“What’s happened?” Holly asked.
“They got at Eduardo and Florentina. They may still be there…”
“It’s a trap,” Pope said instantly.
“I know,” Quayle said. Then he repeated: “The vaporeta stop. One hour from now.”
“Please don’t go, Titus.” Holly grabbed his arm, her eyes wide in fear. “Please.”
“I have to. They’re friends and it’s my fault.” He stood and grabbed the small bag that Eduardo had sent.
“Oh my God, please be careful,” Holly said. She was starting to cry.
Quayle looked at Pope and nodded. There was nothing to say.
Fifteen minutes later, he stood below the adjoining house and, taking a handhold, he began to climb the ornate baroque walls, moving balcony to balcony. Once on the roof he crossed silently and stood at the edge over the canal, looking down at the restaurant opposite. Eight feet below him was the tiny balcony. He listened for a second or two, but heard nothing. Then, taking the bag from his pocket, he slipped a garrote into his pocket and the fighting knife over his knuckles. The blade was five inches long, razor sharp – and around the handle, like the hand guard on an old sword, ran a heavy set of steel knuckles. The base was weighted with a heavy pommel that could crack bones on the back swing. Used by someone who knew what they were doing, the knife was a formidable weapon and could be used in almost absolute silence.
He lowered himself head first, his hands in the guttering, and looked into the room. It was dark. Someone was still there.
He could see a seated figure facing the door and he waited, looking for movement. It was a full minute before he saw the next movement. There it was: another figure standing in the darkness of the kitchen doorway. The trap.
Pulling himself back up, he moved down the rooftop until he thought he was above the bathroom window, then lowered himself over headfirst, his legs counterbalancing on the rooftop. The window was ajar, and he eased it open fully, trying not to look at the dark water thirty feet below, and hoping none of the tourists looked up to admire the pretty flowers on the balcony or the night sky. As he lowered himself down, he felt the sill take his weight, then dropped through the window in absolute silence. Once inside her paused briefly to allow his night vision to adjust, then moved to the door and paused again to begin his breathing matra. He had fought once in Japan, fought a fifth dan aikido sensai who had beat the hell out of him because he had forgotten to get his breathing and his mental state right before the bout. The reality was that he would still have taken a beating because then he was only a second dan, light years away in experience and skill, but it would not have been so fast or so painful.
He had never forgotten the lesson.
Taking a towel from the rack over the bath – very carefully in case something squeaked – he moved back to the door. Directly opposite should be the man in the chair facing three quarters right towards the door. Immediately on his right should be the kitchen and the second man. He was standing, thought Quayle; he would be fastest.
Closing his left hand over the door handle, he took a final breath, swung it back and threw the towel into the face of the man in the chair. In the same motion he swung his right hand back and up, the heavy pommel slamming into the face of the man waiting in the kitchen door. The blow hit him below the nose on the upper lip, shattering the nose and driving a splinter of bone into his brain.
Quayle dropped and rolled forward. As he came up, the other man scrabbled from the chair, trying to get the towel off his face and a gun up all at once. Quayle hit him in the groin with the steel knuckles, grabbing the gun hand and twisting until he felt the bone break. The man gasped in pain and fell to his knees, one hand to his groin, the other hanging uselessly at his stomach.
Quayle hit him again, this time high in the neck and, as he fell unconscious, the big Englishman darted around the small flat, checking room by room for a third threat. In the small bedroom, he found Eduardo and Florentina. The girl held her father’s battered and bleeding head to her breast and cried in fear as the door burst open.
“It’s OK. It’s OK. It’s me.”
Florentina looked up, great silent tears rolling down her cheeks. “They have killed him. They have killed my father.”
Quayle put his hand down and felt for a pulse in Eduardo’s neck. “No, he is alive. Call for the doctor.”
Florentina rose like a released balloon, thanking God and the angels. After she was gone, Quayle lent forward. “Don’t die on me, Eduardo. You are a tough old bastard. Don’t give in…” In his arms he felt the man stir and give a small groan. “Just lie still. The ambulance is coming. Florentina is fine.”
Gently laying the bleeding head back, he moved into the small living room.
Florentina was talking in rapid emotional Italian into the telephone, but Quayle moved past her and lent over the unconscious man, jabbing two fingers into a pressure point.
The man came to with a startled gasp and lay there with large frightened eyes looking up at Quayle.
“Your friend is dead. I will ask you some questions. Answer them or you will die too. Comprende?”
The man nodded. Quayle felt some disgust. This was a freelance thug. No honour, no pride, no courage except for beating up an old man.
“How did you find them?”
“The forger,” the man hissed through his pain..
“The boatman?” Quayle asked.
“Si.”
“Where is he now?”
The man didn’t answer.
“Speak!”
“Is morte…”
“Dead? You killed him?”
“No. Pierre.”
“Who the fuck is Pierre?”
The man nodded
