The Keys of Hell by Jack Higgins

of his hand.
    He paused. His opponent was a young girl, perhaps nineteen or twenty, certainly no more. She wore a heavy waterproof hunting jacket, corduroy breeches and leather knee boots, and her dark hair was close-cropped like a young boy’s, the skin sallow over high cheekbones, the eyes dark brown. She was not beautiful and yet in any crowd she would have stood out.
    “Now there’s a thing,” he said softly and sat back. For a moment, she lay there, eyes widening in surprise and then, in a flash, she was on her feet again like a cat, the hunting rifle in her hands.
    She stood there, feet apart, the barrel steady on his chest and he waited. The barrel wavered, sank slowly. She leaned the rifle against the table and examined him curiously. Her eyes took in his bare feet, the shirt and pants that were clinging to his body.
    She nodded. “You’re on the run, aren’t you? Where from? The chain gang at Tama?”
    He shook his head. “I’m on the run all right, angel, but not from there.”
    She scowled and reached for the rifle again. “You’re no gegh , that’s for sure. You speak like a tosk from the big city.”
    Chavasse was aware of the enmity that still existed between the two main racial groups in Albania. The geghs of the north with their loyalty to family and tribe, and the tosks of the south from whom Communism had sprung.
    There were times when a man had to play a hunch and this was one of them. His face split into that inimitable charming smile that was one of his greatest assets and he raised a hand as the rifle was turned again.
    “Neither gegh or tosk. I’m an outlander.”
    Her face was a study of bewilderment. “An outlander? From where? Yugoslavia?”
    He shook his head. “Italy.”
    Understanding dawned. “Ah, a smuggler.”
    “Something like that. We were surprised by the military. I managed to get away. I think they’ve taken my friends to Tama.” She stood watching him, a thoughtful frown on her face, and he made the final gesture and held out his hand. “Paul Chavasse.”
    “French?” she said.
    “And English. A little of both.”
    She made her decision and her hand reached for his. “Liri Kupi.”
    “There was a gegh chieftain called Abas Kupi, leader of the Legaliteri, the royalist party.”
    “Head of our clan. He fled to Italy after the Communists murdered most of his friends at a so-called friendship meeting.”
    “You don’t sound as if you care for Hoxha and his friends very much?”
    “Hoxha?”
    She spat vigorously and accurately into the fire.

ELEVEN
    C HAVASSE STOOD ON A RUSH MAT BESIDE the large bed and rubbed himself down with a towel until his flesh glowed. He dressed quickly in the clothes Liri had provided; corduroy pants, a checked wool shirt and knee-length leather boots a size too large so that he took them off again and pulled on an extra pair of socks.
    The clothes had belonged to her brother. Conscripted into the army at eighteen, he had been killed in one of the many patrol clashes that took place almost daily along the Yugoslavian border. Her father had died fighting with the royalist party, in the mountains in the last year of the war. Since the death of her mother she had lived alone in the marshes where she had been born and bred, earning her living from wildfowling.
    She was crouched at the fire when he went back into the living room, stirring something in a large pot suspended from a hook. She turned and smiled, pushing back the hair from her forehead.
    “All you need now is some food inside you.”
    He pulled a chair to the table as she spooned a hot stew onto a tin plate. He wasted no time on conversation, but picked up his spoon and started to eat. When the plate was empty, she filled it again.
    He sat back with a sigh. “They couldn’t have done better at the London Hilton.”
    She opened a bottle and filled a glass with a colorless liquid. “I’d like to offer you some coffee, but it’s very hard to come by these days. This is a spirit