On the Back Foot to Hell

by Roland Ladley

  Not unusually, either side of the road was packed with cars, bumper to bumper. The houses on the street had small front gardens, none of them deep enough to concrete and turn into a space for a car. She remembered the details of all the vehicles; both sides - all the way up and all the way down.

  In unnecessary deference to her past, she varied her route to work. From her front door there were two choices, left or right down her street. Then the options got broader, with multiple selections. She was now up to 15 different walking routes. She had no idea why she did it, and she cursed herself every time she added another five minutes to her journey. The only plus was she now knew this part of Leicester really well.

  Actually, that was hardly a plus.

  Sam could recall all the local cars’ number plates in the area and describe any bumper and window stickers. The metallic blue, 2004 BMW 3-series across from her now had a small dent in its rear wing and a series of stone chips on its bonnet. Other than that it was in pristine condition – the pride and joy of Mr Bashkar. He owned a local carpet cleaning company. His wife was Parminder, and they had three kids: Ben, Sanjeev and Meera. Even though she’d never spoken to them, she knew how old they were and what schools they went to. She picked these things up, almost by osmosis. She’d seen an open notebook on the passenger seat of the Beemer; glanced in through the house’s front window on a clear day. She’d overheard the kids playing in the street - and Parminder chatting to her neighbour. Parminder went to spin classes on a Thursday. And she fancied the hell out of the instructor.

  Hang on.

  There was the new Ford Transit van five cars down from her flat. It was … an Avis rent-a-car. Tick. She didn’t like the new model Transit. The big, oval grille reminded her of a cartoon mouth – something out of Wallace and Gromit, when Wallace was heading for danger and all you could see was teeth and a couple of beady eyes.

  Sam had not seen a rental vehicle in the street before. That was unusual, but hardly conspiratorial. Someone was moving stuff about. One house to another.

  That was it.

  She stopped in her tracks, stood on tip toes and craned her neck. She had the registration number.

  Relaxing, she sighed to herself.

  Pathetic. What is wrong with you?

  A few seconds later she crossed the road. Then she was at the hairdressers front door. She turned, heading under the brick arch and into the darkness - before climbing the stairs. She was hungry. The tasteless lasagne was shouting at her.

  But she didn’t make the steps.

  Instead, in darkness where recognition was futile, she was met by a wall of bodies and limbs. She had no time to think; less to fight. A number of strong arms held her tight and a chloroform rag was pressed to her face. She remembered her eyes popping out in surprise.

  Then black.

  Academy of Fine Arts, Naples University, Naples, Italy

  Gareth dragged his mouse so the cursor on his screen danced to the bottom of his manuscript. He tapped the left hand button, waited for the thin I-shape to settle, and started typing. The university issue laptop was old and slow and, loaded with Bill Gates’ latest incarnation of Windows 10, it struggled with even the simplest of tasks.

  Never mind. It was free.

  As was most of his stationery and, surprisingly, his lunch. Pranzo was either a pizza of some description, or pasta, in one of many versions. And it was all good. With it came an obligatory miniature bottle of white wine. The wine was a surprise addition to the main meal of his day and, whilst it tasted like it had soured a couple of years ago, it was 12.5% proof and didn’t touch the sides. Just what Picasso would have ordered for a third-year Fine Arts student.

  He typed earnestly, glancing often to his notebook. At the end of the current paragraph he purposefully placed a full stop, lifted his hands from the keyboard and pushed back in his chair. He looked to his left, out through the second floor window across the narrow Via Broggia to the building opposite. It was a four-storey, nineteenth-century block and plaster neoclassical monolith like all the buildings in the quarter. It looked impressive and appeared strong enough to withstand the next earthquake. But it was tatty with flaking paint and its ground floor was half-full of businesses hanging on by a paperclip: an out-of-date computer shop; a tattoo parlour; an internet café. The other half was unoccupied, their plywood-boarded fronts covered with adverts and graffiti.

  It was scruffy.

  Naples was scruffy.

  But it was Italy.

