help me get the handcuffs on her.’
Guido was the smaller of the two men, the one Saffron disliked the most, and she flinched away from the sourness of his body as he bent towards her. Although not tall, he was well muscled, his fingers easily gripping both her wrists, and she was forced to submit to the final indignity of having her wrists constrained in the handcuffs attached to the side of the Land Rover.
‘Just in case you try to do something foolish like jumping out,’ Olivia warned her. ‘Not that you would. You are not exactly the stuff of martyrs, are you? Does it never worry you that while you live off champagne and caviare, dressed in fine silks and satins, there are people in the world living from hand to mouth, forced always into giving a tithe of their pitiful income to support their oppressors? But soon all that will end. The curse that has held our people in bondage for so long will be removed.’
Her fanaticism terrified Saffron. She didn’t begin to understand what the other girl was talking about, but an inner instinct urged her to show interest, as though by listening to her captors she might discover the key to her own freedom.
‘You believe in Communism?’ she hazarded.
‘You are right.’ Olivia’s dark eyes glittered. ‘Each man and woman has the right to be equal, but they are denied that basic human right; wealth which should be evenly spread among them is held by far too few, the Church especially, but soon all that will end.’
Saffron couldn’t believe her ears. ‘But Italy is a Catholic country,’ she protested. ‘The people would never abandon their religion.’
‘Then we shall have to use force,’ Guido cut in. ‘In the end they will see the wisdom of what we are doing. The Church is rotten and corrupt; a money-making machine feeding off the people. We will take that wealth and share it among them.’
Surely they couldn’t believe such a thing could be accomplished, Saffron thought, appalled, but she saw that they did. Each of them was wearing a rapt, fixed expression, zeal written clearly on their features. Did Nico share their fanatical views?
‘The organisation has strong supporters in the universities,’ Olivia told her. ‘Our young people see how false the Christian religion is. “Blessed are the meek,"’ she quoted scornfully. ‘That is what they say, but saying and doing are two different things, and in this world the meek get trodden underfoot.’
‘And you intend to change that?’
‘It is what many people think we intend to do,’ Piero told her mirthlessly. ‘But there will always be those who hold power and those who yield before it, but before we can rebuild first we have to destroy, and for that we need money—money we raise by ransoming rich prizes such as you.’
‘Of all the so-called terrorist organisations in the world, we are the most feared,’ Olivia boasted. ‘More so than the P.L.O. or the Red Brigade. Already we have been responsible for the deaths of over a thousand people.’
‘But you’re killing innocent people,’ Saffron expostulated. ‘Surely you would gain more support for your cause by using reasoned argument, not mindless terrorism?’
‘The way rich dictators do?’ Piero scoffed. ‘We have discovered that one machine-gun speaks more potently that a million useless words, although the day will come when the world will listen to our words, even if we have to destroy everyone who tries to stand in our way.’
The venom in his voice terrified Saffron. To her their words were those of political extremists, the enormity of what they were suggesting almost impossible for her to grasp.
‘Out!’
She had been so engrossed in her thoughts that she hadn’t realised the Land Rover had stopped.
‘Hurry!’ Olivia ordered, almost pushing her out of the Land Rover as she unlocked the handcuffs. ‘Don’t keep Guido waiting,’ she warned Saffron. ‘He gets impatient, and when he gets impatient…’
She didn’t finish the threat, but she didn’t need to. Saffron could see the man grinning at her coarsely, as he lolled against the side of the Land Rover, picking his teeth.
‘Why don’t I just give her a sample of what’s in store?’ he suggested, moving towards her. His fingers had grasped her shirt front and Saffron had stiffened rigidly into her seat, before Olivia responded with an obvious ring of regret,
‘Nico said not to touch her.’
Guido grimaced. ‘Because he wants her for himself?’ he suggested. ‘And besides, how would he know? He won’t be the first man she’s had, by all accounts, and she’s a hot little piece.’
‘Nico doesn’t want her,’ Olivia denied heatedly, her eyes flashing venomously over Saffron’s slender body. ‘He despises her and all she stands for, you’ve heard him…
‘Get out!’ she ordered Saffron again, and Saffron did so shakily, the thought of Guido touching her making her almost physically sick, blotting out her mental anguish. Thank God they didn’t know the truth, she thought half hysterically. If they did… She shuddered violently, realising that the destruction of her innocence would be merely amusing to a man like Guido.
The farmhouse was set among a few acres of scrubby olives and neglected vines, half a dozen painfully thin cows in a small paddock attached to the main building.
‘Another idea of Nico’s,’ Olivia told her, watching her. ‘If anyone comes up here poking around we’re just another poor family trying to get a living out of a run-down smallholding. Guido and Piero are my brothers.’
‘And Nico?’ Saffron asked unwisely, wishing she hadn’t when she saw the triumph glittering in the other girl’s eyes, knew that she had wanted her to ask.
‘Oh, Nico plays the same role as he does in real life,’ she told Saffron softly. ‘He is my man, my lover.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘You stupid, little rich fool! Did you honestly think a man such as Nico would want a woman like you? A woman who has no conception of anything apart from her clothes and her jewellery?’ Her mouth twisted mockingly, and Saffron felt a sudden upsurge of reciprocal anger.
‘At least that’s better than those half-baked ideas you call your “cause”,’ she taunted, flinching as Olivia grasped a handful of her hair, twisting it until pain lanced through her scalp, her fingers leaving a scarlet imprint on Saffron’s face when she hit her.
Saffron wanted to retch with nausea, caused more by the sudden display of violence than pain. Physical violence had always been something she had abhorred, and this was the woman Nico preferred to her; had they laughed about her together, planning her capture, planning how Nico would make love to her?
‘It was his duty,’ Olivia told her, reading her mind. ‘Do not think he desired you—he hates you and your sort. If it wasn’t for the money your father will pay to get you back he would kill you with no more regret that he would stamp on a snake.’
It was just beginning to dawn on Saffron that she was actually held prisoner by these political fanatics, whose respect for human life was nil, and Nico was one of them. Just for a moment she verged on the humiliation of completely breaking down, and then with almost superhuman effort managed to restrain herself. She must fix her thoughts of escaping and revenge; she must give herself something to work for.
All too soon she was inside the farmhouse. Downstairs there was merely one large, primitive room with a mud floor, baked hard over the years, and the most basic of kitchen arrangements in one corner, with a large woodburning range and a single tap. They had walked past a small building set on its own, and Saffron shuddered to think of the primitive sanitary arrangements. Would her captors try to indoctrinate her with their beliefs? If they tried she would strongly resist their attempts, but she suspected that their organisation did not make converts of its victims and that they saw her merely in terms of the money she would bring in, just as Nico had seen her. Nico! Why did she still have to feel this senseless pain whenever she thought of him? The man she had thought he was simply hadn’t existed. He had been a