Traitor's Blood

by Reginald Hill

  ‘And meanwhile?’

  ‘Meanwhile we remain here quietly under the same constraints as before.’

  He smiled in a displeasingly self-satisfied manner. I felt a strong urge once more to do his arm some large damage, but he was right. The constraints remained. A machine-pistol at my back and Angie helpless upstairs.

  Then to my horror I saw Pa’s body tense. He sent out more signals than Nelson’s flagship. But what the attack lacked in physical surprise, it certainly made up in sheer unlikelihood and for a second the disbelieving Major hesitated as Pa made his kamikaze approach, chopping at his head with the book he held. Then the inevitable reaction set in. One deep-driven punch to the stomach was enough to send Pa crashing to the floor. Even then he didn’t give up, but came wriggling back like some cumbersome snake across the polished marble, shouting in rage and pain till Krylov leaned down and stunned him with a chop across the neck.

  I was meanwhile standing helpless with the other man’s pistol rammed hard against my spine.

  Krylov rubbed the side of his head where the weighty volume had fittingly raised a patch of angry red.

  ‘I see we must use other more physical constraints!’ he said. ‘It will be more convenient anyway. Come!’

  Pa was dragged to his feet and given into my care which effectively neutralized me. We were waved to the terrace door with pistols. Krylov whistled softly and yet another goon emerged from the darkness. He murmured something to the Major, assuring him (I presumed) that the peasants were quiet, and the next thing we were bundled down the stairs, through the kitchen and into the corridor which led to the cellar. The damaged cellar door hung from its hinges, but that was not our destination. One of the store rooms was unlocked and we were thrust inside. Here all the sailing gear had once been kept and in the dim light I could see that some of it still remained. There was certainly a great variety and length of rope and under Krylov’s supervision we were firmly bound and finally gagged with strips of sailcloth.

  Then our captors retreated without saying a word, locking the door behind them and leaving us in pitch blackness.

  I lay there in helpless fury, aimed in equal parts at the Brigadier for callously abandoning us, at Krylov for ruthlessly mishandling us, and at my father for his stupidity in provoking this reaction. At least before, we had freedom of movement, and though it seemed that a wise passivity might in the end have proven the best policy, I’d rather be passive in comfort than passive because I was trussed like a Christmas goose. And God knew what stuffing the Major had in mind for us!

  I tried to shift first my bonds and then my gag, but rapidly abandoned both efforts, the one threatening to shut off circulation of blood completely and the other of air.

  Then to my amazement out of the darkness came Pa’s voice.

  ‘That’s better,’ he said, breathing noisily. Ah, what memories the smell of this place brings back, eh Lem?’ I managed a convulsive wriggle and he said contritely, ‘I’m sorry, old chap. It must be terribly irritating to be addressed without the power of reply. An old man’s mouth is a curiously elastic thing and I took the precaution of achieving maximum inflation as they gagged me, so I haven’t had to do much more than collapse my cheeks to get this confounded gag to slip. I dare say if you had the power of speech you would be inclined to reprimand me for having so precipitously drawn down the wrath of our captors upon us. All I can do is remind you of the fine old tale of Brer Rabbit and the bramble bush which I am sure I must have told you in your angel infancy.’

  There I lay, bound, gagged, locked up in Stygian gloom, and my blessed father was still prodding me to work things out for myself!

  ‘Yes, you’re quite right, Lem,’ he resumed after a longish pause (a shorter one might have been more flattering, but he was probably making allowances for circumstances). ‘This is where I want to be. Or somewhere like it, out of their immediate supervision. But this will do perfectly. As long as we remained in Krylov’s company on apparently friendly terms, there would be doubt. We had to get ourselves separated from him in the most unfriendly way possible.’

  Another pause.

  ‘How would they know we were separated, you ask? Well, firstly, you do not watch a Campanian peasant without him knowing he is watched. And that provokes both his resentment and his curiosity. So he watches back. Shortly someone will be dispatched to investigate.’

  An hour later, no one had come and it’s a curious comment on the human mind that even though my personal survival was involved, the bonds having reduced the flow of my blood to a barely sufficient trickle, I was still able to feel a certain gleeful delight that at last he was going to be proved wrong! It was premature, of course. I should have known. He was always bloody well right!

