The President’s Daughter

‘A small place, but her own.’

‘Did you keep in touch?’

‘She put me up more than once when I was on the run, Sean, though she doesn’t approve of the IRA. Mass three times a week, that’s Bridget. It’s only a small farm, forty cows, a few pigs, goats, a small herd of sheep on the mountainside.’

‘And you liked it when you were lying low there?’

‘Liked it?’ Riley’s face was pale. ‘She always said she’d leave it to me. She only has a couple of retired old boys from the village to help out so there was plenty to do. There I was, the stench of the war zone still in my nose, up the mountain to see to the sheep in the rain with that Alsatian of hers, Karl, snapping at my heels. And you know what, Sean? I loved it, every minute of it. Isn’t that the strange thing?’

‘Not really. Roots, Dermot, that’s what we all need and your roots are in her.’

‘And what about you, Sean, where are your roots?’

‘Maybe nowhere, nowhere at all. A few cousins scattered here and there that I haven’t seen in years and probably frightened to death of me.’ He smiled. ‘Take my advice, old son. Once out of this, get back to Ireland and that farm outside Tullamore. You’ve been offered a miracle. From death in life at Wandsworth Prison to your present situation.’

‘I know,’ Riley said. ‘It’s like the stone being rolled aside from the mouth of the grave on the third day.’

‘Exactly.’ Dillon yawned. ‘I’ll have a little snooze now. Give me a push in an hour,’ and he closed his eyes.

Riley watched him for a while. A good stick, Sean, one hell of a comrade in the old days fighting the Brits in Derry. On one memorable occasion when Riley had taken a bullet in the left leg, Dillon had refused to leave him, had hauled him to safety through the sewers of the city.

He glanced at Dillon, sleeping now. Sorry, Sean, he wanted to say, but what would have been the point? He couldn’t face going back to Wandsworth and another fourteen and a half years of living hell, so he closed his eyes and tried to sleep himself.

At around two o’clock in the afternoon they came in over the sea, Palermo to one side, and landed at Punta Raisi. Lacey obeyed orders from the tower and taxied to a remote area at the far end of the airport, where a number of private planes were parked. There was a small man in a cloth cap and old flying jacket standing in front of the hangar, and a Peugeot was parked to one side.

‘And who might he be?’ Riley asked.

‘Don’t let appearances deceive you, Mr Riley,’ Hannah said. ‘That’s Colonel Paolo Gagini of the Italian Secret Intelligence Service. He’s put more Mafia godfathers inside than anyone I know and he’s an old friend of ours.’

Parry got the door open and Lacey went after him, the rest of them following.

Gagini came forward. ‘Chief Inspector, nice to see you again, and you, Dillon. Still around and still in one piece? Amazing.’

Dillon took his hand. ‘This is Tom O’Malley, a colleague.’

Gagini looked Riley over and laughed out loud. ‘A colleague, you say? Ah, well, it takes all sorts.’

‘Stop playing policeman, Paolo,’ Hannah told him.

‘Anything for you, Chief Inspector. I’ve always found beauty with brains more exciting than beauty on its own, and anything for my old friend Charles Ferguson. I don’t know why you’re here and I don’t want to know, only try to keep it out of the papers.’ He turned to Lacey. ‘And what can I do for you, Flight Lieutenant?’

‘I need to refuel and then it’s Malta next stop.’

‘Good. Let me dispose of my friends here first.’ He turned and led the way to the Peugeot. The driver got out, a small, eager, dark-haired man in a check shirt and jeans.

‘Colonel?’

Gagini put a hand on the man’s head. ‘Luigi, I made you a sergeant because I thought you had a certain intelligence. This lady is a chief inspector, so treat her accordingly. Mr Dillon and Mr O’Malley are colleagues. You drive them across the island and drop them at Salinas. Afterwards, you return.’

‘Yes, Colonel.’

‘And if you cock this up in any way, I’ll have your balls.’

Luigi smiled and held open the rear door. There was a bank of two seats. ‘Chief Inspector.’

Hannah kissed Gagini on the cheek and got into the rear seat. Dillon and Riley sat in the other. Gagini smiled through the open window. ‘Good hunting, my friends.’

He stepped back and Luigi drove away.

It was some saint’s day or other, and as they passed through Palermo they slowed to a crawl as the traffic became snarled up with various religious processions. There was an enormous catafalque being carried by hooded men in robes, an ornate statue of the Virgin standing on top.

‘Would you look at that?’ Riley said. ‘A religious lot, these people.’

‘Yes,’ Hannah Bernstein said. ‘But no ordinary Virgin. Haven’t you noticed the knife in her heart?’

‘That’s Sicily for you,’ Dillon said. ‘Death is like a cult here. I don’t think your cousin Bridget would like it at all, Dermot.’

‘She would not,’ Riley said forcefully, but looked out of the open window all the same, fascinated.

They moved out of Palermo into the heart of the island, following the route usually taken by tourists driving across to Agrigento on the south coast, and the scenery was spectacular.

They passed peasants on donkeys, vegetables for market in panniers, old men in tweed caps and patched suits, usually with a lupara, the short-barrelled shotgun favoured by Sicilians, slung from a shoulder.

There were women in black, working in the fields or walking in a line at the side of the road, baskets on their heads, seemingly impervious to the sun; villages, with buildings that were centuries old, open drains down the centre of the street, the smell of urine strong in the sun.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but give me Ireland any day of the week. This is a poor sort of place,’ Riley said.

‘Still very medieval,’ Hannah Bernstein observed.

Luigi spoke for the first time and in excellent English. ‘These are poor people ground down by poverty. Great landowners and the Mafia have sucked them dry for years, and in Sicily, there is only the land. Olive groves, vineyards and, these days, the tourists.’

‘Soaked in blood over the years,’ Dillon said. ‘Everybody’s had a piece, from the Arabs to the Normans. Did you know Richard the First of England was once king here?’ he asked Hannah.

She showed surprise. ‘No, I didn’t. You learn something new every day.’

‘Isn’t that a fact?’ Dillon said, and lit a cigarette.

At the same moment, in Corfu, Marie de Brissac was walking down the cliff path from the small cottage she had rented on the north-east coast of the island.

She was a slim woman of twenty-seven, although she looked younger. She wore a T-shirt and khaki shorts, and a straw hat shadowed a calm, intelligent face with high cheekbones. Her fair hair was tied into a ponytail and she carried a cold-box in one hand, her easel under the arm, and in the other hand was her paintbox.

The horseshoe beach was delightful and gave her views across to Albania on one hand and to Greece on the other. A folding chair was where she had left it behind a rock, and an umbrella. She positioned them to her satisfaction, then set up her easel and started.

Watercolours were her favourite, much more than oils. She did a quick charcoal sketch of the scene before her, catching a fishing boat as it passed, then faded it down and started to paint.

She still hadn’t got over the death of her beloved mother. The cottage had been a refuge, at least in her mind. No staff, just a peasant woman who arrived on a donkey three times a week with fresh bread and milk and firewood. Time to reflect on the meaning of life and its purpose; and to paint, of course.

She opened the cold-box. Amongst the other things in there was a bottle of Chablis, ice-cold. She uncorked it and poured a glass.