The Memory Trap

'So that's agreed, then.' He chose to accept their silent hate as agreement. It was only like it always was, after all: they weren't about to reward him with their approval, any more than he ever applauded Jack Butler for making logical dummy1

decisions with which he couldn't argue, however much he disliked the profit-and-loss calculation involved.

And, anyway, what was agreeable was that it was like the old days, when there wasn't a car and a driver in attendance, and another talkative committee meeting at the other end: it wasn't boring.

'Well — let's get on with it, then.' He pointed at Capn.

5

He was just getting into the taxi when Paul Mitchell appeared out of nowhere, pushing his way through the late-season tourists who thronged the quayside of the Marina Grande.

Audley decided not to frown, although that was his first inclination. For he had half-expected Mitchell to try something like this, he realized. So he merely raised his eyebrows instead.

'What is it now?' He had to concede that it had been Mitchell, at the very last moment before he disembarked, who had remembered to supply him with a wad of Italian Monopoly-money, without which he could probably not have penetrated the Villa Jovis ancient monument itself, let alone hired transport to get him near it. 'What else have I forgotten?'

Mitchell gave the taxi-driver a friendly grin. 'Speak English?

No? Well then . . . momenta per favore?' He turned to dummy1

Audley. 'Give me your coat, David.'

'Why?' Audley saw that Mitchell was carrying some sort of alternative garment.

'You don't look like a tourist.' Mitchell eyed his crumpled second-best suit with distaste. 'You look like a businessman who's slept in his suit. And that won't do.' He thrust the garment at Audley. 'Take off your jacket.'

'F—' But then he decided to give in gracefully while he still seemed to be winning. 'Oh — very well!'

He peeled off his jacket. And then remembered to rescue his passport, warrant card, credit cards and Eurocheques, without all of which he never felt he really existed when he was far from home.

Mitchell accepted the jacket in return for what seemed to be some sort of lightweight windcheater, and fretted as Audley bestowed the proofs of his real existence in its breast-pockets. 'Now the tie, David.'

'The tie?' But, of course, tourists didn't wear West Sussex Yeomanry ties.

'Get in the taxi.'

That, at least, was sensible: in the taxi he was out of sight, if there were any prying eyes hereabouts. But then Mitchell held the door so that he couldn't close it, and leaned into the gap.

'This isn't one of your very best ideas, David. Aren't you getting a bit long in the tooth for fun-and- games?'

dummy1

Audley gave up trying to wrestle the door closed. Arguably, the substitution of the jackets might be sensible. But that had simply been Mitchell's excuse to Captain Cuccaro, rather than another belated bit of sense. 'You are supposed to be making polite conversation with Cuccaro, Mitchell. So that he doesn't queer my pitch.'

Mitchell screwed up his second-best jacket. 'Your pitch is already too bloody queer for my liking, David. What the hell are you up to?'

'I'm not 'up' to anything. I'm obeying orders. Just as you are.'

'Oh yes?' Mitchell held the door rock-firm. 'I thought my orders were to watch your back. And yours were not to take any unnecessary risks.'

'Your orders were to obey my orders.' The real trouble with Paul Mitchell was that he'd never been a soldier. But the immediate problem was to get the taxi-door closed. 'I'm not taking an unnecessary risk, Paul — I'm taking a calculated one. Because everything I said on the boat is true. Or ...

everything I said about Peter, anyway. And I know him better than you do: I know how he was trained to think. So I know what he'll do if he's running scared.'

'That was a long time ago.' Mitchell's face was like his hold on the door.

'It was — yes.' He slackened his own hold deliberately. 'But he won't have forgotten. And he'll know that I haven't, dummy1

either.'

A muscle on the corner of Mitchell's mouth twitched. 'But we still don't know what's really going on, David. So . . . you're going in blind.' He glanced uneasily at the taxi-driver, who had settled down with a tattered newspaper. 'After what happened in ... to Elizabeth, David?'

'This is different.'

'Damn right, it is! It's a bloody-sight riskier — ' Mitchell stopped as his anger roused the taxi-driver from his sports page.

'Signor — ?' The man looked questioningly from Mitchell to Audley as though he feared they were about to come to blows. 'Avanti, huh?'

'Avanti.' Audley agreed, and then transferred his nod to Mitchell as he felt the door move. 'No one else is