The Lovers Read online

  ‘I’m ready. Let’s go.’

  Walking in Indian file they made their way back to the farmhouse. Paoli, carrying the shotgun, made a sinister rear guard to the small procession.

  The moment the taxi drew up outside the Café Aleria, Jordan leapt inside the vehicle and ordered the driver to make all speed to the fishing dock. During the short drive he conducted a swift but clinical check of Tolvier.

  ‘Turn your face to the right.’

  As he did so, Jordan traced with his finger tip two parallel scars on the left cheek.

  ‘How did you get those?’

  ‘Sabre practice.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘A salle d’Armes in Lyon.’

  ‘Who ran it?’

  ‘Louis Claude Barrault.’

  ‘Give me your right hand.’

  Jordan examined it carefully. The small finger had been broken at the first joint. It had been badly set and was permanently swollen with arthritic growth. Jordan released his hold and turned to Cavanagh with a grin.

  ‘Mission accomplished. Thanks.’

  ‘What now?’ asked Cavanagh.

  ‘You take us back to the ship.’

  ‘You pay the taxi.’ Cavanagh returned his grin. ‘I’ll get our friend into the dinghy. That way you can cover us both.’

  ‘A sound thought,’ said Jordan. ‘But our real threat is out there.’

  He pointed out across the wide bay where, far from the docks, a rusted Fairmile flying the British flag and a tricolour courtesy pennant was just dropping anchor. Cavanagh strained to decipher the name on her transom, but she was too far away. Jordan enlightened him:

  ‘She’s the Jackie Sprat. British registry, Corsican skipper. Bad news. The good news is she’s later than we expected. Let’s get the hell out of here!’

  As he drove them back at speed to the Salamandra, Cavanagh could see Molloy and Giulia playing a game of water polo with Jackie and Lenore Pritchard. Farnese and Galeazzi were leaning on the rail looking at the rusted hull of the Fairmile. Hadjidakis stood watch on the foredeck with a pair of binoculars, while the Countess lay on a chaise-longue under the awning, with an unread book on her bosom and a pitcher of iced lemonade beside her.

  When the dinghy came alongside, Hadjidakis was there to hand the two newcomers aboard and hurry them below decks. Cavanagh hung the dinghy astern, then hurried down to the forepeak to change into a pair of swim-trunks. When he came on deck he saw Giulia and Molloy swimming back to the ship. They waved to him. He ignored the signal. He was off duty. He was hot, tired and irritable. The last thing he needed was another interrogation. He hoisted himself onto the guard-rail, balanced himself for one precarious moment, then dived overside and swam far out into the centre of the bay.

  Hadjidakis, back on deck, focussed the glasses on him and frowned unhappily. He liked to keep all his brood – visitors and crew alike – well within hailing distance. Although no one wanted to admit it, there were sharks in the Mediterranean; people did get cramps and have to be hauled out of the water. Add to which, Lou Molloy was an unpredictable fellow who had been known to order engines started and anchors up at the first whiff of a weather change or a woman’s wave from a neighbouring cruiser.

  This morning – so far at least – Molloy seemed calm and content, enjoying an innocent playtime. Hadjidakis prayed that the mood might last, that the visitors were good news and that Cavanagh, a chancy fellow himself, would do nothing to upset the master of the Salamandra d’Oro. He need not have worried. After a night on watch, a troubling excursion ashore and a long swim, Cavanagh was dog tired. He collected a plate of cold cuts and a bottle of beer from the galley, ate and drank without relish, then tumbled into his bunk and slept until seven in the evening.

  That night the crew were not bidden to join the guests; so while Leo and Jackie served the cocktails, Hadjidakis, Lenore and Cavanagh ate an early supper and then sat chatting together on the foredeck. Hadjidakis had news for them:

  ‘A change of plan. We’re not cruising Corsica. We’re heading for Italian waters. We leave after midnight. Your watch again, Cavanagh.’

  ‘Suits me. What’s the route?’

  ‘North-east to Cap Corse then south-east to the island of Elba. I’ve laid out the charts and put markers in the pilot books.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Read the pilot carefully. There’s a notable magnetic deviation around Elba because of the large mass of iron ore on the island.’

  ‘Interesting. How long is the run?’

  ‘About forty-five miles on each leg. We’ll time it to eat breakfast in port.’

