Fault Line - Retail (19 page)

‘If you already—’

‘I need an example, OK? I need it for comparison. It shouldn’t be too difficult. You’re under the same bloody roof as her. I’ll give you forty-eight hours. Meet me here at noon the day after tomorrow. Then we’ll trade.’

‘Well, I—’

‘This is the only chance you’ll get to find out the truth, sonny. Are you going to sit there and tell me you’re not interested? Well, are you?’

No. I wasn’t.

Vivien’s reaction was in a sense what I’d feared. Her determination to discover what had led to her brother’s death was rekindled – and with it her suspicion that their great-uncle was somehow responsible.

‘Strake could be stringing us along,’ I cautioned. ‘Remember, we have no idea why he wants a sample of Luisa’s handwriting.’

‘But we can find out, can’t we? Before we hand it over. We have to do this, Jonathan. Creep though Strake is, he’s our best hope of uncovering the truth.’

‘You make it sound simple.’

‘It is. I’ll ask Luisa to write me out the recipe for that apple cake you liked so much. I’ll say I want it to send to Mother. That’ll please Luisa. She’d like Mother to think better of her than she does.’

Vivien seemed to have fixed on a solution almost before I’d finished outlining the problem. There was a gleam in her eye and an eagerness in her voice I didn’t like. We were playing fast and loose with other people’s secrets without any idea of what those secrets actually were – or what the consequences of their exposure might be. ‘There could be another way,’ I said lamely. ‘If I told Francis what Strake said, he—’

‘No. We can’t breathe a word about Strake to Uncle Francis. Or anyone else. This has to stay between us. Don’t you see, Jonathan? This is our opportunity to achieve what we came here for.’

What
she’d
come here for, I wanted to say. I’d come for quite a different reason. ‘We must be careful, Vivien. We don’t know what game Strake’s really playing.’

‘If he gives us what we want, it doesn’t matter.’

But it did. I felt sure of that. It mattered a lot. ‘I still—’

‘Hush.’ She silenced me with a kiss. ‘You worry too much. This is going to work. I know it is.’

SIXTEEN

I FELT INCREASINGLY
anxious as the forty-eight hours Strake had allotted slowly unwound. The unknown and the unpredicted jostled disturbingly in my thoughts. Vivien continued to insist there was nothing to be alarmed about. We had Strake where we wanted him, not the other way round.

She exploited my infatuation with her to quench my fears. I realized what she was doing, but hadn’t the will or the wish to resist. She let me do things to her I didn’t even know I wanted to do until the pleasure of them had exploded in my mind. Then I was her prisoner and she was my plaything. It was a dangerous path to tread. And her readiness to tread it should have been a warning to me.

Obtaining a sample of Luisa’s handwriting was, as Vivien had predicted, a simple matter. The apple cake ploy worked perfectly. In the fond hope of ingratiating herself with her stand-offish niece-in-law, Luisa obligingly wrote out the recipe for her
torta di mele
and even went so far as to supply the details of a variant using pears instead of apples. It ran to two and half pages in the end.

So, we had what we needed. Now it was only a question of using it to extract the truth from Strake. Though how we could be sure whatever he told us
was
the truth was another concern of mine Vivien didn’t share. We were both going to meet him this time. And she seemed confident she’d be more than a match for him. ‘He may talk big, but that’s just an act. He’s a spineless little shit. We won’t have any trouble with Gordon Strake.’

That remained to be seen. Meanwhile, there was minor trouble, though nothing we couldn’t cope with, from a different source. Paolo spotted signs of Strake’s second intrusion: mortar dislodged from the wall, more trampling of the shrubbery. We assured him nothing had happened while they’d been in Naples, an assurance he met with sullen scepticism. But his employers’ insouciance left him without a leg to stand on. Francis and Luisa remained resolutely unflustered.

Perhaps suspiciously so. It seemed to me they were determined to close their minds to the very idea that somebody had tried to break into the villa. And I couldn’t help wondering if that was because they knew what it might portend.

I stayed up late with Francis over brandy and a cigar the night before Vivien and I were due to meet Strake. I told Vivien later that Francis had been so eager for my company I hadn’t liked to disappoint him. But that wasn’t true. I wanted to talk to him. Maybe I couldn’t tell him about the deal I’d struck with Strake. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t discuss Strake with him. Whatever Vivien said, I was convinced we needed to know more about the man. And Francis might just be the man to enlighten me.

