Mission of Murder, page 9
His palms were damp and he decided that he might as well take a shower before dinner.
It was Carla who eventually came up to his room to tell him that dinner was served. In the meantime one of Valedri’s men had brought up his single suitcase from the launch and he had changed into his light grey suit and added a dark tie. Carla’s manner was hesitant and awkward and Larren knew that she was thinking hard over whatever her father had said. However, despite his inner feelings, he looked like a man without a care in the world as he followed her out of the room.
The dining-room lay beyond the door at the foot of the staircase and he found Valedri, Bruno and Antonella already seated round the large table. It was growing dusk now and the wavering flames from a tall, delicately-wrought pair of candelabrum danced over the pure white linen and gleaming silverware. Valedri greeted him affably, Bruno merely nodded, and Antonella gave him a knowing smile.
Larren acknowledged their gestures and took his place at the table. Carla sat next to him, pulling her chair deliberately close to him and glaring defensively across the table at Valedri. The friction between father and daughter was so marked that Larren wondered how he could possibly pretend to ignore it.
A male servant brought in the food and Larren noted automatically that despite his pressed white uniform and quiet efficiency the man looked well capable of doing double duty as an extra strong arm man. That made six men at Valedri’s disposal. Surely there could not be many more!
The meal began in silence with an excellent but unidentifiable soup with a sharp, peppery tang, and was followed by a course of fish. The fish had been fried whole and although its flavour was beyond reproach Larren found it somewhat disconcerting to have its one visible and wide open eye gazing up at him as he ate. His glass was kept constantly filled with the bitter retsina wine that is the favourite aperitif of Greece.
There was no conversation except for occasional murmured pleasantries between courses and Larren was permanently aware of Carla smouldering beside him. It was clear that Valedri had expressed his doubts and interrogated her closely, and had aroused within her a strong sense of uncertainty and resentment. However, Larren took comfort in the fact that he was still being treated as a guest, for that in itself indicated that Valedri must have accepted her testimony on his behalf.
Discreetly he attempted to sum up his table companions as he ate, but he was unable to reach any concrete conclusions. Bruno, now clad in a black tuxedo, had not yet uttered a single word that might have provided a clue to his background. While Antonella, now wearing a ravishing yellow gown — yellow was obviously her favourite colour — contented herself with sparing him momentary flashes of that insinuating smile. Valedri still wore his white suit and seemed intent on nothing more serious than enjoying his food.
A dish of pineapple slices in rich cream and then small cups of sweet black Turkish coffee finished off the meal. As he drank his coffee Larren had an opportunity to lean back and casually observe his host. Valedri was sixty-three years old and carried himself well, his sleek black hair was still thick and plentiful and there was nothing in his tanned face to show that he had spent twenty-three of those years in an Italian prison. Apart from the limp that had remained as a permanent legacy of his unsuccessful attempt to rob a bank that had put him inside he showed no outward traces of his past. At the moment he looked more paternal than anything else as he sat at the head of his table, and it was hard to believe that he was callously holding back the Ameytheline antidote in a cold-blooded game of blackmail.
Finally Carla rose to her feet and invited Larren to join her in the larger room. They took their second cup of coffee with them and Larren was glad to get away from that silent table with its atmosphere of hidden tensions.
However, Carla had carried some of that atmosphere with her and nothing seemed able to dispel it. She played a few jazzy records and talked vaguely about the island and the villa. None of the other members of the household seemed inclined to join them and Larren found her unenthusiastic conversation more of a strain than anything else. He sensed that although she must have defended him from her father she no longer fully trusted him. She seemed to be unable to make up her mind whether to question him or not, and then abruptly she decided that she was going to bed. She explained that she was very tired after the previous night, but Larren knew that she simply wanted to be alone to think things out.
He escorted her up to her bedroom and lingered to kiss her goodnight, but this time there was no clamouring response and that in itself was a sure sign that she was badly worried. He still kissed her fiercely, holding her against him like a bewildered lover who could not comprehend what was wrong. Finally she pulled away and complained again that she was tired. There was nothing Larren could do except leave her with a pretence of slow reluctance, and wonder whether his acting had done anything at all to win her back to his side.
It was still early, but there was nothing left to do except to retire to his own room. He lay back on the bed fully clothed and realized that he too needed to think. Now that he had reached Kyros he had to plan the last part of his mission; the death of Valedri and the recovery of the antidote. He also wanted to think about Antonella, the red-haired beauty resided here as Valedri’s mistress, but from the way she had acted and yet apparently kept her own counsel, she did not appear to owe the man any great degree of loyalty. Who was she? And where did she really fit into the picture?
To most of the spinning questions in Larren’s brain there was no answer, and several hours later he was still thinking hopelessly and getting no results. Then abruptly he heard a quiet tap at his door.
Larren tensed, wondering who could be calling upon him at this late hour of night. Then he got up and walked over to open the door.
Bruno stood there, still in his black tuxedo. The white-suited manservant who had served the dinner stood just behind him.
“I’m glad you’re still up, Larren,” Bruno said softly. “Mr. Valedri wants a quiet word with you.”
