When eventually she rematerialised it was without the raincoat. She came from a different direction, tearing towards him at a run in her too-big shirt and cap, and if he hadn’t had sharp eyes he’d have taken her for just another of the street youths fleeing from the polizia or from a rival gang.
‘Jake,’ she gasped. She was breathing hard and had a bruise ripe as a plum on the corner of her jaw. ‘Quickly. Via Baldone.’
He nodded. He was ready, the unit on standby. This Via Baldone, this street that held her brother captive, it would not know where to hide when the might of the US Army hit it.
He made her stay. This was army work and she could be no part of it.
She argued. Of course she did.
But it wasn’t negotiable. If he was taking a unit in there under the guise of searching for stolen artefacts, she was cut out. She had no place here.
She had traded the binoculars for a street name where Aldo could be found. But no number. It would take time and patience. He made her understand this.
Her hands gripped his shirt front, her face anguished, and he thought she was going to rend it into sackcloth. But she didn’t. She stood close to him, her hair oiled back from her forehead, pain etched into its fine bones, and she locked her eyes on his.
‘Find him, Jake. Find him alive.’
‘If he’s there, Caterina, I promise I will bring him to you.’
He made her stay. Safe behind the barriers.
Jake surveyed the dilapidated slum houses in front of him and recognised that this was not a safe place to draw breath. This was deep in Camorra territory, run by the mafia clans and by mafia rules. It dealt in extortion, protection, narcotics and prostitution, and not even the police risked confrontation here. If you handed over money each week and did what you were told, you lived. If you caused trouble, you died. No exceptions. If Aldo was here, it had to be because Drago Vincelli had struck a deal.
But this was the US Army. It didn’t do deals. It imposed its own rules. With a sense of pride Jake watched the platoon of beefy young GIs obey orders smartly and leap from the two olive drab 2.5-ton GMC transport trucks that were positioned across each end of the road. There was the pounding of buckled boots and the rattle of M1 Garand rifles in the hands of men who knew only too well how to use them, as they spread out along the centre of the street.
It was narrow and dirty, green filth skimming the puddles of rain, and the terrace of four-storey houses looked drunk and crumbling. Shutters creaked on broken hinges and faces with hostile eyes stared out from behind upstairs windows. A ripple of panic shot through the street, tight with tension. Jake took control, ordering a detail into each house to evacuate all the residents into the street, while the soldiers set about searching each room.
‘Sir.’
‘What is the problem, lieutenant?’
The young officer in charge chewed on his blond moustache uneasily. ‘Some of the doors are locked, sir.’
‘Open them.’
‘Yessir.’
‘Open all of them.’
‘Yessir.’
There was the sound of splintering wood. All around the street echoed cries and shouts and Italian matrons screaming at their military overlords in words that few of the soldiers could translate but all understood. A loose-limbed GI hurried away from one front door with a cheek scarlet with the imprint of a slap on it. The Italian women voiced their objection loudly at being ousted from their homes; the Italian men were quieter, their deeper voices rumbled in huddles in the road, resentful at having their houses searched.
‘So, Major, what in the name of Gesù Cristo are you looking for?’
The question came from a muscular man in a stained vest, with rapidly receding black hair and dark angry eyes.
Jake regarded him with mistrust. ‘Your name?’
‘Enzio Azzarà.’
‘Well, Signor Azzarà, we are seeking a big bull of a man called Aldo.’ His eyes scanned the string of residents who were being herded into the street, but no one there fitted the description. Ragged children were watching the soldiers with wide excited eyes. ‘You know him, this Aldo? He may have a boy with him. Seen him around?’
‘No.’
It came too quickly. Other discontented eyes in the street watched as men stood in silence, arms folded across their chests. Jake felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.
‘We also have word that there are stolen historic goods cached here,’ he informed them. ‘I intend to search every . . .’
‘Major, every stinking house in Naples has stolen goods hidden away. You know that and I know that. Are you going to arrest everyone in the city?’ An unpleasant grin split the man’s face and he tapped the side of his head. ‘Che palle!’
