He began laughing, hideously and almost uncontrollably. Hiley squirmed and tried to find something else to say, yet suddenly his thoughts dried to dust as a blade appeared in Cosmin’s hand, catching the light as it twisted. From behind Hiley’s shoulder, Terri let forth a cry of dread. Harry’s hair had been grabbed, his head wrenched upwards, his throat exposed, the blade pressing hard against it.
J.J. buried his head in his hands, Terri ran from the room, Hiley was still pleading that they could sort things out when Cosmin at last stopped his insane laughter.
‘Now you shut the fuck up. And you watch your friend die.’
Sean was exhausted by the time he made it to the top of the staircase. There was a moment when he thought he’d never make it, dragging his leg, and the petrol can, along with Toma’s automatic pistol. By the last step he was perspiring profusely, the sweat running into his eyes, so at first he couldn’t make out what he saw through the doorway that as yet had no door. He saw Harry, on his knees. Ruari, too! And something unspeakable was about to happen. He could try to use the pistol but he wasn’t sure how, he hadn’t had a chance to inspect it in the darkness of the stairwell, and even if he took out one or two of them it wouldn’t be enough. Anyway, he was a bookkeeper, not a gunman; he knew his limits. Instead, he unscrewed the cap of the remaining can and tipped it gently onto its side until he saw a steady trickle of petrol. Then he stepped into the room. At first no one saw him. All eyes were on Harry.
‘Well, bless me, I’m glad to have found you all, every man-jack of you,’ he announced with a theatrical flourish, holding his head at an awkward angle to one side like a fool. ‘I’m guessing this belongs to you.’ He held out the pistol innocently by its barrel.
Everyone in the room turned towards him. ‘Who the hell are you?’ Cosmin growled.
‘Me? The name’s Sean Breslin,’ he replied guilelessly. ‘I’m the boy’s grandfather, so I am. And I found this thing downstairs, thought I’d be returning it to you.’ He tottered on his cane and placed the pistol on a nearby chair before straightening himself in a way that suggested every muscle in his body was screaming in objection. ‘But don’t let me disturb you,’ he said, nodding towards Harry. ‘Go ahead. Feckin’ Englishman. I’d give you a hand myself if only I could stand up straight.’
They watched this innocent, doddering old man, spellbound.
‘But there’s just one thing,’ Sean began again, patting his pockets in search of something. ‘When a man’s about to die, he deserves a final smoke, doesn’t he? That’s the rules.’
They were still watching transfixed as he produced a cigarette and a book of matches, lit the cigarette and sucked in a first lungful of nicotine with an expression of contentment that suggested it solved all the problems of the world. He took another, shorter drag, then inspected the burning tip, blowing on it before he tossed it over his shoulder onto the landing.
Sean had no clear plan. He knew he wouldn’t be able to rescue Ruari on his own. He needed some outrageous stroke of luck, a quixotic roll of the celestial dice if he were to have any chance. But while he had no clear plan, he knew the kidnappers had a plan, one that was detailed and fixed, and because of that it was vulnerable, and he could throw it into chaos. So that is what he did.
By the time he threw the cigarette onto the landing, enough fuel had spilled, slurped and dripped its way down the stairwell to create instant chaos. Much of the petrol in the lower hallway had already evaporated, leaving the stairwell filled with highly inflammable fumes, and now a river of flame was running down to meet it. It all exploded in a most satisfactory fireball – just as it had when he’d torched a debt-ridden development back in Dundalk to claim the insurance.
In expectation of this eruption of anarchy, Sean had already taken a step to one side, so that he was out of the direct path of the fire as it roared up the stairs and burst through the attic doorway. It was Cosmin who took the worst of the blast, knocked off his feet while it passed almost harmlessly above Harry’s head.
The chaos grew. Sean picked up the pistol and tried to fire it. Nothing happened, the safety was on, but now he was standing in the light he was quickly able to locate it and began firing, wildly and like the total amateur he was, and a fraction of a second before Sandu recovered his wits and began firing his gun, too. Sandu was still firing when one of Sean’s bullets hit him in the heart and threw him to the ground.
It was Harry who had reacted to the fireball first. Even as lurid flames were swirling above his head he threw himself sideways to the floor, knocking the broom handle through the crook of his elbows and giving him back some mobility, although his legs were dead from all the kneeling. Cosmin lay stunned beside him on the floor; Harry grabbed the pistol at his belt and began firing. Soon bullets were flying on all sides.
No one was ever entirely sure whose gun shot Puiu and Nelu. Sean was still firing but so was Sandu, wildly, blindly, even as he lay dying, his finger frozen on the trigger. It might have been him who shot his friends; Harry finished him off with the last round in the magazine.
There was no time for relief. Fire was already coursing through the building, taking hold, the stairwell was filled with tall flames and greedy, choking smoke. There would be no way out down there.
‘Did you think this one through, Sean?’ Harry demanded, trying to manoeuvre himself onto his reluctant knees.
‘The roof. There’ll be some sort of access,’ Sean replied as a gas canister exploded down below, thrusting a fresh blast of flame and acrid smoke into the room.
