breathing easy: sleeping pills, probably, I thought; nothing worse.
Her thin face was calm, without strain, long lashes lying in half-moon fringes on taut cheeks. Strong eyebrows, pale lips, hollows along the jaw. Hair tousled, clearly dirty. Let her sleep, I thought: she'd have little peace when she woke up.
I went downstairs and found Cenci again drinking brandy, standing up.
'Is she all right?' he said. 'Fine. Just fine.'
'It's a miracle.'
'Mm.'
He put down the glass and began to weep. 'Sorry. Can't help it,' he said.
'It's natural.'
He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose, 'Do all parents weep?'
'Yes.'
He put in some more work with the handkerchief, sniffed a bit, and said, 'You lead a very odd life, don't you?'
'Not really.'
'Don't say she had no clothes on. Promise, me, Andrew.'
'I promise.'
I said I'd have to tell Pucinelli she was safe, and, immediately alarmed, he begged for the promise again. I gave it without impatience, because stress could come out in weird ways and the return of the victim was never the end of it.
Pucinelli was fortunately on duty in the ambulance, though presumably I could have spread the news directly via the wire-tappers.
'She's home,' I said laconically. 'I'm in the villa. She's upstairs.'
'Alessia?' Disbelief, relief, a shading of suspicion.
'Herself. Drugged but unharmed. Don't hurry, she'll probably sleep for hours. How's the siege going?'
'Andrew!' The beginnings of exasperation. 'What's been going on?'
'Will you be coming here yourself?'
A short pause came down the line. He'd told me once that I always put suggestions into the form of questions, and I supposed that it was true that I did. Implant the thought, seek the decision. He knew the tap was on the telephone, he'd ordered it himself, with every word recorded. He would guess there were things I might tell him privately.
'Yes,' he said. I'll be coming.'
'And of course you'll have a great lever now with those two kidnappers in the flat, won't you? And - um - will you bring the ransom money straight here when you lay your hands on it? It does, of course, belong to Signor Cenci.'
'Of course,' he said dryly. 'But it may not be my decision.'
'Mm. Well… I photographed all the notes, of course.'
A pause. 'You're wicked, you know that?'
'Things have disappeared out of police custody before now.'
'You insult the carabinieri!' He sounded truly affronted, loyally angry.
'Certainly not. Police stations are not banks. I am sure the carabinieri would be pleased to be relieved of the responsibility of guarding so much money.'
'It is evidence.'
'The rest of the kidnappers, of course, are still free, and no doubt still greedy. The money could be held safe from them under an official seal in a bank of Signor Cenci's choosing.'
A pause. 'It's possible that I may arrange it,' he said stiffly, not quite forgiving. 'No doubt I will see you at the villa.'
I put the telephone down with a rueful smile. Pucinelli himself I trusted, but not all law-enforcers automatically. In South American countries particularly, where I had worked several times, kidnappers regularly bribed or threatened policemen to look the wrong way, a custom scarcely unknown elsewhere. Kidnappers had no scruples and seldom any mercy, and many a policeman had had to choose between his duty and the safety of wife and children.
Within ten minutes Pucinelli was back on the line,
'Just to tell you… things are moving here. Come if you want. Come into the street from the west, on this side. I'll make sure you get through.'
'Thanks.'
The partners wouldn't have approved, but I went. I'd studied many case-histories of sieges and been to lectures by people involved in some of them, but I'd never been on the spot before at first hand: too good a chance to miss. I changed from Spanish chauffeur to nondescript onlooker, borrowed the family's runabout, and was walking along the Bologna street in record time.
Pucinelli had been as good as his word: a pass awaiting me at the first barrier saw me easily through to the still-parked ambulance. I went into it as I'd left, through the nearside passenger door, and found Pucinelli there with his engineer and three men in city suits.
'You came,' he said.
'You're kind.'
He gave me a small smile and briefly introduced me to the civilians: negotiator, psychiatrist, psychiatrist.
'These two medical gentlemen have been advising us about the changing mental state of the kidnappers.' Pucinelli spoke formally; they nodded gravely back.
'Mostly their mental state has been concerned with the baby,' Pucinelli said. 'The baby has cried a lot. Apparently the milk we sent in upset its stomach even worse.'
As if on cue the bug on the flat produced the accelerating wail of the infant getting newly into its stride, and from the faces of the five men in front of me it wasn't only the kidnappers who were finding the sound a frazzle.
