‘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 Mihajlovic. 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 -1 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. Td 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 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 / 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 I 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.’
She smiled faintly. ‘Maybe you’re not even a monster at all.’
‘You’re going to sleep, now?’ She nodded so he said goodnight and closed the door behind him.
Almost an hour elapsed before Petersen, George and Josip were left together in the dining-room. The others had been in no hurry to depart. The night’s events had not been conducive to an immediately renewed slumber and, besides, they were secure in the knowledge that there would be no early morning start.