October Men

'His wife, his child and his au pair?' Villari repeated the words as though he doubted his ears.

Fool, thought Boselli briefly. Fool not to wait for the additional facts which must lie beneath this one like vipers in a bed of flowers.

'We weren't watching the flight, and he was on the passenger list anyway. It was an ordinary scheduled flight and a routine entry. Purpose of visit—holiday.'

Boselli waited patiently for the viper.

'But as luck would have it we did have a man there.'

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'He was met?' Villari was trying to sound interested.

'Audley? No, he was not met,' the General shook his head,

'not in the sense you mean, anyway. But there was someone there waiting for him all the same. Someone who didn't want to be seen by him. Someone who followed him when he drove off in his Hertz car.'

Someone we know, thought Boselli.

The General looked at him. 'George Ruelle—does that name ring any bells with you, Boselli? It's possible the bastard was before your time.'

George Ruelle. The curious thing was that the General had used the English form of the given name, George.

George Ruelle.

Before his time. But his time here had been almost exactly continuous with the General's—they had both been new boys at the same time, albeit one at the bottom and the other at the top.

And that left one strong possibility at least.

'A partisan, General?'

'Good thinking.' The General's smile was heartwarming. 'Or should I say 'good guessing'?'

'It was a guess, sir,' Boselli admitted.

'But a good one. Yes—Ruelle led a group in the next valley to mine. Group Stalingrad.'

Group Stalingrad. Now, that rang a bell, or the faint echo of dummy2

one— a memory of ancient and better-forgotten beastliness: of war to the knife with the Germans, when no prisoners were taken and no questions asked, and when reprisal brought bestial counterreprisal.

It had passed the studious young Boselli by, but it had not left him unscarred.

Group Stalingrad. That had been one of the merciless ones—

and wasn't there also a tale of British POWs (or were they American?) who had escaped in the confusion of 1943 only to be cold-heartedly sacrificed—by George Ruelle?

If that was the man he must be quite old by now—and frighteningly young to have been the leader of a partisan group in those far-off, unhappy days. . . .

'This Ruelle followed Audley?' Villari's voice cut through the memory.

'We think so. He was there at the airport, waiting in his car.

He didn't collect anyone, he went off directly after Audley's car. He doesn't live in Rome and as far as we know he hasn't any business here.'

'Where did they go?'

'That's the problem. Our man wasn't in a position to follow them himself. We know where Audley's staying, of course.

But for the rest—' The General's shoulders lifted eloquently.

It was pretty slim. In fact it was really far too slim to act on if that was all there was to it, thought Boselli, still watching the General intently. A viper there certainly was; in fact it was dummy2

patently because of that viper—Ruelle—that the General had become interested in Audley's arrival in the first place, not because of Audley.

He re-ran the General's voice in his head: there had been a tightness about it when it supplied its minimal information about Ruelle, 'a group in the valley next to mine. Group Stalingrad.' There could very well have been bad blood—if not actual blood—between the two partisan leaders, both young and ruthless, but one a Communist (only a Red would have named his group like that) and the other a blue-blooded army officer. Indeed, the more one thought about it, the more certain it seemed.

But there was precious little in reality to connect Ruelle and Audley beyond the fact that they had left the airport one after another.

'Is Ruelle active?' asked Villari.

Boselli looked at him quickly, annoyed with himself for not asking the same question. The Clotheshorse's mind must be labouring along roughly the same track as his own, but its very slowness had enabled it to see something he had overlooked: tailing people was a young man's game, not an old man's one.

The General considered the question. 'If he is, then this is the first we've heard about it,' he said slowly. 'In fact, if he is then it will be— disturbing.'

'Why so?'

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Once again there was an uncharacteristic delay before the General answered. 'There was a time—it's a long