  There was a muffled noise outside and the sound of a key being cautiously turned in the lock. Then the door swung open and a pale cone of torchlight drifted over us.

  It was Giorgio. He untied Pa first and waited till he got an affirmative nod before untying me. He and Pa whispered together as he performed this task. Finally, with a show of some reluctance, Giorgio retreated. What the whispering was about, I didn’t catch. I was too busy listening to my own internalized shrieking as the blood forced its way back through my blocked veins.

  Pa seemed much less affected than me. Perhaps he’d inflated his limbs too or perhaps at his age the veins are already narrowed beyond further restriction. He knelt beside me and massaged my legs while I flexed my upraised hands in the classic strip-cartoon gesture of barely repressed hatred. It was aimed at restoring the circulation but it was also a very adequate expression of my current state of mind.

  ‘Where’s Giorgio gone?’ I asked when at last I felt able to open my mouth without shrieking.

  Any hopes I’d had of leading a peasants’ revolt against Krylov and his friends disappeared when Pa replied, ‘I’ve told him to go back to his family and stay there. This isn’t their fight.’

  ‘Not their fight? Jesus, Pa, this is a hell of a time to rediscover your aristocratic principles! What’s happened to the good old working-class struggle?’

  ‘I will not be party to setting up women and children against machine-pistols in the hands of ruthless men,’ he said coldly.

  ‘You won’t? Aren’t you forgetting that there’s already a couple up there, one a woman, both scarcely more than children, being held by those same fucking men!’

  I felt rather than saw him wince in æsthetic pain at my language. Americanisms he deplored, obscenities he plain hated.

  ‘It’s still not their fight,’ he said. ‘They have suffered enough already. Besides, what could they do against experts with guns?’

  ‘More than us alone,’ I retorted. ‘But let’s get to it.’

  He gripped my arm as I moved towards the door.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘We can’t go up against them, Lem.’

  ‘Not go against them? They’ve got Angie and Vasco!’

  ‘That’s precisely why it would be no contest, don’t you see? If we attack, which in any case would be suicidal, all they’ll do is bring out the children and threaten to shoot them before our eyes.’

  ‘Then why the hell go to all this trouble to set us free?’ I demanded. ‘You’ve just made a good argument for taking Krylov’s deal and going along quietly.’

  He released me and was searching around the storeroom. In the dim light from the open door I saw him pick up a heavy coil of rope.

  ‘You don’t really believe that’ll guarantee their safety?’ he asked. ‘I know the KGB mind, Lem. The moment we’re safely on our way to Mother Russia, those youngsters will be silenced. No witnesses. Believe me!’

  I stared at him in horror.

  ‘No witnesses? But what about all these peasants?’

  ‘What do they know? In any case they’re by nature a stolid, quiet lot when the Law’s around. But Vasco and Angie are different. There’ll probably be an accident.’

  ‘Accident?’ I said stupidly.

  ‘Yes
. Bathing perhaps. Or more likely on the road. There are some very nasty bends up there, Lem. An inexperienced and reckless young driver could easily put a car over the edge.’

  ‘But if we escape,’ I protested,’surely Krylov …’

  ‘Will do nothing till he has us back. Their value then to him is alive.’

  ‘They’re still witnesses,’ I objected.

  ‘With us loose, who’s worried about witnesses?’ replied Pa. As always, his reasoning overwhelmed me. But I wasn’t happy.

  He slung the coil of rope over my shoulder and beckoned me to follow him.

  ‘What’s this for?’ I asked savagely. ‘Are you planning to challenge them to a tug-of-war?’

  ‘You never know when a bit of rope’ll come in handy,’ he replied.

  We moved out quietly and found the kitchen deserted. The lingering cooking smells made me recall that I’d had nothing to eat since my stale doughnut at breakfast. My stomach was tight and aching. I hoped it was just hunger. I picked up a hunk of bread from the table and began to gnaw it. When Pa looked at me impatiently, I said, ‘Man cannot live by rope alone.’