  When he’d learnt that Naples had accepted him on a third year secondment from the University of Wales, Trinity Saint David - or, as he liked to call it, Swansea Poly - he’d been on a bus heading into the city centre. The email from Accademia di Bell Art di Napoli had been forwarded by his tutor, Adam. Gareth had read it out loud, just to make sure. The final line of Adam’s covering email was written in his inimitable style: If you fell into the lav, love, you’d come up with a five pound note, you lucky s**t. Unlike Gareth, Adam didn’t swear. But he always got as close to the line as he could.

  ‘O.M.G! I’m going to bloody Naples!’

  He’d looked across at the old woman who was sitting on the bench seat opposite him.

  ‘I’m. Going. To. Bloody. Naples!’ His right index finger tapped his chest in time to the words.

  The woman gripped the chrome handle in front of her - staring directly ahead.

  Gareth remembered he had a couple of fivers in his pocket, the winnings from a sweepstake in his digs as to who was next to be booted off Love Island. He immediately pressed the red ‘stop’ button, launched himself onto the pavement and found the nearest bar. What a night that had turned out to be. His hangover had been so legendary he’d missed one of Adam’s tutorials. That had cost him a bottle of gin. But it had been worth it.

  Naples was everything he’d hoped it to be. And so was the course. He was taking it seriously. That is, in a Gareth ‘seriously’ way. Academically it wasn’t a problem. He was bright: two A*s and a B at A-Level, without much revision. His Dad had pushed him to take maths and the sciences when, what he had wanted to do was play around with a couple of art subjects and then bugger off to London and find an acting job; or enrol in an arts school somewhere.

  But Dad knew best. He always did.

  Or at least he thought he did.

  It hadn’t lasted. Gareth knew it wouldn’t.

  They’d fallen out the day he’d got his A-level results. He’d made the grades to meet the offer from Durham - reading some kind of engineering. But Gareth had turned them down. After a shouting match with Dad, and with Mum busying herself in the kitchen, Gareth had stormed out of the house. He walked down to the town centre, bought himself four cans of cider from Tesco Express and found a bench in the park. Then he’d called all the clearing organisations. An hour later, without an art qualification to his name, he had a place at Swansea. Fine Art. It wasn’t acting and it wasn’t London. But it was away from the Valleys - and his Dad - whilst still being close enough to Mum.

  So, he was working hard – as hard as he needed to to keep out of trouble. It didn’t help that the Academy’s bureaucracy and administration was typically Italian - a cartoon character in a sharp suit and designer sunglasses. It seemed to go out of its way to dampen a lot of his endeavour. Lecture timings were vague and often amended at the last minute. Visiting artists turned up late, or not at all. Or early, only to be met by an empty studio.

  But he could cope. All he had to do was stay sober for the four-and-a-half-day student week. And then Naples, God bless her, made up for any weekday frustrations.

  For the lucky few at Swansea who were given the opportunity to apply for third year secondments, the choice of overseas unis covered much of Europe. Gareth instantaneously reduced the choice to two; Rome and Naples.

  Italy. It had to be Italy.

  The culture. The rolling Umbrian hills. The artists. The fashion and the style. The passion.

  The men.

  He’d applied for b
oth. Rome had turned him down within a couple of weeks. So he and Adam had kept everything crossed for Naples.

  ‘If you get the position, I’ll be coming out in the Spring to check on your dissertation!’ Adam had threatened.

  ‘Come anytime you like, Adam. Just don’t come empty-handed,’ had been his response.

  Depending who you asked, Spring was about four months away. And Gareth was 6,000 words into a 40,000 word dissertation. He was on track - just. He reckoned he’d have something ready before the beginning of March. He’d make sure of it.

  He turned back and faced his desk. He let his hands float above the keyboard.

  No. Can’t.

  He was at a loss.

  He pressed the ‘Page Up’ key, holding it down so what he’d already written span downwards in front of him. A few seconds later the scrolling stopped. And there was the title. Sixteen point; Times New Roman.

  In bold.

  The Mafia’s Influence on Italian Art.

  The subject choice had been his. His Italian tutor was immediately uncertain and had told him to go away and think about it over the weekend and confirm his choice the following Monday. In the meantime, his tutor would think of some more appropriate titles for Gareth to consider.

