I shook her angrily. ‘What did he want?’
‘I tell you, I do not know what he want.’
I remembered something then — something that suddenly had significance. ‘When we went to Casamicciola that day — why were you so worried about my leg?’ She didn’t answer and I repeated the question. ‘You wanted to get my leg away from me. Did he ask you to do that?’
She nodded.
‘Why?’
‘Please. I do not know. He ask me to take it. That is all I know.’
‘He was there, at Casamicciola?’
‘Si.’
The thing took shape then. I remembered how my leg had stood propped beside me that night I’d lain drunk on my bed at the hotel in Pilsen. I heard myself laughing, laughing at myself. What a bloody fool!
‘Why do you laugh like that?’ Her voice sounded scared.