“One man, signor, not three. No car passes through these gates except the capo’s. A rule of the house.”

I produced the Walther very carefully from my pocket and there was a hollow click as the gentleman with the machine pistol cocked it. I passed the Walther through the bars, butt first.

“My calling card. Send it to Marco – Marco Gagini. He’ll tell you who I am.”

He shrugged. “All right, you can come in, but the others stay outside with the car.”

Marco came round the bend of the drive on the run and slowed to a halt. He stared past me at the Mercedes, at Burke and Ciccio, then nodded. “Open the gates – let them in.”

The gatekeeper started to protest. “You know the rule – only house cars allowed inside.”

Marco shook him by the lapel. “Fool, does a man kill his own grandfather? Get out of the way.”

He wrenched the Walther from the gatekeeper’s hand, dropped it into his pocket and pushed him towards the lodge. The gates, it seemed, were electronically controlled. They swung back with a slight whisper and Marco joined us.

“I’ll ride up to the house with you.”

We got into the rear beside Burke and Ciccio drove on slowly. “Things have changed,” I said to Marco. “Getting into Fort Knox would be easier.”

“An electronic device runs round the top of the walls,” he told me seriously. “So no one can get in that way. Usually, as you just heard, cars other than our own aren’t allowed through. We discovered an explosive device in one a few years back when the capo was giving a party. If it had gone off it would have taken the villa with it.”

“A nice way to live.”

Perhaps the irony in my voice escaped him or else he chose to ignore it. “There have been eight attempts on the capo’s life in the last few years. We have to be very careful. Who is this man you have brought with you?” he added in exactly the same tone.

“A friend of mine – Colonel Burke. He thought I might need some help.”

“I can feel the gun in his pocket. Most uncomfortable. Tell him it will not be needed.”

“I know enough Italian to understand that much,” Burke said and transferred his Browning to the other pocket.

The Mercedes halted at the bottom of a broad flight of steps that lifted to a great oaken door banded with iron which I’d always understood had had an arrow or two in it in its day.

I think that until that moment nothing had possessed any reality for me. I was home again, which was what it came down to, and it was as if some part of me – some essential part – simply didn’t want to know.

Burke followed me out and Marco told Ciccio to take the Mercedes round to the courtyard at the rear. It moved away smoothly. I turned and found my grandfather standing at the top of the steps.

He was as large as Burke and looked smaller only because his shoulders were stooped a little with age. At that time he must have been sixty-seven or eight and yet there was still colour in the long hair and carefully trimmed beard.

If I say he had the look of a Roman Emperor, I would be referring to the period when it was possible for a restless adventurer with no scruples to rise from the ranks.

It was a remarkable face. There was ruthlessness there, and arrogance, but also pride and a blazing intelligence. And he was as elegant as ever. Many of the old time capo mafias chose to look as slovenly and as unkempt as possible in society as if to emphasise their power and importance, but not Vito Barbaccia. The share-cropper’s son had left his rags behind him long ago.

He wore a cream lightweight suit that had London stamped all over it, a pink shirt and dark blue silk tie. The cigar was as large as ever and the ebony walking stick I remembered well, because if it was the same one, it housed a couple of feet of razor-sharp steel.

He didn’t speak as I went slowly up the steps to meet him. I paused a little below his level and he gazed down at me, still without a word and then his arms opened.

The strength was still there. He held me close for a long moment, then gave me the ritual kiss on each cheek and pushed me to arm’s length.

“You’ve grown, Stacey – you’ve grown, boy.”

I motioned to Burke who came up the steps and I introduced them. My voice seemed to belong to a stranger, to come from far away under water and my eyes were hot. He sensed my distress, squeezed my arm and tucked it into his own.

“Come, we’ll go in and Marco will give you a drink, colonel, while I have a word or two with this grandson of mine.”

My throat was dry as we moved through the great door. Strange how you can never stop loving those who are really important to you, in spite of what they may have done.

It was like stepping back into the past when I went into the study. It was as impressive as ever, the walls lined with books, most of which he had read. A log fire crackled cheerfully, loud in the silence, and my mother gazed down at me from the oil painting above that he’d commissioned from some English artist one year, I think when I was fourteen. And I was there, too, in framed photos that documented every stage of growth.

The piano was in the same place by the window, the Bechstein concert grand he’d imported especially from Germany. Only the best. I stood looking down at the keyboard and picked out a note or two.

The door clicked open behind and closed again. When I turned he was watching me. We stood there looking at each other across the room and I couldn’t for the life of me think of a single thing to say.

And again, with that enormous perception of his, he knew and smiled. “Play something, Stacey, it’s in tune. I have a man out from Palermo regularly.”

“A long time,” I said. “The places I’ve been didn’t have pianos like this.”

He stayed where he was, waiting, and I sat down, paused for a moment and started to play. Ravel – Pavane on the death of an Infanta. I only realised what it was half-way through, by some trick of memory or association, the last piece I had played in this house on the night before my mother’s funeral – her special favourite.

I faltered and his voice broke in harshly, “Go on – go on!”

The music took possession of me then as real music always did, flowing like water over stones, never-ending. I forgot where I was, forgot everything but the music, and carried straight on into a Schubert impromptu.

I finished, the last note died and when I looked up, he was standing looking up at the portrait. He turned and nodded gravely. “It’s still there, Stacey, after all this time. She would have been pleased.”

“I’d never have made the concert platform, you know that,” I said. “I think you always knew, but she didn’t.”

“Is it so bad for a mother to have hopes for her son?” He smiled up at the portrait again. “She used to say everybody had a talent for something.”

“What was yours?”

The words were out before I could bite them back and instantly regretted. His head swung sharply, the chin tilted, but there was no eruption. He took a fresh cigar from a silver box and sank into a wing back chair beside the fire.

“A brandy, Stacey, for both of us. You look like a man who drinks now. Then we talk.”

I moved to the cabinet on the other side of the room where the crystal goblets and decanter stood on a silver tray.

“I read about you, boy, a couple of years back.”

“Oh yes.” I was surprised, but tried not to show it.

“A French magazine – Paris Match. They did a feature on mercenaries in the Congo – mainly about your friend, but you were there standing just behind him. It said you were a captain.”

“That’s right.”

I carefully poured the brandy and he went on. “Then there was a report in one of the Rome newspapers about how you were all chased out with your tails between your legs.”