Larren felt his stomach twist over. “At this time of night?” he asked.
Bruno smiled. “That’s right. And let’s make it quiet shall we? We don’t want to disturb little Carla.”
Larren knew then that Carla had not been able to win him any respite after all. Valedri had simply bided his time and waited until she was safely out of the way before taking any action.
Bruno stood on one side so that Larren could pass him and come out of the bedroom, and the hard look in the man’s stony gaze showed that Larren had no real choice in the matter. He walked slowly into the passageway and Bruno and his companion fell into step close behind him as he moved towards the top of the staircase.
His stomach was still twisting.
CHAPTER 10: DEPORTED
Larren expected to find Valedri waiting for him in the spacious lounge on the ground floor, but the room was empty and Bruno directed him through the dining-room and into the kitchen beyond. Here the silent manservant moved ahead to lead the way through yet another door and Larren found himself facing a flight of steep stone steps leading down into the vaults below the villa.
He knew that he was in a tight spot, but if there was any chance at all of getting out of it then that chance could only lay in continuing to act his part. He hesitated deliberately on the top step and turned to face Bruno.
“Why are we going down here?” he demanded as if puzzled.
Something that might have been the distorted shape of a smile flickered across Bruno’s face. “I thought I’d made that clear,” he said softly. “We don’t want to wake Carla from her slumbers.”
With that Larren had to be satisfied, for it would have been obvious even to the dimmest tourist that Bruno was not inclined towards any further arguments or explanations. He shrugged his shoulders as though baffled and then turned again to follow the manservant down the steps. Bruno descended close behind him.
At the bottom of the steps Larren saw that the vaults were a maze of receding archways of red brick, some of the sections were stacked with junk and odds and ends, but mostly they were being used as wine cellars and were filled with large casks or racks of dusty bottles. For a cellar it was unusually clean and tidy, and it was well lit by naked electric light bulbs hanging from the ceiling between the arches.
Bruno gave Larren a nudge that started him walking again and they moved under the first arch across an empty floor of large flagstones. Beyond the next arch Larren saw his host waiting for him.
Valedri was standing by one of the racks and admiring the label on a dusty wine bottle. He looked up as they approached and calmly slipped the bottle back into its place. His face was expressionless, but there was a grim light of warning in his deep-set eyes. He patted the dust from his hands and took a limping step forward as they halted before him.
“Ah, Mr. Simon Larren,” he said flatly. “I’m sorry that I have so far proved to be a rather inattentive host, but I rather think that the time has come for us to get to know one another better.”
Larren forced a smile. “By all means, but —” he looked helplessly around him — “why here?”
Valedri’s face remained expressionless and his voice remained flat. “Just an old man’s whim, Mr. Larren. You’ll humour an old man surely?” His eyes glinted for a moment and then he went on. “Your left eye seems to have collected rather a nasty bruising somewhere in your recent travels — how did it happen?”
Larren felt his nerve ends jump as he remembered his beating from the man in the big American Chevrolet, but nothing showed outwardly as he lied blandly. “It happened during the fighting when I rescued Carla. Savino almost knocked me out.”
Valedri smiled thinly. “I should like to hear your version of that, my Carla sometimes has a tendency to exaggerate.”
Larren looked uncomfortable. “I don’t think Carla exaggerated,” he said. He proceeded to tell the same story over again, re-phrasing Carla’s words and including a few subtle alterations so that the tale did not sound too well rehearsed.
Valedri allowed him to finish and then asked grimly. “Is that all?”
“I think so. Why?”
“Because I don’t believe it.” Valedri’s voice became hard and savage. “Let’s stop playing cat and mouse, Larren. I might have enjoyed such games once but I’m an old man now and I don’t have much patience left. At the moment I’m engaged in the biggest deal of my life and I half expected someone like you to come butting in. You may have fooled my daughter by hiring a few cheap hoodlums to pull a fake kidnap so that you could rush in firing blanks and do your heroic little ‘here comes the cavalry’ act — but you don’t fool me.”
Larren had not expected Valedri’s suspicions to link him into an assumed partnership with Savino and he was almost as startled as he looked.
“That’s ridiculous,” he retorted. “And what about the man who was killed?”
Valedri said flatly, “There has been no report of the discovery of an unidentified body with two bullet holes in it, either in the Athens newspapers, or the radio news broadcasts. We have been watching both. I suggest that your actor friend probably cleaned off the ketchup, or whatever he used, and then walked away.”
Larren said desperately, “The man was dead I tell you! But Savino was only unconscious, and then there was the other man who got away; they could have hidden the body. In fact it would be the logical thing for them to do.”
“It could be plausible, Larren — but for one thing.” Quite unexpectedly Valedri thrust his arm forward and viciously jabbed his index finger into the slight gash above Larren’s left eye. “That cut betrays you,” he screamed. His face was suddenly contorted and his controlled calm burst into trembling rage. “You’re not only a liar, Larren, but a fool as well.”