  We set off up the stairs that led to the salon level, but the sound of voices on the landing sent us into hasty retreat. We went back through the kitchen and out on to the small kitchen terrace. For the moment a low moon was flooding the cliff-face with light but a menacing tide of black cloud was blowing up from the south and though the sea looked calm enough from our height, I could see the old fishing tub at its moorings below begin to rock in the swell. The thought crossed my mind that it really ought to be taken out into the little bay and anchored before the winds started rattling it against the landing platform.

  But the voices were still pursuing us and I put the weather out of my mind. If the people coming downstairs into the kitchen checked the storeroom, the hunt would be up immediately. Keeping low, we ran along the kitchen terrace and across the drive. Standing in front of the garage was a large black Mercedes, probably the same one that I’d seen departing from the front of Teresa’s apartment.

  I looked interrogatively at Pa but he shook his head. He was right. Given time, I’d no doubt I could start it without keys, but time we did not have. We kept on going down the narrow flagged track which led to the lift. The door was open and we took shelter inside.

  We could see the kitchen terrace quite clearly in the moonlight. Through the doorway came a group of people. I felt Pa’s hand grasp my wrist tightly as we saw Vasco and Angie in their midst.

  Between them, hands familiarly on their shoulders, was Krylov. He seemed to be talking in a friendly, reassuring fashion. When they reached the Mercedes, he gallantly opened the rear door and ushered the youngsters inside.

  After what Pa had just said, the sight of the children getting into the car filled me with alarm. I glanced at Pa who looked worried too, but shook his head. I thought I followed his reasoning. They were hardly likely to stage an accident in the Mercedes which was, first, not Vasco’s car, and, secondly, would be needed to take us to Naples. Perhaps they were merely transferring them to a safer place, down in the town maybe.

  One of the other men had got into the driving seat and a moment later the lights came on and the car moved off towards the road. We couldn’t see it from this angle below, but its curving line was clearly marked by the headlights still sweeping along it even at this late hour.

  As its tail lights disappeared, the garage door was opened. One of the remaining men went inside and a moment later a red Fiat X1/9 emerged. It had Roman number plates and Roman dents. I watched in puzzlement as it followed the Mercedes up the driveway to the road. I felt Pa’s fingers tighten on my arm and I think that the pressure alerted me more than my own ratiocinative powers.

  This was Vasco’s car, just the kind of vehicle a foolish young man might try to impress his girlfriend in. It would surprise no one if such a car were involved in an accident on the Amalfitana. Somewhere along the road, the X1/9 and the Mercedes would rendezvous, the children would be transferred to the sports car, there would be a lull in the traffic, and then Krylov would have left no loose ends.

  I turned to Pa again, got confirmation from his expression, and sprang from the lift-shaft screaming, ‘No! You bastards. No!’

  Two ideas motivated me. Once was that perhaps Pa had been right about one thing and if Krylov knew we were free, he would somehow contrive to countermand his orders.

  The other was a mad desire to be among those bastards, killing them.

  Not that there was much chance of that.

  There were only four of them now, Krylov, Vasari, and two others. But they were all armed and any one of them would have been able to turn and cut me to ribbons before I got within five yards.

  Two things saved me. One was the clouds which had just reached the moon and now gobbled it up in a second. It was like switching off a light.

  The other was Pa, who flung himself after me and with the dexterity of a Rugby League defender tapped my ankle and brought me crashing to the ground.

  There was a single burst of fire which stopped as Krylov shouted out angrily. He probably still didn’t want to disturb the peasants and could see no reason why he shouldn’t be able to recapture a pair of unarmed and cancer-eaten English aristocrats trapped on a sheer cliff-face.

  Pa dragged me back into the lift. I didn’t resist. Common sense had set in and I knew now that I had to live long enough to get to a phone and alert the police to stop every Merc and X1/9 along the Amalfitana.

  I fell over the coil of rope which I’d dropped on the lift floor. Pa was pulling the door shut behind us and hitting the controls. For a moment nothing happened. Why should it? I thought. This contraption must have been defunct for years.

  Then slowly, with a nerve-searing grating noise as though it was being dragged by a huge hand against the cliff-face, the lift began to move.

  ‘Well done!’ I said to Pa.

  I should have kept my mouth shut.

