‘It’s true, Leonora. Major Parr is her friend,’ Luca said.
Jake could have shot out a fist and slammed the gun from her hand before she had time to lick her dry lips, but he didn’t. He needed her. He needed her cooperation. A broken wrist would not win him her trust so he stood there and stared down the black mouth of the Mauser, aware that Leonora’s eyes were hating him.
‘Put down the gun, Leonora,’ he said quietly.
‘She told me not to let anyone in.’
‘I am a friend of Caterina’s,’ he repeated. ‘She wouldn’t want you to shoot me.’ He risked a smile. Of sorts.
Slowly, reluctantly, she lowered the pistol but she maintained a firm hold on it. Jake didn’t waste any time. ‘Where is she?’
Luca came to his help. ‘Caterina has gone to . . .’
‘No, Luca,’ the di Marco girl interrupted. ‘Say nothing.’ She waved the gun dangerously once again in Jake’s direction. ‘We don’t know who to trust.’
Jake rested an arm around the boy’s shoulders. ‘You must tell me where she has gone, Luca.’ He ducked down so that his eyes were level with the boy’s and he could see the struggle in them to be a man. ‘I can’t help keep her safe if you don’t tell me.’
Luca opened his mouth. The words that Jake needed were on the tip of his young tongue when Leonora reached out her free hand, seized the boy’s wrist and yanked him away from Jake. Without tearing the kid down the middle, Jake had no choice but to let him go.
‘We promised,’ Leonora retorted, her face defiant. ‘Remember, Luca?’
‘What good is a promise,’ Jake asked, his voice rising with impatience, ‘if she is out there on her own in danger?’
‘She’s not on her own.’
‘What?’
‘She has Bianchezza with her.’
‘Who the hell is Bianchezza?’
‘My dog.’
‘Christ! A dog? Are you crazy? She will need far more than a dog if she ends up in Aldo’s clutches.’
Luca’s face remained ashen, eyes sunk in deep shadows. ‘We have to tell him, Leonora. We have to. She might be . . .’
A cane slammed against the door, making them whirl round, and Caterina’s grandfather towered in the doorway. Jake breathed in air as if it wasn’t going to be around much longer.
‘Major Parr,’ roared Giuseppe Lombardi, his white hair wild as though his hands had been tearing at it. ‘What the hell are you doing here, you witless American? You should be in Naples.’
Naples seemed bigger. Busier, more crowded. Noisier and dirtier than before. As Caterina and Bianchezza hurried through the streets alongside Signora Bartoli, she saw the city through the eyes of a stranger. Because she knew she might never see it again, and without meaning to, her footsteps slowed.
‘What’s the matter?’ Signora Bartoli asked.
‘Nothing.’ Caterina touched the solid weight of her bag as a reminder. ‘Nothing at all.’
The entrance was not where Caterina expected. Not in the ancient historic heart of the city where the maze of alleyways tumbled on top of each other. She had heard of an entrance to the subterranean tunnels located in Piazza San Gaetano beside the towering church of San Paolo Maggiore with its ornate Corinthian columns, but her companion by-passed that route and headed north instead. Some of the entrances were the mouths of wells, Signora Bartoli informed her, deep shafts with metal ladders descending for thirty or forty metres, but the military had sealed most of them to prevent access. Too much rubbish was being dumped down there, too many ‘accidents’ occurring deep in the darkness.
Caterina imagined what it was like down in the aqueduct tunnels. Signora Bartoli said much of the system was bone dry, black and cold with the breath of the Ancients seeping into your lungs. It was a fitting place to die. Except she had no intention of dying.
They were in a street of ramshackle houses when Signora Bartoli halted. Caterina could see no obvious entrance to a tunnel, just a row of rundown houses that opened straight onto the pavement and a man shaving on a stool in the shade.
‘Do the military troops know all the entrances?’ she asked.
Signora Bartoli regarded Caterina with a patient smile that dented her round cheeks. ‘Of course not. The military are simple-minded.’
