Читать онлайн «Cause for Alarm»

The man standing in the shadow of the doorway turned up the collar of his overcoat and stamped his numb feet gently on the damp stones.

In the distance he could hear the sound of a train pulling out of the Stazione Centrale, and wished he was riding in it, lounging back in a first-class compartment on his way to Palermo. Perhaps after this job was done he would be able to take a holiday in the sun. That was, of course, if They would let him. It never seemed to occur to Them that a man might like to go back to his home occasionally. Milan was no good. Too dry and dusty in the summer; in the winter these damnable fogs rolled in from the plains and ricefields, damp and cold and bringing the smoke from the factories with them. It was getting misty already. In another hour you wouldn’t be able to see your hand in front of your face, let alone anything else. That meant that Buonometti and Orlano wouldn’t be able to see what they were doing. There would have to be another night of watching and waiting in the cold. He had no patience with it. If this Englishman had to be killed, let him be killed easily, quickly. A dark stretch of pavement, a knife under the ribs, a slight twist of the wrist to let the air inside the wound, and it was done. No fuss, no trouble, practically no noise. Whereas this…

His gaze travelled up the dark facade of the office building across the street to the single lighted window on the fourth floor. He shrugged resignedly and leaned against the wall. One hour or two, what difference did it make? What did They care if he got pneumonia?

Only once during the next twenty-five minutes did he move. The footsteps of a stray pedestrian echoing along this deserted business street caused him to shrink back into the shadow.

He straightened his back suddenly. The solitary light had gone out. He stretched his cramped muscles, adjusted the brim of his hat and walked quietly away towards the telephone booth at the end of the street. Two minutes later his work for the night was finished.

The door of the office building opened and two men came out. One of them turned to shut the door behind him. The other did not wait. With a muttered “ a rivederci ” he crossed the road and disappeared in the direction of the station. The man who had shut the door turned and stood there watching him out of sight.

He was a stoutish, middle-aged man with rounded shoulders and a way of holding his arms slightly in front of his body, as though he were trying perpetually to squeeze through a very narrow opening. That posture had been his life. He had squeezed his way by, rigid yet without dignity; an ineffectual, apprehensive man who had fed his self-respect on dreams and always satisfied it.