  Unfortunately, much of the weekend was spent in a sweaty embrace with Giorgio, his newest Italian best friend - and lover. They’d met at a seafront restaurant the previous week, just off Via Nuova Marina, down from the cruise liner terminal. Giorgio had been waiting on the outside tables and Gareth was eating – alone. They’d connected immediately. Gareth, whose Italian was getting better by the day, had left Giorgio a ten Euro tip and his phone number, followed by a single kiss. Giorgio had texted him the same evening. The rest was delightful, and ever so sultry, history.

  On the hot Sunday afternoon when he should have been reconsidering the title of his dissertation, and after a couple of bottles of Giorgio-recommended Aglianico, he’d left Giorgio’s lithe, Vesuvian body asleep on his bed, walked naked to his desk-cum-kitchen table, booted up his laptop and penned a note to his tutor:

  Dear sir, The Mafia’s Influence on Italian Art. Confirmed.

  He’d pressed ‘return’ sporting a crooked smile.

  An hour earlier in a moment of calm, he’d quizzed Giorgio about the title. His response had been. ‘No. Not good. Warning!’ Giorgio’s gorgeous face, his dark floppy hair and even darker eyebrows, easily made up for his staccato English - which could at best be described as basic. But his tone and demeanour were clear.

  Gareth had laughed at him, picked up a pillow and hit him with something more than boyish exuberance. That had led to a play-fight and more fabulous indulgence.

  The thing was he’d plucked the title from nowhere; almost for fun. He was in Italy. On an arts course. And they had the Mafia. It was a simple connection.

  But Giorgio’s ‘warning’ had cemented something in Gareth. He’d always had a ruthless inquisitiveness, and whilst initially the title had no particular attraction, his tutor’s reticence combined with Giorgio’s wonderfully naïve, boyish response, had fired something in him. At that point whether the Mafia had any involvement in Italian art was a complete mystery to him. But he intended to find out.

  So far, an eighth of the way in and still laying down the groundwork, he was pretty sure over the centuries no one in the Mafia could tell the difference between a paintbrush and a sculptor’s chisel. And with the Mafia a secretive organisation, other than a few notable arrests over the centuries, nobody really knew who was who. That, surely, was the point. That’s how they did their business.

  That may work for them, but it was making piecing together a decent dissertation more difficult than Gareth had intended.

  His largest footnote so far was the seizure of 125 paintings over a period of four years from, what was thought to be, a fine art collection belonging to Gioacchino Campolo. Campolo was a businessman with ties to the ‘Ndràngheta Mafia, the largest, still-functioning Mafia organisation in Italy. The paintings, which included works by Dali and Caravaggio, were now on display in the Palace of Culture, in Reggio. (Gareth had not been to see the collection, but he intended to. He hoped Giorgio would be brave enough to come with him.) Campolo, on the other hand, had been sentenced to 16 years house arrest in 2011. The police were still unsure if they understood the breadth of his art collection or where it was all being held.

  With respect to Mafia artists, men and women from Mafia families who had actually made any art, Gareth was struggling to uncover anything useful. It was painful. What was well documented was the amount of art, most of it twentieth-century and most US-based, which depicted the Mafia, or ‘the Mob’, as it is known in the US. He had made notes and references to this, but it hardly fitted.

  Exasperated, he was almost at the point of revisiting the title and turning to something which had plenty of source material.

  But, before he took that step he had one final opportunity. A friend of his Italian tutor had set up a meeting with a Neapolitan journalist for tomorrow. The woman, Chiara, worked for a local magazine called Napoli Scoperto. She’d agreed to meet him at a café in the Via Lavinaio at 10.00 am. Apparently she might have something of interest. His tutor hadn’t been any more forthcoming, other than the journalist’s name, the place and the time. He was probably still sulking over the fact Gareth had gone ahead with his original title.

  A meeting with a mysterious journalist in a café in downtown Naples? It was all very Pink Panther.

  Between now and then Gareth would look over a couple of Italian art books he’d found at a local second-hand bookshop, tap away at a few more keys … and dream of an upcoming evening with Giorgio, once the Adonis had got back from work.

