hat now, sam spade?" richard asked as we both bent and stretched in vain attempts to restore our bodies to some­thing like their normal configuration.

"You go back to the village and find us somewhere to stay for the night, then you sit outside in the car in case Turner comes back down the valley," I told him.

"And what are you doing while I'm doing that?" Richard asked.

"I'm going to take a look at the Villa San Pietro," I told him.

He looked at me as if I'd gone stark staring mad. "You can't just drive up there like the milkman," he said.

"Correct. I'm going to walk up, like a tourist. And you're going to take the receiver with you, just in case the buckle's go­ing anywhere Turner isn't."

"You're not going up there on your own," Richard said firmly.

"Of course I am," I stated even more firmly. "You are wait­ing down here with a car, a phone and a bug receiver. If we both go and Turner comes driving back down with the buckle while we're ten minutes away from the cars, he could be outside the range of the receiver in any direction before we get mobile. I'm not trekking all the way across Europe only to lose the guy be­cause you want to play macho man."

Richard shook his head in exasperation. "I hate it when you find a logical explanation for what you intend to do regard­less," he muttered, throwing himself back into the driver's seat of the BMW. "See you later."

I waved him off, then moved the Merc up the road a few hundred yards. I scuffed some dust over my trainers, put on a pair of sunglasses even though dusk was already gathering, hung my camera round my neck and trudged off up the drive.

There was a three-foot ditch on one side of the twisting road, which appeared to have been carved out of the rough scrub and stunted trees of the hillside. Ten minutes brisk climbing brought me to the edge of a clearing. I hung back in the shelter of a couple of gnarled olive trees and took a good look. The ground had been cleared for about a hundred meters up to a wall. Painted pinkish brown, it was a good six feet high and extended for about thirty meters either side of a wrought-iron gate. Above the wall, I could see an extensive roof in the traditional terracotta pantiles. Through the gates, I could just about make out the villa itself, a two-story pink stucco build­ing with shutters over the upper-story windows. It looked like serious money to me.

I would have been tempted to go in for a closer look, except that a closed-circuit video camera was mounted by the gate, doing a continuous 180-degree sweep of the road and the clearing. Not just serious money, but serious paranoia too.

Staying inside the cover of the trees and the scrub, I circled the villa. By the time I got back to the drive, I had more scratches than Richard's record collection, and the certainty that Nicholas Turner was playing with the big boys. There were video cameras mounted on each corner of the compound, all programmed to carry out regular sweeps. If I'd had enough time and a computer, I could probably have worked out where and when the blind spots would occur, but anyone who's that serious about their perimeter security probably hasn't left the back door on the latch. This was one burglary that was well out of my league.

I found Richard sitting on the bonnet of his car on the fore­court of a building with all the grace and charm of a sixties tower block. Green neon script along the front of the three-story rectangle proclaimed Casa Nico. Below that, red neon told us this was a Ristorante-Bar-Pensione. The only other ve­hicles on the parking area were a couple of battered pickups and a clutch of elderly motor scooters. So much for Italian style.

"This is it?" I asked, my heart sinking.

"This is it," Richard confirmed gloomily. "Wait till you see the room."

I gathered my overnight bag, the video camera bag and my camera gear and followed Richard indoors. To get to the rooms, we had to go through the bar. In spite of the floor-to-ceiling windows along one wall, it somehow managed to be dark and gloomy. As soon as we walked through the bead curtain that separated the bar from the forecourt, the rumble of male voices stopped dead. In a silence cut only by the slushy Italian muzak from the jukebox, we crossed the room. I smiled inanely round me at the half-dozen men sprawled round a couple of tables. I got as cheerful a welcome as a Trot at a Tory party conference. Not even the human bear leaning on the Gaggia behind the bar acknowledged our existence. The minute we left by a door in the rear, the conversation started up again. So much for the friendly hospitality of the Italian people. Some­how, I didn't see myself managing to engage mine host in a bit of friendly gossip about the Villa San Pietro.

