against it: too much imagination, Pietro—a good measure of it is a great blessing, but too much is a weakness. . . .
"Give me the guide, then—wake up!"
Villari whipped the book out of his hand, flipped it open, ripped out the folded map from it and thumped it back into his possession before he knew what was happening.
"Hmm. . . ." Villari scanned the map, frowning at its complexity. Then he turned to the second policeman, who had accompanied him through the entrance, running a slender finger over the paper. "You go ahead along the main street—the Decumano Massimo here—until you spot Depretis. Then you wipe your face with your handkerchief— I assume you've got a handkerchief?"
A muscle twitched in the detective's cheek, high up and very briefly, as he nodded. He was careful not to look at Boselli, who knew nevertheless with certainty that the Clotheshorse, running true to form, had made another lifelong enemy in the last five minutes. It might not be wholly deliberate now—
it might have started as a defence designed to keep inferiors in their place and become second nature over the last few years—but without doubt Villari had perfected the art of being offensive.
"Very well. You will go on past the theatre—there—" the finger stabbed the map "—and wait for me to catch up if the theatre is a high building and there is a stairway on it. If there is then I shall climb it and you will wait until I have seen what there is to see—is that understood?"
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Again the detective nodded.
"Then you will continue down the Decumano Massimo—that is, unless I wipe my face—as far as the Porta Marina."
"And if I do not see him by then, signore?" the detective inquired neutrally.
Villari stared at him for a moment, as though slightly surprised by the question. "Then you will come back, and I will tell you what to do," he said coolly. "But the important thing for you to remember now is that you are no longer interested in the Englishman—you and Depretis. It is his contact you are interested in: who he is and where he goes—
do you understand? Once Depretis is spotted, then you come back here and cover the entrance. When the contact comes out Depretis will be following him, and then it's up to you both not to lose him. Now—move!"
The detective took one last glance at the map, and then turned away down the avenue without a word. As he went he slipped off his jacket and loosened his tie; he did not, thought Boselli, look very much like a student of antique remains, but neither did he look like a policeman, although there was a shiny, threadbare air surrounding him which proclaimed the minor and underpaid government functionary—a guide employed by the Ministry of Public Instruction, maybe, nosing the excavations in search of gratuities.
He watched the thickset figure dwindle among the pines, then faced Villari. "And what do you wish me to do, signore?"
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"Watch him," Villari nodded down the avenue. "And keep from under my feet if anything happens."
"Something will happen, then?"
Villari shrugged.
"But you know that Audley is meeting someone here?"
Villari shrugged again.
"But—" Boselli persisted desperately "—you know something is going on?"
The Clotheshorse shifted his glance from Boselli to the detective and then, lazily, returned it. "The Englishman is being watched."
Boselli frowned at him, perplexed.
"Not just by us, idiot—by others."
"By whom?"
"We are not sure."
Not sure, Boselli digested the tiny fragments of information, trying to make a meal of them.
By others. Logically, Ruelle would be continuing his surveillance, but they were quite properly more concerned with Audley at this point—and with his contact—than with Ruelle, so they hadn't risked trying to find out who was watching on the Aventine for fear of blowing the whole thing, for the contact himself might be keeping an eye on Audley too. That "others" implied as much, anyway, though the English themselves might also be maintaining a protective dummy2
watch on their man if he was as important to them as the file suggested.
Boselli shivered in the heat at the memory of that file, with its cold little facts and hot little theories. He knew so little about what was going on, but he also knew too much for his own peace of mind. Audley and Ruelle, and above them Sir Frederick Clinton and General Raffaele Montuori—they all had one thing in common: they were dangerous men. He thought nostalgically of his little airless room back in the city: by now it would be almost as hot as Ostia Antica, but it would be much safer.
As they advanced down the Decumano Massimo he began to grasp the principle on which Villari was searching the excavations. He was using the two detectives as hunting dogs
—what were they called, pointers?—Depretis to cover the minor streets which ran at right angles to the main thoroughfare, and the threadbare man to watch for him. So long as Depretis kept sight of Audley and remained in sight of the Decumano Massimo at the same time he would serve as a moving signpost to the Englishman.
The trouble was that not all the side streets were absolutely straight, and there were lateral alleys branching off them, so that they needed luck as well as logic. In fact the farther they progressed the more unlikely it seemed to Boselli that they would see anyone at all, certainly anyone who didn't want to be seen, in that maze of walls. The Clotheshorse had dummy2
delivered his briefing decisively and confidently, but the frown of concentration on his forehead indicated that his self-esteem was drying up fast.
Still, he had been right about the theatre: it was a substantial
—or substantially restored—building, with a series of arcades facing the street and a stair leading up to the seating on the other side. But when Boselli made to follow Villari up the stairs, the Clotheshorse gestured angrily down the street towards the detective, who was now loitering fifty metres ahead of them.
"You watch him— can't you remember a simple order?"
Villari hissed.
Chastened, Boselli made for the shadow of the arcade, reaching in his pocket for his handkerchief, and then remembering just in time that the one thing he mustn't do was to mop his genuinely sweaty face with it. He must make do with his equally sweaty palm.
"It's hot, eh?"
Boselli jerked as if stung, and then relaxed, his heart still thumping: one of the arcades had been turned into a refreshment room, and the serving man in it was standing in the shadow just inside the doorway, watching him hopefully.
"Yes," he muttered.
"And it will get maybe just a little hotter." The man squinted up at the sky. "You want a cool drink, eh?"
Boselli was about to refuse when it occurred to him that so dummy2
sharp an eye for custom might have intercepted earlier prospects.
He pretended to consider the question. "Pretty quiet today."
The man nodded. "It is the mezzogiorno, though."
"I reckon we must be the only ones here," Boselli surveyed the scene with a dissatisfied sniff, as though it didn't surprise him now that it was no tourist attraction. "Except for him, at least," he nodded towards the detective in the distance.
The conflict in the refreshment man's expression suggested that he was torn between loyalty to Ostia Antica and the proposition that the customer—especially the would-be customer—was always right.