Old Enemies (44 page)

The fire was taking a firmer hold, the smoke blinding Harry. A floor joist gave way at the far end of the room with a roar of warning. Harry had to go, and he couldn’t take Sean’s body with him. He left it, crawled away, but when he looked back for the last time it seemed to him that the old man was still smiling.

He found Ruari peering down anxiously through the trapdoor. ‘Granddad. Where’s Granddad?’

‘I’m sorry, Ruari. He didn’t make it,’ Harry said as he hauled himself up onto the roof.

Ruari was about to protest when there came a terrible groan from the dying building and a fountain of sparks burst through the open hatch. There could be no going back. Ruari was struggling, trying to peer down into the blaze, willing his grandfather to emerge, but Harry held him. ‘He’d been shot, Ruari. He died in my arms, not in the fire,’ Harry said as the boy sobbed in fury at the flames. ‘Almost the last thing he said was that he loved you.’

‘I know that,’ the boy whispered.

‘And right now, I think he’d want you to get off this roof.’

Lights from emergency vehicles were flashing from surrounding streets, more sirens were approaching, at last help was near at hand. ‘Too bloody late as usual,’ Harry said. He and Ruari were clambering to safety on the neighbouring roof when a small access hatch opened at its far end and a figure climbed out. It was D’Amato.

‘Mr Jones!’ he called as he approached, advancing with care along the narrow gutter barely two shoes in width that stood between the sloping roof and the low parapet. ‘And is this the boy? It’s a miracle!’

‘An Irish miracle,’ Harry muttered, unimpressed by the policeman’s new-found enthusiasm.

The Italian took Ruari’s hand and shook it with considerable force. ‘I am Inspector D’Amato and I am very pleased to see you!’

‘Thank you, Inspector.’

‘Forgive me for asking but did anyone . . . in there . . . ?’ He was having trouble framing his question. ‘Is there anyone else left?’

Harry shook his head. ‘Not a soul, Inspector.’

Glints of strange excitement seemed to be dancing in the policeman’s eye; Harry put it down to the reflection of the flames, and more than a passing dose of guilt.

‘We must get you to safety,’ D’Amato declared. ‘You first, young man, I think.’ He took Ruari’s outstretched arm and led him with care along the narrow guttering until they had reached the access hatch. ‘There is a ladder down from here,’ he announced. ‘It’s old, not very safe. One at a time. When you get to the bottom you go straight down the staircase. Quickly, please, it is already a little too warm up here,’ he instructed.

‘But you and Mr Jones—’

‘We will follow.’

Flames were eating through the other roof and Ruari needed no further encouragement. With D’Amato’s help he located the ladder and in seconds had disappeared.

When D’Amato turned back from the access hatch and stood up, Harry was astonished to discover he was holding his gun. ‘Your turn now, I think, Mr Jones.’

‘What the—’

‘I am sorry, but I cannot allow you to tell your story. You understand that, don’t you?’ He was standing in the cramped guttering, a little unsteadily, unseen from the streets below, vanishing and reappearing as he was caught in the flickering emergency lights, yet all the while the gun remained steady in his hand and fixed on Harry, who backed off a couple of steps. D’Amato edged after him.

‘I intended none of this, Mr Jones, I beg you to believe me, but I have been very stupid. A woman. Yes, a Romanian woman, my secretary. You can imagine the details, and how impossible it will be for me if they come out, as they will if you ever tell your story. I will lose everything I have, my career, my family, all that I have ever lived for. You see, I have no choice. It is you or it is me.’ Self-pity was beginning to flood into his voice.

‘How the hell do you expect to get away with it?’ Harry demanded, forced to shout above the growing roar of the fire. ‘The boy has seen me, he knows I’m alive.’

‘Ah, but it is very dangerous up here on this rooftop, anything might happen. And I have spent a lifetime listening to some very imaginative alibis; I think there will be little difficulty in inventing one that is suitable.’

‘In cold blood? Your family must be very proud of you.’