‘Out of my way, signor.’
Jake strode over to the first house in the terraced row. Inside, the stink of bad drains hit him in the face and the smell of stale body odour was overpowering. Pallets and mattresses lay strewn on the floor of each room, crowded together. How people survived life in a hellhole like this in the heat of a Naples summer with only occasional supplies of water was beyond Jake. He inspected each tenement room with a burly Texan sergeant and a young lance corporal behind him, men he knew he could trust, rifles at the ready.
‘Luca!’
He shouted out the name, listened to the empty silence and shouted again.
‘Luca!’
He tried to picture the young boy. Tied to a chair and gagged or shut in a wardrobe, blindfolded and bloodied, each image getting worse inside his head. He’d seen kidnappings in Milwaukee and they always ended badly. That was something he didn’t explain to Caterina.
They searched under beds. Found unspeakable things. Opened cupboards. Raked through filth, room after room. And they did it all over again in the next house. House after house. It was like striding back in time, tumbling back into a world before anyone had thought of such things as bathrooms and running water or electricity. It was no wonder these people stole. Took anything they could lay their hungry hands on. Prime Minister Bonomi and his government were going to need one hell of a sledgehammer to crack open this hard nut of poverty.
But of Aldo there was no sign. Was Caterina’s scugnizzo a lying little skunk? Or had the big man got wind of the army sweep? The same way they had at Saint’Agata in the mountains. Jake cursed his luck. But he refused to abandon hope and personally conducted each house to house search with brisk efficiency, while Harry Fielding interrogated the uncooperative residents who were huddled in the centre of the blocked road.
‘Major Parr, there you are.’
Jake’s heart sank. He spun round to find Colonel Quincy at his shoulder, his ginger hair glistening with sweat below his cap. Christ, that was all he needed. Since when did the colonel come sticking his nose in operations? He stuck to his desk and his catalogues. What on earth had prompted him to turn up in this godforsaken backstreet from hell?
Jake saluted.
‘Found anything?’ Quincy demanded peremptorily.
‘Not yet, sir.’
‘You’d better not get this wrong, Parr,’ Quincy warned. ‘I stuck my neck out to get you the company unit you requested today for this search. I need results. Make certain you find some artefacts of whatever kind. That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it? Don’t you go making me look a fool, Major.’
‘No, sir.’
In the prickly silence that fell, they both heard a cry from a child and for a moment Jake thought it might be Luca. Let it be Luca. Please let it be Luca and put an end to this charade of hunting for artworks here before Colonel Quincy realised what was going on. But no. It was another black-haired child of six or seven, frightened and fretful.
‘Very well, Major. Carry on.’
Behind Quincy, Jake caught sight of Harry Fielding listening to the colonel’s every word, a thoughtful frown on his face.
‘Silence!’
Stillness spread through the room. No one breathed.
Jake
could hear something, though it was faint and difficult to grasp. Too small to be called a sound. But it was there. The slightest of vibrations, but the harder he listened, the more elusive it became.
He was in a stark bedroom tucked high up under the roof eaves of a house at the far end of the street, and the heat trapped in the small space was unbearable. Sweat clung to his shirt. The sergeant and lance corporal working this house with him paused, to listen and wipe sweat from their eyes, but the only noise was the tramp of boots outside in the narrow street. Harry was down there, staring up at the window.
A thin stained mattress lay on the bare floor, a rough-hewn crucifix nailed to the wall and threadbare blankets were thrown in a heap in one corner. That was it. Except for a saucer piled high with cigarette butts. Worse, the window was broken, the glass smashed outwards. Jake quickly stuck his head through the empty frame and swore fiercely when he saw that a rope dangled down from an iron bracket outside, an escape route set up in case anyone came calling. So they had been expecting callers and someone had tipped them off. It sickened Jake. Was Quincy another one corrupted by Italy’s treasures? The rope plunged down all four storeys to a tiny backyard below and Jake imagined the big man Aldo struggling down it at speed, sweat making his palms slippery, his wounded hand throbbing. Cursing Caterina under his breath.
