Killing Ground by Gerald Seymour Read Free Book Online

that?' The whine in her voice was from her accent, that was Roman. 'That was not here when we left.'
    Nothing to be seen where the carpet fabric was of magenta wool, but beyond the magenta was pure white, and the white was stained.
    She accused, 'Who has been here? Who has dirtied our carpet? The carpet cost you seventeen million lire. It is destroyed. Who has been here, Peppino?'
    He smiled, sweetness and love. 'I do not see anything.'
    She jabbed her finger. 'Look, there . . . Did you give the key of our home to someone? Did you let someone use our home? Who? Did you?'
    And her voice died. It was as if she had forgotten herself, forgotten her life and her place. As if she had forgotten that she no longer lived in Rome, forgotten she lived now in Palermo. The anger was gone from her face, and her shoulders crumpled. He had hoped so much that the short break, sandwiched between his journeys to Frankfurt and London, would revive her after the difficult birth of baby Mauro. Peppino never cursed his brother, never. She was gone to the kitchen to warm food for baby Mauro. He bent over the carpet, over the stain, and from deep in the weave he lifted clear the dried seed of a tomato.

    He went into the kitchen. She would not meet his eyes. Peppino had his hand on her shoulder and he stroked the soft hair on baby Mauro's head.
    'When I am in London I will telephone to Charlotte. She will have received it. I will persuade her to come, I promise.'
    Hee tapped the numbers on the telephone in the Cherokee Jeep. He waited. He hadn't asked Dwight Smythe for permission to use the telephone, but then he hadn't spoken since he had come out of the bungalow, flopped back into the passenger seat and indicated they could move off. They were out of the lanes, had the speed going. Axel hadn't spoken because there was no requirement for him to talk through an operation with a guy who did accounts and personnel and office management, and if there was no requirement for him to talk, then he seldom did. He heard the phone lifted, the connection made.
    'Bill, hi, Axel here. How's Rome? Raining, Jesus. This is not a secure line. I did the contact. She's OK, nothing special. First reaction was to chuck me out, second reaction was to think on it. She's predictable. She wanted to know more, but she's going to have to wait until she's thought harder. I'm going to call in at the local police HQ and work something out that'll help her thinking. I'll call you tomorrow . . . Sorry, come again . . .
    Hold on, Bill.'
    He reached forward. He snapped off the heater switch, quietened the cab.
    'What were you saying, Bill? Maybe, maybe she could do it, maybe she couldn't, but she's all that's on offer. I'll see you, Bill.'
    He put the telephone back on the rest. He slouched his legs forward and worked his shoulders lower down on the seat back and closed his eyes.
    Dwight said, staring ahead and following the road, 'If I'd been her, I'd have thrown you out. You are a cold bastard.'
    'She called me a total shit. Your problem, her problem, I don't care too much what people call me.'
    'And you hooked her? Trampled in on her life?'
    'Where I come from, north-west Wisconsin, there's good muskie fishing. You know the muskie?'
    'We didn't fish round Albuquerque. There would have been trout up in the hills, but it wasn't for black kids in Albuquerque.'
    'Wear your chip with honour . . . The muskie is a big fine fish, but it's a killer and ugly as sin, it's hard and vicious on its fellows, it terrorizes a reed bank. Most anglers go out after muskie with lures, spoons and plugs. They get muskie, right, but not the daddies. The way for the big killers, the big uglies, is live bait. You get a little wall-eye, could be a small-mouth bass, latch it to a treble hook and sling it out under a float.
    When the little fish goes ape, when the float starts charging, that tells you that the big killer's close, the big ugly's on the scene. Put simply, the little fish gives you access to a