It wasn’t difficult to lure the old soldier on to the subject of his wartime experiences. He’d had a lively time of it with the Eighth Army, though he was happy to admit his involvement in the great battles of El Alamein and Cassino was hardly central. ‘The powers that be thought because I could read Latin I could speak modern Italian, so, after the landings in Sicily, I was transferred to intelligence duties: liaising with the locals and so forth. Sometimes that work was great fun, sometimes dull as bloody ditch-water, but it was seldom dangerous. I got off lightly, my boy. Otherwise I’d probably never have lasted the course from Alexandria in May forty-one through to Venice four years later. Too many bullets to dodge, what?’

This was my chance to steer the conversation towards Strake. ‘When I met Gordon Strake last summer, he said he’d assisted you on what he called special duties. He made it sound … hush-hush.’

‘The fellow’s exaggerating. Where was it you met him? The General Wolfe, didn’t you say? Well, put a drink in Strake’s hand and an unvarnished account of himself isn’t what you’ll get. He was my driver for the last six months or so of the campaign. There were a few … sensitive situations. But hush-hush is pushing it.’

‘Sounds exciting, even so.’

‘Not really. The trickiest time was actually after the war ended. Venice was a wonderful place to celebrate the ceasefire, let me tell you. Not too many people can say they’ve driven a Jeep round St Mark’s Square, but Strake can. I was sitting beside him swigging champagne. We were in a procession of Jeeps, as a matter of fact. Within a week, though, most of the Eighth Army had been moved up into Austria to police the border with Yugoslavia. I was part of a Field Army detachment left behind to mop up German fugitives and try to keep a lid on Partisan reprisals against collaborators and Mussolini loyalists. Not easy, not easy at all. Strake made himself quite useful, actually. He had a way of ferreting out information that had eluded everyone else. Not sure what his secret was. A devious mind, probably.’

‘Did Strake ever meet Luisa?’

Francis gave me a baffled look. ‘Luisa? Of course not. I didn’t meet her myself until I’d quit Wren’s and come back to Italy in forty-nine.’

‘Ah, yes, of course.’

‘You seem to have a bee in your bonnet about Strake, young Jonathan. Why are you so interested in him?’

‘Oh …’ I had to backtrack now. I couldn’t afford to arouse his suspicions. ‘No particular reason. I just … didn’t get the feeling he was telling me as much as he could have … about Oliver.’

‘Poor Oliver should never have had anything to do with Strake. The man had his uses, as I say, but I wouldn’t trust him further than I could throw him.’

‘Yet you took him on at Wren’s.’

‘Before becoming my driver, he’d been in the front line. He’d risked his life for his country, whatever one cares to say about his character. So, I couldn’t just turn him away, though maybe I should
have.
Maybe I would have, if I’d known what he was going to get up to eventually. But we can only see the future when it’s turned into the past. And what use is it then, eh? You don’t know it yet, my boy, but life’s too short for regrets. Take it from me. Far too short.’

So, Francis told me nothing except what I already knew: Strake wasn’t to be trusted. But as Vivien saw it, and as I tried my level best to see it as well, we didn’t have to trust him. We just had to use him.

There was no sign of Strake when we walked into the Bar Due Mare shortly before noon. We bought a couple of Cokes, sat down and lit cigarettes. I felt nervous and uncertain. But Vivien remained serenely confident. ‘Leave this to me, Jonathan,’ she said. ‘Strake isn’t going to put anything over on us. I simply won’t let him.’

Five minutes passed and still Strake didn’t show. Vivien told me to stop looking at my watch. ‘He probably thinks we’ll be easier to deal with if he keeps us waiting. It isn’t going to work.’

Another five minutes ticked slowly by. Then the telephone behind the counter rang. The man who’d served us answered it. ‘
Pronto?
’ He looked across at us. ‘
Si
.’ He scowled. ‘
Si, bene
.’ Then he beckoned to me and gestured with the receiver. ‘
Per lei
.’

I looked at Vivien. She nodded for me to go ahead. I walked to the counter and took the phone. I didn’t have any doubt who was on the line. ‘Strake?’

‘Still not grasped the fact that you need to be more respectful towards me, sonny?’

