Once a Crooked Man (15 page)

Up a steep hill in about half a mile, a dirt track on the left led to a small group of trees that stood in a hollow. Harry stopped the car and got out. High above him a lark was singing in the sky. Mixed with the birdsong was the rhythmic sound of an axe chopping wood. It came from a thatched farmhouse three fields away. A thin spiral of smoke rose from the weathered brick chimney. No other buildings could be seen in the immediate vicinity.

Harry walked along the bumpy track and down into the hollow. The ground beneath his feet was soft and pliant. An ideal spot to inter the suitcase. Sitting back in the car, he took out the map, carefully marked where he was and drove back to town.

He spent the remainder of the day resting. When darkness finally began to descend, he wrapped the case in the body bag and sealed it securely with the gray tape. At one o'clock in the morning, he carried it out of the hotel by a rear door and made his way to where he had parked the car. The silence of the night was scarcely broken by the soft padding of his shoes on the sidewalk. Scudding clouds crossed the moon and a fresh westerly wind now rattled the leaves in the trees. An owl hooted in the distance.

Nothing passed him in either direction during his drive up the hill. He was alone in the world. Nevertheless, he switched off the lights for the last few hundred yards and parked on the verge at the entrance to the track. Carrying his gear to the center of the hollow, he turned on the flashlight and propped it against a rock.

There were three trees larger than the others. Using them for a rough triangulation, he picked a center point. Kneeling down, he sliced out the first piece of turf. As he cut the second, a dog outside the farmhouse began to bark. Harry stopped digging and the dog stopped barking. Harry waited a full minute. As soon as the shovel hit the ground again the dog broke into a stream of staccato yelps. Moments later a door was opened and a yellow rectangle of light burst across the fields. An irate male voice shouted, “Come here, Betsy, damn it! Get inside!” Moments later a door slammed, extinguishing the light. Peace returned to the farmhouse and the hollow.

As noiselessly as he could, Harry moved the rest of the sod and scraped out the earth beneath. The clouds above cast weird shadows that slithered along the ground. Harry felt like one of the gravediggers in Shakespeare's
Hamlet
. “‘Is she to be buried in Christian burial that willfully seeks her own salvation?'” he muttered, and dropped the plastic package into the hole. Shoveling in the loose dirt he tamped it down with his feet. The only thing left was to replace the turf. He knelt down and picked up a clump of grass.

A voice behind him continued to quote, “‘Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio. A fellow of infinite jest.'”

Before he turned around, Harry knew who was behind him. He also had a hunch he would be looking at the Browning automatic. He was right about that too.

“After I left you with the car,” said Colonel Villiers, “I realized I'd accepted who you said you were, principally because you saved my life. As you know, that's not something a chap takes lightly. But on reflection, I also realized I really hadn't a clue as to who you really were. So I called Max on the hotline. I got the distinct impression he'd never heard of you.”

“How the hell did you find me?” asked Harry in panic.

“Wasn't easy, old boy. But you Yanks are so predictable the way you never leave home without it.”

Harry was perplexed.

“American Express, old boy” came the explanation. “I have friends in high places. Friends who obligingly kept an eye on your account. At Paddington Station you used it to buy a ticket to Taunton.”

Damn! The bloody ticket. In his hurry to catch the train he had used his credit card without giving it a second thought.

“When I got down here I located you in the first hotel I inquired. Saw you from the garden enjoying your fancy dinner. Next day I followed you at a discreet distance. I wondered what you were up to when you went into Bletchley's. Now that I've found out, I don't think I approve.”

Harry closed his eyes and his body drooped. “How did you get here? I didn't hear you—”

“You drove me, old boy,” said the Colonel. “I've been lying in the back of your car ever since you parked it on the street. Not a lot of room on the damn floor for a big chap like me. Bloody cramped, in fact, but it served the purpose.”

Giving Harry a nudge he pointed to the shovel. “Be a good fellow and dig. And while you're at it you can tell me who you really are and who you're working for.”

