“Somehow I thought you’d say that.”
He reversed his grip on the bottle of vodka and struck sideways against Tashko’s skull. The Albanian cried out sharply as the bottle smashed into pieces, drawing blood, and Chavasse heaved the table over, sending Kapo backwards in his chair, pinning him to the floor.
Haji was already moving fast across the room, a knife in his right hand. As it started to come up, Chavasse warded off the blow with one arm, caught the small man by his left wrist and, with a sudden pull, sent him crashing into the wall.
Tashko was already on his feet, blood streaming down the side of his face. He threw a tremendous punch, and Chavasse ducked under his arm and moved toward the door. Kapo pushed out a foot and tripped him so that he fell heavily to the floor.
Tashko moved in quickly, kicking at his ribs and face, and Chavasse rolled away, avoiding most of the blows and scrambling up. He vaulted over the upturned table, picked up one of the chairs in both hands and hurled it through the window with all his force. The dried and rotting wood of the frame smashed easily and the window dissolved in a snowstorm of flying glass.
He was aware of Kapo’s warning cry, of Tashko lurching forward. He lashed out sideways, the edge of his hand catching the big man across the face, scrambled onto the sill and jumped into darkness.
The air rushed past his ears with a roar, the fog seemed to curl around him, then he hit the water with a solid forceful smack and went down.
When he surfaced, he gazed up at the dark bulk of the house, at the light filtering through the fog from the smashed window. There was a sudden call, Kapo’s voice drifting down, and another answered from the
There was only one sensible way out of the situation and Chavasse took it. He turned and swam away from the landing stage, out into the harbor toward the jetty on the other side. It was perhaps a quarter of a mile, he knew that. No great distance and the water was warm.
He took his time, swimming steadily, and the voices faded into the fog behind him and he was alone in an enclosed world. Everything seemed to fade away and he felt curiously calm and at peace with himself. Time seemed to have no meaning and the riding lights of the fishing boats moored close to the jetty appeared through the fog in what seemed a remarkably short time.
He swam between them and landed at a flight of steps that led to the jetty. For a moment or two he sat there getting his breath and then went up quickly and moved along the jetty to the waterfront.
His first real need was obviously a change of clothes, and he hurried through the fog toward his hotel. After that, a visit to Orsini at the Tabu and perhaps a return match with Adem Kapo and his thugs, although it was more than probable that the
The electric sign over the entrance to the hotel loomed out of the night and he opened the door and moved inside. The desk was vacant, no one apparently on duty, and he went up the stairs two at a time and turned along the corridor.
The door to his room stood open, panels smashed and splintered, and a light was still burning. A chair lay on its side in the middle of the floor and the blankets were scattered over the end of the bed as if there had been a struggle. He stood there for a moment, his stomach suddenly hollow, then turned and hurried back downstairs.
He noticed the foot protruding from behind the desk as he moved to the door and there was a slight, audible groan of pain. When he looked over the top, he saw the old proprietor lying on his face, blood matting the white hair at the back of the head.
SEVEN
THE LANDING STAGE WAS DESERTED when Chavasse, Orsini and Carlo drove up in the old Ford pickup. The big Italian cut the engine, jumped to the ground and went to the head of the steps.
He turned, shaking his head. “We’re wasting our time, Paul, but we’ll check the house just in case.”
They went down the steps quickly and crossed the landing stage to the door. It opened without difficulty and Chavasse went up first, an old Colt automatic Orsini had given him held against his right knee.
The door to the room in which Kapo had interviewed him stood ajar, light streaming out across the dark landing. Chavasse kicked it open and waited, but there was no reply. He went in quickly at ground level, the automatic ready.
Vodka from the smashed bottle had soaked into the floor mixed with blood and the table still lay on its side. Fog billowed in through the broken window and Orsini walked across, feet crunching on glass, and peered outside.
He turned, respect on his face. “A long way down.”
“I didn’t have a great deal of choice. What do we do now?”
The Italian shrugged. “Go back to the Tabu. Maybe old Gilberto’s remembered something by now.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Chavasse said. “That was a hard knock he took.”
“Then we’ll have to think of something else.”
They returned to the pickup and Carlo drove back to the Tabu through the deserted streets. As the truck braked to a halt, Chavasse checked his watch and saw that it was almost half past two. He jumped to the ground and followed the two Italians along the alley to the side door.
There were still a few customers in the bar at the front and, as they walked along the passage, the barman looked round the corner.
“Rome on the phone. They’re hanging on.”
“That’ll be my call to the Bureau,” Chavasse said to Orsini. “I’ll see what they’ve got to tell me about Kapo.”
“I’ll have another word with old Gilberto,” Orsini said. “He may be thinking a little straighter by now.”
Chavasse took his call in the small office at the back of the bar. The man he spoke to was the night duty officer based at the Embassy. No one of any particular importance. Just a good reliable civil servant who knew what files were for and how to use them efficiently.
He had nothing on Kapo that Chavasse didn’t already know. Incredibly, everything the man had said about himself was true. At one time a high official in the Albanian Ministry of the Interior, he had been marked down for elimination in 1958 during one of Hoxha’s earlier purges. He had been allowed to enter Italy as a political refugee and had since lived in Taranto earning a living as an import-export agent. Presumably on the basis that an Albanian of any description was preferable to a foreigner, Alb-Tourist had appointed him their Taranto agent in 1963. An official investigation by Italian Military Intelligence in that year had indicated nothing sinister in the appointment.
Chavasse thanked the duty officer. No, it was nothing of any importance. He’d simply run across Kapo in Matano and had thought him worth checking on.
AT THE OTHER END OF THE WIRE IN HIS small office in Rome, the duty officer replaced the receiver with a thoughtful frown. Almost immediately, he picked it up again and put a call through to Bureau headquarters in London on the special line.
It could be nothing, but Chavasse was a topliner – everyone in the organization knew that. If by any remote chance he was up to anything and the Chief didn’t know about it, heads might start to roll and the duty officer hadn’t the slightest intention of allowing his own to be numbered among them.
The telephone on his desk buzzed sharply five minutes later and he lifted it at once. “Hello, sir… yes, that’s right… well, there may be nothing in it, but I thought you’d like to know that I’ve just had a rather interesting call from Paul Chavasse in Matano…”
OLD GILBERTO COUGHED AS THE BRANDY caught at the back of his throat and grinned wryly at Orsini. “I must be getting old, Guilio. Never heard a dammed thing. It couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes after Carlo had delivered the young woman. One moment I was reading a magazine, the next, the lights were going out.” He raised a gnarled and scarred fist. “Old I may be, but I’d still like five minutes on my own with that fancy bastard,