‘Why aren’t you here?’

‘Because you didn’t tell me you’d be bringing your girlfriend. Or that Vivien Foster
is
your girlfriend.’

‘It’s none of your business.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that.’

‘We have what you want, Strake. Are you going to come and get it?’

‘No. Leave little Miss Foster there and get yourself down to Marina Grande. I’ll meet you on the jetty.’

I knew Vivien would never agree to be left behind. And I wasn’t about to let Strake dictate terms. ‘You deal with both of us,’ I said, as coolly as I could. ‘Or the deal’s off.’

‘You mean she has the handwriting sample and won’t trust you with it, don’t you, sonny? Maybe I should meet her and leave you out of it.’

‘We’ll both be coming, Strake. The question is: will you be there when we arrive?’

He mulled that over for a few seconds, then growled, ‘All right. Have it your way. I’ll be waiting for you – both of you – on the jetty. But I won’t be waiting for long. So, move it.’

With that he cut me off. I put the phone down and hurried back to the table. ‘Come on,’ I said to Vivien. ‘We have to go.’

‘Where?’

I answered that question as we bustled out of the bar. The quickest route to Marina Grande was via the series of alleys and steps that cut across the zigzag course of the road leading down to the harbour from Capri town. We turned in to the first of the alleys a few yards along the street.

‘He must have been keeping watch on the bar,’ I reasoned as we went. ‘Though why he wasn’t prepared to met us there …’

‘He’s trying to wrong-foot us,’ said Vivien. ‘We mustn’t let him. Stay calm.’

‘I am calm.’

‘You don’t sound it.’

‘I’m just not sure we really know what we’re getting into.’

‘We’re not going to give Strake what he wants unless he gives us what
we
want.’ She sounded immovable on the point and it crossed my mind that Strake could well have been right when he said she’d never have entrusted the sample of Luisa’s handwriting to me. The all-important pieces of paper were currently tucked away in her shoulder-bag. And that was clearly where they were going to stay until she was satisfied Strake had something valuable to offer us. ‘Any funny business and we walk away, Jonathan. OK?’

I nodded. ‘OK.’

We came to the first crossing of the road, emerging on to it
blindly
from steep, high-walled steps. A pair of scooter-riders swerved round us. One of them shouted something. Then they were gone, the mosquito-buzz of their engines fading rapidly as we hastened on down the next stretch of alley.

‘Let’s try not to get run over,’ laughed Vivien. ‘Strake will raise all sorts of objections to meeting us in hospital.’ I laughed with her. The near miss had somehow succeeded in lightening our mood.

We reached the next stretch of road within a few minutes and stepped out more cautiously. Two scooters were again bearing down on us, but they were going more slowly and slowed still further to let us cross.

We’d nearly made it to the other side when the scooter engines suddenly roared. As the riders accelerated towards us, I saw they weren’t just similar to the first pair we’d encountered. They
were
the first pair: a couple of standard-issue young Caprese males on Vespas, who shouldn’t have taken as long to ride to that point on the road as we had to walk there. The realization struck me too late that they’d waited for us. I turned to shout a warning to Vivien, but one of the scooters cut between us. In a flash of movement, the rider grabbed the strap of Vivien’s shoulder-bag and pulled it off her. She was tugged off her feet, falling to the ground as the scooters sped past.

I started to run after them, but they were going downhill, picking up speed all the time. The boy who’d taken the bag looped the strap over his head to secure his hold, swerving as he did so. But he soon recovered his balance and caught up with his partner. Then they were gone, at full throttle, on towards the next bend.

I stopped running after them and raced back to Vivien, who was still lying on the road, winded by her fall. ‘Are you all right?’ I asked, crouching beside her.

‘They took my bag,’ she said, pushing herself up on to her elbow. ‘It all happened … so quickly.’

‘I know. They took it and they’re gone. Let’s get you out of the road.’

She winced as she stood up, clutching the knee she’d fallen on. I
helped
her hobble back to the steps we’d just descended. She sat down gingerly, massaging her knee.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Bruised … and a bit shaken. Nothing worse. But … where did they come from?’

‘They were waiting for us, Vivien. They sized us up on the last straight.’

‘That was them?’

‘I’m sure of it. They must have spotted your bag and decided we were easy pickings.’