CHAPTER SEVEN

Was she imagining it or was Hugo standing there as though he were a regular guest at this house, Angela thought, completely confused now.

‘Angela, come in and join us. What will you have to drink?’ Giorgio Rosini called.

A frown slid between Hugo’s brows when he saw her then his gaze dropped to the floor. Angela walked forward with her chin up and stared straight into her host’s eyes.

‘Fruit juice, thank you.’

Giorgio turned to the task of providing her drink and she cast a swift glance at Hugo but his eyes failed to make contact.

‘Let me introduce Benito Verde.’

With her drink in her hand Giorgio led her to the tall, thin man standing to one side.

‘Benito, this is Angela Parker, Hugo’s step-daughter.’

Hugo gave a small cough and a nod as Benito Verde bent low over her hand as he raised it to his lips. Angela felt goosebumps run all over her body as soon as he touched her.

She pulled her hand away the minute his grip slackened and secretly wiped it down the back of her dress. Her glance flew back to Hugo as she tried to read the warning she saw in his eyes.

‘I think you have already met my daughter, Claudia,’ her host continued. ‘And I made you a promise that your stepfather would be here soon, did I not? And here he is, happy to be reunited with you at last.’

Hugo smiled and, taking hold of Angela, kissed her on the cheeks. He looked deep into her eyes and shook his head.

‘Ah, children, Hugo, we can never quite trust them to do as they are told, can we, no matter what their age?’

Giorgio’s soft voice oozed sympathy as he laid an arm across Hugo’s shoulder.

‘But now we shall eat,’ he said, leading his guests to the table and nodding to Anna who had returned.

Angela was confused. She understood she was a prisoner, but was Hugo? If he wasn’t then what was he doing here? Why were they being treated like guests, not that she didn’t prefer it to the cellar, of course.

They ate Parma ham and melon to start then a kind of stew with a variety of boiled meats and vegetables. They drank a local wine and finished off with a cream dessert and a cappuccino. Angela had been hungry but worry about herself and Hugo’s situation blunted the edge of her appetite and she ended up pushing the food around her plate.

At the end of the meal Giorgio indicated that Angela should go with Claudia while he and the male guests went off to his study. Claudia guided her into the large room where Angela had first wakened after her sojourn in the cellar. She sat down in the same settee as before.

It was now nearly ten in the evening but to Angela it felt as though it was days since she had let little Carlo through the door of her apartment. She wondered if anyone had found him yet and if he was all right.

Claudia was glancing through a fashion magazine on the opposite settee. After a while she looked up and asked Angela what people might be wearing that winter in London.

‘I don’t know. I come from the North of England.’

‘I hear fur is back in fashion. Italy’s fashion is the best in the world, of course, but we like to hear what the rest of the world is doing. It was lucky we weren’t entertaining anyone special or you would have been sent back to your room to change out of that awful dress you’re wearing.’

She allowed her eyes to wander over Angela’s rumpled appearance.

‘I wouldn’t have had much choice seeing as I only have what I stand up in. And I’m hardly a guest in the true sense of the word, am I?’

‘Why not? I thought you had come to join Hugo and help him to establish his innocence.’

‘Is Hugo staying here as well?’

‘No, he’s staying at the Garibaldi with Uncle Benito.’

‘Your uncle is staying there, too?’

‘Of course. He manages the hotel for my father.’

‘I see,’ Angela said and she did indeed.

Hugo was just as much a prisoner at the hotel as she was here. Her letter to Hugo had betrayed them both. She had to escape and find Jack. She watched the girl opposite. Was there hope there? It was doubtful but she must try.

‘Sixteen years is a long time, don’t you agree? Surely if Hugo had taken the jewellery he would have sold it and spent the money by now,’ she blurted out.

Claudia fiddled with the magazine then thrust it back on to the coffee table that separated them.

‘No. My father knows for a fact that the jewellery has never left Italy.’

‘Then if that is the case why hasn’t your father gone to the police with this information?’

Claudia burst out laughing. Her dark hair swung out around her like a mantle as she shook her head.

‘He knows it is here in Italy but he doesn’t know where. Now Uncle Hugo is here, he can show us where it is hidden. Then they can take it to the police and Uncle Hugo’s name is cleared and he can come and go as he wishes. He has been gone a long time.’

‘Have you always lived in Vicenzra?’ Angela asked, changing the subject.

