Brian Freemantle - Madrigal for Charlie Muffin

Fantani, forewarned, did not walk directly in but short-stepped sideways, avoiding the secondary alarm system activated by the pressure pads beneath the window carpeting.

Clear of the French windows, he went cautiously towards the door leading further into the house, hands held out for any obstruction. At the door he stopped, listening with his head close against a panel. From the other side there was silence. Cautious still, Fantani pushed open the door and waited again. There was no sound. He widened it sufficiently to see out and ensure the corridor was empty, emerging into the brightly lit passageway. He’d been in darkness for so long that the suddenness of the light burst at him. He blinked against it, anxious for darkness again. The approach to the second storey curved around the rim of the vestibule, a broad, sweeping staircase wide enough for at least four people to ascend, all comfortably abreast. Fantani ran up lightly, pausing at the top to regain his sense of direction. Guest bedrooms left and right, master suite ahead with the best view of the Tyrrhenian Sea. At the door he paused, listening again for any noise from inside. Although he heard nothing, Fantani was not satisfied. He gently lowered the handle and eased the door ajar, standing back to run if there was a sudden challenge. There was nothing. Fantani hurried in, securing the door behind him, alert for the deep breathing of someone asleep. He checked that the drapes were closed and actually felt out over the bed, as a final insurance against its being occupied, before he put on the light.

This wasn’t a shared bedroom, Fantani knew at once. Only a man had ever slept here: a proud man, conscious of his success. Near the dressing table there was a bust, which Fantani presumed to be the ambassador. By switching on the light he’d activated the spotlight cleverly mounted alongside one of the wardrobes: it gave the carving a godlike appearance. The Italian’s eyes moved uninterestedly over the pictures and diplomas, stopping at the bed. It was turned back only on one side, with pyjamas neatly laid out. So they weren’t sleeping at the official residence.

Spurred by the warning, Fantani hurried to what was obviously the communicating door, looking for the room that had been identified on the documents he’d studied. The dressing room was a large, square place lined with cupboards, apart from one entire wall elaborately arranged as a woman’s make-up area, with lights fixed carefully around the mirror. Fantani took it all in at a glance, seeking the desk. He drew the safe blueprint from his jacket, laying it out beside him on the floor. There was no disturbance of the carpet to indicate how the pedestal might turn and Fantani felt a momentary lurch of uncertainty. He groped back, beneath the leg area. The securing bolt came snugly beneath his fingers. He slid it easily aside and pushed, lightly at first and then more strongly. The left support swivelled sideways. Fantani stooped low inside the cramped space, positioning the shortened stethoscope against the combination dial. He began to sweat again because of the nervousness and the tightly enclosed space, impatient for the numbers to co-ordinate with their code and snap into place. Around him the house remained quiet and undisturbed.

At the count of seven, Fantani began gently easing the lid: it lifted at nine. He stopped abruptly, taking the thin tip of the glass-cutter and running it gently beneath the rim, feeling for any alarm trigger. Satisfied there was none, Fantani lifted the top off completely, staring down inside the safe, feeling the sharp burst of sensual pleasure more intense than he ever felt gazing at the naked body of a waiting woman. Beneath the circular opening the safe opened into a square retaining area and in it jewel boxes and containers were stacked like bricks in a child’s construction game.

Fantani took the cases individually from the safe, emptying their contents into the silk bag. Every colour in the spectrum dazzled up at him, reds and greens and blues and iced white, and he felt the excitement block in his throat. His hand was shaking when he replaced the safe top and twirled the dial to lock it. He re-positioned the covering pedestal and swept his hand across the carpet to erase any signs of disturbance. He decided to leave as he had entered, through the male bedroom. He turned off the dressing-room lights, crossed the darkened room and eased open the door to the landing and the widely sweeping staircase. He was halfway out when he heard the woman’s voice, talking animatedly, before he snatched back into the bedroom.

He was trapped.

The interrogation rooms were subterranean, far below ground level, but there was no dungeon impression. They were reached by a smooth operating lift and the corridors were rubber-tiled and well lighted by concealed strips behind unbreakable overhead glass, so that it appeared more like a hospital.

Hotovy was in one of the central rooms. Kalenin stopped just inside the door. The man was in a sitting position but not really in a chair. It was a metal frame, moulded to support a human shape. Hotovy was clamped into it, completely naked, with metal bands around his wrists, arms, waist, ankles and thighs, making him utterly immobile. There was also a band around his neck to keep him upright. The finger ends were pulped and crushed and electrodes were pasted to his genitals and nipples. Where he had been forced up against the tethering, in the agony of the current being applied, his body was purpled and bloodied. There were some haphazard whip marks across his chest and thighs, and his face was swollen and bruised. The eyes moved, although dully, at Kalenin’s entry. There was a telephone just inside the door and Kalenin used it to summon the waiting doctors. There were three of them.

‘What exactly do you want?’ asked the physician in charge.

‘Complete awareness,’ said Kalenin. ‘He’s got to recognize others can suffer as he has.’

‘For how long?’

Kalenin shrugged. ‘A brief confession. There’s only one thing I really want to know.’

‘Any concern about lasting effects?’

‘None.’

They set up an intravenous drip and then examined Hotovy for internal injuries. There was some spleen and liver enlargement, which they diagnosed as bruising, but an encephalogram disclosed no brain damage. Hotovy was already stirring when they prepared the other injections. The first stimulant they put into his arm, but the second, larger, dose they pumped directly into the aorta, an insertion only normally used for resuscitation after a heart collapse. Hotovy’s recovery was dramatic and complete, to full consciousness. Kalenin had expected the man to show fear: certainly there was apprehension but there was still a sullen resistance.

‘Thirty minutes,’ estimated the chief surgeon.

‘Bring him,’ ordered Kalenin, striding from the room.

Supported by guards on either side Hotovy was hauled, feet dragging, behind the KGB chief. It was only a few yards to the other side of the interrogation area. Here the chambers were larger and partitioned, so that observers could watch questioning unseen from a soundproofed box. Behind the glass, Hotovy’s wife and two sons sat cowed on a central bench. The woman wore a shapeless prison dress and the boys were clinging to her, terrified. As they watched, one gave way and began to cry and the woman pulled him into her shoulder to comfort him.

Hotovy gave a cut-off, strangled moan and pushed forward against the glass. The guards were ready and held him back. The Czech’s head moved, like a boxer who has taken too much punishment. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Please no.’

‘Rome,’ demanded Kalenin. ‘What did you tell the British about Rome?’

Hotovy looked round bewildered. ‘Rome?’ he said. ‘I told them nothing about Rome.’