A Pigeon Among the Cats

by Josephine Bell

  “What price pictures now?” Gwen asked. She had turned her own head away when the cameras were raised, but Jake who was at the wheel had been steering the vessel, standing firm, balancing as he drove the launch through the wash of the vaporettos into the open waters beyond the mouth of the Grand Canal.

  He gave her one furious look but could not spare thoughts or words to retaliate until he had driven the launch beyond the usual track of the smaller ferries and across the track of the big car-ferries and cargo boats in the main channel. Then he handed the wheel to the deck man and took Gwen below, pushing her on to one of the bunks before getting long cool drinks for them both.

  “Now,” he said. “What was that crap you shouted as we warmed up?”

  “The tourists were taking pictures of us. Your man untying the boat.”

  “Casting off.”

  “You at the wheel and me, only I turned my head away.”

  “The glass would show just a reflection. Abe don’t matter. Maybe they was all just tourists, too. I’ve hired the launch. Cash. All paid for. Two days.”

  Gwen listened but could not be bothered to take in the detail. All so familiar. Jake explaining his incredible cunning; his perfect arrangements; his masterly plans. So far successful this time with her help. But that had not always been so. In America, by no means always successful. There had been the years when he was inside. Two stretches of three years. She had suffered the first time, had to work for her living. Not the last: there was more left in the kitty and available on demand.

  Remembering other times of crisis and uncertainty as she looked across the cabin at Jake frowning into his glass, she wondered if this ostentatious launch, the show-off at the waterside, had to do with herself or with Owen or neither, some trouble he was keeping to himself.

  “This guy,” he said, filling his glass again but not offering to replenish hers. “He’s here in Venice?”

  “I told you he was in Florence, still following.”

  “Is he here?”

  Thank God, she thought, that means Jake didn’t see Owen slip away from behind Rose Lawler.

  “Yes,” she said. She dared not lie.

  “You’ve seen him?”

  “Over on the Lido, yes. Out of doors.”

  “What’s he look like?”

  She described a figure as unlike Owen as she could invent with no distinguishing mark, whatever.

  “You’re a big help. That all you can do?”

  “Yes. I hardly know him.” Jake’s dissatisfaction was a measure of her success. But she must not overdo it.

  However, Jake did not press her any further. She had done her duty, poor silly moll, in reporting Owen at all, which showed she understood the importance of the fact that this stranger had told her he saw her in Geneva. That was the crux of the matter. The guy must be bent, so was he a loner or did he belong to the opposition, to some hitherto unknown rival association, a competitor in the same line or even a political gang out for funds?

  Gwen waited for more questions but none came. Nor did any other approaches or demands. This hurt her vanity but did not seriously disturb her. Her personal relationship with the old villain had become as conventional and restricted as a long-time marriage. That was why Owen had been such a welcome change. But she had better not let her thoughts wander to Owen. Jake was far too slick at reading her.

  After another drink which this time she shared and a further ten minutes of brooding silence and inward speculation Jake moved to the companion way and going up three steps of it looked about him. Obedient to his orders his men had taken the launch past the western end of the Lido and were heading straight out into the Adriatic. In fact, as Jake found when he had reached the cockpit in rapid time, there was not much more than a blue-grey blur where he had expected to see a long yellow-strand.

  With a few snarling oaths he took over the wheel, swung the boat half round, studied the chart beside him, waited for the compass to settle and then, more gradually, set a course to approach the land.

  Gwen had been tossed on to the cabin deck by this unheralded movement. She scrambled up, vaguely alarmed and climbed into the wheelhouse herself. She had never liked the sea, had never got used to it, though Jake had taken her for many voyages short and long, over the years. Outside the protecting islands there was an only too distinct movement. Two stiff drinks on an empty stomach, five hours since lunch, gave little hope of escaping the worst.

  “Where are we?” she said and added in an appealing voice, “Isn’t it rather rough out here? I don’t think …”

  “You can’t be sick now,” Jake told her roughly. “I need your help.”

