And the landscape around him had changed: he had left the cosy holiday homes, with their gardens, behind him. Now there was only one path under the shoulder of the ridge, with secluded houses hidden among the trees on his right and a rock-strewn hillside on his left. And no more blue flowers: the hillside was spotted with what looked like English buttercups among the boulders.

He stopped trying to make excuses for Peter Richardson. Very devil or not, the man had made devilish complications out of what should have been a simple mission—made them with his smuggling enterprise, certainly; but, had he become involved in more than that?

He stopped for a moment, as another fact registered: in all this long walk in the sun he hadn’t passed anyone, either going up or going down, since he had left the lowest region of shops and hotels. But now there were two people coming towards him … and … there was no one at all behind him.

He took them in with another glance, and then admired the view again. They were just boy-and-girl, dressed in uni-sex sweat-shirt and very short shorts, the girl with a camera bouncing between her little no-bra breasts, the boy with an old haversack hanging on his shoulder, from which a bottle-top protruded.

As they passed him, he smiled at them. And got an answering smile from the girl, and a blank look from the boy.

But now there was someone else coming down. And still no one behind him, coming up—

This was the only way up: this was the way the old Emperor Tiberius must have come up to his great marble palace on the island where he’d spent so many years, from which he’d ruled his empire in those first
Anno Domini
years … and, for sure, every plunderer and invader afterwards had come the same way, to that look-out point up there—from Arabs and Normans and Spaniards, to Napoleon’s Frenchmen and the sweating British redcoats who had also bid for possession—to reduce his palace to rubble between them all.

But now it was Peter Richardson’s territory. And, by design and from experience, he appeared to have calculated exactly that there would be no throngs of tourists here at midday in late October, so that the sorting of possible goats from undoubted sheep would be thereby simplified.

After youth came age: this time it was an ancient black-garbed Caprese grandmother, with thick bowed legs and a wicker basket over her arm. And she didn’t react to his smile, either: she didn’t even look at him.

The last lap was among pine trees, which led him to the guardian’s ticket-office, which appeared to be combined with a grubby little cafe.

Eventually a somnolent guardian materialized at the window.

‘Uno?’ He regarded Audley incuriously for a moment, then peered round into the emptiness as though to reassure himself that, if there was one idiot abroad when all sensible people were eating, drinking and resting, there weren’t others trying to slip past behind him.

‘Yes—si.’ Audley was aware suddenly that his mouth was dry—that, in fact, he was extremely thirsty. ‘Uno—ah—una bottiglia di birra, per favore?’

The guardian sighed, and then wearily indicated the dirty white tables on the terrace of the cafe.

At least it wasn’t like Berlin, thought Audley. Neither Richardson nor anyone else awaited him on the terrace, it was reassuringly empty of both
Mafiosi
and Arabs as well as tourists,
bona fide
or otherwise. Which was just as well, because it was otherwise an altogether most suitable place for an asassination, with a sheer cliff offering convenient disposal of the body simultaneously: wasn’t that how old Tiberius was said to have got rid of those who had offended him?

He sipped his beer gratefully, peering over the cliff down to the wrinkled blue sea far below. Somehow, and in spite of everything, he felt reassured himself, that he had calculated correctly. Or, rather, that Richardson had got it right, after all these years, in remembering that the two preferable extremes for any rendezvous were, respectively, crowds (where there might be safety in numbers, if nothing else!) or solitary places (where anyone who had no very good cause to be there stuck out like a sore thumb—as he himself did now), in spite of …

He took another sip. And then found, to his chagrin, that two English sips almost equalled one Italian
bottiglia
, effectively.

But … actually, it was possible that Richardson had got it more than right, with any luck at all. Because, in any perfectly reasonable analysis of the events, it was like old Fred always said: that the elements of any situation were seldom neatly inter-locking, with everyone (on each side—or, often, on more than two sides) pursuing related objectives.

He drained the last drops of
birra
, and added his glass to the detritus of the table’s previous occupants.

If it was like that now—
if
…
it was at least reasonably likely that whoever had been gunning for
Audley
and (apparently)
Kulik
in Berlin, might not know about Peter Richardson
’
s private problems (about which even the Italians themselves hadn
’
t known until very recently) in Italy. In which happy case Richardson
’
s present
“
unavailability
”
might have equally caught
them
—
whoever?
—
by surprise
…
as it had also caught the British and Italians
…
and the
Mafia
too
—
?

But now he was making pictures. And even pictures of pictures, maybe?

But now it was time to find out, anyway!

It was like a labyrinth, just as Cuccaro had said—

But a labyrinth on different levels (not like a two-dimensional garden maze of evergreen hedges, in the English style: it was a labyrinthine maze of ruins in brick and stone on different levels … brick and stone from which the painted wall-plaster had long fallen away, and the marble had long been plundered and crushed for the lime-kilns of the ignorant plunderers).

Instinctively, he climbed
up
, away from the trees at the lower levels: he was here to be seen … either immediately, from some higher level, if Richardson was already here … or (which was much more likely) to be followed from behind, if Richardson had watched him pass from some safe vantage along the way, among the gardens and vineyards and walled houses.

What was it that they shared, from the old days? Or
…
if they didn
’
t share it (as he increasingly suspected; because, if they
’
d shared it
…
then why had he no slightest clue to what it might be
—
?)
…
no, if they didn
’
t share it
…
what had Fred Clinton given Peter Richardson to do, about which David Audley had had no inkling
…
but which was a good and sufficient reason for David Audley and the man Kulik to die, in Berlin
—
?

He reached the statue at last, coming out on the highest point—on to a wide stretch of gravel low-walled on its cliff-side and with white ornamental railings above the tiers of ruins on the island-side, with the whole of Capri beyond, and an ugly little chapel at his back. But it wasn’t a statue of the Emperor Tiberius at all, presiding over the tremendous wreck of his palace, as it ought to have been by right and by reason. He’d been quite wrong in his assumption—

Wrong?

Even as he frowned up at the statue he was aware that he wasn’t alone on the top of the Villa Jovis (and, if he’d thought more about it, he’d have placed Jupiter himself up there, if not Tiberius. But he would have been wrong there, too, wouldn’t he!)

Wrong!

So now there were two men away to his left, over by the railings, admiring their view of Capri from peak to peak.

But … two men in suits?
(
“
That won
’
t do,”
Mitchell had said.)

But, anyway, neither of them was Peter Richardson—

He realized, as he stared at them, that one of them was returning his stare: a stocky, almost chunky, man. Whereas the other man was still admiring the view, quite unconcerned. But then he moved slightly, away from his chunky friend, no more than two or three steps, running his hand along the top rail lightly as he did so, yet still not turning full-face towards Audley.

But those steps were enough, even without full-face. Even the steps weren’t necessary. What was necessary now was to decide what he himself was going to do. Except that decision predicated choice. And he really didn’t have any choice now.

He walked towards the railings, listening to the sound of his shoes on the gravel, crunch by crunch, and not looking at the chunky man any more.

‘Beautiful view.’ This close his last hope evaporated. But it had never really been a hope, anyway. Because, with some people, recognition had to be face-to-face (and, anyway, he wasn’t good with faces). But with others it was how they stood that was unforgettable, with each part of their weight always distributed ready for action, even when they were at rest.