'Forty minutes ago,' Pucinelli said, turning down the baby's volume, 'the deep-voiced kidnapper telephoned here and said they would come out if certain conditions were met. No aeroplane - they've abandoned that. They want only to be sure they aren't shot. In about twenty minutes… that's one hour from when they telephoned… they say the mother will leave with the baby. Then one of the kidnappers will come out. There are to be no carabinieri anywhere in the flats. The stairs must be clear, also the front door and the pavement outside. The mother and baby will come out into the road, followed by the first kidnapper. He will have no gun. If he is taken peacefully, one of the children will leave, and after an interval, the father. If the second kidnapper is then sure he will be safe, he will come out with the second child in his arms. No gun. We are to arrest him quietly.'
I looked at him. 'Did they discuss all this between themselves? Did you hear them plan it, on the bug?'
He shook his head. 'Nothing.'
'They telephoned you very soon after Alessia was home.'
'Suspiciously soon.'
'You'll look for the radio?' I said.
'Yes.' He sighed. 'We have been monitoring radio frequencies these past few days. We've had no results, but I have thought once or twice before this that the kidnappers were being instructed.'
Instructed, I thought, by a very cool and bold intelligence. A pity such a brain was criminal.
'What do they plan to do with the money?' I asked.
'Leave it in the flat.'
I glanced at the screen which had shown the whereabouts of the homer in the ransom suitcase, but it was dark. I leant over and flicked the on-off switch, and the trace obligingly appeared, efficient and steady. The suitcase, at least, was still there.
I said, 'I'd like to go up there, as Signor Cenci's representative, to see that it's safely taken care of.'
With suppressed irritation he said, 'Very well.'
'It's a great deal of money,' I said reasonably.
'Yes… yes, I suppose it is.' He spoke grudgingly, partly, I guessed, because he was himself honest, partly because he was a communist. So much wealth in one man's hands offended him, and he wouldn't care if Cenci lost it.
Across the street the flat's windows were still closed. All the windows of all the flats were closed, although the day was hot.
'Don't they ever open them?' I asked.
Pucinelli glanced across at the building. 'The kidnappers open the windows sometimes for a short while when we switch off the searchlights at dawn. The blinds are always drawn, even then. There are no people now in any of the other flats. We moved them for their own safety.'
Down on the road there was little movement. Most of the official cars had been withdrawn, leaving a good deal of empty space. Four carabinieri crouched with guns behind the pair still parked, their bodies tense. Metal barriers down the street kept a few onlookers at bay, and the television van looked closed. One or two photographers sat on the ground in its shade, drinking beer from cans. On the bug the colicky crying had stopped, but no one seemed to be saying very much. It was siesta, after all.
Without any warning a young woman walked from the flats carrying a baby and shielding her eyes against the brilliance of the sunlight. She was very dishevelled and also heavily pregnant.
Pucinelli glanced as if stung at his wristwatch, said 'They're early,' and jumped out of the van. I watched him through the dark glass as he strode without hesitation towards her, taking her arm. Her head turned towards him and she began to fall, Pucinelli catching the baby and signalling furiously with his head to his men behind the cars.
One scurried forward, hauled the fainting woman unceremoniously to her feet and hustled her into one of the cars. Pucinelli gave the baby a sick look, carried it at arm's length in the wake of its mother, and, having delivered it, wiped his hands disgustedly on a handkerchief.
The photographers and the television van came to life as if electrified, and a young plump man walked three steps out of the flats and slowly raised both hands.
Pucinelli, now sheltering behind the second car, stretched an arm through the window, removed a loudhailer, and spoke through it.
'Lie face down on the road. Legs apart. Arms outstretched.'
The plump young man wavered a second, looked as if he would retreat, and finally did as he was bid.
Pucinelli spoke again. 'Stay where you are. You will not be shot.'
There was a long breath-holding hush. Then a boy came out; about six, in shorts, shirt and bright blue and white training shoes. His mother frantically waved to him through the car window, and he ran across to her, looking back over his shoulder at the man on the ground.
I switched up the volume to full on the bug on the flat, but there was still no talking, simply a few grunts and unidentifiable movements. After a while these ended, and shortly afterwards another man walked out into the street, a youngish man this time, with his hands tied behind his back. He looked gaunt and tottery, with stubbled chin, and he stopped dead at the sight of the spreadeagled kidnapper.
'Come to the cars,' Pucinelli said through the loudhailer. 'You are safe.'