  “Help? How?”

  “Wait and see. And stay up here. You’ll feel it less than below.”

  So she sat down in the cockpit, near the open door of the wheelhouse, looking wistfully at the Lido on the horizon, which presented a steady and steadily growing line in shape, size and colour, in contrast to the lazy, heaving waves that never stopped their hateful movement, up and down, side to side, slap and over, on and on …

  It was Abe, who was acting as deck hand, who called, “Ain’t we in close enough now, boss? This yere post ain’t more’n couple hundred yards, I guess.”

  Jake lessened speed till the launch was almost still in the water, to Gwen’s distress tossing far more uncomfortably than before. Abe went into the wheelhouse, Jake came out with a pair of long range binoculars hanging round his neck. He took them off and handed them to Gwen.

  “Now,” he said. “Focus on that bunch of bathers halfway between here and the sand. See any of your friends among them?”

  Gwen had some trouble getting the glasses in focus, but at last she managed it.

  “I don’t think,” she began. “Why, yes, I can see Mr. Banks.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “I told you. With the hippy daughter. Want to see?”

  “No, no. Those schoolmarms. See any of them?”

  “Oh!” So that was what he wanted. Her hints about Rose Lawler had registered. “No. They must have gone in. They did mean to come down to bathe. That’s Mr. Banks in the shallow water near the shore. Heavy type. Not exactly fat.”

  He took the glasses and soon picked the figure she described. But he handed them back.

  “Have another go,” he said. “That feller couldn’t rock your boat.”

  “The damn thing’s rocking my stomach to bits right now,” Gwen cried in desperation, trying once more, for Jake had altered them, to get the binoculars focused to her own vision. It was then she recognised Owen, lying on his back, gazing up at the sky.

  Jake laughed suddenly, applauding her feeble sally while he encouraged her to try again. All this time the launch was moving again, straight in towards the shore. They must turn away soon or they would run Owen down. Jake was still gazing into the distance. Then Owen began to move. He must not see her, not with Jake again. Her sudden fright together with the movement of the launch were too much for her.

  “I’m going to throw up,” she gasped, pulling the binoculars from round her neck, pushing them into his hand. She stumbled and was sick on the deck of the cabin. After that she crawled on to a bunk, remaining there until the launch took her to the pier at the end of the bathing beach.

  Jake paid no attention whatever to her distress. He was annoyed that she could not confirm any one of the figures he had picked out to be that of Mrs. Lawler. But having watched the various women bathers try to swim and then stand up and then try again, never drawing nearer to the limiting post than he was allowing the launch itself to approach, he came to the conclusion that his plan for the real retired schoolmarm had every chance of success. As he turned the launch away he had noticed one swimmer quite close by, making back towards the shore. But this was a man, a whitish body in trunks.

  Meanwhile Abe had mopped up the vomit in the cabin, offered Gwen a glass of water, which she refused and was standing by for orders.

  “Take the wheel while I watch the depth,�
�� Jake ordered. “Be ready to turn off when I say.”

  “Ya, boss,” Abe said. They were, once more, moving in towards the shore.

  Jake watched the echo-finder and the launch crept in again and once again turned off.

  After that Jake took the wheel and cruised the launch up and down off-shore for twenty minutes. Then he took her back to his former position and moved very cautiously in-shore at various points, watching the echo-sounder carefully to see how far he could venture without stranding. By this time Owen was back on the beach, drying himself in the sun.

  Gwen was below, still prostrate, the sea was empty now of bathers, so there was no one to tell Jake he had seen the man he had begun to fear, but by whom he was now himself feared. His men knew nothing whatever about Owen; neither had any orders except with regard to Rose Lawler, who had not appeared at this preliminary rehearsal.

  At last Jake turned the launch away and drove her to the pier nearby where he tied up until Gwen was fit enough to make her own way back to the tour hotel. She protested and cried, as usual. She said he would be the death of her. She demanded a taxi. He gave her money to pay for one, but refused to leave the launch.

