‘Let me talk to your father,’ I said. ‘I’m sure we can work this out.’
‘Tomorrow,’ said Droopy Eye. ‘Tomorrow the men return from the Aspromontes.’
Surely they weren’t thinking of leaving me in this godforsaken – Father Luciano had pretty much nailed that – hole for the night?
‘But you can’t –’ I started, before I saw that I was wasting my breath. They were going to leave me in the godforsaken hole until tomorrow when the men returned. I would miss training and get disqualified from the side. What an idiot I was – why had I ever come to this place?
‘Okay, I need some water,’ I said. ‘And something to eat.’
The Strangio boys exchanged looks – this was a reasonable request.
And then they left.
The first thing I needed to do was urinate. Unfortunately my cell appeared to be very deficient in the places-to-urinate department. There was no toilet. No urinal. Not even a bucket.
I guess I could’ve just done it in the corner, but my parents hadn’t sent me to the most expensive private school on the Gold Coast to have me piss in the corner of my bedroom. So I utilised some empty beer cans instead. Three and a half of them, to be precise. And I arranged them against the wall so I wouldn’t accidentally knock them over.
Now that I’d successfully negotiated that, I figured I should do something about the state of my night’s accommodation. I started picking up the rubbish, shoving it into an empty plastic bag. Once I’d done that I gave thought to the arrangement of the furniture in the room. The furniture that basically consisted of a skinny piece of foam.
I tried it in four or five different places before I settled on putting it below the vertical shaft.
I figured that way I might even get to see some stars at night. Okay, it wouldn’t exactly be Foxtel, but that probably wasn’t such a bad thing.
As I made the bed, tucking the blanket in, something at the base of the wall caught my eye. Somehow, it didn’t quite look right.
I moved over to it, ran my hands over the roughly hewn surface.
Now I noticed the thin line that ran upwards from the floor for thirty or so centimetres before it turned at right angles and ran for a similar length before turning at right angles again back to the floor.
I tapped the rock inside this line. It made a sort of hollow sound. I tried to move the rock, but it wouldn’t budge. I needed to find something to gouge away whatever mortar had been used in the crack. I remembered: in the rubbish I’d cleaned up, there’d been the barrel of a pen. I delved into the bag until I found it, and then I started scouring at the crack. White powder dropped to the floor. I’d been right, the rock had been cemented in with something. But gouging it out was very slow going.
After about an hour I’d managed to remove about a centimetre out of the crack. And then there were echoey footsteps, the sound of people talking. I put the pen barrel in my pocket and moved to the other side of the cell. The two youngest kids’ faces appeared at the iron bars.
Room service had arrived.
‘Is that Evian?’ I asked one of the kids as he handed me a bottle of water.
The joke – if you could call it that – was lost on him.
‘Acqua,’ he said.
The other kid handed me a foil container and a plastic fork.
Perfect, I thought. Now I’ve got myself a proper gouger.
As soon as I opened the foil container I realised how hungry I was. That I hadn’t eaten since lunch. I dug the spoon deep into the pasta and shovelled it into my mouth. The two kids looked at me, seemingly fascinated.
‘It’s not exactly al dente, is it?’ I said, channelling Toby for a second.
This time they got the joke – if you could call it that.
‘Al dente,’ they repeated, smiling.
‘Yeah, al dente,’ I said.
They insisted on staying there, watching, while I finished the pasta. It wasn’t exactly al dente, but al dente’s overrated anyway, and it tasted great.
Once I’d finished and the show was over, they took off.
It was back to scouring, and I’d been right about the fork – it was perfect for the job. Soon I was able to wobble the rock, the way your tongue wobbles a loose tooth.
Until finally I was able to prise it out.
And see what was behind it.
A notebook. Old, but not ancient.
I removed it from its hiding place and a plume of dust rose up, initiating another sneezing bout.
When I’d recovered I wiped the dust from the cover.
To reveal the letters DS written in an elaborate cursive script, letters I was familiar with because they happened to be my initials, and my dad’s initials.
I opened to the first page. A poem! In English! And the handwriting: an old-fashioned cursive that looked familiar. I started reading:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Footsteps!
I quickly put the notebook back, and then the rock that hid it.
Stood up.
Tried to look casual. Believe me, not easy when you’ve just read what I’d read.
Faces at the iron bars again, but this time one belonged to an adult.
‘Mr Silvagni?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said tentatively, because being a Silvagni didn’t seem like such a great career move in this town.
The door clanged open and the man was walking towards me. Telling me that his name was Carlo.
Jeans, leather jacket, cowboy boots – he looked like one of those Italians from Rome, the ones who hang around the cafés being handsome, saying sexy things to the passing girls.
‘I am so very sorry about this,’ he said, his English rapid-fire with the tinge of an American accent. ‘This has been a terrible terrible mix-up.’
