After youth came age: this time it was an ancient black-garbed Caprese grandmother, with thick bowed legs and a wicker basket over her arm. And she didn't react to his smile, either: she didn't even look at him.
The last lap was among pine trees, which led him to the guardian's ticket-office, which appeared to be combined with a grubby little cafe.
Eventually a somnolent guardian materialized at the window.
'Uno?' He regarded Audley incuriously for a moment, then peered round into the emptiness as though to reassure himself that, if there was one idiot abroad when all sensible people were eating, drinking and resting, there weren't others trying to slip past behind him.
'Yes — si.' Audley was aware suddenly that his mouth was dry
— that, in fact, he was extremely thirsty. 'Uno —ah — una bottiglia di birra, per favore?'
The guardian sighed, and then wearily indicated the dirty white tables on the terrace of the cafe.
dummy1
At least it wasn't like Berlin, thought Audley. Neither Richardson nor anyone else awaited him on the terrace, it was reassuringly empty of both Mafiosi and Arabs as well as tourists, bona fide or otherwise. Which was just as well, because it was otherwise an altogether most suitable place for an asassination, with a sheer cliff offering convenient disposal of the body simultaneously: wasn't that how old Tiberius was said to have got rid of those who had offended him?
He sipped his beer gratefully, peering over the cliff down to the wrinkled blue sea far below. Somehow, and in spite of everything, he felt reassured himself, that he had calculated correctly. Or, rather, that Richardson had got it right, after all these years, in remembering that the two preferable extremes for any rendezvous were, respectively, crowds (where there might be safety in numbers, if nothing else!) or solitary places (where anyone who had no very good cause to be there stuck out like a sore thumb — as he himself did now), in spite of ...
He took another sip. And then found, to his chagrin, that two English sips almost equalled one Italian bottiglia, effectively.
But . . . actually, it was possible that Richardson had got it more than right, with any luck at all. Because, in any perfectly reasonable analysis of the events, it was like old Fred always said: that the elements of any situation were seldom neatly inter-locking, with everyone (on each side —
or, often, on more than two sides) pursuing related dummy1
objectives.
He drained the last drops of birra, and added his glass to the detritus of the table's previous occupants.
If it was like that now — if. . .it was at least reasonably likely that whoever had been gunning for Audley and (apparently) Kulik in Berlin, might not know about Peter Richardson's private problems (about which even the Italians themselves hadn't known until very recently) in Italy. In which happy case Richardson's present "unavailability" might have equally caught them — whoever? — by surprise ... as it had also caught the British and Italians . . . and the Mafia too — ?
But now he was making pictures. And even pictures of pictures, maybe?
But now it was time to find out, anyway!
It was like a labyrinth, just as Cuccaro had said —
But a labyrinth on different levels (not like a two-dimensional garden maze of evergreen hedges, in the English style: it was a labyrinthine maze of ruins in brick and stone on different levels . . . brick and stone from which the painted wall-plaster had long fallen away, and the marble had long been plundered and crushed for the lime-kilns of the ignorant plunderers).
Instinctively, he climbed up, away from the trees at the lower levels: he was here to be seen . . . either immediately, from some higher level, if Richardson was already here ... or (which was much more likely) to be followed from behind, if dummy1
Richardson had watched him pass from some safe vantage along the way, among the gardens and vineyards and walled houses.
What was it that they shared, from the old days? Or ... if they didn't share it (as he increasingly suspected; because, if they'd shared it. . . then why had he no slightest clue to what it might be —?)... no, if they didn't share it . . . what had Fred Clinton given Peter Richardson to do, about which David Audley had had no inkling . . . but which was a good and sufficient reason for David Audley and the man Kulik to die, in Berlin — ?
He reached the statue at last, coming out on the highest point — on to a wide stretch of gravel low-walled on its cliff-side and with white ornamental railings above the tiers of ruins on the island-side, with the whole of Capri beyond, and an ugly little chapel at his back. But it wasn't a statue of the Emperor Tiberius at all, presiding over the tremendous wreck of his palace, as it ought to have been by right and by reason. He'd been quite wrong in his assumption —
Wrong?
Even as he frowned up at the statue he was aware that he wasn't alone on the top of the Villa Jovis (and, if he'd thought more about it, he'd have placed Jupiter himself up there, if not Tiberius. But he would have been wrong there, too, dummy1
wouldn't he!)
Wrong!
So now there were two men away to his left, over by the railings, admiring their view of Capri from peak to peak.
But ... two men in suits? ("That won't do,” Mitchell had said.) But, anyway, neither of them was Peter Richardson —
He realized, as he stared at them, that one of them was returning his stare: a stocky, almost chunky, man. Whereas the other man was still admiring the view, quite unconcerned. But then he moved slightly, away from his chunky friend, no more than two or three steps, running his hand along the top rail lightly as he did so, yet still not turning full-face towards Audley.
But those steps were enough, even without full-face. Even the steps weren't necessary. What was necessary now was to decide what he himself was going to do. Except that decision predicated choice. And he really didn't have any choice now.
He walked towards the railings, listening to the sound of his shoes on the gravel, crunch by crunch, and not looking at the chunky man any more.
'Beautiful view.' This close his last hope evaporated. But it had never really been a hope, anyway. Because, with some people, recognition had to be face-to-face (and, anyway, he wasn't good with faces). But with others it was how they stood that was unforgettable, with each part of their weight always distributed ready for action, even when they were at dummy1
rest.
'Very beautiful.' The man turned to him.
The movement was fluidly casual. Zimin had been a soldier, and a good one — a trainer as well as an honours graduate of Spetsnaz. But he would also have made a damn good rugby player in the three-quarter line of the club lucky enough to recruit him: that was what Audley had thought, that one and only other time.
'We were admiring the view last time we met, I seem to remember, Colonel.' For the life of him, he couldn't smile this time. But then Zimin wasn't smiling now, either. 'New Zealand House — the sixteenth floor?' Zimin definitely wasn't smiling: he looked tired and drawn under his tan, as he had not done that evening, when they'd watched the lights of London go on together. 'What was it? The Wool Secretariat reception — ?' Indeed, it was perhaps time to react innocently to such lack of friendliness. 'It is Colonel Zimin, isn't it?'