  Owen left his room very early the next morning, found a continental breakfast at a nearby restaurant and returned a couple of hours later with an Italian newspaper. He sat in the hall lounge with the intention of waylaying Mr. Banks as he passed through on his way to or from the dining room.

  He did not have to wait long and he saw, with some amusement that his intended victim was in no way surprised to see him. So he cut short his usual studied approach, folding his newspaper, rising at once and saying as he stepped forward, “Good morning, Mrs. Banks. Good morning, sir. May I have a few words with you?”

  “We are going over to Venice,” Mr. Banks said, continuing to walk towards the lifts.

  “In the garden, perhaps,” Owen said. Clearly the rush tactic was needed here.

  “I cannot imagine …” Mr. Banks was beginning, when his wife interrupted.

  “I’ll go up and get our things,” she said. “You talk to Mr. Strong. I’ll come down to the garden when I’m ready. You won’t want anything except your camera, will you?”

  “I hope not,” Mr. Banks said, with an ominous side glance at Owen.

  The two men settled themselves on metal chairs in an open space, chosen by Mr. Banks. Some large trees near them provided a half-shade that grew deeper as the sun, continuing to rise in the sky, looked down through the thicker canopy of the trees upper branches. This was to the advantage of both, since feelings ran higher as the interview developed.

  Mr. Banks lost no time in making clear his general disapproval.

  “I hope you found your wallet all right,” he said, attacking from his position of the afternoon before.

  “Yes, thank you,” Owen answered steadily. He waited a few seconds and then added, “The wallet itself was under the bench in the changing room in the hut. The Italian notes were still there, but the travellers’ cheques had vanished.”

  “Bad luck,” said Mr. Banks. “I suppose you can get some more.”

  “Not immediately, I’m afraid. I was hoping perhaps you would — assist me.”

  Mr. Banks snorted. He had expected something very much less crude.

  “You — what!” he said, with contempt as well as anger.

  “I am leaving Italy today,” Owen said, watching Mr. Banks closely. “I shall want fifty thousand lire.”

  “You’re mad! You’ll get nothing from me. I wouldn’t lend you five lire, not a sou, a tanner, a two p. piece.”

  “I’m not asking you for a loan,” Owen said, very gently. “I’m asking you for fifty thousand lire — in notes — cash.”

  Mr. Banks paled a little. Worse than the touch he’d expected. Blackmail. But he was not yet defeated.

  “You bloody skunk!” he declared, striking the metal table between them so that it rang like a rusty alarm bell.

  A waiter happened to be passing through the garden with a tray from one of the hotel annexe rooms. He heard what he took to be a call for his services and swerved to obey it.

  “Two brandies,” Owen said in Italian. The waiter shook his head.

  “The bar is not open, signore,” he said.

  “Two coffees, then.”

  The man went away.

  “I have ordered two coffees,” Owen said. “I think he may forget the order.”

  “You can have them,” Mr. Banks said, breathing hard. “I’m going.”

  He began to rise but Owen, slipping his right hand into his jacket pocket said, “No!” in such a hard voice that the other sank back into his chair.

  “What makes you think …” he stammered, watching Owen’s hand move in the pocket. “Why do you think I should dream of …”

  “It is unfortunate,” Owen said slowly, “that when you persuaded your daughter to join you on this charter tour you did not know the girl was pregnant.”

  “How dare you …”

  “Please let me finish. She was smoking cannabis, too. You realised that. I suppose you and your wife had rows about her. Penelope got round you for money for her supplies, I imagine. But she couldn’t get round the other business. She asked Mrs. Franks for advice. The fat midwife was sympathetic, but not helpful. I happen to know how Penny managed it and she started an abortion. But it was badly done. It became an emergency. She had to go to hospital.”

  Mr. Banks was staring at him in horror.