‘It is for my family that I am doing this! Please believe me, if there were any other way . . .’ The self-pity had risen, he was all but sobbing in misery. ‘Forgive me. But I must kill you.’

‘Then you’ll have to kill us both,’ a voice came from behind him. D’Amato turned, awkwardly in the narrow gutter, and peered over his shoulder. It was Ruari.

‘Please, no, not you,’ D’Amato protested.

Harry edged a little closer, D’Amato twisted round yet again, unbalanced, in danger of toppling. He steadied himself, but with difficulty as he kept turning to face one, then the other.

‘You may get one of us, you’re unlikely to get us both,’ Harry said, shuffling closer still.

D’Amato twisted back and forth frantically, thrusting with his gun, struggling to keep his footing as he tried to get them to back off. Suddenly he froze, staring at Ruari. Dear God, he was a family man, with his own son, little Vincenzo, waiting for him at home – a boy he hoped one day would grow to have the stature and courage of this young man. He couldn’t kill him; it would be like killing his own.

D’Amato wasn’t a man of profound character. He wanted to shoot himself but he couldn’t do that, either. Instead his knees buckled and he collapsed onto the roof, where he lay letting forth a pitiful wail of despair.

Harry was desperate to be alone with Ruari, to have the opportunity to talk with him, but as soon as they emerged from the burning building they found themselves in the hands of the Italian police and medical support services. There wasn’t a moment of peace to be found. In any event, what was Harry to say? The things he had on his mind weren’t his decision alone. Better to wait until they were home.

The Italian authorities still had many more questions to ask, more gaps in the troubled story to fill, but none of it was going to happen over Christmas, so it was late the following afternoon when Harry and Ruari took their seats on the Cessna Citation executive jet that J.J. had chartered to bring them back home. Even then they weren’t alone; a nurse and one of D’Amato’s colleagues sat alongside, just in case. In case of what, Harry wasn’t entirely certain. Ruari, with all the impossible energy of youth, was already showing a remarkable physical recovery kick-started by a couple of decent meals and a bucketful of ice cream. But there would be other wounds that would take longer to heal. He was slumbering now, as they climbed above the Alps and left the city lights of Trieste far behind.

Harry was less fortunate. As the adrenalin drained away, the effects of the repeated kickings and brutality made themselves felt, leaving him in considerable pain. He’d also picked up some first-degree burns to his back and shoulder. The doctor who had treated him had kept exclaiming in surprise as he discovered the patchwork of old injuries that covered so much of Harry’s body. ‘It seems you have a remarkable capacity for recovery,’ the doctor had encouraged, running his fingers over old scars. But the truth was that Harry didn’t recover as quickly as he once had. His body was talking to him, telling him it was time to change, to move on to different things. With Terri, perhaps? As he looked below and saw the peaks of the snow-smothered mountains bathed in brilliant moonlight, Harry realized how much was waiting for him at the end of this journey.

Ruari sat on the other side of the narrow cabin. He still called him Mr Jones. Harry had been going to object, suggest he call him Harry, but somehow that didn’t seem right, either. Yes, so much sorting out to do. Harry sat back in the soft executive leather, closed his eyes, couldn’t sleep. The strains of ‘Danny Boy’ kept slipping through his mind.

As soon as they landed at Biggin Hill airport, Harry discovered why the Italian police officer had accompanied them. They taxied to a halt in front of the squat terminal tower; usually it was an orderly and unpretentious area, but now it was lit by television lights and filled with a jostling crowd of newsmen. The Squadra Mobile were already playing the press and had proclaimed a glorious victory. A kidnapped boy delivered from the grasp of his tormentors, success snatched from the jaws of evil – it was a powerful story and the Italian was here to make sure it stayed that way.

And standing out in front of the posse of media men, waiting on the floodlit apron, were J.J. and Terri.

Ruari saw them, could barely hold his excitement, stomped his feet as the cabin door opened and the steps were lowered. Harry watched as he cried with anticipation. ‘Dad! Mummy!’ He seemed to fly down the steps and into their arms.