Carlo put his arm around my shoulder. ‘Come on, let’s get you out of this rat hole.’
‘It’s not that bad,’ I told him.
And I almost – almost! – said, ‘Actually, I wouldn’t mind spending some more time here,’ before I realised how ludicrous that would sound.
Nobody in their right mind would want to spend more time here.
So I followed him out, and he kept talking in his rapid-fire American-tinged English.
Mamma Mia, did he talk.
‘Yes, there was a dispute,’ he said. ‘But that was an ancient thing. The boys, they just got carried away, as Italian boys often do …’
After a while I stopped listening, concentrating instead on the complicated route we were taking out of there. Tunnels leading to other tunnels leading to other tunnels – a whole underground network.
Eventually we reached a door that Carlo unlocked with a huge key and then we were inside a building, a simple hut. Carlo locked the door behind him.
‘Those tunnels are incredible,’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Carlo. ‘During the war this is where the resistance fighters hid.’
Possibly true, I thought.
But they’d also had other uses.
We walked across a stony field, through a gate with white posts, and onto a road where there were some cars parked, some people waiting.
Amongst them was Droopy Eye.
Carlo said something to him in Italian.
Whatever it was, I could see that Droopy Eye wasn’t happy with it.
‘Sbrigati, Francesco,’ said Carlo.
So Droopy Eye’s name was Francesco. But there was no way I was going to give him the dignity of a proper name, not after how he’d treated me.
‘I am sorry for what we did,’ Droopy Eye said to me.
That was what came out of his mouth, but what was coming from his eyes
, from his whole body, was something very different.
‘That’s okay,’ I said.
And then Droopy Eye said a few words in Italian and suddenly Carlo’s arm shot out and Droopy Eye was lying on the ground.
Something told me that Carlo wasn’t just one of those handsome Italians who said sexy things to the passing girls. Something told me that he was much more dangerous that this, that he was ’Ndrangheta.
He moved over to one of the cars, a Mercedes SL, and opened the door for me.
‘My driver will take you back to Siderno in time for the train to Rome.’
‘Can I get my phone back?’ I said.
‘Of course!’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you say?’
He yelled something in Italian and my phone appeared out of the gloom.
It even had charge!
I got into the car and he shut the door behind me. Just as it took off I had a thought: I went to the Maps app and stored my current location.
Soon I was too busy being terrified to think of anything else but how ridiculous it would be if I died in a car accident. It didn’t seem possible that the driver could take these tight corners at such a speed. That he could pass other cars like this. In the end I had to close my eyes.
And when I eventually dragged them open again we were outside the Siderno train station.
The driver held out a wad of notes.
‘For ticket,’ he said.
‘I have money,’ I said.
But he gestured – take them – so I figured I may as well. I got out of the car and hurried towards the station.
Inside it was light and warm – such a contrast to the underground cell. Soon I would be sitting in a comfortable seat drinking a coffee.
Who was I kidding?
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
They were my and my dad’s initials on the front of that notebook. The handwriting was familiar. And I’d heard him use that line: My head is bloody, but unbowed before. Had my father really spent time incarcerated in that hellhole?
I had to find out. I had to get that diary, confront him with it. I had to go back.
SUNDAY
BACK TO SAN LUCA
Getting to San Luca had been straightforward: buy a bus ticket, get on bus.
But getting back there?
Again, I had to question my sanity. This wasn’t The Debt. My leg, my life weren’t at stake, so why was I hell-bent on returning to that godforsaken place?
A battered taxi passed and I thought, What the heck and put out my hand.
The taxi stopped and I opened the front door.
The driver looked like Luiz Antonio.
Actually, he didn’t look like Luiz Antonio at all – he was much skinnier, much darker, but there was something about him that reminded me of Luiz Antonio. And it wasn’t just the fact that both of them drove cars that were equipped with meters.
‘How much to get to San Luca?’ I asked.
The driver rubbed his thumb across his fingers – universal language for heaps.
‘Do you take card?’ I said.
He shook his head – no card.
I showed him the wad Carlo’s driver had given me. Again, he shook his head – not enough.
I added what I had in my wallet. Again, he shook his head – still not enough.
‘You Americano?’ he said.
‘No, Australiano,’ I said.
He broke out into a broad grin. ‘Maybe you know my cousin Giovanni Toscano? He big man in Proserpine.’
I wasn’t even sure where Proserpine was, let alone a big man called Giovanni Toscano.
‘Why you go San Luca, Australiano?’ he asked.
‘To see a girl,’ I said.
‘A girl?’
‘Yes, a beautiful, beautiful girl.’
If you asked a taxi driver in the Gold Coast for a considerable discount because you needed to see a girl, he – or she – would probably make several anatomically impossible, or uncomfortable, suggestions.
But fortunately for me, and my anatomy, this was Italy, not the Gold Coast. This was where Romeo and Juliet came from. And a whole host of other ridiculously romantic beings.
