“Be quiet,” he commanded her. He leveled his deepset eyes at Wolfe. “It would be unheard of, to take strangers there.”
“Pfui. A stranger to my own birthplace?”
“I’ll take you to the coast instead, tonight, and arrange for you to cross to Bari. You can wait there for word from me. I promise to do all I can to find the man who killed Marko, and to deal with him.”
“No. I have made a promise to myself that has priority, and I will not delegate it. Besides, if you failed I would have to come back; and anyway, if you sent me a finger how would I know who it had belonged to? No, Danilo. I will not be diverted.”
Danilo got up, went to the stove, opened the door, and looked in at the fire. I suppose Wolfe’s mention of a finger had reminded him that he had a cremation under way and he wanted to check. Apparently he thought it needed stoking, for he got some sticks of wood from a box and poked them in before he closed the door. Then he came and stood directly behind my chair. Since Wolfe’s last words had sounded like an ultimatum, and since I didn’t care for the idea of a knife in my back without even catching sight of it, I twisted around enough to get a glimpse of it on its way. His hands were buried in his pockets.
“You’re barely able to stand up,” he told Wolfe. “What about your feet?”
“I’ll manage,” Wolfe said without a quaver. “Must we walk the whole way?”
“No. We’ll ride twenty kilometers along the Cijevna, as far as the road goes. From there it’s rough and steep.”
“I know it is. I herded goats there. Do we leave now?”
“No. Around midnight. I must go and make arrangements for a car and driver. Don’t step outside while I’m gone.”