The third-floor room was big, with a spectacular view up the wooded river valley. That was all you could say for it. Painted a shade of yellow that I haven't seen since the last time I had food poisoning, it contained the sort of vast, heavy wooden fur­niture that could only have been built in situ, unless it was moved into the room before the walls went up. Above the dou­ble bed was a crucifix, and the view from the bed was a mas­sive, sentimental print of Jesus displaying the Sacred Heart with all the dedication of an offal butcher.

"Bit of a turnoff, eh?" Richard said.

"I expect Jeffrey Dahmer would have loved it." I sat down on the bed, testing the mattress. Another mistake. I thought I was going to be swallowed whole. "How much is this costing us?" I asked.

"About the same as a night in the Gritti Palace. Mind you, that also includes dinner. Not that it'll be edible," he added pessimistically.

After we'd had a quick shower, I set the bug receiver to auto-alert, so that it would give a series of audible bleeps if the buckle moved more than half a kilometer from its current rel­ative position. Then we went in search of food. Richard had been right about that too. We were the only two people in the cheerless dining room, which resembled a school dining room with tablecloths. The sole waitress, presumably the wife of Grizzly Adams behind the bar, looked as if she'd last laughed somewhere around 1974 and hadn't enjoyed the experience enough to want to repeat it. We started with a platter of mixed meats, most of which looked and tasted like they'd made their getaway from the local cobbler. The pasta that followed was al dente enough to be a threat to dentistry. The sauce was so sparing that the only way we could identify it as pesto was by the color.

Richard and I ate in virtual silence. "What was that you said about it being time we had a bit of a jaunt?" I said at one point.

He prodded one of the overcooked lamb chops that looked small enough to have come from a rabbit and scowled. "Next time, I won't be so bloody helpful," he muttered. "This is hell.

I haven't had proper food for two days and I'd kill for a joint." "Not many Chinese restaurants in Italy," I remarked. "It's on account of them inventing one of the world's great cuisines." Richard took one look at my deadpan face and we both burst out laughing. "One day," I gasped, "we'll look back at this and laugh."

"Don't bet on it," he said darkly.

We passed on pudding. We both have too much respect for our digestive tracts. At least the coffee was good. So good we ordered a second cup and took it upstairs with us. The one good thing about the bed was the trough in the middle that forced us into each other's arms. After the day we'd had, it was more than time to remind each other that the world isn't all grief.

My eyelids unstuck themselves ten hours later. The bleeding heart on the wall wasn't a great sight to wake up to, so I rolled over and checked the receiver sitting on the bedside table. No movement. By nine, we were both showered, dressed and back in the dining room. Breakfast was a pleasant surprise. Freshly baked focaccia, three different cheeses and a choice of jam. "What's the game plan for today?" Richard asked through a mouthful of Gorgonzola and bread.

"We stick with the buckle," I said. "If it moves, we follow. If it stays put and Turner moves, we stay put too and follow Plan B."

"What's Plan B?"

"I don't know yet."

After breakfast, Richard took his BMW up the valley past the drive. I'd told him to park facing up the valley and to follow any­thing that came down the drive, unless I called him and told him different. I sat on a bench on the forecourt of Casa Nico, read­ing Bill's thriller, the receiver in my open bag next to me. I hoped that anyone passing would take me for a tourist making the most of the watery autumn sunshine. I only had thirty pages to go when the receiver bleeped so loudly I nearly fell off my seat.

I picked it up and stared at the readout. The buckle was moving steadily toward me. I leapt to my feet and jumped into the car, gunning the engine into life. Still the buckle was draw­ing nearer. There was a sudden change of direction, which I guessed was the turn from the drive on to the main road. I edged forward, ready to pull out after the target vehicle had passed, one eye on the screen. Seconds later, a stretch Mer­cedes limo cruised past me, followed in short order by Richard in the BMW.

