He made an effort to pull himself together.
“It’s all right for you to talk. You’re his white-headed boy. But he hasn’t much use for me…”
At this moment the door opened and Lieutenant Itola Carlotti of the Rome Homicide Department came in.
Carlotti was a short, dark man with a tanned, wrinkled face and pale, penetrating blue eyes. He was nudging forty-five, but looked thirty. I had known him for two or three years, and we got along well together. I knew him for a smart, conscientious policeman without any genius
for his job. He got results by careful, painstaking plodding.
“I thought you were on vacation,” he said, as he shook hands with me.
“I was about to leave when this broke,” I said. “You know Signorina Valetti? This is Signor Maxwell. He’s taking my place while I’m away.”
Carlotti shook hands with Maxwell and bowed to Gina.
“Let’s have it,” I said, settling myself on Gina’s desk and waving him to a chair. “Are you sure it’s Helen Chalmers?”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about that,” he said, planting himself before me and making no move to take the chair I had indicated. “Three hours ago I had a report from Naples headquarters that the body of a young woman had been found lying at the foot of a cliff, five miles from Sorrento. It was thought she had fallen off a path on the cuff. Half an hour ago, I was told she had been identified as Signorina Helen Chalmers. Apparently she had rented a villa close to where she had fallen. When the villa was searched it became apparent from the contents of her luggage who she was. I want someone from your office to come with me to Sorrento to identify the body.”
I hadn’t expected this. The thought of going into the morgue to identify what remained of Helen’s loveliness turned me sick.
Maxwell said hurriedly, “You’ve met her, Ed. You’ll have to go. I’ve only seen pictures of her.”
Carlotti said, looking at me, “I’m going down there right away. Can you come with me?”
“I’ll come,” I said, and slid off the desk. Turning to Maxwell, I went on, “Hold everything until I call you. It may not be her. I’ll call you as soon as I know. Stick around until you hear from me.”
“What about Chalmers?”
“I’ll handle him,” I said; then, turning to Carlotti, I went on, “Okay, let’s go.”
I patted Gina’s shoulder as I followed Carlotti out of the office. We didn’t say anything until we were driving fast towards the Rome airport, then I said, “Any idea how it happened?”
He gave me a stolid stare.
“I told you: she fell off a cliff.”
“I know what you told me. Is there more to it?”
He lifted his shoulders as only an Italian can lift them.
“I don’t know. She rented a villa under the name of Mrs. Douglas Sherrard. She wasn’t married, was she?”
“Not as far as I know.”
He lit one of those awful Italian cigarettes and puffed smoke out of the car window.
“There are a few complications,” he said after a long moment of silence. “Signor Chalmers is an important man. I don’t want any trouble.”
“Nor do I. He’s not only an important man, but he’s also my boss.” I eased myself down in the car seat. “Apart from calling herself Mrs. Douglas Sherrard — what other complications?”
“Do you know anything about her?” His cold blue eyes searched my face. “For the moment no one except you and I and the Naples police know about this, but it won’t be possible to keep it quiet for long. It looks as if she had a lover.”
I pulled a face.
“Chalmers will love that. You’ll have to be careful what you tell the press, Lieutenant”
He nodded.
“I realize that. From what I hear, she rented the villa in the joint names of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Sherrard. Do you think she was secretly married?”
“She might have been, but I don’t think it likely.”
“I don’t think so either. I think she was on an unofficial honeymoon in Sorrento.”
Again he lifted his shoulders expressively, “It happens. Do you know anyone called Douglas Sherrard?”
“No.”
He tapped ash off his cigarette.
“Grandi, who is handling the case, seems satisfied it was an accidental fall. He has only asked me to check with him because il Signor Chalmers is such an important man. It is unfortunate that there is a lover involved. If there was no lover, it would be pretty straightforward.”
“It might not be necessary to mention him,” I said, looking out of the car window.
“That is possible. You wouldn’t know for certain if she had a lover?”
“I know practically nothing about her.” I felt the palms of my hands turn moist. “We mustn’t jump to conclusions. Until we have seen the body, we don’t know for certain it is her.”
“I am afraid it is her all right. All her clothes and her luggage carry her name. There were letters found in her luggage. The description fits. I don’t think there’s a doubt about it.”
We said nothing further until we were on the plane for Naples, then suddenly he said, “You will have to explain the position to il Signor Chalmers. The fact that she rented the villa under another name is bound to come out at the inquest. You understand there is nothing we can do to hush it up.”
I could see he was worried about getting tangled with Chalmers.
“Oh, sure,” I said. “That’s not your funeral nor mine.”
He gave me a sidelong look.
“Il Signor Chalmers has a lot of influence.”
“He certainly has, but he should have used some of it with his daughter before she got tied up in a situation like this.”
He lit another of his awful cigarettes, sank further down in his seat and went off into a coma of brooding. I went of into one of my own.
I was surprised he hadn’t said more about Douglas Sherrard. This made me a little uneasy. I knew Carlotti. He moved slowly, but he also moved thoroughly.
We reached Naples around noon. There was a police car waiting. Lieutenant Grandi of the Naples Police was standing by the car, waiting for us.
He was a middle-sized bird with a hatchet face, dark solemn eyes and an olive complexion. He shook hands with me, looking just beyond my right shoulder. I had the impression he wasn’t overjoyed to have me in the party. He manoeuvred Carlotti into the back seat and me into the front seat beside the driver. He got in alongside Carlotri. During the long, fast drive to Sorrento, I could just hear his rapid Italian as he talked continuously, his voice barely above a whisper.
. I tried to listen to what he was saying, but the noise of the wind and the roar of the car engine made that impossible. I gave up, lit a cigarette and stared through the wind shield at the unwinding road as it rushed continuously towards us, thinking of the previous night’s ride that had been so much quicker and so much more dangerous.
We reached Sorrento. The police driver took us around the back of the railway station to a small brick building that served at the town’s morgue.
We got out of the car.
Carlotti said to me, “This won’t be pleasant for you, but it is necessary. She has to be identified.”
“That’s all right,” I said.
But it wasn’t all right. I was sweating, and I knew I must have lost colour. I didn’t have to worry about my appearance. Anyone could have looked the same in such circumstances.
I followed him through the door of the building, down a tile-lined corridor and into a small, bare room.
In the middle of the room stood a trestle table on which lay a body, under a sheet.
We moved forward up to the table. My heart was beating sluggishly. There was a sickness inside me that made me feel faint.