‘Yes, except when I was at school in Switzerland.’

‘Your father must be very rich to afford all this.’

Angela cast an appreciative look around the room. Laughter bubbled from Claudia as she stood up and crossed to the fireplace.

‘What do you do now?’ Angela asked.

‘For work, you mean?’ the girl asked, looking back over her shoulder.

Angela nodded but Claudia did not reply.

‘I was a dancer,’ she went on, ‘before the accident.’

She nodded towards her stick.

‘What happened?’

‘A car accident.’

Claudia frowned.

‘I don’t work. I have all the money I need. Will you recover?’

‘Not fully. I can never dance again.’

Claudia swung back to the empty fireplace, resting outstretched hands on the marble mantel above. After a moment’s silence she turned back to Angela.

‘I want to work with children but I’m not allowed,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

Claudia flounced back to the settee and sat down.

‘My father wishes me to be his hostess. He says it is what he had me trained for at the best schools in the world. And now it is time I paid him back by being an asset to him.’

Bitterness and resentment flowed from her.

‘I will have my way though. I will marry and have children of my own and goodbye to his hosting. I shall have my way.’

Angela nearly laughed aloud. Gangster or not, Giorgio Rosini was going to meet his match with this daughter of his.

‘Do you have someone in mind?’ she asked.

‘Oh, yes. I love him and have told him we will marry. He does not have money but I will have enough for both of us.’

A blush had crept up under her sallow skin and she looked really pretty. A name caught Angela’s attention and she back-pedalled. Claudia was chattering non-stop about this wonderful boyfriend and how he couldn’t be influenced by her father because he was . . .

‘Sorry, what did you say his name was?’ Angela interrupted.

Claudia gave her a strange look then said, ‘Giovanni Linnel.’

Angela took a while to gather her chaotic thoughts. Jack and Claudia! Had she heard right? Giovanni was his Italian name but no other Italian would have Linnel for a surname.

Oh, good grief, she groaned.

The men entered the room at that point and Angela, still in shock, added little to the conversation. At eleven o’clock, Signor Verde and Hugo took their leave.

As Hugo took hold of her by the shoulders and bent forward to kiss her on both cheeks he whispered, ‘Your locket. Take it and go.’

They took their leave and Anna came to show Angela to her room. Once under the covers she tried to sleep but the thought of Jack and Claudia together made her feel sick, why she didn’t know. She didn’t think she was jealous, after all she hardly knew the man. She had trusted him, that was the trouble, and now she felt betrayed.

Even after she had persuaded herself it did not matter, sleep would not come for there was still the question of what her father’s whispered words had meant.

Did he not realise that she was not a guest free to come and go? The locket was lying against her skin now and her hand closed around it. He had given it to her on her eighteenth birthday. She remembered how disappointed she had been when she discovered that it didn’t open. She had so wanted to put pictures in it.

What had he meant, take the locket and go? She never took it off, he knew that, and where did he want her to go? Home to England, to the police, where? But her last thoughts as she fell asleep were of a tall policeman and what might have happened had she listened to his advice.

It felt like she had only just gone to sleep when she was awakened by an urgent voice and a rough shake. Startled, she wondered if they had come to take her back to the cellar now Hugo had been and gone. Well, they weren’t going to torture her, not without a fight and she lashed out, connecting with something soft that yielded with a grunt. A torch went on, blinding her. Then her covers were yanked back and she was pulled from the bed. A heap of clothes was thrust at her.

‘Get your legs into these quick,’ a familiar voice growled.

Her arms were pushed into sleeves by a tall figure whose grip was bruising. Before she could do anything other than concentrate on getting her feet to the bottom of a pair of jeans, the door opened a crack and Claudia whispered, ‘Hurry, I’ve left the guards in the kitchen eating soup.’

Jack pushed Angela back on to the bed and was pulling socks and shoes on to her feet.

‘Where did you get these clothes from?’ she asked.

‘Claudia, now come on.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Pressing a finger against her lips Jack hustled her swiftly from the house. Claudia grabbed and kissed him as she let them out through a gate in a high wall at the bottom of the garden. Angela glanced anxiously up and down the road.

The kiss went on for ever and she found herself growing angry. Then suddenly, he was there, sweeping her up into his arms and running. His car was parked nearby and he hustled her into it.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Did they hurt you?’

