Kiss of Hot Sun (19 page)

“Miss Harcourt confirmed what I already suspected,” I went chattering on. “That you have been selling forged Raphaels at the
Villa Stella d’Oro.
If you’re up to anything else as well, then I don’t know about it.”

He shrugged his indifference. “Even if
you
do not know, then your friend Signor Rainsby does.”

“He can’t do,” I burst out. “He’d have told me.”

But Philip hadn’t told me everything he knew—he hadn’t trusted me enough.

In the brief pause I heard the faint scrape of a stone. I dared not look, but I knew it must be Philip sliding cautiously nearer.

Covering the dangerous gap of quiet, I said hurriedly: “You forced poor Miss Harcourt into this scheme of yours. She’s been wanting to stop.”

“Forced?” He sneered. “She needed no persuasion. But Adeline must learn that she cannot just withdraw when the sport no longer amuses her.”

“She is utterly terrified of you.”

“Quite without cause, I assure you. That is, so long as she does what she is told—and refrains from being too inquisitive.”

To my wide-stretched ears Philip seemed to be making the very dickens of a racket. Zampini was bound to hear him if he went on like that. I’d have to engage the man’s interest even more closely.

“Just what is your game?” I asked loudly. “What’s it all about?”

His snigger was full of self-satisfaction. “Something very much more profitable than selling a few forged paintings, my dear lady. That serves merely as a convenient camouflage.”

He looked so pleased with himself. In his desire to boast I guessed he was ready to tell me anything. Everything. And I didn’t care now. I just wanted to give Philip the covering noise of conversation.

“So you’re even cheating your accomplices, are you? Poor Miss Harcourt—and poor Giles Yorke too, I suppose.”

“Giles tried to defraud
me
—do you know that?” His lips snarled up horribly. “He was idiot enough to imagine he could escape the consequences.”

Zampini was breathing heavily, angered by the memory of whatever it was Giles had done. To add more fuel to his rage, I thrust in quickly: “I’m sure Giles never meant harm to anyone. You corrupted him.”

“You want to know what he did?” Zampini spat out. “Your so innocent little English friend? Let me tell you then. Two weeks ago he dared to send away an American woman, a Mrs. Greenberg, with one of the paintings he had already done for selling to the tourists.”

“But... but I don’t understand...”

“You understand perfectly well,” Zampini exclaimed impatiently. “Giles was supposed to paint a scene of Taormina Bay
over
the picture the woman had purchased from Adeline. But instead he gave this Mrs. Greenberg one from his stock, and kept back the ‘Raphael’ to save himself the trouble of painting another later on.”

I was only half-listening, because I was straining hard to pick up any sign of Philip’s progress. Without daring to
look directly, I tried to catch a glimpse of him on the outskirts of my vision. But I could detect no movement. I didn’t know where he was. I could only hope and keep Zampini talking.

What Zampini had been saying fitted in with Giles’ character. Basically indolent, he’d have thought it a great lark to dodge an extra job by switching the canvases.

“How did you discover what Giles had done?”

“My contact in New York telephoned me.”

That call in the middle of the night. No wonder Zampini had been so enraged.

I kept at it: “I suppose he stripped off Giles’ picture of Taormina Bay with the usual chemicals, and found there was nothing underneath?”

“How quick you are,” Zampini said sarcastically.

“And he didn’t know what to tell the customer?”

“He had great difficulty in convincing her that there really was nothing underneath—that he had not stolen her Raphael for himself. But he was even more concerned about getting the wrong frame...”

“The wrong frame?” I echoed. “Why should the frame matter so much?”

He regarded me with an almost childish leer of triumph, flushed with admiration for his own cleverness.

“Hollowed out you see, Signorina Kerry Lyndon, those frames we use can conceal almost half a kilogram of cocaine. Or heroin, or whatever the market for the moment demands.”

“Drugs! So that’s your racket! I might have guessed it was something pretty filthy...”

But Zampini was too bursting with conceit to be riled by petty insults. “An ingenious system, do you not think? Innocent tourists perform the dangerous part for us—the transportment. Always different people, you understand, so the Customs men never grow suspicious. And at the other end they cannot wait to see their beautiful ‘Raphael’ again. Our agent does the necessary restoration work and hands them back their painting in a frame that looks the same, but is not.”