Harry hesitated, hung back. His presence wouldn’t help the fragile sanity of the media, would raise too many questions that, right at this moment, he didn’t want to answer, and indeed couldn’t answer. He was the last off the plane, and from the bottom of the steps he watched J.J. and Ruari, bound together, hugging each other with a joy that bordered on desperation as they moved to talk to the journalists. J.J. was, after all, a newspaperman as well as a father.

Harry stood in the shadows of the plane, watching from a distance.

‘How do I thank you, Harry?’ a voice whispered at his shoulder. It was Terri.

Thank him? He could think of a million ways. ‘He’s one remarkable kid.’

‘Of course he is. He’s ours.’ Her eyes were filled with pride, and gratitude, and a million other things that were all getting twisted together.

‘What happens next, Terri?’

She didn’t answer at first. Tears began to trickle down her face. Then she whispered, ‘I love you, Harry.’

And Harry knew. Whatever happened, however this finished, was going to cause exquisite and enduring pain. He turned back to where J.J. and Ruari, still arm in arm, stood in a puddle of television lights, telling their story. ‘He thinks J.J.’s the finest father in the world.’

‘He is.’

‘And as a husband?’

She shook her head slowly in bewilderment. ‘What can I say? You know what I feel about you. You’ve got to decide for us, Harry, I can’t do it any longer.’

He took her in his arms, held her tightly, tenderly, stared into her eyes. ‘You’ll sort it out.’

Her lip trembled; she didn’t understand what he was saying.

‘I love you, Terri. Ruari, too. Extraordinary, isn’t it, this father thing? I’m not so very good at it, I guess, it’s all so new, but somehow it’s come to mean everything to me.’

‘You’ll be brilliant at it, Harry.’

‘What? Start being Ruari’s father by destroying his world? If I split up his family he’d never forgive me. And I could never forgive myself.’

‘But you . . .’

‘It’s not about me, is it? It’s him. And he’s a very special young man. He saved my life, you know, I couldn’t be more proud to call him my son, but what he’s become has nothing to do with me. That’s down to you. And J.J. You’ve done an extraordinary job, both of you, created something,
someone
, who is quite exceptional. I have no right to break that. I owe it to Ruari.’

‘But you and me, Harry . . .’

‘Oh, there may come a time when you can tell Ruari, when we can both tell him, perhaps, but that’s not now and it may never be. You and me, we’re not really what matters in this. It’s Ruari, our son. And whatever happens, we’ll always have him.’

‘And so much more.’

The tears were showing no hesitation any longer, tumbling down her cheeks. He wanted to brush them away, with his fingertips, with his lips, but he daren’t. Yet she wouldn’t let him go.

‘The other night, Harry . . .’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll never regret it.’

‘We’ll always have that,’ he whispered, struggling to smile. ‘And to hell with Paris.’

She stretched up to kiss him, on the lips, sweetly, without a hint of shame, as only lovers can do. Then she walked away one last time to stand by her husband and son.

The media, like a shoal of fish, turned their attention to her, the tearful and overjoyed mother. As the cameras flashed and she tried to field their frantic questions with nothing but a smile, J.J. looked over his shoulder, still refusing to let go of the boy. He saw Harry, held his eye, as he mouthed two words that were as sincere as anything he had ever said in his life. ‘Thank you.’ Then he turned back, and with his wife and son, walked off into the night.

The media scrum broke up. A young woman detached herself from the rest of the press pack and walked over towards Harry. ‘Mr Jones, isn’t it? Bit of a surprise to see you here.’

‘Just a family friend,’ Harry muttered dully.

‘What happened to your face?’

‘Fell off my bike.’ He tried to walk on, but the reporter pursued him.

‘So what do you think about the other news?’

‘What other news?’

‘The appointment this morning of Anne Trowbridge as Foreign Secretary. There’d been rumours you might be offered the job.’

‘I think it’s excellent news all round,’ he responded drily, hoping he had smothered his surprise. ‘I may even be forced to celebrate.’