But there was a cry of alarm. It was Ruari. As Harry turned he found Cosmin lunging towards him, his face twisted in torment, a cry on his lips and his knife in his hand. Harry still had his hands bound and could barely move, while Cosmin had weight, speed and a weapon. As fights went, this was unlikely to be an even one.
Yet as Cosmin charged, Ruari threw himself forward, feet first, tangling with Cosmin’s ankles in a way that would have earned him a dismissal from any soccer pitch. The Romanian toppled like a huge oak, his full weight crashing directly on top of Harry.
For what seemed like an endless while, neither of them moved. Then Harry grunted, heaved the Romanian off him. Cosmin rolled over. His knife had buried itself deep between his ribs. He was still alive, his eyes flickering wildly, the breath rasping, but he could barely move, his entire body numbed by shock.
‘I was never going to kill you, Mr Jones,’ he blurted as Harry bent over him. ‘All for show. You know the game.’
‘Sure.’
‘Please, help me. Don’t let me die like this.’ His eyes stuttered down to his wound, which was already beginning to seep alarming amounts of blood.
‘Don’t worry,’ Harry reassured him, ‘I guarantee the fire will kill you before you bleed to death.’
Cosmin began whimpering as Harry reached into his pocket to relieve him of the keys to Ruari’s manacles. He moved across to the boy, released him, touched him, that first time. ‘You saved my life, Ruari. Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome, Mr Jones,’ he replied, innocently. ‘But Granddad saved us both, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, but unless we get out of here in about thirty seconds, there won’t have been much bloody point.’
Smoke was rising through the gaps in the floorboards, it was getting very difficult to breathe.
‘What do you reckon, Sean?’ Harry shouted across the room as he helped Ruari to his feet; the boy’s muscles were weak, refusing to coordinate, and he almost fell again before Harry grabbed him.
‘Try the next room. There has to be a roof access or skylight or something.’ Sean waved them on. Strangely, he was sitting down, slumped against the wall. ‘My feckin’ knee,’ he explained. ‘It’s killing me.’
‘I’ll be back for you, Sean,’ Harry cried, hauling Ruari through to the next room where the guards had slept. There was a knife in there, which with the boy’s help he used to free his wrists. And as Sean had promised, there was a trapdoor, in the middle of
the ceiling. The cold fresh air hit Harry in the face as he forced it open, but already the smoke was chasing close behind, the fire seeking out this fresh source of oxygen. Out in the night air he could hear the sound of sirens, emergency vehicles, summoned to the blaze, and they came with great speed to a cramped, congested quarter like the Old City. But they wouldn’t be there in time.
It was a struggle to get Ruari through the trapdoor. He didn’t have the strength to haul himself up, and Harry had barely enough to lift him, yet in the end it was done.
‘Try to get onto the roof of the next building,’ Harry instructed as Ruari stared down from above.
‘Where’s Granddad?’
‘Right behind us.’
‘But I don’t see him.’
‘You must get away from the fire.’
‘No way. I’m not going anywhere without Granddad,’ Ruari answered in a manner that said there was no point in Harry arguing the matter. ‘And you promised to go back for him.’
Harry stared in admiration at his son. ‘Then I suppose I’d better fetch him.’
Back in the room the smoke was much thicker, the floorboards at the end already in flames. Sean was still sitting against the wall. Harry crawled to his side. ‘Come on, you old Irish arsonist,’ he muttered, grabbing him beneath the shoulders, but as soon as he tried to lift him he realized something was desperately wrong, and it had nothing to do with his knee. Sean was a dead weight, his eyes glazing, his skin sallow, and beneath his jacket Harry found a hideously neat and desperately serious bullet hole that was already making one hell of a mess of Sean’s shirt. Their eyes met. There was nothing to be said. Neither of them was going to lie. Yet Sean saw the pain that had fallen upon Harry.
‘What’s the matter with you, Mr Jones, never seen an Irishman die before?’
Harry had no words. He’d been around death many times, but found nothing to say.
Then Ruari’s voice came through the fire, calling for his granddad. It revived the old man. He grabbed Harry’s sleeve, dragged him close, coughing, the words rattling in his throat, and not just from the smoke. ‘You take care of that boy for me, you hear?’
There was something in his eye that Harry didn’t understand. ‘What do you mean?’
Sean held on to Harry all the tighter, pulled him closer still. ‘I know he’s your son.’
‘But . . . how? Who told you?’
‘You did. When you knocked me out of the way of that van and fell on top of me. First time I ever looked at you – you, as a man, as a member of the human race and not just as a feckin’ Brit.’ His breathing had grown desperately laboured, his chest pumping but taking in so little air. ‘I looked into your eyes and I saw Ruari. That’s when I knew.’
‘And yet you still . . .’
‘I’ve loved that lad all his life. No reason to stop because of you.’ There was pride in his expression. Then he lost focus as pain from somewhere deep inside took hold and twisted his face.
‘In another life, Sean, you and me, it would have been different.’
But already the pain had passed, and they both knew it would never return. A wry smile crept across the Irishman’s lips. ‘I’ll be keeping that place warm for you. See you in Hell, Mr Jones.’ And he was gone.
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’Amat
o 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.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
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.