So close. So close Jake could smell his oily sweat.
Had he taken the boy? Strapped on his broad back? Or thrown him out of the window. Or, God forbid, was Luca already dead and buried? He thrust away that thought.
He had promised to bring the boy to Caterina.
In silence he moved along the walls of the room, tapping, listening, and then he stared hard at the floorboards. He crouched, head cocked. Again there was the sound that wasn’t a sound. He snatched his army clasp knife from his pocket, flicked out the blade and thrust the point into the edge of one of the floorboards. It didn’t shift, but he tried another and another. The sergeant did the same, breathing hard.
‘Christ Almighty!’ exclaimed the sergeant. ‘Don’t let it be that. Not a child. No one would do such a thing to a poor child.’
‘Luca!’ Jake called out. He held his breath, listening hard.
That faint sound. It came again. Behind him.
He swivelled round and tried the board under the window. Let him be wrong, let it be a mouse. It lifted. He yanked it up and his heart jammed because inside the narrow gap between the joists lay what looked like a dead body. A mummified dead body. Bound in bandages from head to foot with only a tiny slit open across the eyes and across the nostrils.
‘Luca!’
The eyes moved, glistening wetly. Jake’s heart bounded back into action as he reached in and, with the sergeant taking the swaddled feet, they raised the child’s body from its dark tomb. It smelled of urine and fear.
‘Fucking hell and damnation!’ the sergeant swore, a man with children of his own. A shudder ran through Jake as they carefully laid their light burden down on the floor.
‘It’s all right, Luca,’ Jake said firmly, ‘you’re safe now. I’ll have you out of this in no time.’ The blade of his knife sliced through the cobwebbed bandages and he tore frantically with his hands at the frayed ends till the boy was free of them. ‘You are Luca Lombardi, aren’t you?’
The boy tried to nod and his young mouth convulsed in a spasm. Tears glittered in his eyes. His whole body started to tremble, his limbs jumping violently and Jake swept him into his arms, crushing him to his chest to press some of his own strength into the boy’s fragile limbs. The worst thing was that Luca was silent. No words. His lips white and clenched tight, his teeth grinding. That was the sound, the faint noise that Jake had heard earlier and it raked at his heart.
What kind of person could torture a child like this? He kissed the boy’s wet cheek.
‘Come on, Luca, I’ll take you to your sister. You’ll be all right. No need to fear any more.’
He lifted the boy in his arms as gently as he would a baby and carried him out of the room where he had been entombed. Outside, the air in the squalid street seemed fresh and clean by comparison, and Jake headed rapidly towards the army barricade, beyond which he knew Caterina would be waiting. He heard her voice cry out, saw her dodge under the truck.
‘Major Parr, where the hell do you think you’re going?’ Colonel Quincy stepped into his path. ‘Put down that filthy urchin and get on with finding the hidden artefacts. That’s why we’re here, let me remind . . .’
Jake swept past him and kept on walking, walking away from that room, the weight of the child’s head tight against his chest.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
‘Caterina.’
‘What is it, my sweet?’
‘I thought I was dead. I thought I had gone to hell.’
The darkness enveloped her brother’s small bed, pressing closer, as she listened to the whispered words. She had lit a candle.
‘The only hell, Luca, is in that man’s evil head. You are here in Sorrento, safe and well.’ She ran a hand along his arm, chafing its bare skin so that he would know he was alive. ‘With me and Nonno.’
Silence. But she knew there was more to come. He had to let it out.
‘He swore. A lot. He cursed you. He wanted to slit my throat. He described it to me in detail. All the blood.’
She didn’t breathe.
‘But his boss had ordered him to keep me alive until . . .’ The words died.
She waited.
‘Until you had done what they wanted,’ he whispered.
‘I’m sorry, Luca. Unbearably sorry.’ She kissed his cheek. It was ice cold.
‘He said he would crucify my hand.’