She led Caterina down a narrow passageway, no more than a metre or so wide between two houses, the ground stony and full of litter, the smell vile. But at the end it opened on to a small rectangle of scrubland where wild flowers had taken hold and a coop of chickens clucked and fluttered as the dog approached. Off to the right stood an old stone hut with ivy sprawling across its roof and half a rusted bedstead leaning against the door. It looked like a disused outside privy.
Signora Bartoli walked up to it, kicked the bedstead into the weeds and held up the key, as a light wind stirred up the dust around them. Her gaze focused on Caterina, a concerned expression on her face.
‘Time cannot touch the dead, Caterina. There is no need to prove your father to be a decent and honest man. He is beyond that now. You can still turn back.’
Caterina took the key from her and unlocked the door to the hut.
Darkness does strange things to you. Of course it robs you of the ability to see. But it gives eyes to your other senses. Darkness trebles the ability to hear.
After they plunged down more than a hundred rough-hewn stone steps from a hole in the floor of the hut, they stood motionless thirty metres underground.
Listening.
The silence was total. Black as a tomb. Only the soft panting of Bianchezza disturbed the stale air. The dog had not liked the steps but seemed unconcerned by this underground world. Leonora had assured Caterina that it was used to exploring the caves on Capri and would enjoy the hunt. They had brought torches, but the flimsy beams of light scarcely dented this solid wall of darkness.
‘All right?’ Signora Bartoli called from out in front.
‘Yes. Let’s go.’
‘Be careful.’
‘I will.’
‘Not just where you put your feet. These tunnels can unsettle your mind. I’ve seen it happen. Be careful of that.’
Caterina nodded, unseen. Her nerves were screwed tight, but her mind was settled and she intended to keep it that way. She slipped her cardigan over her shoulders against the cold, and they set off in single file.
They started slowly, chipping away at the darkness, allowing Caterina to grow accustomed to the ways of the labyrinth of tunnels. Signora Bartoli spoke of them as though they were alive, twisting and turning with a will of their own, some friendly, some malign, all exuding the same cold sour breath. At times the passages were so narrow they had to squeeze through them sideways, or so low they were almost on their knees, descending into the bowels of the yellow tufo rock upon which Naples was built.
It was hard not to feel trapped.
It was even harder not to feel that Drago Vincelli was three steps behind them. Caterina held firmly to Bianchezza’s leash, her ears alert for the faintest growl of warning, while Signora Bartoli murmured contentedly about the legends and myths, the stories that were passed among Neapolitans about the miles of passages and vast chambers that crisscrossed each other under the city.
Caterina’s mind fixed on what might be out there beyond the beam of the torch. She urged her guide to silence, but Signora Bartoli shrugged and said no one knew about this section of tunnel because it had been sealed off for years. Dimly Caterina heard mention of the Ancient Greeks being the first to hollow out the volcanic stone in the fourth century AD to build Neapolis, their New City.
A noise? Did she hear a noise?
She halted. ‘Listen.’
They listened, even Bianchezza, but there was no noise.
‘You’re jumpy.’
‘Maybe,’ Caterina allowed.
She turned a tight bend where the ground rose unexpectedly and the ceiling swooped down, skimming her head. She wondered how in God’s name anyone in their right mind would want to
play down here. Signora Bartoli continued to pick her way steadily along the tunnel, still talking, but only snatches drifted to Caterina out of the darkness. About the Ancient Romans taking over the Greek quarries and creating this vast underground aqueduct system, building cisterns to deliver water to the city.
Abruptly the words ceased.
Caterina switched off her torch and Signora Bartoli did the same. Darkness came down on them as solid as a truck, but Caterina breathed calmly and reached out to the dog.
‘This is where our branch merges with the main tunnel.’ The words were whispered into her ear. ‘So this is where you start.’
Caterina reached into her bag and, working by feel alone, drew out the leather gun-holster that Aldo had worn under his jacket and abandoned on her workshop floor. She crouched down beside the German Shepherd and scratched under its ear. Signora Bartoli was right. It was time to start.
‘Now, Bianchezza. Now it’s your turn to find the bastard who almost killed your mistress.’
She switched on her torch once more but this time it was swathed in a scarf, so that only a dull glow trickled through the fabric. She showed the dog the holster which it sniffed at with interest.
