Read Online In the Hour Before Midnight by Jack Higgins - Free Book Online Page A

can draw in Palermo tomorrow, but made out to Colonel Burke. He holds the bank until the job is over one way or the other. Some insurance for me against anyone preferring a bird in the hand.”
    â€œFair enough.”
    Burke was obviously furiously angry, but I ignored him and emptied my glass. Rosa came over to get me another. Hoffer said, “Can we get down to business now? How do you intend to tackle this thing?”
    â€œYou’re certain Serafino is in the Cammarata?” I said.
    He nodded. “That definitely seems to be his home ground. Every enquiry I’ve been able to make confirms it. You know the area, I believe?”
    â€œI’ve been there. It’s wild country.”
    â€œYou don’t need to tell me. I had to drive up there alone to make the first payment.”
    â€œAnd you met him?”
    â€œSerafino?” He nodded. “Face to face at a bridge on what passes for the main road near a village called Bellona.”
    â€œWhat was he like?”
    â€œI can show you.” He produced a wallet, took out a photo and gave it to me. “I got that through someone I know in the police. Our friend has been through their hands more than once.”
    It was typical of police photography the world over, reducing the subject to a kind of Neanderthal man, capable—from his appearance—of rape or murder and most things in between.
    I shook my head. “This doesn’t tell me a thing. What was he like? Describe him.”
    â€œTwenty-five or six—medium height. Dark hair—long dark hair.” He didn’t approve of that. “One of those swarthy faces you get round here—they tell me it’s the Arab blood from Saracen days. Typical Sicilian.”
    â€œSounds just like me,” I said.
    â€œIf you like.” He wasn’t in the least put out. “He’s lost an eye since the photo was taken and he laughed a lot. Treated the whole thing as if it was one big joke.”
    And he hadn’t liked that either. His right hand clenched into a fist and stayed that way. “I think Bellona sounds like a good place to start,” I said.
    Hoffer seemed surprised. “Is that such a good idea? The impression I get is that most of the villagers in the area work hand in glove with people like Serafino.”
    I looked at Burke. “You play the tourist. I’ll pass myself off as a hire-car driver.”
    He nodded. “Suits me.”
    I turned to Hoffer. “Not the Mercedes. Something that isn’t too ostentatious. Can you manage that?”
    â€œCertainly. Is there anything else you’d like?”
    â€œYes, tell me about the girl.”
    He looked slightly bewildered. “Joanna? But I thought the colonel told you all you needed to know?”
    â€œI’d like to hear about her from you—all about her. In a thing like this it’s important to know as much as you can about people. That way you can have some idea in advance about how they might behave in a given situation.”
    He was full of approval. “That makes sense. All right—where should I begin?”
    â€œWhen you first met her would do for a start.”
    Which was when she was twelve years old. Herfather had died of leukaemia two years earlier. Hoffer had met her and the mother at St. Moritz one Christmas and the marriage had taken place shortly afterwards and had lasted until four months previously when his wife had been killed in a car crash in France.
    â€œI understand the girl was rather a handful,” I said. “Presumably her mother’s death didn’t help.”
    He seemed to slump wearily, ran a hand across his face and sighed. “Where do you begin with a thing like this? Look, Wyatt, I’ll put it in a nutshell for you. When Joanna was fourteen her mother found her in bed with the chauffeur and he wasn’t the first. She’s been nothing but trouble ever since—one rotten little scandal after