  ‘Why the sudden change?’ It was Lenore who put the question.

  ‘I didn’t ask. Molloy was like a bear with a toothache all afternoon. You were lucky to be asleep, Cavanagh. All the rest of us were rousted for something or other.’

  Lenore Pritchard pursed her lips in disapproval.

  ‘I don’t envy the bride-to-be. Once she marries him she’ll be on a real roller-coaster ride.’

  ‘You might be surprised.’ Hadjidakis gave a humourless grin. ‘Just before cocktail time they were on deck together. She was giving him the rough edge of her tongue, and Lou was taking it without a murmur.’

  ‘That’s bad news!’ Lenore Pritchard was not at all happy. ‘The more he took from her, the more he’ll dish out to me.’

  ‘What does he dish out exactly?’ Cavanagh’s concern was obvious. Lenore Pritchard tried to skate around the issue.

  ‘I told you he plays rough games; but then so do I. I guess it balances itself out.’

  ‘You’ve shocked the boy!’ Hadjidakis goaded her softly. ‘He’s very young. He has a lot to learn.’

  ‘I’ve offered him free lessons. So far he’s been too shy to accept the offer.’

  ‘It’s not that I’m shy, colleen oge,’ Cavanagh gave her his widest, sunniest smile, ‘but I don’t like pain myself and I hate to inflict it on anyone else – certainly not as a form of amusement. Which is not to say I am not grateful for your kind invitation, but who am I to be claiming privileges in my own captain’s bedchamber?’

  ‘He told me he offered them to you himself.’

  ‘Indeed he did, but he made it sound as though he owned you, which is not the way I like to receive a woman – at the gift of another man.’

  ‘But I made the offer too.’

  ‘Indeed you did.’

  ‘So why haven’t you accepted?’

  ‘Well now, that’s not an easy question to answer without sounding rude: but let me try. When I was growing up and just beginning to spend money and chase girls, my father took us away for a holiday in a fashionable seaside pub. One of the first things he showed me was the notice screwed to the bedroom door. It listed the innkeeper’s liabilities and also the charge for the room. He made me read it carefully and added his own footnote: “Bryan,” he said “there’s no such thing as a free bed or free board. Both of ’em have to be paid for, in cash or kind. So before you have lunch or get laid, just be sure you’re prepared to pay the score or scrub the dishes.” So, you might say that’s what’s holding me back: I can’t read the price tag on these fabulous offers. However . . .’ he reached out to stroke her cheek, ‘if you’re ever in real bother with Molloy, give a yell. I’ll come running.’

  ‘If you do,’ said Hadjidakis, ‘Molloy will break your back! You’d better believe that!’

  ‘I’d expect him to try it. Whether he’d succeed or not is another question altogether. But thanks for the warning.’

  ‘You get that for free,’ said Hadjidakis. He heaved himself to his feet and left them a hand’s breadth apart, watching the last light fade over the black hills behind the town.

  That night, the guests sat late over dinner and later still over coffee and liqueurs on the afterdeck. For the first time, they seemed to be at ease with each other. Their laughter and their talk rose high and voluble, like fountains spurting suddenly in a silent garden.

  The Chef had fin
ished his work and retired. Lenore Pritchard was in bed, ‘alone tonight – and God! am I glad of it.’ Jackie and Leo were cleaning up in the galley. Hadjidakis and Cavanagh were on the bridge, waiting for Molloy to call a halt to the evening, so that they could square away for the overnight run to Elba.

  Hadjidakis switched on the talk-back microphone normally used to acknowledge bridge commands when docking or casting off. The conversation on the afterdeck was immediately audible. Molloy was at the tail-end of a statement . . .

  ‘. . . If you’re on the run from people with worldwide connections, like the Mafia or the intelligence services, or a freelance assassin, it isn’t easy to disappear. Tolvier is wanted for at least seven murders in 1944, as well as crimes against humanity while he was acting as interrogator for the German and the Vichy French in Lyons. We’ve just lifted him out of hiding, and tonight we’re handing him over to the CIA while we’re at sea.’

  ‘It sounds like a plot for a thriller,’ Giulia’s tone was dismissive, ‘a particularly cheap one.’

  ‘Not cheap, my love!’ Molloy’s laugh had an edge of irritation to it. ‘This was a very expensive operation.’

