“What did the central government intend to do?”

“Destroy the shrine, seize the statue and burn it publicly in the main square at Scutari. The Franciscan fathers were warned and managed to spirit the Madonna away on the very day the authorities were going to act.”

“Where is it now?”

“Somewhere in the Buene Marshes at the bottom of a lagoon in my brother’s launch.”

“What happened?”

“It’s easily told.” She shrugged. “My brother, Marco, was interested in a society of Albanian refugees living in Taranto. One of them, a man called Ramiz, got word about the Madonna through a cousin living in Albania at Tama. That’s a small town on the river ten miles inland.”

“And this society decided to go in and bring her out?”

“The Black Madonna is no ordinary statue, Paul,” she said seriously. “She symbolizes all the hope that’s left for Albania in a hard world. They realized what a tremendous psychological effect it would have upon the morale of Albanians everywhere if it were made public in the Italian press that the statue had reached Italy in safety.”

“And you went in with them? With Marco?”

“It’s an easy passage and the Albanian navy is extremely weak, so getting into the marshes is no problem. We picked up the statue at a prearranged spot on the first night. Unfortunately, we ran into a patrol boat next morning on the way out. There was some shooting and the launch was badly damaged. She sank in a small lagoon and we took to the rubber dinghy. They hunted us for most of the day. Marco was shot toward evening. I didn’t want to leave his body, but we didn’t have much choice. Later that night, we reached the coast and Ramiz stole a small sailing boat. That’s how we got back.”

“And where is this man Ramiz now?” Chavasse asked.

“Somewhere in Matano. He telephoned me in Rome yesterday and told me to meet him at a hotel on the waterfront. You see, he’s managed to get hold of a launch.”

Chavasse stared at her, an incredulous frown on his face. “Are you trying to tell me you intend to go back into those damned marshes?”

“That was the general idea.”

“Just the two of you, you and Ramiz?” He shook his head. “You wouldn’t last five minutes.”

“Perhaps not, but it’s worth a try.” He started to protest but she raised a hand. “I’m not going to spend the rest of my life living with the thought that my brother died for nothing when I could at least have tried to do something about it. The Minettis are a proud family, Paul. We take care of our dead. I know what Marco would have done and I am the only one left to do it.”

She sat there, her face very pale in the lamplight. Chavasse took her hands, reached across and kissed her gently on the mouth.

“This lagoon where the launch sank, you know where it is?”

She nodded, frowning slightly. “Why?”

He grinned. “You surely didn’t think I’d let you go in on your own?”

There was a look of complete bewilderment on her face. “But why, Paul? Give me one good reason why you should risk your life for me?”

“Let’s just say I’m bored stiff after a week of lazing around on the beach and leave it at that. This man Ramiz, you’ve got his address?”

She took a scrap of paper from her handbag and handed it to him. “I don’t think it’s far from here.”

He slipped it into his pocket. “Right, let’s get going.”

“To see Ramiz?”

He shook his head. “That comes later. First we’ll call on a good friend of mine, the kind of friend you need for a job like this. Someone with no scruples, who knows the Albanian coast like the back of his hand and runs the fastest boat in the Adriatic.”

At the door, she turned, looked up at him searchingly. Something glowed in her eyes and color flooded her cheeks. Quite suddenly, she seemed confident, sure of herself again.

“It’s going to be all right, angel. I promise you.”

He raised her hand briefly to his lips, opened the door and gently pushed her into the corridor.

FIVE

THE AIR IN THE ROOM WAS STILL HEAVILY tainted by cigarette smoke, but the card players had gone. In the light of the shaded lamp, a British Admiralty chart of the Drin Gulf area of the Albanian coast was unfolded across the table. Chavasse and Orsini leaned over it and Francesca sat beside them.

“The Buene River runs down to the coast from Lake Scutari, or Shkoder, as they call it these days,” Orsini said.

“What about these coastal marshes? Are they as bad as Francesca says?”

Orsini nodded. “One hell of a place. A maze of narrow channels, saltwater lagoons and malaria-infested swamps. Unless you knew where to look, you could search for a year for that launch and never find it.”

“Anyone living there?”

“A few fishermen and wildfowlers, mainly geghs. The Reds haven’t done too well in those parts. The whole area’s always been a sort of refuge for people on the run.”

“You know it well?”

Orsini grinned. “I’d say I’ve made the run into those marshes at least half a dozen times this year. Penicillin, sulphonamide, guns, nylons. There’s a lot of money to be made and the Albanian navy can’t do much to stop it.”

“Still a risky business, though.”

“For amateurs, anything is risky.” Orsini turned to Francesca. “This man Ramiz, what did he do for a living?”

“He was an artist. I believe he did most of his sailing at weekends.”

Orsini looked at the ceiling and raised his hands helplessly. “My God, what a setup. That he got you back safely to Italy is a miracle, signorina.”

The door opened and Carlo came in carrying cups on a tray. He handed them round and Chavasse sipped hot coffee. He frowned down at the map, following the main channel, then turned to Francesca.

“You say you know where the launch went down. How can you be sure? These lagoons all look the same.”

“Marco took a cross bearing just before we sank,” she said. “I memorized it.”

Orsini pushed a piece of paper and a pencil across and she quickly wrote the figures down. He examined them with a slight frown and then calculated the position. He drew a circle round the central point.

“X marks the spot.”

Chavasse examined it quickly. “About five miles in. Another three or four to this place Tama. What’s it like there?”

“Used to be quite a thriving little river port years ago, but it’s gone down the slot in a big way since the trouble started between Albania and the satellite countries.” Orsini traced a finger along the line of the river. “The Buene forms part of the boundary between Albania and Yugoslavia. Most of the main stream’s been allowed to silt up. That means you have to know the estuary and delta region well to get as far inland as Tama.”

“But could you get us there?”

Orsini turned to Carlo. “What do you think?”

“We’ve never had any trouble before. Why should we now?”

“The pitcher can go to the well too often,” Francesca observed softly.

Orsini shrugged. “For all men, death makes the last appointment. He chooses his own time.”

“That only leaves the question of the price to be settled,” Chavasse said.

“No problem there,” Francesca put in quickly.

“Signorina, please.” Orsini took her hand and touched it to his lips. “This thing I will do because I want to and for no other reason.”

She seemed close to tears and Chavasse interrupted quickly. “One thing I’m not happy about is Ramiz. Are you sure it was his voice on the telephone?”

She nodded. “He came from the province of Vlore. They have a distinctive accent. I’m sure it was him.”

Chavasse decided that it didn’t look too good for Ramiz. Quite obviously the sigurmi had traced them with no difficulty. Maybe they’d recovered Marco Minetti’s body, or what was more probable, had got their hands on the people who had passed on the Madonna in Albania itself. Each man had his limits, his specific tolerance to pain. Once past that point, most would babble all they knew before dying.