The weight of guilt descended on her chest.
‘He said our mother is a whore. He said Papà died because he deserved to. He said the rats would eat my eyes under the floorboards. He said you are a whore-bitch who fucks with all the soldiers.’
He said.
He said.
He would die for what he’d said.
‘He said he would hide me down in the black tunnels next time he goes down there; he would leave me tied up in the dark along with all the rest of the things down there, and I would die a slow and agonising death.’
Caterina drew her brother closer, fiercely pressing his face against hers to protect him from the thoughts rampaging inside his head.
‘Listen to me, Luca. None of it is true. You know it isn’t. He was trying to poison your mind. I will make him regret it, I promise. You’re safe now.’
He tucked his head under her chin in the way he used to when just a kid. She stroked his hair, soft and reassuring, her breath easy and rhythmic. Only her heart betrayed her. Kicking against her ribs, hammering to get out.
Caterina could not drag her gaze from Jake’s hands. They were square with thick pads of muscle and blunt nails, and right now the fingers of one hand were curled around one of Luca’s ragged shoes.
Jake was seated in her grandfather’s armchair opposite her, the lamps throwing his shadow in different directions, and he was talking earnestly about Colonel Quincy, the officer she had met at the nightclub. But his voice faded in and out of her ears. Instead her mind was filled with concern for her brother while she watched Jake’s hand flex and unflex around the shoe, as though it were too precious to let go.
‘I’m worried about him,’ Jake said.
‘About Luca?’
‘No. I’m talking about Colonel Quincy.’
‘Of course.’
They had talked about Luca and about Aldo till their tongues were sour from the subject.
It was late now. Her brother and her grandfather were in bed. The doctor had given something to help Luca sleep and outside, the night was hot and sultry with rumbles of thunder, but no rain. The hospital had been thorough with Luca and pronounced him fit to go home, just a few bruises and scrapes, but he had barely said a word, just sufficient to reveal he had been inside the cramped grave under the floorboards
for almost twenty-four hours. A policeman had sat taking notes. Caterina had held Luca’s hand the way Jake was now holding his shoe, and had felt his tremors shoot through her own body. She saw the mark, the small cross cut with the tip of a blade on the back of his hand, a pointer to the spot where to stab the knife later to match his own wound, before he bandaged Luca up like an Egyptian mummy, a filthy rag jammed in his mouth.
What kind of man did that to a child? Rage burned inside her.
‘This Quincy of yours, is he clever?’ she asked.
‘Yes, very. He carries an encyclopaedia of art in his head.’
‘So what is the problem with him?’
Jake paused and gave her a slow smile. ‘I have just told you.’ He moved from his chair and was suddenly on his knees in front of her. He touched the bruise on her jaw, his fingertips gentle. ‘You have other worries on your mind. Forget Quincy.’
‘No, Jake. Tell me again.’
So he told her again. It seemed a painting had gone missing from the basement storeroom, and on the last few missions houses or villages that they searched turned out to be dead ends, the stolen artefacts all vanished. As if they’d been forewarned. Just like Aldo had been.
‘You think Quincy is working with the criminals? Maybe with the Caesar Club?’
‘It’s possible.’
He placed her brother’s shoe on her lap, and she saw acute sadness in his eyes.
‘You know, Caterina, Italy dazzles me with its beauty,’ he said softly. ‘Even after all the bombing, Naples is bewitching. We Americans have most of the riches of the world, but very little of its soul. It is all here in Italy, so other countries come to steal it.’
Caterina reached forward and let her hands touch him, which is what they’d been craving to do all evening. They caressed his face, her thumbs chasing the lines of tension from his high forehead, her fingers tracing the ridge of hard muscle to his jaw where late-night stubble pricked at her fingertips and made her want to rub her cheek along it like a cat.
‘It’s interesting,’ she murmured, ‘that Quincy left the nightclub just before the bomb exploded. As though he knew it was coming.’ She kissed his cheek and breathed against his skin. ‘As though he were in league with Drago Vincelli.’
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