  ‘But an important one!’ Galeazzi added a hasty postscript. ‘Important to His Eminence in Lyons, to the whole French Church and to our other Eminence in Rome.’

  To which Farnese added his own rider.

  ‘Most important of all perhaps to American Intelligence, who are buying up these characters like horse-flesh at an auction.’

  ‘Which I find entirely scandalous!’ The Countess was emphatic, if a trifle tipsy. ‘These people are criminals, traitors, torturers. Tolvier was a professional interrogator for the Germans and the Vichy Militia. By helping him, you have dirtied yourselves!’

  ‘My dear Lucietta!’ Galeazzi was, as always, the voice of pure reason. ‘In war one uses whatever allies one can muster, whatever weapons lie to hand. Make no mistake, we are still at war with the Marxists all over the world. No matter that the war is undeclared or that it is fought by subversion instead of by armies, it is still a mortal combat. So, those who are useful to us in the struggle must be able to count on our protection. Whatever their past villainies, they must be able to count on the compassion and forgiveness promised by Christ, through the Church, to the repentant sinner.’

  ‘Poppycock!’ said the Contessa. ‘I hope God can forgive the Holy Father for all he didn’t do in the war and what is going on under his very nose in his own city! The French Church and Rome itself are still providing escape routes for war criminals. Now you are aiding and abetting them!’

  ‘Enough, Lucietta!’ Farnese was furious.

  ‘It’s late,’ said Galeazzi. ‘Let’s leave this discussion for another time.’

  ‘We should let the crew clear up,’ said Lou Molloy. ‘We weigh anchor at midnight . . .’

  Hadjidakis reached up and switched off the intercom. He turned a quizzical eye on Cavanagh.

  ‘Well now! What do you make of that?’

  Cavanagh grinned and shook his head.

  ‘I didn’t hear anything. You didn’t either, because we’re too polite to eavesdrop on Mr Molloy and his distinguished guests.’

  A reluctant smile dawned in Hadjidakis’ dark eyes.

  ‘For a dumb mick, you learn fast, Cavanagh! I like you, Molloy likes you too, though sometimes we both think you’re a cocky young bastard – but you have to know there are no secrets between Lou Molloy and Giorgios Hadjidakis. We’ve shared too much to let anyone drive a wedge between us. So long as you remember that we’ll get alone fine. Understand?’

  ‘I’ve always understood it,’ said Cavanagh mildly. ‘You’re old friends. I’m just the hired help. No argument.’

  ‘Good! Now let’s give our dancing boys a hand to straighten up the deck. They’ve been working their pretty little tails off and I want ’em up bright and early to scrub decks and clean windows before we dock in Elba . . .’

  At fifteen minutes to midnight they had the decks cleared and the ship secured for the overnight passage. At five minutes to the hour the anchors were up and Cavanagh, with Molloy and Hadjidakis beside him, was nosing out of the harbour and heading north-east to Cap Corse. The wind was light, the sea calm. The forecast promised an easy passage. Molloy, however, had new orders for him:

  ‘We’re getting rid of Jordan and Tolvier tonight.’

  ‘How and where?’

  ‘At sea, half an hour out. I’m told there’s a US submarine running submerged on a parallel course. When she surfaces and signals, you heave to and wait for them to send a rubber dinghy to collect our friends. I’ll be glad to set ’em off my hands. I don’t like either of them very much, but at least Jordan is our spook. Any questions, Cavanagh?’

  ‘No, sir. You’ve told me all I need to know. If you want to go to bed, I can handle things.’

  ‘I’m sure you can.’ Molloy gave him a sardonic grin. ‘But Giorgios will hand over the bodies. After that you’ll have an easy watch. There’ll be no shenanigans with Lenore tonight. I’m bushed. If the Queen of Sheba presented herself mother-naked and fresh from the bath, I’d have to send her away. God rest ye merry gentlemen!’

  Abruptly he left the bridge. Hadjidakis made a pinpoint mark on the chart and told Cavanagh:

  ‘I’ll walk up to the bows and take some fresh air while I’m watching. By the way, no mention of this in the log.’

  ‘Thanks for telling me,’ Cavanagh was testy. ‘I hope we’re not going permanently into the body-lifting business.’

