Fault Line - Retail (32 page)

‘I’ll manage it, sir,’ I declared, looking across at Jacqueline. ‘
We’ll
manage it.’

Adam slouched off to his room to watch television. A little later, Lashley announced he needed an early night. He looked exhausted, which was understandable, but nonetheless disturbing, as I admitted to Jacqueline after he’d headed off to bed.

‘He’s always been so indomitable. And he prides himself on his stamina. I’ve never known him admit to fatigue before.’

‘He’s not a young man, Jonathan, though Lord knows he seems a lot more than four years younger than my father. He worries about Muriel constantly. It’s hard for him not to imagine the conditions she’s being kept in. It’s a stressful situation for all of us, but for Greville it must be simply awful.’

She admired him. That was clear. And his strength of mind
was
admirable. If I’d been in the hands of the Camorra, I’d have wanted Greville Lashley to be negotiating my release. Negotiation was in his blood. ‘Thanks for offering to meet Thompson with me, Jacqueline. I think he’ll believe you a lot more readily than me.’

‘I just want to help.’

A thoughtful minute or so passed. Then she said, ‘The man Greville believes may have set this up: Paolo Verdelli. You know him better than any of us, don’t you?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘You think he’s capable of such … monstrousness?’

‘Envy and resentment can drive people to do all sorts of things. As for Paolo, I …’ He’d protected Luisa. He’d been loyal to her. Maybe he’d even loved her. And what she’d promised him in return had been snatched away. Envious and resentful? I’d have bet he was. And then some. ‘I think he’s capable of it, yes.’

‘Then we’d better hope his share of the ransom money will be enough for him.’

‘Yes. We better had.’ It was a good point, but also, though
Jacqueline
couldn’t know it, an irrelevant one. Lashley didn’t intend to give Paolo the chance to come back for more. As soon as Muriel was safe, he’d go after him. I didn’t want to think about what that would involve. But that it would happen was a certainty.

The first ferryload of day-trippers hadn’t yet arrived when we walked into the Piazzetta the following morning at ten o’clock. The square was quiet and peaceful, with customers at the café tables well spaced. The sun was warm with the promise of later heat, sparkling on the rims of the clock-tower bells as they rang the hour.

Thompson raised a cautious hand in greeting as we moved towards him. He was on the shady western side of the square, cradling a teacup as he perused the
International Herald Tribune
. He frowned suspiciously at Jacqueline, then at me. ‘I thought you’d be coming alone, Mr Kellaway,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to bring … Miss Hudson, is it?’ He allowed himself a little half-smile of pleasure at deducing my companion’s identity.

‘You’re well-informed, Mr Thompson,’ Jacqueline said, unfazed. She offered him her hand, obliging him to struggle to his feet, which somehow tarnished his small victory.

‘Information’s my bread and butter.’ He grinned at her. ‘I expect Mr Kellaway’s told you that.’

‘Yes. He has.’

‘Well, well. Sit down, both of you. Please.’

I borrowed a third chair from another table and we settled. Thompson made a meal of folding up his newspaper. Then he pointed the stem of his unlit pipe at me and cocked his head.

‘You a jogger, Mr Kellaway? You look as if you might be.’

The question seemed inane as well as irrelevant. I shrugged. ‘I like to keep fit.’

‘Big mistake.
Multo errore
. It’s in the paper. The bloke who invented jogging’s dropped dead of a heart attack while … jogging.’ Thompson grinned. ‘You couldn’t make it up, could you?’

‘Might we come to the point?’ Jacqueline sounded dignified and
serious.
She looked it too, in her plain sunglasses and lilac dress, her hair tied back, her gaze direct. Thompson’s expression suggested he was genuinely impressed. As was I.

‘Let’s do that. By all means.’

Before we could, though, the waiter appeared. Jacqueline and I ordered coffee. After he’d gone, I sat forward and held Thompson’s gaze. ‘Mrs Lashley’s been kidnapped,’ I said quietly. ‘It happened last week. Mr Lashley’s been negotiating terms for her release since then. He hasn’t informed the police.’

‘Kidnapped?’ Thompson kept his voice down too. His grin had vanished. ‘That’s very bad news.’

‘You’ve heard of the Camorra?’

He nodded. ‘The Neapolitan Mafia. Yes, I’ve heard of them. They’re responsible?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Good Lord. Well, well, well.’ He fingered his moustache. ‘Mr Lashley’s kept the police out of it, you say?’

‘Yes.’

