‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t recognise him. I just kept on seeing him as the doctor, that was all. They were very much alike, except for the moustache and the glasses.’
‘And that is why you left Milan?’
I nodded. My eyes seemed held by hers, for I sensed sympathy there and I clung to it. Anything to stop myself laughing. ‘I was scared,’ I said. ‘I thought I was seeing things — going out of my mind.’
The room was suddenly lit by a brighter glow. We all glanced involuntarily towards Vesuvius. The whole top of the mountain flamed as great gobs of molten rock were hurled out of the crater and up into the column of black gas. And through the window, quite clearly in the still, oppressive heat of the night came the creak of wagons and the shouts of people urging cattle along the road to Avin.
‘We must hurry, Max,’ Hilda said. ‘I am so afraid he is somewhere up there.’ She turned to Zina. ‘What was it you said about two men up at Santo Francisco?’
But Zina seemed to have fallen into a coma. She didn’t answer. ‘I’ll have to get it out of this little swine then,’ Maxwell said. He turned to Sansevino. ‘Where is Tucek?’ The man didn’t answer and I saw Maxwell hit him. ‘You picked him up at Milan Airport. Tucek and Lemlin. You were after what he was bringing out of Czechoslovakia, the same as you were with the other poor devils. Well, where is he?’ There was a scream of pain.
Then Hacket had Maxwell by the shoulder. ‘Because the guy’s killed someone, it doesn’t entitle you to third degree him.’
‘You keep out of this,’ Maxwell said sharply.
‘Then leave the guy alone.’
‘This isn’t the first man he’s murdered. You heard what Farrell said.’