‘Caterina.’
She looked up at the woman who had chosen to help her and whose face in the shadows had taken on the contours of a death mask.
‘Caterina, are you sure? We can go back.’
‘No, I have no choice. But you can go back. This is my one chance. If I don’t go on, they will come for me with their knives and their guns and their desire to hurt. If not for me, it will be for Luca. Or for Nonno. Nothing will stop them, Signora Bartoli.’
‘Nothing except you.’
‘Stay here,’ Caterina said, ‘I will come back to you.’
She wrapped the holster straps around the creamy white muzzle that looked grey in the shadows and she held it there for a long moment while the dog inhaled its scent, then she pushed it back into her bag and stroked the dog’s head.
‘Seek, Bianchezza,’ she ordered in the tone that Leonora had taught her. ‘Seek.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Jake kicked the Harley Davidson on to its stand outside Intelligence Headquarters. He was in a hurry and signalled to the GI on guard to watch that no one stripped it of its tyres or its seat. The city felt scorched. After the cool cliff-top breezes in Sorrento, Naples was a cauldron of heat that sucked all moisture from his veins. He could smell a fire somewhere close and white smoke drifted like a veil above the domed roof of the Teatro di San Carlo near the Piazza del Plebiscito. It had already burned down once during the bombing. There were always fires in Naples. As if it burned in hell.
He took the steps at a run and welcomed the cool interior of the marble hall, but he had no time to waste.
‘Captain Fielding?’ he asked the sergeant on duty. ‘Where is he?’
‘In Interrogation Room 3, sir.’
‘Who is he questioning, sergeant?’
‘A Signora Lombardi, sir.’
That took Jake by surprise. He strode quickly down the corridor and entered a room on the right. He found Harry sitting on the front edge of a metal table and lighting a cigarette for Lucia Lombardi who was seated in a chair, her slim legs elegantly crossed. As the door opened, she turned her head away from the lighter’s flame and raised a speculative eyebrow at Jake.
‘Good morning to you, Major. You look in one hell of a rush today.’ She tipped one corner of her mouth into a half smile. ‘Have you come to rescue me?’
He shook his head sharply. ‘If you’ll excuse me, signora, I need to talk to Captain Fielding.’ His tone was brusque. ‘At once.’
She rose, smoothed her black dress down over her hips and sauntered across the room towards him. Her blonde hair was loose, swaying around her shoulders as she moved.
‘Are you trying to get rid of me, Major?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ He did not have time for finesse.
But she remained stubbornly poised only inches away from him, the unlit cigarette still between her lips. ‘Got a light, soldier?’
He took out his black Zippo and obliged without a word, then pointedly held the door open for her. She rolled a smile in Harry Fielding’s direction, blew a perfect smoke-ring and watched it expand as it drifted up towards the cherubs on the ceiling.
‘Seen my daughter recently?’ she asked with studied casualness.
‘Signora Lombardi, I suggest you go see your son.’
‘Luca?’
‘He had a run-in with Aldo Facchioni. He is at home again, but could probably do with his mother’s attention right now.’
She drew hard on her cigarette. If he’d blinked, he’d have missed it, that moment when her face changed. As though the tendons that held it in place had snapped and it started to collapse in on itself. But the moment was gone almost before it began, and the blurred edges became bright and hard again. She walked quickly through the doorway and without turning her head said, ‘If you see my daughter, tell her I’ll be in Sorrento.’
He shut the door.
‘Harry, what the hell was Lucia Lombardi doing here?’
Harry Fielding was gathering together his papers, putting the top on his fountain pen, but there was something not quite as neat as usual about him. Jake sought to pinpoint it. Hair carefully combed, regulation British army uniform smart and shiny as a new dime. But there was an uneasiness in his manner, an awkwardness, though he met Jake’s gaze readily enough.
‘Why did you pull her in for questioning, Harry?’
‘After that terrible business with young Luca, I’ve been digging around and discovered that Lucia Lombardi used to be a friend of Drago Vincelli before she shot off to Rome eleven years ago. So I brought her in to question her. To see if she could throw any light on where Aldo Facchioni or Drago Vincelli might be found.’
