Partisans (19 page)

‘You know – ' Josip turned to the bar, picked up a bottle of
ljivovica from a tray George was preparing, filled a small glass, drained it in two gulps and when he'd finished coughing and spluttering said: ‘Who?' ‘I'm not prepared to say at the moment. That's not because I'm intending to prolong anxiety, increase tension, give the villain enough rope to hang him – or herself – or anything stupid like that. It's because I can't prove it – yet. I'm not even sure I want to prove it. Perhaps the person I have in mind was misguided, or the action may have been unintentional, accidental, inadvertent or even done from the best motives – from, of course, the viewpoint of the person concerned. Unlike Sarina here, I don't go in much for premature judgments and condemnation.'

‘Peter!' Marija's voice held a warning, almost peremptory, note. She still had an arm around Sarina's shoulders.

‘Sorry, Marija. Sorry, Sarina. Just my natural nastiness surfacing. By the way, if you people want to go to bed, well of course, go. But no hurry now. Change of plan. We won't be leaving until the late forenoon tomorrow. Certainly not before. Giacomo, could I have a quiet word with you?'

‘Have I any option?'

‘Certainly. You can always say “no”.'

Giacomo smiled his broad smile, stood up and put his hand in his pocket. ‘Josip, if I could buy a bottle of that excellent red wine –'

Josip was mildly affronted. ‘Peter Petersen's friends pay for nothing in my hotel.'

‘Maybe I'm not his friend. I mean, maybe he's not my friend.' Giacomo seemed to find the thought highly amusing. ‘Thanks all the same.' He picked up a bottle and two glasses from the bar, led the way to a distant table, poured wine and said admiringly: ‘That Marija. Quite a girl. Not quite a tartar but no shrinking violet. Changes her mind a bit quick, doesn't she?'

‘Mercurial, you'd say?'

‘That's the word. Seems to know you pretty well. Has she known you long?'

‘She does and she has.' Petersen spoke with some feeling. ‘Twenty-six years, three months and some days. The day she was born. My cousin. Why do you ask?'

‘Curiosity. I was beginning to wonder if you knew everyone in the valley. Well, on with the inquisition. Incidentally, I would like to say that I'm honoured to be the prime suspect and/or the chosen villain.'

‘You're neither a suspect nor villain. Wrong casting. If you wanted, say, to dispose of George or Alex or myself, or get your hands on something you thought we had, you'd use a heavy instrument. Surreptitious phone calls or secret tip-offs are not in your nature. Deviousness is not part of your stock-in-trade.'

‘Well, thank you. It's a disappointment, though. I take it you want to ask some questions?

‘If I may.'

‘About myself, of course. Fire away. No, don't fire away. Let
me
give you my curriculum vitae. Behind me lies a blameless existence. My life is an open book.

‘You're right, I'm Montenegrin. Vladimir was my given name. I prefer Giacomo. In England they called me “Johnny”. I still prefer Giacomo.'

‘You lived in England?'

‘I am English. Sounds confusing, but not really. Before the war I was a second officer in the Merchant Navy – the Yugoslav one, I mean. I met a beautiful Canadian girl in Southampton so I left the ship.' He said it as if it had been the most natural thing in the world to do and Petersen could readily understand that for him it had been. ‘There was a little difficulty at first at staying on in England but I'd found an excellent and very understanding boss who was working on a diving contract for the Government and who was one experienced diver short. I'd qualified as a diver before joining the merchant marine. By and by I got married –'

‘Same girl?'

‘Same girl. I became naturalized in August 1939 and joined the services on the outbreak of war the following month. Because I had a master's ocean-going ticket and was a qualified diver who could have been handy at things like sticking limpet mines on to warships in enemy harbours and was a natural for the Navy, it was inevitable, I suppose, that they put me into the infantry. I went to Europe, came back by Dunkirk, then went out to the Middle East.'

‘And you've been in those parts ever since. No home leave?'

‘No home leave.'

‘So you haven't seen your wife in two years. Family?'

‘Twin girls. One still-born. The other died at six months. Polio.' Giacomo's tone was matter-of-fact, almost casual. ‘In the early summer of '41, my wife was killed in a Luftwaffe attack on Portsmouth.'

Petersen nodded and said nothing. There was nothing to say. One wondered why a man like Giacomo smiled so much but one did not wonder long.

‘I was with the Eighth Army. Long-Range Desert Group. Then some genius finally discovered that I was really a sailor and not a soldier and I joined Jellicoe's Special Boat Service in the Aegean.' Both those hazardous services called for volunteers, Petersen knew: it was pointless to ask Giacomo why he had volunteered. ‘Then the same genius found out some more about me, that I was a Yugoslav, and I was called back to Cairo to escort Lorraine to her destination.'

‘And what happens when you've delivered her to her destination?'

‘When
you've
delivered her, you mean. Responsibility over, from here on I just sit back and relax and go along for the ride. They thought I was the best man for the job but they weren't to know I was going to have the good luck to meet up with you.' Giacomo poured some more wine, leaned back in his chair and smiled broadly. ‘I haven't a single cousin in the whole of Bosnia.'

‘If it's luck, I hope it holds. My question, Giacomo.'

‘Of course. Afterwards. I'd happily turn back now, conscience clear, but I've got to get a receipt or something from this fellow Mihajlovi
. I think they want me to take up diving again. Not hard to guess why – must have been the same genius who found out that I was an ex-sailor. As Michael said in that mountain inn, it's a funny old world. I spent over three years fighting the Germans and in a couple of weeks I'll be doing the same thing. This interlude, where I'm more or less fighting with the Germans – although I don't expect I'll ever see a German in Yugoslavia – I don't like one little bit.'