  “You— you devil!” he panted. “You couldn’t know!”

  “But I’m right, aren’t I? They treated her correctly in hospital. The doctors suspected at once, but the symptoms were confused. Hence that abortive typhoid scare. But they cleaned up the real abortion quite correctly as was their duty. Only they insisted the girl should go home and stay there.”

  Mr. Banks groaned.

  “I do sympathise,” Owen said. He had to push his chair back to avoid Mr. Banks’s fist, but he went on speaking. “If she’d stayed away … But now … Well, it only needs my word about the name and misapplied activities of the so-called doctor in Rome … Abortion is not legal in this country, Mr. Banks … A longish term — Italian prisons … Very slow legal processes …”

  Mr. Banks, white with rage and fear, got up from his chair.

  “Stay where you are,” he said. “You win, damn you. Leaving Venice, did you say?”

  “Today.”

  “I’ll get you the money now. If I see you here on the Lido again I’ll go to the police. I don’t believe there would really be any danger to Penny now.”

  “Only a public scandal. The newspapers, you know.”

  Again Mr. Banks made a threatening movement but thought better of it.

  “I’ll wait here until you bring me the lire,” Owen promised. “After that you will not see me again in this hotel.”

  He sat on in the shade of the tree. He felt it was a little sad to have worked so hard with so much unpleasantness for so small an amount. But he could not risk asking for more. There must be no questions asked at the bank, no special arrangements to be made. It would be enough to get going and after Geneva … well …

  Presently the waiter reappeared with a tray and two cups of coffee. Owen paid for them and continued to wait.

  When Mrs. Banks appeared she seemed agitated to find him alone.

  “Have some coffee,” Owen said to her, smiling. “Reg suddenly found he had to go to the bank. But he’ll be back soon.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next day was the last the tour would spend in Venice. It had also been arranged for it to spend the afternoon on the highlight of the visit, a trip to the famous glassworks on one of the smaller islands.

  Rose and her friends had put their names down to join this expedition. They no longer considered Gwen to be one of their group though she still came to their table for meals. It seemed clear to them now that she had met friends in Venice by previous appointment. She had never mentioned these friends,
which was not surprising, Rose told the others, after describing the three daunting figures that had swept the girl away from St. Mark’s Square on the morning after their arrival.

  “With this afternoon booked we had better finish anything we want to do in Venice this morning,” Myra said at the breakfast table. Gwen had not yet appeared; the others, as usual, were there at the opening of the dining room double doors.

  “We can’t. Finish, I mean,” Flo said. “We’ve hardly seen any of the important pictures. I suppose we could get to a few of them.”

  “I must buy one or two small presents,” Rose said. “I’ve been spending too much time taking photographs. And looking at buildings. I rather felt I’d had my whack of pictures in Florence. Which shows I begin to wilt at a plethora of Renaissance art, I’m afraid.”

  “I don’t see that you need feel guilty on that account,” Myra answered her. “Let’s just go around independently when we’re ready and meet in the Square for coffee at eleven. Shopping and sight-seeing are quicker to manage solo, don’t you think?”

  The others agreed though they did travel across together. They separated as they left the vaporetto. Rose could not resist another visit to the cathedral to take a last look at the mosaics, the gleam of rich gold ornament, the calm, wise, untortured Christ. She promised herself, as she gazed at these splendours, to make a longer, quieter, visit to Venice at some future date. Then she went out into the turmoil of narrow streets, dark smelly water, pushing tourists and shop windows filled with a strange medley of rubbish and highly-skilled craftsmanship.

  In the end she bought a few lace-decorated handkerchiefs. Not very exciting, but genuine, she explained to her friends.

  “I think I’d have done better to look at pictures like you, Flo,” she said, gazing rather enviously at the excellent reproductions Miss Jeans had gathered. “I could have given those instead of these things.”

  “But the lace is beautiful,” Myra protested. “You certainly couldn’t get anything like it at home.”