‘Which is why, Mr Thompson,’ said Jacqueline, ‘we implore you to say nothing to them either.’

‘A ransom payment was finally agreed yesterday,’ I went on. ‘Mrs Lashley should be free within days.’

‘A happy – if expensive – ending is in sight, then?’

‘Mr Lashley’s only concern is to secure his wife’s safe return,’ said Jacqueline.

‘Of course. I understand. Otherwise, no doubt, as a law-abiding Englishman, he’d have called in the police straight away.’

‘It’s easy to recommend such a course of action,’ I said. ‘But it’s a different story when the life of someone you love is at stake.’

‘Yes. That’s what kidnappers trade on, Mr Kellaway. None of them would ever be caught if all their victims made it so easy for them.’

‘The past week’s been anything but easy, Mr Thompson,’ said Jacqueline.

‘I’m sure it’s been no tea party for Mrs Lashley, that’s for sure.’ Thompson’s initial shock was giving way, I realized, to something
more
sceptical. ‘Have the kidnappers supplied any proof that she’s alive and well?’

Jacqueline took the envelope Lashley had given us out of her handbag and showed Thompson the photograph. ‘We’ve authenticated the paper as last Friday’s edition,’ I said as he peered at it.

‘I hope Mr Lashley knows what he’s doing. The Camorra don’t mess around.’

‘He’s aware of that,’ said Jacqueline.

She retrieved the photograph just as the waiter reappeared. He delivered our coffees and retreated. There was a brief silence at the table.

Then Thompson said, ‘I’m puzzled, though. Why would they have picked on her? The Lashleys aren’t an obvious target. China clay doesn’t put them up there with oil barons and shipping magnates, does it?’

‘We believe there may have been a personal element,’ I responded. ‘A man who used to work for Luisa d’Eugenio, former owner of the Villa Orchis, apparently believes he should have inherited the property instead of Mrs Lashley. He’s made no secret of bearing a grudge. And he’s rumoured to have Camorra connections. It’s likely Mrs Lashley was planning to hire you to establish whether he posed a genuine threat.’

Thompson thought about all that for a moment, then asked, ‘What’s the name of this man?’

‘I’m not sure we—’

‘Verdelli?’ My fleeting dismay didn’t escape him. ‘It is, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ I admitted.

He nodded, satisfied on the point. ‘The word is Paolo Verdelli was Luisa d’Eugenio’s paramour as well as her servant. He supposedly ended up nursing her after she had a stroke a few years before she died. You can see how he might have expected a reward for all that … devotion.’

‘It’s not the Lashleys’ fault he didn’t get it.’

‘No. But it’s become their problem. I might have advised a precautionary pay-off if I’d been consulted earlier.’

‘Might you, now?’ said Jacqueline. It was clearer to me than I hoped it was to Thompson that she disliked him more with every word he spoke.

‘Standing on the letter of the law can sometimes be a false economy, Miss Hudson.’

‘Can it really?’

‘You’ll be able to discuss that with Mrs Lashley in the near future,’ I said, exerting myself to remain emollient.

‘I’ll look forward to it.’

‘Meanwhile …’

‘You’d like my assurance that I’ll keep all this to myself. Particularly where the police are concerned.’

‘Exactly. We’ve confided in you, because, frankly, you left us no choice. But if Mrs Lashley’s best interests really are your prime concern …’

‘All right.’ His pipe had become a pointer again. ‘Mr Lashley’s in the very devil of a fix. I can see that. Provided I don’t learn you’ve dreamt up this story to keep me off his back, then—’

‘Do you seriously doubt the truth of what we’ve told you?’ Jacqueline interrupted. ‘My God, we’ve shown you the photograph. What more proof do you want?’

I wouldn’t have been so outspoken for fear of antagonizing the man. But the effect was surprisingly salutary. ‘You’ll have to excuse me,’ he said appeasingly. ‘I’m sometimes too suspicious for my own good. Blame forty years of following unfaithful spouses. I don’t doubt the truth of what you’ve told me, Miss Hudson. And I won’t do anything to endanger Mrs Lashley. Does that satisfy you?’

‘Yes.’ Jacqueline treated him to a little nod of gratitude. ‘Mr Lashley will be relieved to hear it.’

‘And I can expect … good news … within a few days?’

‘You can,’ I answered.

‘Then we all know where we stand, don’t we? I hope …’ He waggled his pipe vaguely in the air. ‘I hope it all goes well.’

A few wordless seconds passed. Then Jacqueline murmured, ‘Amen to that.’