‘You heard what George said to Michael. No point in rehashing it. A very brief interlude, Giacomo. You bid your charge a tearful farewell, trying not to smile, then heigh-ho for the Aegean.'

‘Trying not to smile?' He considered the contents of his glass. ‘Well, perhaps. Yes and no. If this is a funny old world, she's a funny young girl in a funny old war. Mercurial – like your cousin. Temperamental. Patrician-looking young lady but sadly deficient in patrician sang-froid. Cool, aloof, even remote at one moment, she can be friendly, even affectionate, the next.'

‘The affectionate bit has escaped me so far.'

‘A certain lack of rapport between you two has not escaped me either. She can be sweet and bad-tempered at the same time which is no small achievement. Most un-English. I suppose you know she's English. You seem to know quite a bit about her.'

‘I know she's English because George told me so. He also told me you were from Montenegro.'

‘Ah! Our professor of languages.'

‘Remarkable linguist with a remarkable ear. He could probably give you your home address.'

‘She tells me you know this Captain Harrison she's going to work for?'

‘I know him well.'

‘So does she. Used to work for him before. Peacetime. Rome. He was the manager of the Italian branch of an English ball-bearing company. She was his secretary. That's where she learned to speak Italian. She seems to like him a lot.'

‘She seems to like men a lot. Period. You haven't fallen into her clutches yet, Giacomo?'

‘No.' Again the broad smile. ‘But I'm working on it.'

‘Well, thanks.' Petersen stood. ‘If you'll excuse me.' He crossed to where Sarina was sitting. ‘I'd like to talk to you. Alone. I know that sounds ominous, but it isn't, really.'

‘What about?'

‘That's a silly question. If I want to talk to you privately I don't talk publicly.'

She rose and Michael did the same. He said: ‘You're not going to talk to her without me.'

George sighed, rose wearily to his feet, crossed to where Michael was standing, put his two ham-like hands on the young man's shoulders and sat him in his chair as easily as he would have done a little child.

‘Michael, you're only a private soldier. If you were in the American army you'd be a private soldier, second class. I'm a Regimental Sergeant-Major. Temporary, mind you, but effective. I don't see why the Major should have to be bothered with you. I don't see why
I
should have to be bothered with you. Why should you bother us? You're not a boy any more.' He reached behind him, picked up a glass of Maraschino from the table and handed it to Michael, who took it sulkily but did not drink. ‘If Sarina's kidnapped, we'll all know who did it.'

Petersen took the girl up to her room. He left the door ajar, looked around but not with the air of one expecting to find anything and sniffed the air. Sarina looked at him coldly and spoke the same way.

‘What are you looking for? What are you sniffing for? Everything you do, everything you say is unpleasant, nasty, overbearing, superior, humiliating –'

‘Oh, come on. I'm your guardian angel. You don't talk to your guardian angel that way.'

‘Guardian angel! You also tell lies. You were telling lies in the dining-room. You still think I sent a radio message.'

‘I don't and didn't. You're far too nice for anything underhand like that.' She looked at him warily then almost in startlement as he put his hands lightly on her shoulders, but did not try to flinch away. ‘You're quick, you're intelligent-unlike your brother but that's not his fault – and I've no doubt you can or could be devious because your face doesn't show much. Except for the one thing that would disqualify you from espionage. You're too transparently honest.'

‘That's a kind of left-handed compliment,' she said doubtfully.

‘Left or right, it's true.' He dropped to his knees, felt under the foot of the rather ill-fitting door, stood, extracted the key from the inside of the lock and examined it. ‘You locked your door last night?'

‘Of course.'

‘What did you do with the key?'

‘I left it in the lock. Half-turned. That way a person with a duplicate key or a master can't push your key through or on to a paper that's been pushed under the door. They taught us that in Cairo.'

‘Spare me. Your instructor was probably a ten-year-old schoolboy. See those two tiny bright indentations on either side of the stem of the key?' She nodded. ‘Made by an instrument much prized by the better-class burglar who's too sophisticated to batter doors open with a sledge-hammer. A pair of very slender pincers with tips of either Carborundum or titanium stainless steel. Turn any key in a lock. You had a visitor during the night.'

‘Somebody took my radio?'

‘Somebody sure enough used it. Could have been here.'

‘That's impossible. Certainly, I was tired last night but I'm not a heavy sleeper.'

‘Maybe you were last night. How did you feel when you woke up this morning – when you were woken, I mean?'

‘Well.' She hesitated. ‘I felt a bit sick, really. But I thought I was perhaps over-tired and hadn't had enough sleep or I was scared – I'm not a great big coward but I'm not all that brave either and it was the first time anyone had ever pointed a gun at me – or perhaps I just wasn't used to the strange food.'

‘You felt dopey, in other words.'

‘Yes.'

‘You probably were doped. I don't suggest flannel-foot crept stealthily in and applied a chloroform pad or anything of the kind, for the smell of that lingers for hours. Some gas that was injected through the keyhole from a nozzled canister that may well have come from the chemist's joker shop where Alessandro buys his toys. In any event, I can promise you that you won't be disturbed again tonight. And you rest easy in the knowledge that you're not on anyone's black list. Not judged, not condemned, not even suspected. You might at least have the grace to say that I'm not such an awful monster as you thought.'