  ‘I think you can count on that,’ said Hadjidakis. ‘Lou had some markers to pay off to the Intelligence community. This took care of a whole batch of them.’

  ‘It might also make him some enemies.’

  ‘It will; but that’s his problem, not yours.’

  ‘Of course. Foolish of me to think otherwise! Downright stupid of me to ask!’

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Giorgios Hadjidakis, ‘sometimes you really are a dumb mick!’

  The transfer of Jordan and Tolvier went off without a hitch. The submarine broke surface and lay like a great sea animal dead in the water fifty yards from the Salamandra. Two seamen in a rubber dinghy came to pick the men from the stern of the Salamandra and ferry them back to the submarine. Hadjidakis watched until they were aboard and the hatch was sealed again; then he went up to the bridge to deliver a laconic order to Cavanagh.

  ‘They’re gone and good riddance! Your ship, mister. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  Cavanagh bade him goodnight and wished him quickly gone so that he could enjoy the purest pleasure of his life: a soft sea, a sky full of stars, the lights of a strange shoreline and himself alone and wakeful at the helm, a new Ulysses, dreaming of an ancient world which he had crossed oceans to discover.

  At twenty-to-two in the morning he was trying to identify a vessel following steadily in his wake about two miles away. He guessed it to be a trawler or, more probably, a long-line fisherman trolling for swordfish on the edges of the shallow feeding grounds and the deep trenches. Then, remembering Jordan’s words on the dock, he wondered if it could be the Jackie Sprat. He was tempted to put on speed to see if the other vessel would try to match him, but he rejected the idea in case it might disturb the passengers.

  It was not an important matter; rather, it was part of a nightly game played by a lone helmsman to keep himself awake and attentive. While he noted the event in his log, he was anchored in the small luminous pool made by the spotlight on the chart-table. The rest of the bridge was in twilight, while outside there was only starshine and the distant, sparse illuminations along the Corsican shoreline.

  Then, sudden and silent as a phantom, Giulia Farnese was standing beside him. He had not heard her approach. Her animal heat and the heady swirl of her perfume were the first indications of her presence.

  She was barefoot, dressed in silk pyjamas with a woollen sweater pulled over the top, so that she looked like a schoolgirl ready for a dormitory party. She wore no make-up
and there were dark shadows under her eyes. Cavanagh stammered a greeting in Italian. She answered with an apology and an oddly desperate plea.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you. May I stay up here for a while?’

  ‘Of course. Take the helmsman’s chair.’

  He helped her hoist herself onto the high stool. She launched immediately into a babble of explanations.

  ‘I couldn’t go to sleep for a long time. I never can after a talkie evening. When I did fall asleep, I dropped straight into a terrible nightmare. Even when I woke up, the cabin seemed full of it. I couldn’t stay there. I had to get out.’

  To which Cavanagh had an instant but unspoken reaction: ‘If I were that scared and two doors away from the one I loved, I know where I’d be at this moment – and it wouldn’t be on a ship’s bridge with a stranger!’ What he said, however, was quite different:

  ‘There are no nightmares here. Just the sea and the stars – clean, beautiful things. Look out there . . .’

  ‘You don’t understand!’

  ‘So make me understand. Tell me. Talk it out of your brain-box.’

  The story she told had an odd, disjointed quality, as though she were still brushing away the cobwebs of the dream.

  ‘. . . During the war I lost my only brother. He was a pilot, killed in Libya. He was a beautiful, beautiful young man and I adored him. I still dream about him sometimes, and always the dreams have been happy ones, so that I’m sorry to wake up and lose them . . . Tonight was different. After dinner we were talking about that horrible man Tolvier. He was a collaborator who worked with Klaus Barbie, interrogating his own countrymen under torture. For some reason the Archbishop of Lyons is protecting him and hiding him. There are other high people in France who want to have him out of the way without a trial. Cardinal Tisserant at the Vatican also wants him free. That’s how Galeazzi and my father are involved. Lou has supplied money and contacts with US Intelligence who want Tolvier to work with them . . . But that’s all by the way. Somewhere in the talk Lou said the best way to disappear was to die and get resurrected. That’s what I saw in the nightmare; my beautiful brother rising out of an open grave . . . But he wasn’t beautiful any more. He was horrible, horrible . . .’