‘You went to his house. What happened, please?’
‘Nothing happened.’ I was getting agitated. She was forcing my mind back to Milan, to things I wanted to forget.
‘Alec told me you were very upset when you got back.’
‘I was drunk,’ I said. Damn it, why did she have to cross-examine me like a public prosecutor?
‘Mr. Farrell, please. I have a great deal at stake in this. I love my father very much. I have run his home ever since we have been able to return to Czechoslovakia. He means a great deal to me.’ There were tears in her eyes now. ‘What happened at the flat of this man Sismondi?’
I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to help her. But it wouldn’t help if I started telling her again about Shirer and Sansevino. ‘Nothing happened,’ I said. ‘I met someone I hadn’t seen for a long time, that’s all. It upset me.’
‘Walter Shirer?’
I nodded.
‘Captain Caselli is satisfied he has got nothing to do with it. Also Alec Reece swears that Shirer would never have become involved in a thing like this.’
‘The man he knew wouldn’t,’ I answered.