Doctor Criminale

With the shift in the weather, the entire mood of the congress seemed to have changed. Ildiko did not appear for the morning session. When Monza appeared, he seemed preoccupied. Open­ing, of course, with his usual a

I found what I wanted. Bazlo Criminale had signed it, with the simple word ‘Criminale’. Sepulchra was not listed. Just below Criminale’s name was Miss Belli’s. I added my own name to the list, followed by Ildiko’s, and handed it back with a warm smile to Miss Uccello. ‘What a blasted day,’ I said. Then, cutting the second session of the morning, I made my way back through the now wind-blown grounds to the Old Boathouse. I wanted to find Ildiko and tell her what I had done. And I wanted to ask her some more questions. But when I went into our suite, the only sign I could see of her was a note. It had been tucked into the frame of the mirror: ‘Have took boat, gone for shoppings,’ it said, ‘Thank you for dollar.’ I checked the jacket I had left hanging in the wardrobe. Something was missing from the i

When the music party gathered that night down at the Barolo pier, Ildiko had not returned. The group for Bellavecchia was strangely reduced; perhaps thirty of us stood ready to go on board. No doubt the early meal had deterred some, but the freshening wind and the gusting rain explained what had deterred others. The night weather was tossing the lake into spume-topped waves; the waiting speedboat was rocking very unsteadily beside the pier. I looked around for Bazlo Criminale. And there he was, wearing a smart, neat, admiral-style topcoat, and the blue yachting-cap that had topped off his spectacular nudity the day before. He looked so impressive that it was quite appropriate he should step on board first. He sat down ahead of us all, a bulky mass in one of the double seats at the front of the boat. For a moment, I thought of sitting down beside him, and telling him everything, admitting to the programme we wanted to make. There are times when silence can go on too long.

But then Miss Belli, clad in some splendid red designer sou’wester, and carrying a small suitcase, jumped aboard. She walked through the crowd, found Criminale, flashed her black eyes at him, and took the seat at his side. ‘Blasted rough, eh?’ she said, as I sat down a few rows behind, so that I could see them both. I looked over the side. The black water tossed fitfully, and dark clouds raced across the moonlit mountains at the top end of the lake. Then someone came and sat down, very firmly, on the seat beside me. ‘And now I think we talk properly at last,’ said my new companion. I turned, and saw it was Miss Cosima Bruckner, wearing black eye makeup, dark anorak, and those tight black leather trousers that are associated with high fashion in her German homeland and with street violence and sadism almost everywhere else. ‘Why not?’ I asked, ‘How are you enjoying the congress?’

‘I do not mean making some small-talk,’ she said. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘I mean, I like very much to know what you are doing here,’ said Cosima Bruckner. ‘Thinking, like everyone else,’ I said. ‘This is not a philosophical question,’ said Bruckner, looking round, ‘You have told me you work for a paper which I find does not anymore exist.’ ‘It went bankrupt a couple of weeks ago,’ I said. ‘Then how can you write for it?’ asked Bruckner, ‘You said you were here under cover. What is your real name?’ ‘Francis Jay,’ I said. ‘But that is the name you are using,’ she said. ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Very well, who sent you here, who are your paymasters?’ ‘I’m just a freelance journalist writing an article,’ I said. ‘I do not believe you,’ said Cosima, bending her head very close to mine, ‘Mr Jay, or whoever you are, do you realize that if I went to Monza with what I know, he would at once ejaculate you?’

The boat had cast off now, and was moving away from the pier into the lake water; immediately the spray began to fly. ‘And what do you know?’ I asked. ‘I know you are here at Barolo with a Hungarian agent,’ murmured Cosima Bruckner. ‘Ildiko?’ I asked, ‘She’s not an agent, she’s a publishers’ editor.’ ‘Why is she here?’ asked Bruckner. ‘She likes shops,’ I said. ‘Do not think I am foolish,’ said Bruckner, ‘She works for a state publishing house that has often been used as a spy cha

‘Sit down, Mr Jay, or whoever you are,’ said Bruckner, seizing my arm in a very tight grip, ‘You do not appear to see the seriousness of your situation. This is an intergovernmental congress with key world figures. Some leading ministers who are seriously threatened in their own countries. Representatives of nations who live their lives under eternal risk. At places like this, terrorists strike.’ ‘Surely you don’t think I’m a terrorist,’ I said. ‘I do not know who you are,’ said Cosima Bruckner, ‘But at least you are a most serious leak of security. Your position is not good. I like very much to know what your mission is here.’ ‘Very well,’ I said, ‘As I said, I’m a journalist, but I’m working for TV on a programme on Bazlo Criminale.’ Cosima Bruckner turned and stared at me intently. ‘You are following Criminale?’ she asked, ‘Can you show me something that proves this is who you are?’ I felt in my pocket for my paper. ‘I could have done,’ I said, ‘Except Ildiko Hazy has gone off shopping with my wallet.’ ‘A very likely story,’ she said. I began to sense something highly operatic about Cosima Bruckner.

Happily we had come under the lee of the further shore by now, and were soon docking at a wooden pier. It attached to the grounds of another lakeside villa, though this one came from a very different world of taste from the Villa Barolo. The Villa Bellavecchia was in the neo-classical style, and the floodlit gardens through which our party now unsteadily passed were filled with Roman statuary, of a sumptuous kind I had never before seen. As you came from the lake, it was the buttocks that assaulted you first: buttocks on an archetypal scale, buttocks whose memory could cheer you in some distant place where misfortune had fallen or the weather was grim. They belonged to Mars and Venus; Mars’s were the larger by a cubic foot or two, but Venus’s the plumper and more comely. When you passed and looked back, you found similar grand ambitions had gone into the frontal aspect: the largest of figleaves did little to restrain Mars’s sturdy and outgoing nature, nor conceal the vast pelvic fecundity of the goddess of love.