Jack Higgins – In the Hour Before Midnight

To a Sicilian male, a woman is there to be used, to do what she is told. To be publically humiliated by one would be unthinkable. Several of the watching children laughed and he reached across the table in a fury and yanked her to her feet, his other hand raised to strike.

I grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him round. We stared at each other for a long moment and the expression on his face was already beginning to alter as I slapped him back-handed. I didn’t say a word. His hand went to his cheek, his friend plucked at his sleeve. They walked backwards, faces blank, turned and hur-ried away.

Rosa joined me, buttoning her jacket. ‘What would you have done if they’d both had a go at you? Shot them?’

‘But they didn’t,’ I pointed out.

‘No, you’re right, they knew better than to tangle with Mafia.’

‘And how would they know that’s what they were doing?’

‘Don’t play games with me, Mr. Wyatt. Have you looked in the mirror lately? There is mafioso stamped clear for all to see. The self-sufficiency, the power, the quiet arrogance. Why, you didn’t even speak to that poor wretch. That was the most humiliating thing for all.’

‘For you or for him?’ She raised a hand and I warded it off. ‘Poor Rosa. You wear nylon underwear and dresses from London and Paris and feel guilty about it. Why? Are there brothers and sisters still liv-ing in a sty like this?’

‘Something like that.’ She nodded. ‘You are very clever, aren’t you, Mr. Wyatt?’

‘Stacey,’ I said. ‘Call me Stacey. Now let’s take a walk.’

Beyond the village, we found a pleasant slope that lefted gently towards the first ridge-back, the dark line of forest beyond, then bare rock and the peak, very faint, shimmering in the heat haze.

I had brought binoculars from the car and I spread the map Cerda had given me on the ground and care-fully checked certain features with reality.

‘Can it be done?’ she asked as I folded the map and put the binoculars into their case.

‘I think so.’

‘But you’re not going to tell me how?’

‘I thought you only came along for the ride?’

She hit me on the shoulder with a clenched fist. ‘I think you are the most infuriating man I have ever met.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Now let’s forget everything else ex-cept how pleasant this is. We’ll spend the afternoon like carefree lovers and tell pleasant lies to each other.’

She laughed, head thrown back, but when I took her hand in mine, she let it stay there.

On the slopes we found knapweed with great yellow heads, ragwort and bee orchids and silvery-blue gen-tians. We walked for an hour, then lay in a hollow warmed by the sun, smoked and talked.

I was right. She had started life in a village very similar to Bellona in the province of Messina, An uncle on her mother’s side, a widower, had owned a small cafe in Palermo and his only daughter had died. He needed someone to take her place in the business and no Sicilian would dream of bringing in an outsider when there was someone suitable in the family.

She had married, at eighteen, the middle-aged owner of a similar establishment who had obliged by con-veniently passing on a year later.

My impression was that Hoffer had used the place and had taken a fancy to her, but she was a little reticent about the details. The important thing was that she’d been able to make herself into what he wanted, a sophisticated woman of the world, which couldn’t have been easy, even with her guts and intelligence.

She fired a few questions at me in turn and I actually found myself answering. Nothing important, of course, and then she slipped badly.

‘It’s incredible,’ she said. ‘You’re almost human. It’s so difficult to imagine you killing as ruthlessly as you did last night.’

‘So you know about that?’ I said. ‘Who told you?’

‘Why, Colonel Burke.’ The answer was out before she could stop it. ‘I was there when he told Karl.’

Was anything ever going to make sense again? I laughed out loud and she asked me what was so funny.

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