Free The Memory Trap by Anthony Price Page A

was a great lady. So there was also credit. And bank loans, too.’ The nod became a shake. ‘He had no money. He had only her debts. And some of them were debts of honour.’ He stared at Audley, not Mitchell. ‘He had … “bad luck”, you said, Professore—?’
    There was more. ‘What else?’
    ‘She died. And she was a great lady, as I have said. So there was not too much inquiry then. But … it seems now that all her little problems had suddenly become big ones, you see.’ Cuccaro swayed and rolled with the boat’s motion, so that his shrug was almost lost with it. ‘There was perhaps a certain delicacy in asking questions which could only have made for greater sadness at the time, about her death … you understand, Professore?’
    ‘Yes.’ From his own tangled childhood Audley understood far better than the man could imagine. But the hell with that! (And, for that matter, the hell also with whoever hadn’t done his job properly, back in the early seventies, on Peter Richardson for Fred Clinton—at least for the time being!).
    ‘Yes.’ Mitchell looked sidelong at him, and then back at Cuccaro. ‘But … hold on a moment. The palazzo — ‘ The damn palace seemed to have become an obsession.
    ‘For God’s sake, Mitchell—‘
    ‘No.’ Mitchell shook him off. ‘It was mortgaged … and all the rest. But he never lost it— Palazzo Castellamare di San Lorenzo — ‘ He fixed on the Italian ‘—he never lost it, in spite of everything … So he’s been cruising these waters from the start, has he? Paying off the interest—? And then the capital, too? And then more—?’ He rounded on Audley suddenly. ‘It’s a bloody showpiece, David—the Palazzo Castellamare di Major Peter Richardson : that’s what Rome Station said. The ruddy guides on the tourist coaches point it out. Blue-water swimming pool, big white yacht by the private jetty—nothing like this in view, of course.’ He swept a hand over the smuggler’s boat. ‘But he must have been at it for years, to turn his hard luck into all that!’ He returned to the Italian. ‘How long have they known about it? Or suspected it, even?’
    Not long, thought Audley quickly, watching Cuccaro’s face. But then, why should they have suspected anything? There had been no black marks against Major Richardson, he would have passed simply as a rich expatriate Englishman bringing his own money to restore his Italian family fortune.
    Cuccaro sighed, and gestured eloquently as only an Italian or a Frenchman could, to gloss over his Guardia colleagues’ failure. ‘Not long since, it seems.’
    ‘Only when the Mafia got interested in his act?’ Mitchell wasn’t letting go. ‘Uh-huh?’
    Cuccaro’s expression hardened. ‘It is possible that he has become greedy, after many years of keeping out of their way. But … there was no official inquiry into him until recently—that is true. And that is how the matter of his mother’s death came to light. But that will not be pursued further now, I am informed.’
    “The great lady” was safe, if not her son. But that, Cuccaro was informing them, was none of either his business or theirs, anyway. The business in hand was to take Richardson while making sure that Professore Audley neither came to grief nor caused any, as he had done in the past.
    ‘Of course.’ They were agreed there, actually. What Butler expected of him was results, double quick. But results diplomatically achieved, also. ‘I am grateful for your frankness, Captain. You have clarified certain … aspects of our mission which disturbed us—Sir Jack Butler and Mr Henry Jaggard.’ He threw the names in for respectability. But when they failed to melt Captain Cuccaro he decided to go for broke. ‘And the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, representing Her Majesty’s Government.’ Only that still didn’t seem to work. And if neither Her Majesty nor Mrs Thatcher could blot out his record after all these years, then he must resort to