‘Not once they decided to release me from the cellar.’

She frowned in the darkness.

‘That was the strange thing about it. Both Hugo and I were treated like friends of the family.’

Her breathing had steadied by the time Jack started the engine and pulled away.

‘That’s just their way. They show Hugo they have you then they sit back and wait for him to talk. If he still doesn’t then they rough you up a little to let him see that they mean what they say. This continues until he does talk or you are dead.’

Angela shivered.

‘What will happen to him now I have escaped?’

‘One of two things. Either they will decide to rough him up if they think he might talk or they will come after you. On the other hand, they wouldn’t have come after you in the first place if they had considered that they could get your stepfather to tell them where the jewellery was by torturing him.’

‘So they’re going to come after me?’

‘Looks that way.’

Angela was terrified. Her stomach churned and grumbled.

‘Where are you taking me?’

‘Where do you want to go?’

‘If I can get a flight home will they leave Hugo alone?’ she asked, knowing in her heart what the answer would be.

He pulled no punches when he replied.

‘In all probability you will never see him again.’

She flinched.

‘Then what can I do but go back?’ she cried. ‘Oh, why doesn’t he give them the wretched jewellery and be done with it? Claudia told me they are related anyway.’

As she spoke Claudia’s name out loud her mind swung back to the girl’s relationship with Jack and suddenly all the tension and stress of the last few days broke from her in great sobs. The car jerked to a stop on the roadside and a pair of strong arms encircled her. Time slipped by in the darkness then she was pushing herself back into her seat and he was starting up the car again without a word being said.

‘I’m taking you to a place I know in the mountains. You will be safe there for the time being. Hugo also will be safe while they hunt for you. Claudia will let me know when the situation changes.’

Time stood still for Angela, the tears now dry on her cheeks, as they climbed up ever steeper mountain roads and then along rough tracks eventually coming to a halt in a dark, silent void as the engine wound down to a hissing whisper. Jack let out a tired sigh and sat still for several minutes before thrusting the door open and turning into the back of the car for his torch. He switched it on and slammed the door.

Coming around to Angela’s side he helped her out, then giving her the support of his strong arm they crossed the ground to the entrance of a wooden chalet. There were several steps to negotiate here. Jack pushed the torch into his pocket and swinging Angela up into his arms carried her over the threshold.

A moon crept out from behind a bank of clouds and for a short time lit up the room where Jack had left her sitting on a sofa. It looked clean if basic in bare wood and a brick fireplace, with wool rugs and blankets scattered around. An oil lamp hung from the ceiling and another stood on the table. There was the bang of a door somewhere along the passage beyond the room where she sat and Angela jerked with fright.

Then Jack was there, a bundle of wood in his arms. He kneeled down by the hearth and set the sticks in the grate and soon had flames leaping up from the logs. There was a tin of spills on the mantle and taking one out he held it to the flames until it was alight then carried it over to the two lamps and lit the wicks.

Warm yellow light spread across the room. Jack drew curtains against the now moonless night. Suddenly bare coldness was transformed into cosy warmth. Angela could feel the tension leaving her like thawing ice. As with all thawing, the pain set in. Jack took a blanket from a nearby chair and settled it lightly around her shoulders.

‘Lie back and rest,’ he said. ‘I’ll find us something to eat.’

When he left for the kitchen she carefully lifted her aching legs one at a time on to the sofa and lay back.

Sunlight was shining through the curtains when she woke. The fire had died down but hadn’t gone out. She was reluctant to move. The pain in her legs had eased. She was warm and comfortable and the memories of the previous day were still dulled behind the curtain of sleep. Then from somewhere behind her Jack appeared.

‘I would have built up the fire but I didn’t want to disturb you.’

She shrank back into the sofa.

‘Is there a bathroom?’

He looked startled at first as though he hadn’t given it any prior thought.

‘An outside toilet and we wash in the kitchen.’

Angela opened her mouth to say something, then shut it and made to leave the warmth of the sofa and cross the room to the passage and the rear of the house. Her clothes were sticking to her body, making her very uncomfortable.

Jack followed her into the passage then, tongue in cheek, said, ‘First on your right.’

Angela looked back frowning then opened the door he had indicated and found herself in a tiny bathroom with toilet, handbasin and shower. With relief she let the water run hot and stripping the borrowed clothes from her she stepped into the cleansing water.