‘And now the truth, my friends.’ Barbaccia snapped a finger and Marco, who had moved in behind me, took a grey document from an envelope, unfolded it and laid it on the table.
‘A photostat of the will Hoffer referred to which only came into my hands this afternoon.’ I wondered how many of them believed that. ‘It is in English, but there are enough of you here who understand that language to satisfy the Council that Hoffer lied. That his wife left him nothing. That there were no business assets in America that he could realise to fulfil his debt to us.’ He looked at Hoffer. ‘Would you deny this?’
‘Go to hell!’ Hoffer told him.
My grandfather continued, ‘His one hope was to murder the girl but Lentini double-crossed him. So he tried this man Burke but they needed someone who knew the country and spoke the language, and Burke produced my grandson. My grandson, who believed until the very moment that he was shot down in cold blood together with Serafino and the girl; believed, as I did until I read this will and heard his story, that he was on the mountain to save the girl. By the grace of God and the incompetence of this man Burke, he sur-vived and managed to get the girl to Bellona.’
There was nothing Hoffer could say, nothing that would do him the slightest good with the hard-faced gentry standing around that table. He answered in the only way his animal nature would allow, striking to hurt.
‘All right, Barbaccia, you win. But I put the bomb in your car that killed your daughter. With my own hands.’
He spat in my grandfather’s face. Marco took a quick step forward, my grandfather’s hands flattened against his chest. ‘No, Marco, leave it. He is a dead man walking.’ He wiped his face with a handkerchief and dropped it on the floor. ‘The man, Burke. He is at your villa?’
Hoffer, blaming Burke, I suspect, more than himself for his downfall, nodded.
‘Good. Now get out! Outside the gate you are on your own.’
Hoffer turned and lurched towards the french win-dows. He was crossing the terrace when I caught up with him, but as I swung him around, Marco already had me by the arm, my grandfather just behind, mov-ing with amazing speed for a man of his age.
‘No, Stacey, not here. Here at the Council meeting he is inviolate. It is the law. Break it and you die too.’ ‘To hell with your bloody laws,’ I said and he slapped me across the face.
I staggered back and Hoffer laughed shrilly. ‘That’s good-I like that. That’s what I gave Rosa Solazzo last night, Wyatt, only more. She wanted to warn you, you didn’t know that, did you? I don’t know what you did to her, but that stupid bitch must have liked it.’
I tried to get at him and Marco and two of the others held me back. ‘Want to know what I did with her?’ He laughed again. ‘I gave her to Ciccio. He always panted for her. The original bull that one. He’ll have tried every variation known to man by now and a few of his own thrown in for fun.’
He wanted to hurt and he succeeded. I called him every dirty name I’d ever known and they held me there as he went through the garden to his Mercedes parked outside the gate. It was only when he started up and drove away that my grandfather ordered them to re-lease me. I turned and pushed my way through the group and went back to my room.
I stood there in the darkness, my shoulder throbbing, sweat soaking the nylon shirt and thought of Rosa. Poor Rosa. So, she’d decided to stop being afraid after all and had left it too late. I remembered what Hoffer had said about Ciccio and at the thought of that ani-mal sweating over her, I cracked completely. The only decent thing in this whole stinking business as far as I was concerned had been that girl’s futile gesture in try-ing to save me. I went out through the french windows on the run and moved through the gardens to the courtyard at the rear.