Алистер Маклин - The Way to Dusty Death

Tracchia said: ‘That hardly concerns us. But the rest, yes. Keep your eyes and ears open, will you?’

Rory, carefully concealing his new-found sense of self-importance, nodded man to man and walked away. Neubauer and Tracchia looked at each other with fury in their faces, a fury, clearly, that was not directed at each other.

Through tightly clenched teeth Tracchia said: ‘The crafty bastard! He’s switched cassettes on us. That was a dud we destroyed.’

On the evening of that same day Dunnet and Henry sat in a remote corner of the lobby in the Villa-Hotel Cessni. Dunnet wore his usual near-inscrutable expression. Henry looked somewhat stunned although it was clear that his native shrewdness was hard at work making a reassessment of an existing situation and a readjustment to a developing one. He tried hard not to look cunning. He said: ‘You certainly do know how to lay it on the line, don’t you, Mr Dunnet?’ The tone of respectful admiration for a higher intellect was perfectly done. Dunnet remained totally unmoved.

‘If by laying it on the line, Henry, you mean putting it as briefly and clearly as possible, then, yes, I have laid it on the line. Yes or no?’

‘Jesus, Mr Dunnet, you don’t give a man much time to think, do you?’

Dunnet said patiently: ‘This hardly calls for thought, Henry. A simple yes or no. Take it or leave it.’

Henry kept his cunning look under wraps. ‘And if I leave it?’

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’ Henry looked distinctly uneasy. ‘I don’t know if I like the sound of that, Mr Dunnet.’

‘How does it sound to you, Henry?’

‘I mean, well, you aren’t blackmailing me or threatening me or something like that?’

Dunnet had the air of a man counting up to ten. ‘You make me say it, Henry. You’re talking rubbish. How can one blackmail a man who leads the spotless life you do? You do lead a spotless life, don’t you, Henry? And why should I threaten you? How could I threaten you?’ He made a long pause. ‘Yes or no?’

Henry sighed in defeat. ‘Damn it all, yes. I’ve got nothing to lose. For £5,000 and a job in our Marseilles garage I’d sell my own grandmother down the river – God rest her soul.’

‘That wouldn’t be necessary even if it were possible. Just total silence that’s all. Here’s a health certificate from a local doctor. It’s to say you have an advanced cardiac condition and are no longer fit for heavy work such as, say, driving a transporter.’

‘I haven’t been feeling at all well lately and that’s a fact.’

Dunnet permitted himself the faintest of smiles. ‘I thought you might have been feeling that way.’

‘Does Mr MacAlpine know about this?’

‘He will when you tell him. Just wave that paper.’

‘You think he’ll wear it?’

‘If you mean accept it, yes. He’ll have no option.’

‘May I ask the reason for all this?’

‘No. You’re getting paid £5,000 not to ask questions. Or talk. Ever.’

‘You’re a very funny journalist, Mr Dunnet.’

‘Very.’

‘I’m told you were an accountant in what they call the City. Why did you give it up?’

‘Emphysema. My lungs, Henry, my lungs.’

‘Something like my cardiac condition?’

‘In these days of stress and strain, Henry, perfect health is a blessing that is granted to very few of us. And now you’d better go and see Mr MacAlpine.’

Henry left. Dunnet wrote a brief note, addressed a stout buff envelope, marked it EXPRESS and URGENT in the top left corner, inserted the note and microfilm and left. As he passed out into the corridor he failed to notice that the door of the room next to his was slightly ajar: consequently, he also failed to observe a single eye peering out through this narrow gap in the doorway.

The eye belonged to Tracchia. He closed the door, moved out on to his balcony and waved an arm in signal. In the distance, far beyond the fore-court of the hotel, an indistinct figure raised an arm in acknowledgment. Tracchia hurried downstairs and located Neubauer. Together they moved towards the bar and sat there, ordering soft drinks. At least a score of people saw and recognized them for Neubauer and Tracchia were scarcely less well known that Harlow himself. But Tracchia was not a man to establish an alibi by halves.

He said to the barman: ‘I’m expecting a call from Milan at five o’clock. What time do you have?’

‘Exactly five, Mr Tracchia.’

‘Let the desk know I’m here.’

The direct route to the Post Office lay through a narrow alleyway lined with mews-type houses and alternate garages on both sides. The road was almost deserted, a fact that Dunnet attributed to its being a Saturday afternoon. In all its brief length of less than two hundred yards there was only an overalled figure working over the engine of his car outside the opened door of a garage. In a fashion more French than Italian he wore a navy beret down to his eyes and the rest of his face was so streaked with oil and grease as to be virtually unrecognizable. He wouldn’t, Dunnet thought inconsequentially, have been tolerated for five seconds on the Coronado racing team. But, then, working on a Coronado and on a battered old Fiat 600 called for different standards of approach.

As Dunnet passed the Fiat the mechanic abruptly straightened. Dunnet politely sidestepped to avoid him but as he did so the mechanic, one leg braced against the side of the car to lend additional leverage for a take-off thrust, flung his entire bodily weight against him. Completely off-balance and already falling, Dunnet staggered through the opened garage doorway. His already headlong process towards the ground was rapidly and violently accelerated by two very large and very powerful stocking-masked figures who clearly held no brief for the more gentle arts of persuasion. The garage door closed behind him.

Rory was absorbed in a lurid comic magazine and Tracchia and Neubauer, alibis safely established, were still at the bar when Dunnet entered the hotel. It was an entry that attracted the immediate attention of everyone in the foyer for it was an entry that would have attracted such attention anywhere. Dunnet didn’t walk in, he staggered in like a drunken man and even then would have fallen were it not for the fact that he was supported by a policeman on either side of him. He was bleeding badly from nose and mouth, had a rapidly closing right eye, an unpleasant gash above it and, generally, a badly bruised face. Tracchia, Neubauer, Rory and the receptionist reached him at almost the same moment.

The shock in Tracchia’s voice marched perfectly with the expression on his face. He said: ‘God in heaven, Mr Dunnet, what happened to you?’

Dunnet tried to smile, winced and thought better of it. He said in a slurred voice: ‘I rather think I was set upon.’

Neubauer said: ‘But who did – I mean where – why, Mr Dunnet, why?’

One of the policemen held up his hand and turned to the receptionist. ‘Please. At once. A doctor.’

‘In one minute. Less. We have seven staying here.’ She turned to Tracchia. ‘You know Mr Dunnet’s room, Mr Tracchia. If you and Mr Neubauer would be so kind as to show the officers–’

‘No need. Mr Neubauer and I will take him up.’

The policeman said: ‘I’m sorry. We will require a statement from–’

He halted as most people did when they were on the receiving end of Tracchia’s most intimidating scowl. He said: ‘Leave your station number with this young lady. You will be called when the doctor gives Mr Dunnet permission to talk. Not before. Meantime, he must get to bed immediately. Do you understand?’

They understood, nodded and left without another word. Tracchia and Neubauer, followed by a Rory whose puzzlement was matched only by his apprehension, took Dunnet to his room and were in the process of putting him to bed when a doctor arrived. He was young, Italian, clearly highly efficient and extremely polite when he asked them to leave the room.