October Men

man like Narva if it had been in getting that information for him that the German had died. Information so valuable that even after three years both the British and the Russians were desperate to trace its source.

That was it. He felt the conviction of it blossom inside his brain. That was it.

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'Beyond everyone's reach, Signor Narva,' said Audley heavily, echoing Boselli's thought. 'But his family isn't.'

'His—family?' For the first time Narva showed something like genuine surprise. 'What makes you think his family can help you, Professore Audley?'

'I didn't say they could.'

'But you think his wife may—' The surprise gave way to sudden explosive distaste, ' — tchah! But you think you can threaten me again, through them!' Narva's hand came up in an exact, economical gesture, stabbing first towards Audley with the fingers held stiff together like a broad cutting blade.

'Well, I tell you this—' the hand moved abruptly sideways to include Boselli, '—and you also—that I do not tolerate such threats. Not to me, and not to them! And that is not a threat, signori. It is a promise.'

After that brief flare of surprise and disgust Narva's voice had returned at once to its cool, almost conversational level.

Anger, the brittle wall behind which doubt and fear so often tried to hide, would have been much more reassuring to Boselli; but here there was only determination and confidence—a confidence so strong that it permitted Narva to admit implicitly that he was aware of the Hotzendorff family.

And—

Audley was nodding in agreement.

Boselli clamped his jaw shut quickly for fear that his astonishment should make him look foolish, even though no dummy2

one was looking at him.

'Good—excellent.' The Englishman's quiet confidence matched Narva's own. 'Now we may have two common interests.'

'Two—?' Narva frowned.

'The North Sea and the Hotzendorff family,' Audley nodded.

'Profit and responsibility.'

'Since when did the British accept any sort of responsibility for Frau Hotzendorff and her children?' said Narva scornfully.

'We pay her a pension.'

'A pittance.'

'No doubt you augment it. But that's neither here nor there.

We don't want the KGB calling on her—not if someone like George Ruelle is on their payroll.'

Narva looked sharply at Boselli. 'You have arranged protection for Frau Hotzendorff I take it?'

Boselli looked helplessly from Narva to Audley for support.

He could hardly admit that until ten minutes ago he had never even heard of the wretched woman—or her double-dealing husband.

'Well?' snapped Narva.

'Frau Hotzendorff is in no danger at the moment,' cut in Audley reassuringly. 'But she will be very soon. And then you will be vulnerable whether you like it or not, Signor Narva—

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as vulnerable as a woman with three children. And that's why you have to tell me what our Little Bird whispered in your ear.'

XIV

NARVA WAITED UNTIL the servant had gone before raising his glass to his lips, sipping the wine, then staring at them each in turn as though he had thereby completed a ritual gesture of hospitality which transformed them from invaders into guests.

'You could have saved yourself much time by coming to the point directly, professore,' he said.

Richardson was surprised how dry his mouth had become. It was all he could do to prevent himself gulping the entire glass like a schoolboy, and the temptation to do so told him how unaccountably nervous he had become. The little Italian gunman next to him had evidently been as dry, if not as nervous also, but was less inhibited by it: he guzzled the delicious Capri bianco thirstily, like an animal at a desert waterhole.

'We have enough time—now,' replied Audley, his own wine still untasted.

'You are very sure of yourself.'

'Of that, certainly.'

'But not of me?'

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Richardson stared at Audley, uneasily. He had never seen the big man more apparently relaxed, or more confident, and yet beneath this armour there was still that coiled-up tension he had sensed in the olive grove. It went beyond the lies Audley had told, and far beyond the bitter anger he had shown momentarily at the department's intervention. In retrospect it came down to a strange contradiction in his reaction to events: for all that he had beaten down Narva's defences with the threat of the KGB, and above all with the murderous presence of Ruelle in that threat, he himself did not seem in the least frightened by it. And yet at the same time he was,