“Does Giles know about the drugs?”

Zampini’s lips curled. “Now he does. It was necessary that he should understand what he is up against. Your young friend will not benefit financially, but he will be a good boy in future, I think.”

No wonder Giles was terrified for his life! No wonder he’d begged us to meet him in such secrecy.

“I suppose somehow or other you found out he’d asked for our help, and followed us up here?”

Zampini’s ugly face split into a cruel smile, a victorious smile. “But it was not Giles who sent you that letter—it was I.”

“You!”

It was my first absolutely genuine reaction since I’d started this conversation. Zampini was delighted to have jerked me into such astonishment.

“I relied upon the fact that you and Signor Rainsby would not reject such a heart-rending appeal for help—not from a fellow countryman.”

So Philip and I had voluntarily driven slap into Zampini’s trap. We were facing death now for nothing; we hadn’t even the comfort of knowing that at least we’d done our best to help Giles.

Why had I been so gullible? Why hadn’t I suspected that the secret letter—a strangely stilted letter, I now realised, had not really come from Giles? I’d been revolted by Zampini since I first met him. I’d hated him, and these last two days I’d feared him too.

But I hadn’t feared him enough! He was cleverer than I’d believed, more ruthless than I’d thought possible. And if he succeeded in murdering us, he would continue to exploit Adeline and Giles just as cleverly and ruthlessly.

But there was hope, for them as well as us, if Philip managed to outwit Zampini.

I could see a moving black shape on the boulder, way above Zampini’s head; a blurred shape because I dared not look directly. I knew Philip was preparing to jump our enemy. As he slowly rose to his feet, the rays of the westering sun caught his head and shoulders, laying a sparkling orange halo around them.

It was the shadow that warned Zampini—one second too soon. He swore and began scrambling heavily to his feet.

With some instinctive sixth-sense reaction I threw a joyful look sideways into blank space, and cried: “Philip... Oh
Philip
!”

It was enough to divert Zampini. Just as instinctively he followed my glance...

Philip launched himself. No trapeze artist could have been more precise. Zampini’s great bulk was flattened, and Philip’s foot came hard down upon the hand that held the gun.

The Italian let out a great bellow of rage, a screech of pain. And then Philip was holding the gun, pointing it at Zampini.

“Nice work, Kerry darling.”

“Oh Philip...!”

I was going to cry. Now that the agonised waiting was over, I was going to break down and sob. I knew it.

Philip must have known it too, because he quite firmly wouldn’t let me get started. “What the hell are we going to do with fatso?” he asked flippantly, and then slid me a quick grin. “D’you reckon we could carry him, Kerry?”

“Oh Philip...!” I was getting monotonous.

I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He was filthy, his fawn cotton slacks ripped halfway up one leg. His back was streaked with more than dirt. He’d been bleeding quite a lot from a long gash on his left shoulder.

Astonishingly, a warm sense of well-being was swirling through me. I reckon I was still a bit delirious. I felt a queer sort of remoteness from what was going on. Philip was back. Philip was in control, and everything could be left to him to sort out.

I knew, vaguely, that I was being absurd. Philip’s strength was not limitless. How could he now tackle the job of getting an injured girl and a dangerous criminal from out of this desolate back of beyond? To leave me alone again while he escorted Zampini back at gunpoint into the hands of the police was something I knew Philip wouldn’t even consider. Could he tie up Zampini and leave him here to be collected later? But what would he use as cords?

It was beginning to look like stalemate. Having the weapon still didn’t give us the whip hand.

I had wild notions about shooting Zampini in the leg so as to cripple him as he had crippled me. But could Philip bring himself to shoot any man in cold blood? Could I let him do it?

I forgot such a crazy idea.

Philip had ordered Zampini to sit down at a spot a few yards off. He himself was flopped beside me, glad of a rest while he considered what to do. He was giving Zampini no chance to try anything. Having checked the gun was still loaded, he was keeping the man closely covered.

“It’s a good job old Guido is such a lousy shot,” he observed, soft-pedalling the situation. Then he glanced at my leg. “Sorry, darling! He wasn’t such a lousy shot after all. How do you feel?”

