‘Then who am I?’ His eyes were looking past Maxwell, searching the room, trying to seek out some chance of escape.
I couldn’t help it. I suddenly began to laugh. It seemed to well up inside me and burst from my lips uncontrollably. It was relief to nerves stretched too taut — it was rage and bitterness and mental exhaustion all wound up tight and uncoiling in this horrible sound. I seemed to be standing outside myself, listening to that wretched laughter, wanting to strike myself, do something to stop it. But I couldn’t and gradually it subsided of its own accord and I was suddenly silent and very weak. They were all staring at me.
Maxwell came over to me. ‘Why did you laugh like that?’ he asked.
‘His name is Sansevino. Il dottore Giovanni Sansevino. He’s the man who did the operations on my leg in the Villa d’Este.’
Hacket left Zina on the couch. ‘I just don’t understand,’ he said. ‘This place belongs to a man named Shirer. I know, because I asked in the village. If this guy isn’t—’
‘Keep quiet, can’t you,’ Maxwell cut him short. ‘Now, Dick. If this is your Doctor Sansevino, what happened to Shirer?’
‘I found him the morning after the escape slumped over Sansevino’s desk, dressed in his uniform with no moustache and wearing dark glasses. I thought it—’ My voice trailed away. I had an almost uncontrollable desire to start laughing again. It was the thought that I’d been looking at Walter Shirer that morning.
‘Then it was Sansevino who escaped with Reece that night?’
I nodded.
‘And when you met this man in Milan you recognised him?’ It was Hilda who put the question to me.