Harry scraped frantically at the earth with his fingers. In an attempt to convince Villiers of his innocence he told him the truth. All of it.

When he had finished, Villiers was skeptical. “You say you overheard a conversation?”

“Yes. Outside a Chinese restaurant.”

“Who was having this conversation?” asked Villiers.

“I don't know. I needed to take a leak and when the people inside told me the place was closed, I went out back and pissed against the wall. Above me there was an open window. Through that I heard them talking.”

“How fascinating. And what exactly do you do when you're not urinating against the walls of restaurants?”

“I'm an actor.”

“On the stage or on the television?”

“Both. And films of course … and I've done audiobooks…”

“Audiobooks? Oh, we like those. What was your last one?”

“Passion and Power!”
Harry shouted trying to wake the farmhouse. “A novel by Stan Benedict.”

“I must remember to buy it. It would be fascinating to listen to your voice when it's not quite so agitated.” He gave a sardonic grin. “Although, somewhat macabre, don't you think?”

Harry unearthed the case and dragged the heavy package out of the hole. Villiers slid the safety catch off the automatic and put the hard metal against Harry's head.

“My apologies, Mister Murphy,” he said flatly. “Or whoever you are. I'm afraid I don't have any more time to waste.”

Contrary to popular belief, Harry didn't relive his whole life story. He felt angry and sad. As sad as it was possible for a man to feel. And he felt stupid that he had allowed his time on earth to end like this. His mother and father were right. Honesty is the best policy. Harry had tried to be smart and this was the pathetic result. He also knew the bullet wouldn't hurt as his brain wouldn't have time to register the pain. A split second and his life would end. With his eyes closed he thought about the little brown birds in the ivy outside his room. The gun made a hollow thud and he did indeed feel no pain. Only a heavy weight falling against his legs. When he opened his eyes Villiers had collapsed at his feet. Framed in the moon above was the figure of a man holding a thick wooden stick.

“Jesus, that hurt!” the man said, shaking his wrist in pain. “I didn't kill him, did I? I hit him bloody hard.”

Harry gave a sudden cry of recognition: “Oh my God!”

His savior was the helpful man in the bowler hat from the train. But the bowler had been replaced by a seaman's cap and the pinstripes by a set of overalls.

Harry said again, “Oh my God!!”

The cap and the overalls! The worker on the roof in the Mews fiddling with the aerial. Harry was looking at the same face. The face of the man who'd driven the Telecom truck. The gentleman who had recommended the Waterside Hotel.

This chameleon gave Villiers a brief examination.

“He'll live,” he sighed. “More's the pity. Unquestionably the world would be a better place without him.” Gone was the upper-class accent. Now the man spoke with a slightly foreign tongue.

Once he had retrieved the weapon and applied the safety, he pulled Villiers's arms back and snapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists. “Let's see if his friends in high places can get him out of those. Oh, by the way,” he said to Harry, “my name is Ivan. Depending how you look at it, I am one of the good guys.”

As he helped Harry to his feet, two more good guys materialized from the shadows. One of them was in uniform and turned on a powerful flashlight. Harry followed as they propelled a groggy Villiers down the hill. Ivan brought up the rear with the wrapped case and tools, which were placed back in the trunk of Harry's car. Villiers and the uniformed policeman got into the rear and Harry in the front passenger seat.

Ivan reversed the little car down the track and swung out onto the paved road. Two police cars followed behind as they set off down the hill.

As the little posse drew up at the Taunton police station Villiers was conscious but moaning. As he was led away Ivan gave an order to an approaching constable: “No one is to go near that car. Is that understood?”

“Yes sir!” came the smart reply.

Handcuffs were put on Harry's wrists and he was taken into the building. They went quickly up a flight of stairs to an empty office.

“Make yourself comfortable,” said Ivan. “This may take a while.” He closed the door. A key turned in the lock.

The room into which Harry had been ushered showed signs of heavy daytime operation. Metal desks were piled with folders and the waste bins overflowed. The grimy windows were permanently sealed shut and the air smelled stale. Harry sat down and rested his arms on a desk.