I smiled weakly. “A lot better now than I did a few minutes ago. But how on earth are we going to get out of this mess?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.” He grinned across at Zampini. “And you’ll get your just deserts, chum.”

Zampini came to life suddenly, speaking for the first time. “You are a fool, Rainsby, if you imagine you can escape my... my friends, whatever you may do to me. They are very powerful.”

“So you’re not the top dog then? And just who are these wonderful friends of yours?”

But Zampini had clamped his mouth tight shut.

There was a short silence. Then, heedless that Zampini could overhear every word, I asked Philip: “Who are you really? I mean—that lame story about being an art buyer...”

“I’m sorry about that, Kerry, but I had to tell you something. And it wasn’t so far out of line.”

“Were you on to this drug trafficking all along?”

“Not me! It was the forgeries I was interested in. I work for a London gallery which specialises in the Renaissance period, and we were getting worried because of hints that fake Raphaels were being unloaded on to the market. The signs pointed to Rome as the source. Since I speak Italian I was sent out to sniff around.”

“So those stories were just a cover up.”

He nodded. “Carefully angled for the benefit of friend Guido and his pals. I turned up in Rome pretending to be a rep for an electrical firm, but it was discreetly leaked around that really I was a buyer for a rich American art collector. Zampini rose right up out of the water and took the bait.”

Philip was talking about Zampini as though the man weren’t there. The great fat body was slumped like a stranded sea lion; cowed, no longer dangerous. I think he was scarcely aware of us.

I said to Philip: “But you did know something about this drug racket, didn’t you?”

“I’d begun to suspect there was more to it than the forgeries. But I didn’t learn about the drugs until yesterday.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

"Because I was so scared for you, Kerry. When you come up against the drug traffic, it gets really dangerous. The less you knew about it, darling, the safer I reckoned you were.”

And I’d been hurt that he hadn’t trusted me!

“How was it you found out? About the drugs, I mean?”

“Pastore told me.”

“Cesare...?”

“That chap is more than he seems. He’s quite a big fish in the Interpol narcotics squad.”

“Not Inspector Vigorelli’s assistant?”

Philip smiled quietly. “Like me, he needed a cover story.”

“So you’ve been working with the police all along?”

“You wouldn’t think that if you knew the way they’d had me investigated. That’s how Pastore knew I was in the clear. He told me what was happening because he wanted someone to keep an eye on things at the villa. He had a hunch that the balloon was going up.”

There was a sudden rustling noise, a scrabbling of loose stones. As if on cue the tall figure of Cesare Pastore rose from the ground, barely a dozen yards away.

“Forgive my unexpected appearance,” he said with an apologetic grin, “but I had to be certain which of you was holding the gun before I revealed myself.”

The trek back took hours.

I made an awkward parcel for the two men. They chaired me between them, my arms uncomfortably hooked to their necks.

Zampini was made to walk well ahead so he couldn’t try any tricks. He offered no resistance, looking forlorn and absurdly grotesque in defeat.

The sun was low now, sinking fast towards westward hills. Our shadows were long on the dry-baked ground. Following the river bed the way we had come, our tired progress became slower and slower.

Philip and I wanted to know how it was that Cesare had turned up so conveniently.

“I was on Zampini’s scent,” he told us. “When I found he was not at the
Villa Stella d’Oro
this morning, I made some enquiries.”

“But how did you discover he’d come this way?” I asked, puzzled.

Cesare was panting a little under my weight. “You would be surprised how much is observed, even out here in the wilds.”

He had recognised the car that hung poised on the edge of the mountain road. He had heard three distant shots; and then, later, two more.

“But there were no further clues,” he went on. “Frankly I was wondering what I could do next.”

“With equal frankness,” said Philip dryly, “that is exactly what I was wondering, too.”

Mercifully we were to avoid the climb back up that awful slope. Cesare knew something of the terrain, and we kept to the path of the river until finally we reached an isolated settlement—a huddle of dilapidated farm buildings. There was no telephone, and the best the willing peasants could do by way of transport was an incredibly ancient lorry. This springless box on wheels reeked of the farmyard, but I didn’t care. Luxuriously I lay back on some sacking, glowing from a dose of savagely coarse red wine.