The Keys of Hell. Jack Higgins

Noci lay staring through the darkness at the ceiling, smoking a cigarette. Beside him the woman slept, her thigh warm against his. Once, she stirred, turning into him in her sleep, but didn’t awaken.

      He reached for another cigarette and heard a distinctive rattle as something was pushed through the letter box in the outer hall. He slid from beneath the blankets, careful not to wake the woman, and padded across the tiled floor in his bare feet.

      A large buff envelope lay on the mat at the front door. He took it into the kitchen, lit the gas under the coffee pot and opened the envelope quickly. Inside was a smaller sealed envelope, the one he was to take with him, and a single typed sheet containing his movement orders. He memorized them, then burned it quickly at the stove.

      He glanced at his watch. Just before midnight. Time for a hot bath and something to eat. He stretched lazily, a conscious pleasure seeping through him. The woman had really been quite something. Certainly a diverting way to spend his last evening.

      He was wallowing up to his chin in hot water, the small bathroom half-full of steam, when the door opened and she came in, yawning as she tied the belt of his silk dressing gown.

      ‘Come back to bed, caro,’ she said plaintively.

      For the life of him, he couldn’t remember her name and he grinned. ‘Another time, angel. I must get moving. Make me some scrambled eggs and coffee, like a good girl. I’ve got to be out of here in twenty minutes.’

      When he left the bathroom ten minutes later, he was freshly shaved, his dark hair slicked back, and he wore an expensive hand-knitted sweater and slacks. She had laid a small table in the window and placed a plate of scrambled eggs in front of him as he sat down.

      As he ate, he pulled back the curtain with one hand and looked down across the lights of Bari to the waterfront. The town was quiet, and a slight rain drifted through the yellow street lamps in a silver spray.

      ‘Will you be coming back?’ she said.

      ‘Who knows, angel?’ he shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

      He finished his coffee, went into the bedroom, picked up a dark blue nylon raincoat and a small canvas grip and returned to the living room. She sat with her elbows on the table, a cup of coffee in her hands. He took out his wallet, extracted a couple of banknotes and dropped them on the table.

      ‘It’s been fun, angel,’ he said, and moved to the door.

      ‘You know the address.’

      When he closed the outside door and turned along the street, it was half past twelve exactly. The rain was falling heavily now and fog crouched at the ends of the streets, reducing visibility to thirty or forty yards.

      He walked briskly along the wet pavement, turned confidently out of one street into another and, ten minutes later, halted beside a small black Fiat sedan. He opened the door, lifted the corner of the carpet and found the ignition key. A few moments later, he was driving away.

      On the outskirts of Bari, he stopped and consulted the map from the glove compartment. Matano was about twelve miles away on the coast road running south to Brindisi. An easy enough run, although the fog was bound to hold him up a little.

      He lit a cigarette and started off again, concentrating on his driving as the fog grew thicker. He was finally reduced to a cautious crawl, his head out of the side window. It was almost an hour later when he halted at a signpost that indicated Matano to the left.

      As he drove along the narrow road, he could smell the sea through the fog and gradually it seemed to clear a little. He reached Matano fifteen minutes later and drove through silent streets towards the waterfront.

      He parked the car in an alley near the Club Tabu as instructed and went the rest of the way on foot.

      It was dark and lonely on the waterfront and the only sound was the lapping of water against the pilings as he went down a flight of stone steps to the jetty.

      It was quiet and deserted in the yellow light of a solitary lamp and he paused halfway along to examine the motor cruiser moored at the end. She was a thirty-footer with a steel hull, probably built by Akerboon, he decided. She was in excellent trim, her sea-green paintwork gleaming. It wasn’t at all what he had expected. He examined the name Buona Esperanza on her hull with a slight frown.

      When he stepped over the rail, the stern quarter was festooned with nets, still damp from the day’s labour and stinking of fish, the deck slippery with their scales.

      Somewhere in the distance the door of an all-night café opened and music drifted out, faint and far away, and for no accountable reason Noci shivered. It was at that moment that he realized he was being watched.

      The man was young, slim and wiry with a sun-blackened face that badly needed a shave. He wore denims and an old oilskin coat, and a seaman’s cap shaded calm, expressionless eyes. He stood at the corner of the deckhouse, a coiled rope in one hand, and said nothing. As Noci took a step towards him, the door of the wheelhouse opened and another man appeared.

      He was at least six feet three, his great shoulders straining the seams of a blue pilot coat, and he wore an old Italian Navy officer’s cap, the gold braid tarnished by exposure to salt air and water. He had perhaps the ugliest face Noci had ever looked upon, the nose smashed and flattened, the white line of an old scar running from the right eye to the point of the chin. A thin cigar of the type favoured by Dutch seamen was firmly clenched between his teeth and he spoke without removing it.

      ‘Guilio Orsini, master of the Buona Esperanza.’

      Noci felt a sudden surge of relief flow through him as tension ebbed away. ‘Enrico Noci.’

      He held out his hand. Orsini took it briefly and nodded to the young deckhand. ‘Let’s go, Carlo.’ He jerked his thumb towards the companionway. ‘You’ll find a drink in the saloon. Don’t come up until I tell you.’

      As Noci moved towards the companionway, Carlo cast off and moved quickly to the stern. The engine burst into life, shattering the quiet, and the Buona Esperanza turned from the jetty and moved into the fog.

      The saloon was warm and pleasantly furnished. Noci looked around approvingly, placed his canvas grip on the table and helped himself to a large whisky from a cabinet in one corner. He drank it quickly and lay on one of the bunks smoking a cigarette, a warm, pleasurable glow seeping through him.

      This was certainly an improvement on the old tub in which he had done the run to Albania before. Orsini was a new face, but then there was nothing surprising in that. The faces changed constantly. In this business, it didn’t pay to take chances.

      The boat lifted forward with a great surge of power, and a slight smile of satisfaction touched Noci’s mouth. At this rate they would be landing him on the coast near Durres before dawn. By noon he would be in Tirana. More dollars to his account in the Bank of Geneva, and this was his sixth trip in as many months. Not bad going, but you could take the pitcher to the well too often. After this, a rest was indicated – a long rest.

      He decided he would go to the Bahamas. White beaches, blue skies and a lovely tanned girl wading thigh-deep from the sea to meet him. American, if possible. They were so ingenuous, had so much to learn.

      The engines coughed once and died away and the Buona Esperanza slowed violently as her prow sank into the waves. Noci sat up, head to one side as he listened. The only sound was the lapping of the water against her hull.

      It was some sixth sense, the product of his years of treachery and double-dealing, of living on his wits, that warned him that something was wrong. He swung his legs to the floor, reached for the canvas grip, unzipped it and took out a pistol. He released the safety catch and padded across to the foot of the companionway. Above him, the door opened and shut, creaking slightly as the boat pitched in the swell.

      He went up quickly, one hand against the wall, paused and raised his head cautiously. The deck seemed deserted, the drizzle falling in silver cobwebs through the navigation lights.

      He