“And why would they do that?” Dillon asked.
“The Americans released from jail in New York the great Mafia don, Lucky Luciano.”
“Another gangster,” Hannah said.
“Perhaps, signorina, but he got the job done and the people believed in him. He went back to prison in America, but was released in nineteen forty-six. On the pardon, it said: For services to his country.”
“And you believe in such fantasy?” she asked.
“During the campaign, my own father saw him in the village of Corleone.”
Dillon laughed out loud. “Now that’s a showstopper if ever I heard one.”
As the landscape softened, there were flowers everywhere, on the slopes knapweed with yellow heads, bee orchids, ragwort and gentians.
“So beautiful.” Hannah sighed. “Yet centuries of violence and killing. Such a pity.”
“I know,” Dillon said. “Just like the Bible. As for me, I’m just passing through.”
He closed his eyes and Riley glanced at him and it was the plane all over again and he felt as guilty as hell, but there was nothing he could do after all. Salinas soon, and it would all be over. Some comfort in that.
Marie de Brissac surfaced in a kind of instant moment, one second nothing, dark as the grave, the next pale evening light. The first thing she was aware of was that she felt fine in herself, no headache, no heaviness, and that seemed strange.
She was lying on a large four-poster bed in a room with a vaulted ceiling and paneled walls of dark oak. There was oaken furniture, heavy and old, and a tapestry on the far wall with some sort of medieval scene on it. What seemed to be the outer door was also oak and studded with iron bands. There was another door beside the bed itself.
There was a large window, barred, of course, a table, and three chairs beside it. The man who had called himself David Braun sat there reading a book. He glanced up.
“Ah, there you are. How do you feel?”
“Fine.” She sat up. “Where am I?”
“Oh, in another country, that’s all you need to know. I’ll get you some coffee, or tea if you prefer it.”
“No, coffee would be fine, strong, black, and two sugars.”
“I shan’t be long. Look around.”
He opened the door and went out and she heard a key turn in the lock. She got up, crossed to the other door, opened it, and found herself in a large old-fashioned bathroom. The toilet, basin and bath with a stand-in shower looked straight out of the nineteenth century, but on the shelf beside the wash basin there was a range of toiletries. Soaps, shampoos, talcum powder, deodorants, a selection of sanitary napkins. There was even an electric hairdryer, combs and hairbrushes, and it occurred to her that all this had very probably been procured for her.
Her belief was further reinforced by her discovery on the desk in the bedroom of a carton of Gitanes, her favorite cigarette, and a couple of plastic lighters. She opened a pack, took a cigarette and lit it, then went to the window and peered out through the bars.
The building, whatever it was, was situated on the edge of a cliff. There was a bay below with an old jetty, a speedboat moored there. Beyond that was only a very blue sea, the light fading as dusk fell. The key turned in the door behind her, it opened, and Braun entered carrying a tray.
“So you’ve settled in?”
“You could call it that. When do I get some answers?”
“My boss will be along in a few minutes. It’s up to him.” He poured coffee for her.
She picked up the book he had been reading. It was in English, an edition of T. S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets. “You like poetry?” she asked.
“I like Eliot.” He misquoted: “In our end is our beginning and all that. He says so much so simply.” He walked to the door and paused. “He won’t want you to see his face, so don’t be alarmed.”
He went out and she finished her coffee, poured a second cup, and lit another cigarette. She paced up and down for a while, trying to make sense of it all, but the truth was that there wasn’t any sense to it. Behind her, the key rattled in the lock, and as she turned the door opened.