I slotted into place behind him, and our little cavalcade made its way back down the valley and into Sestri Levante. The outskirts of the town were typical of Northern Italy- dusty, slightly shabby, somehow old-fashioned. The center was much smarter, a trim holiday resort all stucco in assorted pas­tel shades, green-shuttered windows on big hotels and small pensiones, expensive shops, grass and palm trees. We skirted the wide crescent of the main beach and headed along the isth­mus to the harbor. As the limo turned onto a quay, I dumped the car in an illegal parking space and watched Richard do the same. I ran up to join him, linked arms and together we strolled up the quay, our faces pointing toward the sea and the floating gin palaces lined up at the pontoons. The great thing about wrap-round sunglasses is the way you can look in one di­rection while your head is pointing in the other.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the stretch limo glide to a halt at the foot of a gangway. The boat at the end of it was big­ger than my house, and probably worth as much as Henry's Monet. The driver's door opened and a gorilla in uniform got out. Even from that distance, I could see muscles so developed they made him look round-shouldered. He wore sunglasses and a heavy mustache and looked round him with the eco­nomical watchfulness of a good bodyguard. Martin Scorsese would have swooned.

Satisfied that there was no one on the quay more dangerous than a couple of goggling tourists, he opened the back door. By now, we were close enough for me to get a good look at the pre­sumed owner of the Villa San Pietro. He wasn't much more than my own five feet and three inches, but he looked a hell of a lot harder than me. He was handsome in the way that birds of prey are handsome, all hooked nose and hooded eyes. His perfectly groomed black hair had a wing of silver over each temple. He was wearing immaculately pressed cream yachting ducks, a full-cut canary yellow silk shirt with a navy guernsey thrown over his shoulders. He carried a slim briefcase. He stood for a moment on the quayside, shaking the crease straight on his trouser legs, then headed up the gangplank without waiting for Turner, who scrambled out of the car be­hind him.

I pulled Richard into a tight embrace as Turner and the bodyguard went on board, just in case Turner was looking. When they'd disappeared below, we carried on strolling past the Petronella Azura III. I can't say I was surprised to see that the expensive motor cruiser was registered out of Palermo.

"Fucking hell," Richard murmured as we passed the boat. "It's the Mafia. Brannigan, this is no place for us to be," he said, casting a nervous look back over his shoulder.

"They don't know we're here," I pointed out. "Let's keep it that way, huh?" At the end of the quay, we stared out to sea for a few minutes.

"We're going to pull out now, aren't we?" Richard demanded. "I mean, it's time to bring in the big battalions, isn't it?"

"Who did you have in mind?" I asked pointedly. "This isn't Manchester. I don't know the good cops from the bad cops. From what I've heard of Italian corruption, I could walk into the nearest police station and find myself talking to this mob's tame copper. Can you think of a better short cut to a concrete bathing suit?"

Richard looked hurt. "I was only trying to be helpful," he said.

"Well, don't. When I want help, I'll ask for it." I can't help myself. The more scared I get, the more I bite lumps out of the nearest body. Besides, I didn't figure I was obliged to feel guilty. As far as I was concerned, Richard had drawn the short straw from choice.

I got to my feet and started to stroll back down the quay. Af­ter a moment, Richard caught up with me. We were just in time to see the chauffeur and a young lad in shorts and a striped T-shirt trot down the gangplank and start unloading suitcases from the boot of the limo. They ferried half a dozen bags on board, not even giving us a second glance. We walked back to my car and stared at the receiver in a moody silence neither of us felt like breaking.

After about half an hour, Turner and the bodyguard came off the yacht and got in the car. "You want to follow them?" I asked Richard. "I'll stay here and watch the boat."

"No heroics," he bargained.

"No heroics," I agreed.

He just caught the lights at the end of the road where the limo had turned right. It looked like the chauffeur was taking Turner back to the villa. And judging by the screen, the buckle was now aboard the yacht. One of two things was going to hap­pen now. Either the yacht was going to take off, complete with buckle, or some third party was going to come to the yacht and get the buckle. My money was on the former, but I felt duty bound to sit it out. The phone rang about twenty minutes later. "They're back at the villa," Richard reported. "Do you want me to wait and see if Turner takes off?"

