His first real need was obviously a change of clothes, and he hurried through the fog toward his hotel. After that, a visit to Orsini at the Tabu and perhaps a return match with Adem Kapo and his thugs, although it was more than probable that the Stromboli was already being prepared for a hasty exit.

The electric sign over the entrance to the hotel loomed out of the night and he opened the door and moved inside. The desk was vacant, no one apparently on duty, and he went up the stairs two at a time and turned along the corridor.

The door to his room stood open, panels smashed and splintered, and a light was still burning. A chair lay on its side in the middle of the floor and the blankets were scattered over the end of the bed as if there had been a struggle. He stood there for a moment, his stomach suddenly hollow, then turned and hurried back downstairs.

He noticed the foot protruding from behind the desk as he moved to the door and there was a slight, audible groan of pain. When he looked over the top, he saw the old proprietor lying on his face, blood matting the white hair at the back of the head.

SEVEN

THE LANDING STAGE WAS DESERTED when Chavasse, Orsini and Carlo drove up in the old Ford pickup. The big Italian cut the engine, jumped to the ground and went to the head of the steps.

He turned, shaking his head. “We’re wasting our time, Paul, but we’ll check the house just in case.”

They went down the steps quickly and crossed the landing stage to the door. It opened without difficulty and Chavasse went up first, an old Colt automatic Orsini had given him held against his right knee.

The door to the room in which Kapo had interviewed him stood ajar, light streaming out across the dark landing. Chavasse kicked it open and waited, but there was no reply. He went in quickly at ground level, the automatic ready.

Vodka from the smashed bottle had soaked into the floor mixed with blood and the table still lay on its side. Fog billowed in through the broken window and Orsini walked across, feet crunching on glass, and peered outside.

He turned, respect on his face. “A long way down.”

“I didn’t have a great deal of choice. What do we do now?”

The Italian shrugged. “Go back to the Tabu. Maybe old Gilberto’s remembered something by now.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Chavasse said. “That was a hard knock he took.”

“Then we’ll have to think of something else.”

They returned to the pickup and Carlo drove back to the Tabu through the deserted streets. As the truck braked to a halt, Chavasse checked his watch and saw that it was almost half past two. He jumped to the ground and followed the two Italians along the alley to the side door.

There were still a few customers in the bar at the front and, as they walked along the passage, the barman looked round the corner.

“Rome on the phone. They’re hanging on.”

“That’ll be my call to the Bureau,” Chavasse said to Orsini. “I’ll see what they’ve got to tell me about Kapo.”

“I’ll have another word with old Gilberto,” Orsini said. “He may be thinking a little straighter by now.”

Chavasse took his call in the small office at the back of the bar. The man he spoke to was the night duty officer based at the Embassy. No one of any particular importance. Just a good reliable civil servant who knew what files were for and how to use them efficiently.

He had nothing on Kapo that Chavasse didn’t already know. Incredibly, everything the man had said about himself was true. At one time a high official in the Albanian Ministry of the Interior, he had been marked down for elimination in 1958 during one of Hoxha’s earlier purges. He had been allowed to enter Italy as a political refugee and had since lived in Taranto earning a living as an import-export agent. Presumably on the basis that an Albanian of any description was preferable to a foreigner, Alb-Tourist had appointed him their Taranto agent in 1963. An official investigation by Italian Military Intelligence in that year had indicated nothing sinister in the appointment.

Chavasse thanked the duty officer. No, it was nothing of any importance. He’d simply run across Kapo in Matano and had thought him worth checking on.

AT THE OTHER END OF THE WIRE IN HIS small office in Rome, the duty officer replaced the receiver with a thoughtful frown. Almost immediately, he picked it up again and put a call through to Bureau headquarters in London on the special line.

It could be nothing, but Chavasse was a topliner – everyone in the organization knew that. If by any remote chance he was up to anything and the Chief didn’t know about it, heads might start to roll and the duty officer hadn’t the slightest intention of allowing his own to be numbered among them.

The telephone on his desk buzzed sharply five minutes later and he lifted it at once. “Hello, sir… yes, that’s right… well, there may be nothing in it, but I thought you’d like to know that I’ve just had a rather interesting call from Paul Chavasse in Matano…”

OLD GILBERTO COUGHED AS THE BRANDY caught at the back of his throat and grinned wryly at Orsini. “I must be getting old, Guilio. Never heard a dammed thing. It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes after Carlo had delivered the young woman. One moment I was reading a magazine, the next, the lights were going out.” He raised a gnarled and scarred fist. “Old I may be, but I’d still like five minutes on my own with that fancy bastard, whoever he is.”

Orsini grinned and patted him on the shoulder. “You’d murder him, Gilberto. Nothing like a bit of science to have these young toughies running around in circles.”

They went out into the passage, leaving the old man sitting at the fire, a blanket around his shoulders. “A good heavyweight in his day,” Orsini said. “One with the sense to get out before they scrambled his brains. Anything from Rome?”

Chavasse shook his head. “Everything Kapo said about himself was true. He is the Alb-Tourist agent in Taranto, an old Party man from Tirana who said the wrong thing once too often and only got out by the skin of his teeth. According to Italian Intelligence he’s harmless, and they usually know what they’re talking about.”

“That’s what MI5 said about Fuchs and look where it got them,” Orsini pointed out. “Nobody’s perfect and the good agent is the man who manages to pull the wool over the eyes of the opposition most effectively.”

“Which doesn’t get us anywhere,” Chavasse said. “They’ve gone, which is all that counts, taking Francesca Minetti with them.”

They went into the office at the rear of the bar and Orsini produced a bottle of whisky and three glasses. He filled them, a slight thoughtful frown on his face.

“Whoever took the girl, it couldn’t have been Kapo and his men – the time factor wouldn’t have allowed it. The men who attacked her on the jetty earlier – what can you tell me about them?”

“Judging by the language the second one used when he tried to stick his knife into me, I’d say he was Italian,” Chavasse said. “Straight out of the Taranto gutter.”

“Anything else interesting about him?”

“He had a dark beard, anything but the trimmed variety, and his face was badly scarred. A sort of hook shape curving into his right eye.”

Orsini let out a great bellow of laughter and clapped him on the shoulder. “But my dear Paul, this is wonderful.”

“You mean you know him?”

“Do I know him?” Orsini turned to Carlo. “Tell him about our good friend Toto.”

“He works for a man called Vacelli,” Carlo said. “A real bad one. Runs a couple of fishing boats out of here, engaged in the Albanian trade, the town brothel and a café in the old quarter.” He spat vigorously. “A pig.”