Brian Freemantle - Madrigal for Charlie Muffin

‘I sag,’ complained the woman. ‘Do you think I sag?’

‘Let go.’

She lowered her hands and her breasts slumped.

‘They’re fine.’

‘Sometimes dresses are better without a bra.’

‘Middle-aged wives of ambassadors don’t walk about with their nipples sticking out. And they don’t stay so close to the cocktail waiter.’

She unfastened the other earring, then the necklace, and began creaming the make-up from her face. ‘I’ve never let you down.’

‘Not yet.’

‘Frightened that I might?’

‘I just wish you’d cut it down a little.’

Fantani’s body began to ache with the effort of holding himself away from the blinds and his legs began to shake. Get out, he prayed, desperately; in the name of Jesus and Mary, get out!

‘You’re not worried about something, are you?’ he said.

‘Of course not.’

‘I’d like you to be careful over the next few weeks,’ said Billington. ‘We’re going to be under the microscope, because of this damned Summit.’

‘Will we have to stay at the official residence in Rome?’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t like it there.’

‘It’s only for a short while.’

‘Those receptions and banquets and dinners are so boring; how the hell do you expect me not to drink?’

He moved, so that he was between her and the mirror. ‘I expect you to support me, as a wife,’ he said.

She put down a mascara-stained ball of cotton wool.

‘Haven’t I always?’

‘You have and I’m grateful,’ said Billington. ‘I just don’t want there to be any mistakes. It’s important.’

‘For promotion, you mean?’

‘Yes.’

‘I won’t do anything to hurt you,’ she said solemnly.

‘I love you,’ he said.

‘I love you too.’

‘I’m sorry you’re not happy.’ The ambassador moved away from Fantani’s view.

‘What about the jewellery?’ she called after him. ‘Shouldn’t it be put away?’

Fantani winced. Distantly the man’s voice said, ‘In the morning.’

‘Goodnight then,’ she called.

‘Goodnight.’

The light in the dressing room went out as abruptly as it had come on and Fantani tottered forward against the back of the couch to take the strain from his legs. He was thoroughly cramped, like he’d been sometimes as a child when the snows came to Calabria and the cold had eaten into his body, numbing him so badly it was difficult to walk. Still nervously alert for any sound, he lowered himself into a kneeling position, as if he were praying. He swallowed hard to prevent the sob, clamping his lips between his teeth against any breakdown. Gradually the spasms eased and he rolled over to rest his back against the rear of the couch.

It was two hours before Fantani considered it safe to move. He was fully recovered by then, as careful as he had been when he first entered. The ambassador had left the dressing-room door open. Fantani waited until he had located the man’s slow, easy breathing and then padded swiftly across to the outer door. Soundlessly he tiptoed down the marble staircase and, when he got to the drawing-room windows, his hinged entry spots were as he had left them. In the garden he stopped, dragging the cold air into his lungs. Almost done it, he thought: almost but not quite. He found the cypress grove, and slipped swiftly down the utterly black avenue to the wall. At the cliff face he turned his back to the sea and paced five steps inland. Having established his marker he turned to the wall, cupped the silk bag in his hand and, like a basketball player going for a goal, hefted the jewellery high over the electrified barrier. With a sense of relief he heard it crunch on the other side.

Getting back was not going to be easy. The villa lights had been dimmed. There was no moon and, although he was close enough to reach out to feel its attachment to the wall, he had to peer out to locate the blacker outline arching over the cliff. At least the breeze had dropped. Fantani breathed in deeply, tensed and threw himself into the blackness. He didn’t land flat, as he had before, but instead jarred into the web with the left side of his body. He failed to get a foothold and for a second hung only by his left hand. He felt the grip being torn away by the weight of his body and swung his right hand around desperately for support.

And impaled his hand upon one of the spear heads.

He gasped at the pain, feeling the metal drive into his flesh. He pulled away, conscious of the skin ripping and managed to crook his almost numbed fingers around a spoke. His body hung suspended at the furthest point of the half-web and directly over the drop. He could feel the blood running back along his arm. He twitched his feet in tiny sideways movements to get a foothold. With his left foot he managed to lever himself up, sticking both arms through the bars and then curving them, so one hand was free to discover how badly hurt he was. The point had driven through the gloves, almost at the centre of the palm, like one of the sacrificial wounds in the church models of Jesus that his mother had made him pray before when he went to confession. He clamped his mouth shut against the moan. Dear God, it hurt; it hurt more than anything he’d ever known before. He was bleeding heavily and the fingers were stiffening. There was hardly any grip in his right hand, so he had to press his body tight against the sharpened tips. They scraped his face and he felt the cotton of his windcheater split. He made the turn and stopped again, his arms holding him. He couldn’t manage it much longer: the numbness was spreading from his hand, into his wrist. He crabbed towards the cliff but pushed his body first this time. He got as far as his waist when his foot slipped and his legs slipped away from the metalwork, dangling over the edge. Fantani snatched out with his uninjured hand, locking his fingers into a bracken outcrop. He heaved up and, wedging his elbows beneath his body, dragged the rest of his body to safety.

He rolled away from the rim and lay on his back. He was crying at the effort, tears mixing with the sweat and itching his face. He let the emotion flood out, needing the release. He got up at last, pulling awkwardly with his left hand at the jacket zip and slotting his right arm into it, to create a makeshift sling. Reluctantly he went to the edge, paced in five steps and stopped, putting his good hand over the wet grass. He quickly located the jewellery and wedged it beneath his left arm.

The lightness of dawn was already showing to the east as he took the car along the Ostia road and then turned inland towards Rome. The feeling had practically gone from his hand and the lightheadedness he knew from marijuana and cocaine made him giggle aloud, careless at the closeness of hysteria. He’d done it!

The night-duty man contacted Harkness at home and the deputy decided the importance justified the use of an insecure line, telephoning the director in Hampshire. Wilson answered on the second ring.

‘Sorry to disturb you,’ Harkness said.

‘What is it?’

‘I asked for a deep investigation, beyond what we already had,’ said the deputy. ‘We’ve just had a response from Australia. It seems for a brief period Jill Walsingham was a member of the Communist party there.’

There was a short silence. Then Wilson demanded, ‘Why’s it taken so long to find out?’

‘It was brief, like I said. Just three months, during her last year at university. Then she resigned.’

‘Which is the first thing she would have been told to do, if she was going underground,’ said Wilson. ‘Did she know Walsingham then?’

‘Not for another two years. They met when he was attached to Canberra.’

‘So she could have sought him out, under instructions?’