  Chapter 2

  Headquarters SIS, Vauxhall, London

  The Chief called the cabal to a close. Jane turned off her tablet, gathered her notebook and pen and, with her spare hand, took hold of her empty coffee mug. She smiled at the mug’s decoration: I’d rather be Knitting. Her niece had given it to her for Christmas. She didn’t normally get presents from nieces and nephews but last Christmas was different. Normally she’d have gone to Mum and Dad’s. It was a family ritual for as long as she could remember. Apart from one forgettable occasion she always arrived boyfriend-less, so more often than not it was just the three of them. Mum bought the food and Jane provided the drink; an Ocado order rattling nicely as the delivery man struggled up the front path on Christmas Eve. On Boxing Day either the hordes arrived, or Jane would drive her parents to her brother’s for cold meat and bubble-and-squeak.

  Sadly she’d lost her Dad the previous summer. As a result Mum had been invited to her brother’s for Christmas; the ritual well and truly broken. The idea of being alone in her flat on her first Christmas without her Dad horrified her. Thankfully her brother Kevin had extended the offer to her and, whilst work had held her attention to the very last moment, she’d caught a late train from Waterloo and made it to Godalming before Christmas Eve had morphed into Christmas Day.

  It had been both a joyful and a sad time. Mum put on a very brave face and Kevin and Ros had made their place look especially Christmassy. It helped that they lived in a wonderful old cottage off a sunken lane, surrounded by fields. Fields that, last Christmas, had put on their own festive display, with sharp frosts and ice-blue skies framed with deep-green-and-red holly borders. Everyone missed Dad terribly, but they all tried very hard not to let it spoil the atmosphere for the children. Mum, all tweed, wool and flashing Santa earrings, sipped at her sherry, pausing every 20 minutes to ask if she could help. Ros, who was as efficient as a recently oiled multi-tool, wouldn’t have any of it. So they had a really enjoyable time, whilst quietly missing Dad’s calm and warming presence.

  The mug had been her favourite gift. It certainly beat her Mum’s effort, which was eight pairs of M&S big pants. Jane wasn’t quite sure what message her Mum was sending. Jane thought she was still slim and, for an uber-busy 40-year-old, still squeezed i
n as much exercise as she could. OK, she wasn’t getting to the gym as often as she used to, but she had remained a yoga fascist, hardly ever missing her 30 minutes a day. The pants were probably a result of her Mum’s failing eyesight that had either misread the knickers’ label or, maybe, Jane’s hips.

  Perhaps it was Jane who was kidding herself? After all, the big knickers hardly fell off her.

  The mug, on the other hand, had hit exactly the right note. In what spare time she had Jane had taken up knitting. She wasn’t very good, but had managed a red and white hooped cardigan with traditional leather buttons for Sophie’s - Ros and Kevin’s daughter - tenth birthday. According to Ros, Sophie loved it. And that seemed to be the case over Christmas. Apart from bedtime Sophie had worn it for the whole of the 36 hours Jane had been at her brother’s.

  She had intended to stay for a second night. Unfortunately an IED attack on the British High Commission in Pretoria had dragged her back into work. She was at her desk before the BBC had had chance to air the Doctor Who Christmas special.

  And that had been the start of it. Eight months of sporadic, seemingly uncoordinated, worldwide terror activity. The attacks were mostly low key – and almost exclusively carried out by lone wolves. Significantly, out of 47 physical attacks so far, only two were suicide events: a waistcoat bomb at an army checkpoint in Cairo; and a failed rucksack attack on the Oslo T-bane metro. The latter was a disaster for the terrorist, Jakob Halvorsen, a Norwegian right-wing activist. The bomb’s lack of sophistication meant the homemade explosive had to be primed at the last minute, otherwise it would have gone off in transit. Unfortunately for Halvorsen the detonator had exploded as he tried to prime the bomb. He’d lost an arm and was temporarily blinded by the blast. An old man who had been sitting next to him in the carriage, received minor injuries. There were no other casualties. The Norwegian police did note that if the bomb had gone off as many as 20 people could have been killed.