On the plane, he crossed one leg over another and shifted his weight on the canvas seat. He could not imagine Quayle being involved in anything that could warrant a Metro order – and he would need solid evidence of that before he helped anyone. Holly Morton, who was also mentioned in the updates, was even more of an unlikely villain in the plot. He remembered her before she had flown to Greece: soft and feminine, a very attractive mid-thirties widow, Holly had been loaded with intelligence, sex appeal and a sense of humour. Teddy Morton’s daughter, for Christ sake! Unthinkable that she could be anything other than who she was.
A crewman twenty feet up the fuselage made a drinking motion to him and he nodded.
A moment or two later, the corporal threaded his way back, gingerly holding a Styrofoam cup that steamed invitingly. Cockburn took the cup and smiled his thanks, spilt some, swore and sat sucking a burnt finger, hating the RAF, the service and Titus bloody Quayle – who, he felt sure, had gotten him dragged into this mess.
The big jet landed at RAF Brize Norton just after dark, and a service driver was waiting to drive him to London.
The terracotta tile roof of the Valldemosa house was wreathed in the soft smoke from the barbecue as Marco, resplendent in a white chef’s hat, grilled fresh fish and huge local prawns, the soft strains of Mozart filtering through from the living room stereo. Holly sat in one of the deck chairs beneath the vine canopy and watched the show, suppressing a giggle as fat dropped into the fire and flames shot upward, threatening both Marco’s moustache and his reputation as a chef. He was determined to make her enforced stay as pleasant as possible, and had been a charming host, taking her for long walks up through the vineyards and olive groves, the armed men never far behind. There he regaled her with the history of the Islands, the people, and his love for his own native Italy.
“But why are you here, if you love Italy so much?” she had asked. “Wait, don’t tell me. You love Italy, but Italy doesn’t love you!”
“Alas, Italy loves me so much they want me to return,” he grinned like some loveable buccaneer. “A small matter of some unpaid taxes!”
They sat at the table, the big cat sleepily opening an eye at the smells, and ate the fish, their plates piled high with salads and fresh bread from the bakery in the village.
“God, I hope Titus is alright,” she finally said.
“You love him,” Marco said. It was a statement, not a question.
She nodded.
“And you really know nothing of him?”
She nodded again.
“Then it’s time you did. Maybe then you will fear for him less and fear for them more, eh?” Marco began to laugh, a rich, bass, larger than life sound. “Fill your glass and I will tell you a tale of high adventure, of heroes and dragons in another land and in another time...”
She smiled and sat back in her chair.
“I met Titus in Jebel Muhkta prison in Libya.” All of a sudden the atmosphere had changed. He was deadly serious now, the laughing pirate gone and another deeper harder man manifesting in his place. “I had done a deal with them. Milk powder. They wouldn’t pay – so I sent two of my people in to try and collect the cheque. They threw them in jail in Tripoli. I went to get them out, paid some people – as is the way there – but realised too late that I’d paid the wrong people. I had made powerful enemies. My men got away – but, as for me, I ended up in the Jebel Muhkta.” Marco paused and slugged back his wine, as if to try and clear a taste from his mouth. “If there’s a hell on this earth, then it is that place. High dry concrete walls surround a baking square and a rancid well. Above, like a rocky shrine to the dead, stands the Jebel, the hill. Every day we would go up the hill and smash rocks with our bare hands. If someone fell, they lay there until they died. At night, if we were lucky, we were marched back to eat chicken and rice. If we were not, it was Arabic bread, stale with water from the well. We had to pray to Allah and attend prayers five times a day, and if we got the words wrong we were beaten. The guards beat men with sticks and hoses and, at night, you could hear the screams.
“No-one ever leaves the Jebel. If it’s not the beating, it’s dysentery or beriberi or one of a hundred nutritional complaints. I’d been there two weeks when Titus arrived. They’d beaten him on the truck and threw him off the back like he was dead already, laughing and joking with one another. But he stood and walked to solitary. Only the tough ones go straight into solitary.”
He stopped and took up the wine bottle, offering to fill her glass – but she shook her head, too horrified at the story to want more. He filled his own glass and carried on.
“About a week later, he joined the main population. I was one of only three other Europeans in there, so we took him with us to our room, the one we shared with seventy others. Quickly we began to learn things from him. He seemed to know when the guards were coming, when to steal something, when to speak. There was another Italian. A man called Morretti. We would pool our food, the four of us. Nurse each other when sick. Morretti was a small wizened chap, an agnostic gambler turned Christian. He had a Bible. God knows where he got it from. One day they found it. There was the usual screaming and ranting – but they found something