"Please," I said. "Thanks, Richard. Sorry I bit your head off earlier."

"So you should be. You're lucky to have me." He ended the call before I could find a retort.

Suddenly the receiver screen went blank. I sat bolt upright. I pulled the connector out of the cigarette lighter socket where I'd been recharging the batteries and slid the power compartment cover off. I broke one of my nails getting the batteries out in a hurry, and stuffed replacements in. But when I switched on again, the screen was still blank. Given that it wasn't the batteries and the yacht hadn't moved out of range, there was only one possible reason why my screen was blank. Someone had discovered the bug and put it out of action. I took a deep breath and thanked my lucky stars that my name wasn't Nicholas Turner.

Ten minutes later, the lad in the shorts was back on the quayside, casting off. Within twenty minutes, the Petronella Azura III had disappeared round the point. Pondering my next step, I drove back up the valley and found Richard sitting in the BMW a couple of hundred yards up the road from the turnoff to the drive. I parked my Merc at Casa Nico and walked up to join him. I filled him in on the latest turn of events. It didn't take long.

"So, do we go home now?" he asked plaintively.

"I suppose so," I said reluctantly. "I'd like to get inside that villa, though."

"You said yourself it was impregnable," he pointed out.

"I know, but I never could resist a challenge."

Richard took a deep breath. "Brannigan, you know I never try to come between you and your job. But this time, you've got to back off. Go home, tell the police what you've got so far. They can pick up Turner and they can talk to the good cops over here and get them to look at the villa and the boat. There's nothing more you can do here. Besides, you've got an­other case you're supposed to be working on, in case you'd for­gotten."

Part of me knew he was right. But there is another part of me that responds to being told what to do by doing just the op­posite. It overrides all my common sense, and it's one of the reasons why I prefer to work alone. Besides, I knew that all we had was an address and the name of a boat. That wouldn't nec­essarily take the authorities anywhere at all. I wanted more.

But I didn't want to get into that right then. "Let's book in at Casa Nico for another night," I said. "We might as well get an early start tomorrow and shoot straight back to Antwerp in a oner," I said. "We don't have to eat there," I added hastily. "Sestri Levante looked like it might have a few decent restau­rants."

Richard scowled. "So why don't we go the whole hog and book in at a decent hotel too?"

"I'd like to stay up here, keep an eye on the place, see if there are any more comings and goings," I told him. "You can go down to Sestri and potter round the shops if you want."

The scowl deepened. "I'm not some bloody bimbo," he com­plained. "If you're waiting here, I'll keep you company."

It was a long afternoon. I finished the thriller and Richard started it. We played I Spy. We played Bonaparte. We played "I went to the doctor's with..." right through the alphabet. The only break was when I nipped back to the Casa Nico to book us a room for the night. I was about to give in to Richard's pleas to call it a day when there was movement. An Alfa-Romeo sports saloon shot out of the drive heading up the valley. Even at the speed it was traveling, I recognised the bodyguard behind the wheel. "Move it," I told Richard. He pulled the BMW round in a tight arc and shot after the Alfa.

We didn't have far to go. A few miles up the road was a bar whose owner could have taught Nico a thing or two. Even from our slow cruise past, it was obvious that Bar Bargonasco made Nico's look like a funeral parlor. The music was loud and cheerful, the car park didn't look like an apprentice scrapyard and there were more than six people in there. "Pull up round the corner," I said.

When the car stopped, I opened the door. "Where are you going?" Richard said, panic in his eyes.

"I'm going to get into that villa one way or another. If I can't do it Dennis O'Brien style, I'm going to do it Kate Brannigan style. I'm going to chat up the bodyguard." I shut the car door and took off the shirt I was wearing over the cotton vest that was tucked into my jeans. As I was stuffing the shirt into my handbag, Richard jumped out of the driver's seat.