The taxi driver nodded towards the back seat.
Get in.
So I got in.
He took off and the lecture started immediately.
‘I tell you all about the ragazza,’ he said. ‘Tell you all young man like you need to know.’
For the next half an hour that’s exactly what he did. There were ragazza who just wanted your money. And other ragazza who just stole your sperma to make the babies. And other ragazza who were vampiro who just wanted to suck the blood out of you.
I was beginning to wonder, with all these money-grabbing, sperma-stealing, blood-sucking ragazza out there, why he was so willing to convey me to one at such a cut-price rate.
But finally, just as we entered San Luca – looking even scarier at night – he said, ‘But there are other ragazza, like your ragazza, they are angels of the top order.’
Angels of the top order wasn’t exactly Shakespeare or even Walt Whitman 1819–1892, but I had a fair idea what he was getting at.
‘You can drop me off here,’ I said when we reached the edge of the piazza. ‘It’s better if I walk to her house.’
I offered him the wad of money, but he waved it away, saying, ‘Next time you’re there, you say hello to my cousin Giovanni Toscano in Proserpine.’
I promised that I would do exactly that.
As I watched the red tail-lights disappear, I again questioned what the hell I was doing here.
A thin rain had begun to fall, and somewhere nearby two cats were caterwauling.
Hands in pockets, head down, I made towards the piazza. There were more people around now, not just the cockroaches. As I passed the skatepark, illuminated by a couple of lights, I could see the shadowy shapes of five or six skaters. But I wouldn’t say that the residents of San Luca were what you would call friendly. They all seemed to have the same guarded look. They all seemed to know that I was an intruder. A Silvagni.
I stopped by the fountain, took out my iPhone and went to the location I had previously stored into Google Maps. The entrance to the tunnel didn’t seem that far away, just out of town a bit. I needed a couple of things before I ventured back there, however. Thankfully the supermarket was open. I slipped inside, grabbed a shopping basket.
Five minutes later and it had an assortment of objects in it: a box of matches, a cheap screwdriver set, a torch, water and a packet of chocolate biscuits.
I put my basket on the counter and the girl serving said something to me in Italian.
But I couldn’t answer.
And it wasn’t because I couldn’t speak Italian. It was because I was totally dumbstruck.
The girl looked like my mother in the photo, the black-and-white one she carried in her purse.
She even had a mole near her chin like my mother.
‘Questa torcia elettrica è senza batteria,’ she said as she took the matches from the basket and zapped the barcode.
Finally I managed to find some words. ‘Sorry, I don’t speak Italian.’
‘No … have … batteria,’ she said.
Now I understood.
‘Okay, can I have batteries for the torch, please?’ I said.
It was just a coincidence, that was all, I told myself as she got the batteries. People look like other people, it happens. I even read somewhere that Saddam Hussein used to have, like, a dozen doubles, none of them related to him. The Queen of England, too, doesn’t mind sending a doppelganger out when she gets sick of all that waving.
‘Where you from?’ she s
aid as she zapped the batteries.
‘Australia.’
A change came over her face.
‘Australia?’ she said.
‘Yes, you know, kangaroos?’ I said, making some really pathetic kangaroo paws with my hands.
She opened her mouth again, as though she was going to ask another question, but she seemed to change her mind.
After I had paid her I hurried out of the shop, and across the piazza. Following the directions given by Google Maps, I was soon out of town.
There were no lights out here and it was very, very dark. But it didn’t take long before I was at the gate with the white posts.
It was now locked, but I had no problem climbing over it and continuing on to the hut. Once inside I switched on the torch. As I did I thought of how grateful I was to the girl. I also thought of how much she looked like my mum in that photo. But there was no time now to think more about that.
I drank some water.
Ate a couple of biscuits.
Holding the torch in one hand, the smallest screwdriver in the other, I set to work picking the lock to the door Carlo had locked. Or trying to pick the lock, because it just didn’t seem to want to be picked. I wondered if locks were radically different in Italy, if all the stuff I’d learnt about lock-picking from the PDF I’d downloaded from the internet didn’t apply here.
Okay, the instrument I was using wasn’t ideal, but I couldn’t blame it.
Just as I was getting really frustrated with the lock, with its foreignness, I recalled what it had said in that PDF: Project your senses into the lock to receive a full picture of how it is responding to your manipulations.
I took a couple of deep breaths and tried doing that. I soon realised that there was nothing foreign about the lock at all. Slowly, methodically, I set to work, keeping that picture of the lock inside my head.
Click!
I was in.
I wondered about locking the door behind me, but decided against it. Yes, it would indicate that somebody was inside. But if I had to make a hasty exit, the last thing I wanted to negotiate was a locked door.
As soon as I started walking I realised that I had another problem – even my runners sent great echoey noises down the tunnel.
Fetch the Treasure Hunter Page 11