‘He doesn’t believe you.’ Her eyes were watching me closely and I realised that, however pathetic she might seem, she was a girl of iron determination. She was going to sit there and batter away at me until she got the truth out of me. I felt suddenly ill-at-ease, as though I was faced with something that I couldn’t beat down. ‘Why did you leave Milan?’
‘Look,’ I said. ‘The reason I left Milan has nothing whatever to do with your father’s disappearance. You’ve got to believe that.’
She looked at me hard, and then said, ‘Yes — I think I believe that. But Maxwell is convinced there’s some connection between—’
‘Maxwell knows nothing about it,’ I snapped.
She turned her head and looked out to sea. ‘Would you be willing to tell me about it?’ she asked.
I hesitated. ‘No,’ I said. ‘You’ve got enough troubles without listening to mine.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘I would have liked you to feel you could trust me.’ She paused for a moment and then said, ‘When John Maxwell arrived in Milan he brought a message for me from my father. It was given to him at the airfield before they left — on that flight. My father said, if anything went wrong I was to contact you.’
‘Contact me?’ I stared at her in surprise. ‘Why contact me?’
‘I don’t know, Mr. Farrell. I thought you might know. You were his friend years ago. I think he must have communicated something to you.’
I remembered then the extraordinary telephone conversation I had had with Sismondi.