  The noise changed for the worse. It was as if someone had thrust a huge bar of metal into the works. Perhaps that was precisely what Krylov had done. Or perhaps it was simply that the old mechanism was suffering like its passengers from the ravages of decay and fatigue.

  Whatever the cause about twenty feet down the cliff-face we stopped. We hadn’t been going fast enough for the halt to feel violent.

  But it certainly felt permanent.

  I looked out of the window at the still visible headlights on the winding road high above and knew at last what it felt like to be defeated beyond all hope of recovery.

  21

  … do you believe in fairies? …

  Pa was pushing me aside and examining the broad plate-glass window which gave lift-users a panoramic ocean view through the open-grid shaft and doubled as an emergency exit.

  ‘What the hell are you going to do, Pa?’ I demanded. ‘Fly?’

  ‘Come now, Lem. Surely you remember how to abseil?’

  Oh yes! I remembered. How I remembered!

  Scared shitless, but even more scared of letting his father know how scared, a small boy walking down a vertical cliff, paying out rope with hands that seemed so far removed from the frozen brain commanding them that every year-long second they felt as if they might flap away from his body like frightened gulls.

  ‘Pa,’ I said. ‘You can’t. For God’s sake, in your condition at your age!’

  He looked at me in amazement. I suppose it was a significant moment, the first time I’d ever had the temerity to suggest that something might be beyond his scope.

  ‘What do you suggest?’ he asked with calm curiosity, working away at one of the rusted wing nuts which held the window in position. ‘Here, help me with this.’

  There was nothing to add. The window creaked open on ancient hinges and suddenly there was nothing between us and Sicily. I had to nerve myself to peer downwards. The landing platform and the gently swelling sea can’t have been more than a hundred feet below, but in the rich dark
ness which the rising wind seems to stir like an old velvet curtain, it looked more like a mile.

  ‘What’s the point, Pa?’ I demanded. ‘What are we going to do when we get down there? Sail off into the wild blue yonder in that stinking old tub? It’s probably only her mooring line that’s keeping her afloat.’

  Pa gave me a rather curious smile.

  ‘Here,’ he said. ‘You go first.’

  He was already slipping the rope around me. I opened my mouth to protest again but didn’t bother. Protesting to Pa was like making a speech from the gallows. He’d listen patiently till you stopped talking, then open the trap. In the circumstances, perhaps not the best of similes, I realized as I grasped the rope.

  ‘Ready?’ said Pa. ‘Don’t hang about, will you? Once they spot us, speed, I think, may be of the essence.’

  He was right. I’d hardly begun my descent when a beam of light shot down from the terrace and picked me out. Dazzled, I missed my footing and swung sideways against the cliff-face knocking the breath out of me, and when I tried to right myself I got temporarily snarled up with the scaffolding of the lift-shaft. If Krylov had cared to use his gun, I’d have been a sitting target, but he must have still reckoned that there were good odds on getting us back to sunny Moscow alive and without fuss. Probably he’d already given assurances and wasn’t going to lose face if he didn’t have to.

  There were shouts from away to my right. They’d found the steps cut in the rock, I guessed. Well, good luck to them. For fifty feet or so they were all right, with a not too rickety wooden balustrade on the outside. Then they began to deteriorate as they reached a stratum of soft, crumbling rock. Suddenly the balustrade was a death-trap, hanging out at a crazy angle. Then it disappeared altogether and the sharp angles of the steps became progressively more round till finally they were merely a series of undulations in a one-in-two descent.

  At least that’s what it had been like thirty years ago. I could only hope that good old Italian dolce far niente had resisted any repairs.

  Meanwhile I’d got my rhythm going and was moving down the cliff-face in a series of plunges and runs. Suddenly I was no longer a frightened little boy but a Marine commando who was used to making far worse descents than this, often quite literally before breakfast. Half way down I paused on a ledge. If my memory served me right I would be just about on the same level as the worst part of the old path. The wind was loud in my ears, pressing me to the cliff-face, but I thought I could hear voices in it and the scuffling of shoes on stone. I prised a large chunk of rock loose, set my feet against the side of the lift-shaft and thrust myself off, penduluming towards the pathway. At my outermost point, I hurled the rock upwards and inwards. I had no target to aim at but on those rotten steps even the slightest distraction could be fatal.