The Modigliani Scandal - Ken Follett [62]
He willed his legs to carry him forward. This door had a knocker: an ornate one, in the shape of a lion′s head. The paintwork was new and the windows clean.
A man came, in shirtsleeves and an open waistcoat, smoking a pipe with a badly chewed stem. He was about fifty. Julian repeated his question.
The man frowned; then his face cleared as he penetrated Julian′s bad Italian. ″Come in,″ he smiled. Inside, the house was dean and prettily furnished: the floors were scrubbed and the paintwork gleamed. The man sat Julian down.
″You want to see some pictures?″ The man spoke slowly and a little too loudly, as if talking to someone who was deaf and senile. Julian assumed his accent was the cause of this. He nodded dumbly.
The man raised a finger in a gesture meaning ″Wait″ and left the room. He came back a moment later with a pile of framed photographs, brown with age and obscured by dust.
Julian shook his head. ″I mean paintings,″ he said, miming the act of brushing paint onto canvas.
Puzzlement and a trace of exasperation crossed the man′s face, and he fingered his mustache. He lifted a small, cheap print of Christ from a nail on the wail and offered it.
Julian took it, pretended to examine it, shook his head, and handed it back. ʺAny more?″
ʺNo.ʺ
Julian stood up. He tried to put gratitude into his smile. ″I am sorry,″ he said. ″You have been kind.″
The man shrugged, and opened the door.
Julian′s reluctance to go on was even greater now. Disconsolate and indecisive, he stood in the street and felt the hot sun on his neck. He would have to take care not to get burned, he thought inconsequentially.
He considered going for a drink. The bar was a few dozen yards down the road, by the blue Mercedes. But a drink would not progress matters.
A girl came out of the bar and opened the car door. Julian looked at her. Was she a bitch like Sarah? Any girl rich enough to own one of those had a right to be a bitch. She tossed her hair over one shoulder as she climbed in. The spoiled daughter of a wealthy man, Julian thought.
A man came out of the bar and got into the other side of the car, and the girl said something to him. Her voice carried up the street.
Suddenly Julian′s mind clicked into gear.
He had assumed that the girl was going to drive, but now that he looked more carefully he could see that the steering wheel was on the right-hand side of the car.
The girl′s words to the man had sounded like English.
The car had British registration plates.
The Mercedes came to life with a throaty chuckle. Julian turned on his heel and walked briskly to where his Fiat was parked. The other car passed him as he keyed the ignition, and he did a three-point turn.
A wealthy English girl in a British car in Poglio: it had to be the girl who sent the postcard.
Julian could not take the chance that it was not.
He raced after the Mercedes, letting the tiny engine of the Fiat scream in low gear. The blue car took a right turn, following the west road out of the village. Julian took the same turning.
The driver of the Mercedes went fast, handling the powerful car with skill. Julian soon lost the flashing brakelights in the bends of the lane. He squeezed the last ounce of speed from his car.
When he shot past the Mercedes he almost missed it. He braked to a halt at a crossroads and reversed.
The other car had pulled in off the road. The building it was outside looked at first like a farmhouse, until Julian saw the beer advertisement in the window.
The young couple had got out and were entering the door to the bar. Julian drove the Fiat in next to their car.
On the other side of the Mercedes was a third car: another Fiat, only this was a big, prestige model, painted a hideous metallic green. Julian wondered who it could belong to.
He got out of his car and followed the others into the bar.
IV
PETER USHER PUT DOWN his safety razor, dipped his washcloth in hot