"You're out of your mind," he yelled at me. "Have you seen the size of that guy?"

"That's the whole point. He's obviously been hired for his size, not his brains. He probably keeps them in his trousers, which gives me a head start."

"You'll never get his keys off him," Richard exploded. "For fuck's sake, Kate. This is madness."

"I'm not planning on getting his keys off him. I'm planning on getting him to take me home with him," I said, starting off toward the bar.

Richard caught up with me two steps farther on and grabbed my arm. "No way," he shouted.

Mistake, really. In one short, sharp move, I freed myself and left Richard white-faced and clutching his wrist. "Never, never grab me like that," I said softly. "You don't own me, Richard, and you don't tell me what to do."

For a long moment, we stood in a silent Mexican standoff. "I love you, you silly bitch," Richard finally said. "If you want to go off and get yourself killed, you'll have to knock me out first."

"I'll do it if I have to. You better believe me. This is my job, Richard. I know what I'm doing."

"You'd fuck that gorilla because you think it'll help you nail some mafioso?"

I snorted. "Is that what this is about? Sexual jealousy? What do you think I am, Richard? A tart? I never said I was going to fuck the guy. If he thinks that's on the agenda, that'll be his first mistake."

"You think you can sort out a fucking monster like that with a bit of Thai boxing? Brannigan, you're off your head!" Richard was scarlet by now, his hands bunched into fists by his side.

I was inches away from completely losing control, but I had enough sense left not to flatten him. That would be one move that our relationship wouldn't survive. "Trust me, Richard," I said quietly. "I know what I'm doing."

He laughed bitterly. "Fine," he spat at me. "Treat me like an idiot. I'm used to it, after all. That's what you all think I am anyway, isn't it? Richard the wimp, Richard the pillock, Richard the doormat, Richard the wanker, Richard who lets Kate do his thinking for him, Richard the limp dick who can't be trusted to do the simplest of jobs without ending up in the nick," he ranted.

"Nobody thinks you're a wimp. I don't think you're a wanker, or any of the other things," I shouted back at him. "What happened to you with the car could have happened just as easily to me."

"Oh no, it couldn't," he screamed back at me. "Clever clogs Brannigan would have phoned the police as soon as she found the car. Clever clogs Brannigan would have checked the car to see if there was anything in it there shouldn't have been. Clever clogs Brannigan and the girls would never have got themselves banged up. Because the girls are smart, and I'm just a fucking stupid arsehole man that gets put up with be­cause he's marginally more fun than a vibrator." He stopped suddenly, out of steam.

"I love you, Richard," I said quietly. It's not an expression I'm given to, but extreme circumstances demand extreme re­sponses.

"Bollocks," he shouted. "I'm a fucking convenience. You don't know what love is. You never let anyone close enough. It's all a fucking game to you, Brannigan. Like your fucking job. It's all a game. Nothing ever gets you in here," he added, thumping his chest like an opera buffa tenor.

He looked so ridiculous, I couldn't help a smile twitching at the corners of my mouth. "This isn't the time for this," I said, trying to make my amusement look like conciliation. "I'd no idea you felt this bad about what happened, and it's important that we sort it out. But we're both tired, we're both under a lot of pressure. Let's leave it till we get home, okay? Now, let me do what I've got to do. I'll see you back at Casa Nico later, okay?"

Richard shook his head. "You really are a piece of work, Brannigan. You think you can just sweep all this aside like that? Forget it. You can go back to Casa fucking Nico if you want. But I won't be there."

He turned on his heel and stormed back to the car. As he opened the door, he said, "You coming?"

I shook my head. He slammed the car door behind him, swung the car round and headed back down the valley. I watched him go, my stomach feeling hollow, my eyes suddenly swimming with tears. Impatiently, I blinked them away. I tried to convince myself that Richard would be back at Casa Nico once he'd calmed down.

In the meantime, I had work to do. Besides, now I needed a lift back down the valley.