‘Any success?’
‘Not really. Though she did say that Aldo used to hang around Sorrento a lot in those days.’ He paused and frowned at Jake. ‘What is it?’ What’s the matter?’
‘It’s Caterina. She has gone to the underground tunnels, God only knows where.’ He made his voice flat. No hint of rage. No whisper of despair. No indication that his breath had stalled in his lungs or that he had turned into a person willing to slice Drago Vincelli’s heart out, one piece at a time, if he laid a finger on Caterina Lombardi. None of that was allowed into his voice, and yet Harry stared at him as if he had two heads.
‘Jake, Colonel Quincy wants to see you in his office.’
‘To hell with Quincy. I need you to . . .’
‘Jake, he says you are stealing artefacts from the basement.’
‘What? Is he out of his mind?’
But a chill gripped his gut. Quincy must be looking for a scapegoat to cover his own thefts. He saw the concern in Harry’s blue eyes and realised it explained the earlier awkwardness.
‘I know it’s not true,’ Harry stated loyally and held out his hand. Jake shook it firmly.
‘Forget Quincy, Harry. We’ll deal with him later. I need you with me, my friend.’ Jake was already moving to the door. ‘And bring a flashlight.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Caterina stumbled over something underfoot, something soft. It jolted her and her heart jumped. She expected to strike against hard edges, against the stones and boulders as she clambered over rockfalls in the tunnels, but not something soft. Unless it was a rat. She flicked the veiled beam of her torch to her feet, turning the pitch black to charcoal grey, but it wasn’t a rat.
It was a shoe. A child’s shoe. She picked it up and examined it. Almost colourless in the gloom, but just a glimpse of pale blue when she peered closely, soft baby leather with a buckle. For a reason she didn’t understand, it made her want to cry, but she discarded it quickly and walked on through the wall of darkness. She was moving forward faster than was safe, towed along by Bianchezza who was still fixated on the scent from the gun-holster, as though it burned insid
e its black nostrils.
The only smell that came to Caterina was the acid scent of fear. Was it her own? From her skin? Or did it seep out from the rock itself, absorbed over the years from all those who had ventured down into these black holes? She couldn’t tell. Signora Bartoli had explained how Mussolini and his Fascist government in 1941 had cleaned up some of the tunnels and the vast underground caverns to make them habitable for Neapolitans sheltering from the bombs, even installing toilets and electricity in one section. But not here. Here the primal smell of fear was strong.
She passed through a massive cathedral-like chamber so high her torchlight did not reach its cavernous ceiling, where the soft yellow rock towered over her, and she wriggled through holes amid mounds of boulders, holes that were surely too small for Aldo to squeeze through. The blackness enveloped her the deeper she went and she saw it no longer as something to fear. No longer an enemy, but something to embrace. It was keeping her safe. The darkness was not the threat; the men inside it were the danger. When she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face, she didn’t panic, but welcomed it. It was protecting her.
Caterina heard a voice.
It sent dread sliding inside her.
There was the sound of running footsteps echoing through the dead spaces. From which direction? Impossible to tell.
The dog uttered a low-pitched growl and she gripped its muzzle to silence it. ‘Quiet!’ she whispered and the sound ceased in its throat but she could feel its shoulder quivering. The tunnel grew narrow here, too small to crouch behind an outcrop of rock.
The footsteps grew louder. Heavy boots.
She hurried. Her mouth dry. Keeping her footfalls soft and her eyes sharp to seek out stones lying in her path. She drew out the Bodeo from her shoulder bag, eased back its hammer with her thumb and flicked off the switch on the torch.
Darkness descended.
‘You okay, Harry?’
Jake spoke in a low murmur. Sound carried strangely in the stone passages. At times it barely made it a metre from his mouth, limping across the heavy stale air, the words vanishing inside the rock walls. At others it seemed to drift and echo, swirling in confusing spirals that did not want to stop. Ever since they had entered the tunnels, leaving a back-up team of six armed soldiers outside the gated entrance, Harry had been ill at ease. Not obvious because he hid it well, but Jake knew his friend.
The Liberation Page 39