‘I got drawn into this by chance,’ I said quickly.
Her eyes were searching my face now as though she expected to see some change there. Suddenly she said, ‘Tell me about your leg. Was it very bad? Did you have a good surgeon?’
I laughed. Then I told her what had happened. I kept nothing back. I wallowed in self-destruction, explaining how it felt to have the bone sawn through without any anaesthetic, knowing that it would happen again and again. I saw that I was hurting her. But she didn’t stop me and I went on. ‘You see, I don’t remember anything. All I knew is I went under again, screaming and half delirious and when I came round I was told there would be no more operations, that they had got all—’
I stopped suddenly for I was conscious of a figure standing over us. I looked up. It was Alec Reece. I saw the muscles in his throat tighten and the blood come up into his face as anger gripped him. ‘I told you once, Farrell, that I’d break your neck if you ever tried to speak to my sister again.’ I had risen to my feet. ‘I suppose you thought I was safely out at the airfield.’ His influence was obvious and I felt my anger rising to match his.
‘Sit down, both of you.’ Alice’s voice was calm. I saw her hand catch her brother by the arm. ‘Dick has a message for you from Max.’
There was a baffled look in his eyes as he said, ‘Where did you see Maxwell?’
‘In Pilsen yesterday,’ I said. I turned to Alice. ‘Excuse us a minute.’ He followed me over to the window. ‘Has Tucek arrived?’ I asked.
He stared at me. ‘What about Tucek?’ he asked. He didn’t trust me. I could see that.
‘Jan Tucek was arrested on Thursday,’ I told him. ‘Maxwell got him away to Bory airfield that night. Tucek and a senior Czech air force officer flew out in an Anson trainer. They should have arrived at Milan early yesterday morning.’
‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ he said.
‘I’m not interested whether you believe me or not,’ I exclaimed angrily. ‘Maxwell asked me to see you when I got to Milan and tell you to notify him whether or not they’d arrived. He’s afraid they may have crashed since they were told to contact you immediately on arrival and he’s not heard from you.’
He fired a lot of questions at me then. At length he said, ‘Why the devil didn’t you give me that message at the airfield?’
‘Your own attitude made it impossible,’ I answered.
‘What were you doing in Pilsen?’
I told him.
‘Have you any proof that you represent this machine tool company?’
He was still suspicious.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But you’ll bloody well have to take my word for it.’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll start checking up. But I warn you, if I find you’re playing some game of your own—’ He turned on his heel, and then stopped. ‘And keep clear of Alice whilst you’re here.’ He went back to his sister then. He bent over her for a moment, talking to her, then with a quick glance at me, he hurried out of the lounge.
I went over to the table. Again I was conscious of her gaze on my leg. She began to put the tea things together as though she were going to carry them out herself. As she didn’t speak I said, ‘How long will you be in Milan?’
‘Not long,’ she said. ‘I am going to Rapallo and then to stay with some friends of Alec’s at Cannes.’
‘I hope you have a nice time,’ I murmured.
‘The sun will be nice, and I think we shall enjoy oursleves.’ Her voice was barely audible. Then she suddenly said: ‘Please go now, Dick.’
I nodded. ‘Yes. I’ll go now. Goodbye then.’
‘Goodbye.’
She didn’t look up. I went back to my table and collected my things. As I passed her on the way out she didn’t look at me. She was staring out of the window. I hesitated in the doorway. But she made no sign and I went up to my room.
They were gone next morning. I don’t know what hotel they went to. All I know is that I didn’t see them at breakfast and when I inquired at the reception desk I was told they had left.
It was useless trying to do any business that day. It was Sunday. So I went for a walk. Spring had come to Milan. The sun shone out of a cloudless sky and the wide tram-lined streets blazed with warmth. There were tables out on the pavements and some cafes even had their awnings down. I walked up the Via Vittor Pisani and into the Giardini Pubblici. I was thinking of nothing but the fact that the girls were in summer frocks and that the olive-skinned, laughing crowds looked gay and happy. The mystery of Tucek’s disappearance and my encounter with the Czech security police seemed very far away, part of another world. In the gardens the trees were showing young green. Everything was bursting with life. I sat down on one of the seats and let the warmth of the sun seap through me. It was wonderful just to sit there and relax. Tomorrow there would be work to do. But to-day, all I had to do was sit in the sunshine.
I always remember that hour I spent sitting in the Giardini Pubblici. It stands out in my mind like an oasis in a desert. It was my one breathing space — a moment that seems almost beautiful because it had no part in what had gone before or what came after. I remember there was a little girl and a big yellow rubber ball. She followed it relentlessly, teeth flashing, black hair gleaming and her dark eyes bubbling with laughter. And her mother sat suckling a baby discreetly under a shawl and telling me how she hoped to go to Genoa for a holiday this year. And all the time Milan streamed by, their gay clothes and constant, liquid chatter seeming so lighthearted after the sombre atmosphere of Czechoslovakia. It was like listening to Rossini after a course of Wagner.
Feeling warm and happy I went out into the Viale Vittorio Veneto and sat for a while at one of the cafe” tables drinking cognac. I sat there till twelve-thirty, reviving my Italian by listening to scraps of the conversation that flowed around me. Then I went back to the hotel. As I crossed the entrance hall towards the lift the clerk at the reception desk called me over, ‘Signer Farrell.’
‘Yes?’ I said.
‘I have a message for you.’ He pulled a slip of paper out of the pigeonhole marked F. ‘Signor Sismondi telephone half an hour ago to say will you ring him please.’ He handed me the slip of paper on which was scribbled a telephone number and the name Sismondi.
‘Who is he — do you know?’ I asked.
‘Signor Sismondi? I think perhaps it is Signor Riccardo Sismondi. He have a big fabbrica out on the Via Padova, signore.’
‘What’s the name of his company?’ I asked.
‘I do not know if it is the same man, signore. But the one I speak of is direttore of the Ferrometali di Milano.’
I went up to my room and got my notebook with the list of Italian firms with which B. & H. Evans had done business before the war. Among them I found the Ferrometalli di Milano. I picked up the telephone and asked for Sismondi’s number. A woman’s voice answered. ‘Casa Sismondi. Chi Parla?’
‘This is Mr. Farrell,’ I answered. ‘Can I speak to Signer Sismondi?’
‘ Un momenta.’ Very faintly I heard the woman’s voice call ‘Riccardo.’ Then a man’s voice came on the wire, rather harsh and grating. ‘Signer Farrell? Bene. You know who I am per’aps?’
‘Ferrometalli di Milano?’ I asked.
‘Si si signore, I do business with your company before the war. I hear you arrive in Milano yesterday — from Pilsen?’
‘That’s correct,’ I murmured.
‘Do you see Signer Tucek of the Tuckovy ocelarny while you are in Pilsen?’
It was the suddenness of the question that rattled me. I hadn’t expected it. I naturally thought he’d rung me on business. Instead he was asking me about Tucek. The happy, laughing Milan I’d walked through that morning faded in my mind. I felt as though a long arm had been stretched out across the borders of Czechoslovakia, to fetch me back into the clutches of the Czech security police.