TWENTY-EIGHT

THE FUNICULAR HAD
begun to disgorge the first knots of day-trippers in the Piazzetta when we left Thompson to his pipe and paper and started back towards the Villa Orchis. We didn’t want to keep Lashley waiting any longer than was necessary for a report on how our meeting had gone. The undertaking we’d obtained was, after all, crucial to the success of his plans.

We didn’t make it to the villa quite as quickly as we’d hoped, however. A chance encounter with Countess Covelli was bound to happen sooner or later. Capri was a small island in a small world. But somehow I wasn’t expecting it, even so.

She stepped out of a
farmacia
in Via Roma, directly into our path. She looked almost exactly as I remembered: tall, thin, Roman-nosed, alert and graceful. Fifteen years had made scarcely a mark on her. She was wearing a pale linen dress, a long loose coat and a wide-brimmed straw hat. She smiled when she saw me, a smile that seemed to me to mix warmth with irony.

‘Jonathan?
Santo cielo
! It really is you.’

‘Hello, Contessa,’ I replied, covering my discomposure as best I could by introducing her to Jacqueline.

‘Greville’s mentioned you, Contessa,’ said Jacqueline. ‘But only as a neighbour.’ She looked curiously at me. ‘Clearly you and Jonathan are much better acquainted.’

‘We became so when Jonathan was last here,’ the countess
explained,
glancing towards me. ‘I have often wondered whether he would ever return.’

‘Mr Lashley has me here on a business matter,’ I said, smiling uneasily.

‘I see. Well, I am told he is … an energetic man of business. And you work for him?’

‘I do.’

‘Not so hard that you cannot find time to have tea with me, I hope.’

‘Of course not. I’d be … delighted.’

‘Will you come too, Miss Hudson?’

‘It’s real kind of you to ask me, Contessa. I’d love to join you.’

‘Tomorrow afternoon?’

Jacqueline and I glanced at each other. We could hardly tell the countess why making innocent social engagements was so difficult for us. ‘Mr Lashley and I actually have a very busy weekend ahead of us, Contessa,’ I said hesitantly. ‘It may be …’

‘We will leave it open.’ Her smile conveyed something more than her usual charm. There was a purposefulness as well, a determination. Or maybe that was just in my imagination. ‘Come if you can. Five o’clock. No one should still be attending to business at that hour. I will hope to see you both then.’

Jacqueline would doubtless have been more curious about Countess Covelli if she’d been less preoccupied. As it was, she asked me nothing about her until later that day. We hurried on to the Villa Orchis and told Lashley the good news: Thompson had agreed to cooperate.

This clearly came as a relief to him. It was one less thing to worry about. But there were still plenty of others. We had to wait for the Camorra to announce how they meant to exchange Muriel for the ransom Lashley had agreed with them. And waiting wasn’t easy.

‘I’ve told them I won’t release the money until they release Muriel,’ he revealed. ‘They have to understand we can’t be pushed around. But they have the upper hand. They know that.’ He sighed. ‘It’s one hell of a delicate balance.’

Delicate it was. And delicate it remained. The day passed with agonizing slowness. Jacqueline sat in a shady corner of the garden, trying to read. Lashley stayed close to the phone in his study. Adam headed out for a swim and returned a few hours later in a condition that suggested he’d done a lot more drinking than swimming. Elena came and went. At some point, Jacqueline persuaded me to relate Countess Covelli’s sad history. Naturally, I omitted the saddest part of all. I wasn’t supposed to know, and nor was anyone else, that her husband had been betrayed to the Nazis by the former owner of the Villa Orchis.

The call came, as all the previous ones had, in the early evening. Jacqueline and I heard the phone ring through the open French windows of the study as we sat on the terrace. Adam was up in his room. The bass rumbles of the music he was listening to suggested he was unlikely to have heard it himself. I was glad of that and suspected his father would be too.

We sat where we were, waiting in anxious silence as five minutes trickled by, then ten. Finally, we heard the tinkle of the bell as Lashley replaced the receiver. And still we didn’t move.

Then he came to the French windows and beckoned for me to join him.

‘I’d appreciate your confirmation that you’re willing to play your part in the deal I’ve struck, Jonathan,’ he said, ushering me into the room.

‘That goes without saying.’

‘Nevertheless, you should hear what I’ve agreed before you commit yourself unequivocally. Sit down.’

He returned to his chair behind the desk. I sat down opposite him. He took a cigarette he’d been smoking from the ashtray and looked at it absent-mindedly, then decided it was too far gone and stubbed it out.