The Dante Conspiracy

CHAPTER 16



‘Maybe it’s his wife,’ Arrigo suggested, his voice a barely audible whisper.

‘His wife? The guy in the bed is seventy-five if he’s a day, and it’s nearly three in the morning,’ Bruno replied, equally quietly. ‘Why would his wife be coming in at this time? I mean, what is she? A geriatric hooker? No, I don’t know who that is downstairs, but I know what it is – it’s trouble.’

For perhaps half a minute the two men stood side-by-side on the landing, peering down into the darkness of the stairwell, listening intently. They heard stealthy footsteps, and a brief murmur of conversation.

‘There must be at least two of them,’ Bruno whispered.

‘Police?’

‘Definitely not. They’d have knocked on the door or maybe kicked it open and then shouted their way up the stairs. Maybe we’re not the only ones looking for this thing.’

Bruno glanced round. It wasn’t completely dark on the landing, thin shafts of moonlight serving to cast a dim glow at one end. It was too late to risk moving very far, because of the danger of being heard on the creaking floorboards as the unidentified intruders approached. And he was keenly aware that if the men below had also entered through the kitchen, they would certainly have seen the damage to the courtyard door and would probably be expecting to find somebody already in the house.

He gestured to a large wooden chest which stood at one end of the landing, and pointed at Arrigo, who turned, nodded, and then moved quietly across and ducked down behind it. Bruno looked around, but there was no other cover he could use. He would have to get inside one of the bedrooms, which wasn’t ideal, because he would then be trapped inside the room with no other way out, but there was no other choice. If he tried climbing the stairs to the next level of the old house, he was quite sure that they’d hear him.

On the other hand, if the men downstairs knew they were already inside the property, what did it matter?

Bruno made an instant decision, and ran up the dozen or so stairs which led to the third floor of the house, making no attempt to be quiet.

It was almost the last thing he ever did. As he reached the landing directly above, he heard two distinct thudding sounds from below, and wood splinters whipped past his face. Whoever the intruders were, they were armed with silenced pistols and were obviously quite happy to shoot first and ask questions later. In the dim moonlight, he could clearly see the bullet hole which had clipped the edge of one of the wooden staircase treads.

While he’d been climbing the staircase, they’d known exactly where he was, which is why they’d risked firing the two shots. But that situation no longer applied. Now Bruno had the advantage of the high ground, and the intruders were going to have to climb up the stairs to get to him.

And they wouldn’t know where his partner was. In fact, they very probably didn’t know they were facing more than one man. With any luck, he and Arrigo could cut them down in the crossfire.

Bruno gave a theatrical groan, and deliberately slumped down on the wooden boards of the upper landing, trying to give the impression that at least one of the two bullets had found its mark. Then he stood up and moved over to one side, to a position which offered him a reasonable view down to the first landing. That was where the two intruders would have to appear at some point, and once they did, he had no doubt at all of the outcome.