Larren jerked back as the sudden stab of pain flooded the whole of the left-hand side of his face. Immediately Bruno and his white-uniformed companion seized both his arms and gripped him firmly.
Larren managed to open his eyes again and said weakly, “I still don’t understand what you mean.”
“Don’t you?” Valedri was showing the poisonous streak that had made him a top killer before the break-up of Murder Incorporated and a twenty-year prison sentence had held him down. “Then let me draw you a diagram. I recognized the possibility that someone like you might try to reach me through my daughter, so I had one of my best men watching every move she made. They found that man in an olive grove outside Athens early this morning with a broken neck.” Valedri stopped to suck in a deep breath and then rasped on: “That man always wore a small ring on his right hand, Larren, a cheap gaudy thing with a sharp edge. The sort of ring that would leave a gash like the one above your eye if he had caught you with his fist — and the only clue that the police have is a trace of blood found on that ring.”
Larren could feel the last of his hopes withering inside him as he struggled to find an answer. He said desperately, “Savino wore a ring. The fact that your man wore one as well is sheer coincidence.”
Valedri shook his head. “I questioned Carla closely about that. Savino never wore a ring.”
“Perhaps he didn’t normally wear one, but he was wearing one last night.” On the surface Larren was still defending himself, but deep down he knew that he was finished.
Valedri ignored his last protest and asked softly, “Who are you, Larren? Who are you working for?”
Larren made one last effort and shouted furiously. “My name is Larren, exactly as I told you, and I am not working for anybody. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about and I think you must be bloody-well insane. You —” He broke off into a yelp of agony as the two men on either side of him deftly and viciously twisted his arms up behind his back. Then abruptly Bruno released him and spun him round so that the second man could seize both his arms. Then Bruno drove a clenched fist hard into his stomach.
Larren doubled up and hung there gasping. Bruno looked inquiringly at Valedri who simply nodded his head. For the first time in Larren’s knowledge Bruno’s hard face was lit up by a smile. The stony-eyed man reached into the pocket of his black tuxedo and drew out a short, solid length of rubber hose.
Larren knew he could probably break the grip of the man who held him, and with surprise on his side, plus his highly-specialized training he should be able to give a good account of himself even against the three of them. But if he tried he would still have to get clear of the island and that, with a hue and cry already raging, would be utterly impossible. It was night and the trip wires would be electrified and the guards would be patrolling with their killer dogs; and obviously the jetty and the motor launches would be well policed. His only hope was to wait until he could make an escape attempt without raising an alarm.
Bruno was obviously enjoying himself. He spat upon each of his palms in turn and rubbed them carefully upon the back of his fists as he swapped the length of hose from hand to hand. Then he slashed the weapon in a swift cutting stroke across Larren’s ribs. He reversed the stroke in an expert backhand blow and finished up with a neat downward chop that sent a wave of agony rushing through Larren’s shoulder as it burst against his collarbone. Larren uttered a series of exclamations that were something between screaming and groaning and twisted helplessly against the man who held him.
Valedri said harshly, “I’ll say it again, Larren. Who are you? And who are you working for?”
When Larren could answer he said hoarsely, “I don’t — don’t know what you mean.”
Bruno set to work again. The rubber hose seemed to be slamming into Larren from all angles and each succeeding blow made him writhe and squirm. He was sobbing for breath and retching with the nausea of pain, and then one of Bruno’s cutting blows landed close to his left hip which was already black and blue from the previous night and he fainted into the explosion of pure white agony.
When he came round he was choking and Valedri was pouring a bottle of sweet red wine over his face. He spluttered and was dragged back to his feet, still only semi-conscious.
Valedri said grimly, “I’m sorry, but we could not be bothered to run upstairs for water.” He paused and demanded, “Are you ready to talk yet?”
“Can’t talk. Don’t know anything,” Larren mumbled faintly.
Bruno drew back his length of rubber piping and struck again. Larren was experienced enough to know that the only possible course of action when unable to escape torture was to go unconscious as quickly and as often as possible, and without any concentration of effort whatever he promptly passed out again.
Valedri revived him with another bottle of wine, but he had no idea of how long the process lasted. When he was on his feet once more the ex-racketeer again asked his savage questions.
“Who is paying you, Larren? Who set up that phoney kidnap and rescue deal? It was a put-up job, wasn’t it, Larren?”
Larren shook his head.
Bruno hit him and he found that fainting was now the easiest thing in the world.
The whole world was reeling round with a gentle swaying movement when Larren’s senses finally stirred, and he groped his way reluctantly back to consciousness. He did not want to awake and he tried vainly to fight off the increasing sense of awareness. Then slowly it penetrated into his dulled mind that this was a different awakening from the others; he was no longer lying on the cold flagstones of the cellar but upon something soft and yielding, and there was nobody pouring sweet wine over his face to revive him. With an effort he stopped fighting and allowed his senses to become clearer. Then he opened his eyes.
He was in the cabin of a large motor launch and lying comfortable in the single bunk. Through the only porthole he could see the moving blue of the Aegean and the grey-white sky of early dawn. Now that he was recovering he could both feel and hear the vibration of the launch’s engine.