Had he been arrested, he wondered, or simply saved from further harm? Or a bit of both? If he'd only been saved they would hardly have put him in handcuffs. But if they were going to charge him with something, what could it be? So far nobody had read him his rights. Or was it only back home that they did that? The more he thought about it, the more he was sure that he hadn't committed any real crime. Trespassing maybe, but certainly nothing more serious. They wouldn't hold him for long. As soon as someone came back he would insist that he be allowed to make a call. Perhaps he should get in touch with the American consulate? Although at this time in the morning there would probably only be a security officer on duty.

Harry rested his chin on his manacled hands. After several narrow escapes from death he was ready for a nap.

 

30

Outstretched on the sofa, Max was able to relax his body but not his restless mind. Each of the phone conversations he had just had with the UK kept running through his head. Finally he jumped up and headed down the stairs to the restaurant.

Nino was sitting at the bar reading the
Post
. When he saw Max he slid off the stool. “Where to?” he asked.

“Long Island.”

“Lawrence?”

“You got that right.”

The house where Sal had lived for over twenty years was at the end of a quiet tree-lined street. The front door was opened by Sal's wife. She stood aside to let him in. “Max!
Che bella sorpresa!
”

Furella de Benedictis Bruschetti had been born and raised in a hilltop village not far from the industrial town of Ragusa in southern Sicily, where her family had lived for several centuries. Furella was the third of six children with two older brothers and three younger sisters. Her father was a successful landowner and adopted an air of self-importance as he strutted around the village streets. Fabio Cesare de Benedictis was equally dictatorial in the running of his household. No one ever complained. It had been that way for generations.

Young children were kept out of sight at the rear of the house. On special occasions such as Saint Joseph's Day, they were taken out and paraded around in their best clothes. The housekeeper, Sofia, took care of the children's daily needs. The young Furella adored Sofia.

On her fifteenth birthday Furella was allowed to eat for the first time with her parents and elder brothers in the front dining room. The occasion was so traumatic that she threw up on the embroidered tablecloth. Her father immediately banished her back to the kitchen until she could learn to control herself.

On a humid day in August almost two years after the dining room incident, Furella's mother collapsed while going up the stairs. Furella and Sofia were the only ones at home. The former was sent to fetch the doctor, who diagnosed heatstroke, wrote out a prescription and ordered Furella to run to the
farmacista
at the
Ospizio dei Preti
to get it filled.

At the
Piazza della Vittoria
, Max Bruschetti had been seated outside the
Trattoria Marconi
enjoying a cool
Campari Soda
while Sal was setting up his tripod to take a photograph of an ornate fountain. Furella came hurrying past. Sal called out to her and she stopped and listened as he suggested that if such a beautiful girl were to sit on the stone wall his composition would be complete. Intrigued by his quaint New York accent she sat down and carefully arranged her dress. Sal snapped the picture.

As she hurried home Sal fell in beside her. Could he please have an address where he could send a copy of the photograph? Worried that someone would see them together, she pleaded for him to leave her alone. Sal acquiesced, but lingered and watched as she went in through a big front door. When she reappeared at a second-floor window, he stepped out into the sunshine and gave her a wave. Furella closed the curtains fast.

Sal spent the rest of the evening raving to Max about this enchanting creature. After half a bottle of
Grappa
, he ran back up the street, leapt over the garden wall, climbed up the ancient vine that clung to the rough stonework and tapped gently on the little window. Furella pushed open the casement. Frightened that he might fall, she let him clamber over the sill.

In whispers he explained that he was from America and he was in Sicily on a roots trip with his younger brother Max. They were driving to Rome that night. But he was totally and madly in love with her and it would devastate him to leave town with only her image in his camera. Would she please come with him to New York?

Furella was horrified. But only for a few seconds. For years she had dreamed of breaking free. Standing on her bedroom carpet was relief from the years of oppression. A way to escape. She impulsively nodded her head and grabbed a coat from her closet. Sal helped her down from the window and together they tiptoed in their bare feet to where Max waited with the car.