such quality.
'Yes. Erm…' My heart was thumping. She'd scared me out of my wits.
'Why are you following me?'
'Erm, no, miss. Erm…' I was thinking, God Almighty. What if she screamed for the police? 'I thought you were following me.' It sounded lame. 'How do you know my name?'
'I have a message for you.'
I was getting a headache. It was all too complicated. I realized I was dog tired. 'From whom?'
'An old lady. A friend of yours. She says she has a proposition.'
'I don't know any old… wait!' It wasn't far from here that I'd done Carlo over and recovered some of my money from the old cow. 'Anna?'
Anna had mentioned a spare room, suggested I lodge with her, in fact. And there'd been something about a daughter… I asked what was the proposition.
'You'll have to come.'
A passing couple sniggered across the alley in the darkness. They were assuming the worst, that we were making a proposition of a different kind under concealment of night. I shivered suddenly as the glamour of the Navona faded in the chill night wind.
Abruptly I was washed in the cold realization that it was here poor Giordano Bruno had been burned alive. Original and brave thinker, he had walked this very spot, been led on to the wood pile simply to provide a spectacle for the nerks of this world. Even when the poor bloke came to London to try to scratch a living by teaching bored young ladies, we'd been so offhand he'd been driven away. And tonight was the first night Marcello would spend in his grave, the first of eternity. And the first night of widowhood for his wife. And the first night as orphans for his two infants. I swear my teeth chattered from the cold.
There was sweat on my face and my forehead was burning. I leant back against the wall, bushed.
'Are you all right?' the bird was asking.
'Will she help me?'
I felt her smile. 'She offered once before.'
I walked with her then among the narrow streets. It was only when she pulled a door open and stepped inside that I realized we were in the alley where Carlo and I had had our disagreement.
Gingerly I followed into the passageway. The minuscule light just about reached the floor from its furry flex. Plaster was off the walls. It looked unswept.
'Er, one thing, miss.' I didn't want knifing.
'What is it?' She paused, key in a door by the stairs.
'Erm, where's Carlo these days?'
'Recovering in hospital,' she said pointedly. 'At considerable expense. Come in.'
'Erm, wish him better.'
The room was tidy but small with a couple of curtained alcoves. A dressing-table with hooped lights of the sort you see in theatre dressing-rooms occupied one end. A divan, two small armchairs and a vase of flowers. A radio. A curtained window. A faded photograph of a man and a woman smiling. A table lamp.
'This is it, Lovejoy.' It wasn't a lot, but I'd have settled for anything. She motioned me to a chair.
I asked anxiously, 'I suppose Anna's gone to bed?' I somehow had the idea I'd get a better deal from the old devil than this quiet young bird.
She made no reply, just looked at me as if I'd come from Mars.
I floundered on, 'Look. The trouble is I have no money for rent. Not yet.'
'Until after you do the job?'
'That's right,' I said before I could stop myself, then I thought, oh what the hell if she knew. I was exhausted, unutterably weary. 'How much is the rent?'
'We'll decide tomorrow. You sleep there.' She indicated the divan.
I was too tired to argue. I'd hardly slept for the past two nights. And the days had been hell. She discarded her swagger jacket and started putting things away. I waited foolishly.
'Erm… are you upstairs, then?' Old Anna must already be snoring her stupid head off.
'No. There's another divan behind the curtain.'
I cleared my throat. Well, if she said so. 'Was this Carlo's?' I noticed a man's coat hanging behind the door. Tired as I was, I didn't want there to be any misunderstandings that might cause old Anna to come creeping in with an axe to defend her gorgeous daughter's honour.
She was getting out a couple of blankets. 'Use this cushion for a pillow. You're hardly conscious. There's a loo second door under the stairs. The hall light's always on. If you're shy you can undress under the blankets.
I got my shirt off while she wiped her face with some white cream stuff at her giant illuminated mirror. She was beautiful sitting there. 'Incidentally,' I told her, thinking I was being all incisive and knowing. 'Tell your mum Carlo's a drunk. He drank umpteen bottles of wine when he was supposed to be following. I knew he was there all the time.'
She was quite unperturbed, creaming away. 'You evidently pride yourself on your powers of observation, Lovejoy.'
'I'm not bad,' I confessed, chucking my trousers out and hauling the blankets up. I decided to take my socks off the minute I got warm.
