Picture of Defeat

by John Harris

  Foscari saw Pugh as he turned away. ‘Gustavo Grei,’ he said. ‘Going back to his family in Rome. A splendid coffin, non è vero? Just look at those fittings. Real chrome.’

  ‘Did you put them on, Enzio?’

  Foscari spread his hands. ‘Not us. We haven’t a stock of these things yet and they’re hard to get. Soon, though. Cirri made the coffin. All we did was pick it up and bring it here.’

  ‘He insisted on the greatest care,’ Mori put in enthusiastically. ‘And much reverence.’ He indicated the four attendants still moving backwards and forwards with wreaths and large bunches of flowers, which they piled on top of the coffin. ‘A fine funeral, Sergente. A fine funeral. But a heavy man. A very heavy man. Almost too heavy.’ He gave a proud smile. ‘But very profitable for us. A wealthy family, I understand. You will have noticed the uncle from Rome.’ He grinned. ‘This time, in fact, there was not only the uncle, there were two cousins as well.’

  Pugh stood on the platform as they disappeared and was still there as the train pulled out. As the last coach vanished, he turned and hurried from the platform to meet the arrival from the south. His mind was racing, because the uncle from Rome who was gracing Gustavo Grei’s funeral was the same rat-trap-mouthed man he had passed as he left the cell of the penicillin racketeer, Tirandolo, in the prison at Poggio Reale. He was wondering where the connection lay, because he was also the sindaco from Vicinamontane, Vicenzo Sansovino, who had uttered veiled threats over the Detto Banti canvasses.

  Six

  Captain Jones was thirsty. The train from the south was crowded and hot, and the boy who carried the bottles of beer along the corridor had been left behind at Cosenza while trying to replenish his stock.

  However, that was just one of those things that happened in wartime and Jones was chattering enthusiastically as they reached the station entrance. There was a small bar there, from which Foscari, Mori and two of their helpers were just appearing, wiping beer froth off their moustaches. The hearse stood waiting nearby, another attendant at its head, another at the rear to make sure no one stole anything. Old Fiorello seemed to recognise Pugh and gave a whinny of pleasure.

  After dropping Jones, Pugh sought out Mori and Foscari again. Foscari was in the workshop giving Tosca a quick work-over, but he stopped, his face full of smiles, and joined by old Mori, dug out the address from which they had picked up the corpse of Gustavo Grei.

  ‘Via Maddalena 7,’ Foscari said. ‘Apartment 9.’

  Number 7, Via Maddalena was a flat-fronted block of apartments near the university. It was neither wealthy nor poor, and the concierge told Pugh that Apartment 9 was still empty.

  ‘He died,’ he said. ‘He was a strong old man, but I think the war put paid to him.’

  ‘Was he wealthy?’ Pugh asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t think so.’

  ‘So who has the flat now?’

  ‘No one, Signore. I have to sell the furniture and let it.’

  ‘What about the relatives? Don’t they want the furniture? Or the flat? Flats and furniture are hard to come by in Naples.’

  ‘I have had no intimation to that effect, Signore.’

  ‘What about children?’

  ‘He was unmarried.’

  ‘So who organised the funeral?’

  ‘I don’t know, Signore. I informed the police because I found him dead in bed. For the last year or so I always took him coffee and rolls upstairs. Then three days ago, I found him lying there. Later someone came and said the body would be removed by the undertaker. He came soon afterwards.’

  ‘Who told you this? A relation?’

  ‘Si, Signore. I assumed so. He lived here all his life.’

  ‘Who are these relations? Do you have a name?’

  ‘No, Signore.’

  ‘Where can I get in touch with them?’

  ‘I don’t know that either, Signore. I heard them say they were leaving Naples after the funeral.’

  ‘Did they go to Rome?’

  ‘I assume so. They drove off. They got into a large car and disappeared without leaving an address.’

  ‘Did they say when they were coming back?’

  ‘No, Signore.’

  ‘And the car? Whose was it?’

  ‘Relatives? Friends? Perhaps the family has wealthy friends. They seem to have wealthy relatives. An uncle from Rome followed the coffin to the station with the relatives.’

  ‘There were no relatives at the station,’ Pugh said. ‘No one but the uncle from Rome and two cousins. Have you the key to their flat?’ He flashed his documents and the janitor’s protest died away in a shrug.

  ‘This way.’

  The apartment looked very normal. It lay on the third floor of the block, up a grey staircase alongside a grey wall on which graffiti of various sorts had been scrawled. It lay behind a heavy oak door, which was studded with bolts and looked strong enough to resist an attack by a tank and was obviously designed to withstand the depredations of the Neapolitan underworld.

  Inside, it was just a normal flat – small, shabby, with battered furniture. Pugh moved around it, checking the drawers and cupboards, but there seemed to be nothing but the squirrel-like collecting of an old man. There were photographs of him in a uniform of the war of 1914–18 with a background of mountains; a few photographs of what Pugh assumed were nephews and nieces, all of them with no indication of who they were or where they lived; a few old newspapers; a few books, one or two of them pornographic; but nothing which gave a clue to why the far-from-rich dead man should have been given such a splendid funeral and accompanied to Rome by three well-dressed men, including one of Vito Genovese’s appointed sindacos.

  Was the dead man a friend of the gangsters who were running Naples? Was he a relation? Neapolitan sense of family was strong, and a poor relation, even a relation in no way involved with their activities, would be given a good send-off. But why send the body to Rome when Grei was unmarried and had lived in Naples all his life? It didn’t make sense.

  Pugh looked again at the photographs of the man in uniform with the mountains as his background.

  ‘Grei,’ he said. ‘Was he a big man?’

  The concierge shrugged. ‘My size, Signore.’

  The concierge had a typical Neapolitan figure – short, square and sturdy, but certainly not big or heavy.

  ‘It was a big coffin,’ Pugh said. ‘And it looked heavy. When did it arrive?’

  ‘The night before the funeral, Signore. It was delivered by the undertaker – Armando Cirri. A good undertaker, very careful of the correct things to do.’

  ‘I’d have thought an experienced undertaker wouldn’t put a small man in a large coffin.’

  ‘He didn’t put the body in the coffin, Signore. The relatives did.’

  Pugh’s head turned. ‘Oh? Why? Did they want him to lie in state? Did they want prayers? Did a priest come?’

  ‘I saw no priest.’

  ‘So why did he lie in state? Did anybody else come?’

  ‘I saw no one. The coffin came. The undertaker left. Then the relatives left. The next morning a different undertaker came with a hearse, and the coffin was carried downstairs and the relations from Rome climbed into the car and off they went to the station.’

  Climbing on the motorbike, Pugh sought out Cirri. He had just led his horse home from its parking place by the O Sole Mio bar. Outside his premises was an elaborate sign, ‘Pompe Funebri. Interramenti con dignità e decoro. Prezzi sotto costo.’

  He was a small, fat man with a wide smile, still in the braided frock coat and top hat that he used for conducting funerals. As they talked, he removed the coat and hat, put on a pair of overalls and headed for a small workshop where an old man worked with a saw and sandpaper, his feet shuffling around in wood shavings. A small boy in cut-down clothes was collecting odds and ends of timber.

  ‘For the fire,’ Cirri said. ‘Nothing must be wasted. Thank God we get our wood on good terms from the Busetti woodyard. They know I always pay and
they make sure there’s always some available for me.’ He was talking quickly, almost as if he were nervous. ‘A very busy time just now. Many people are dying. During the winter it was the cold and the hunger. Now, with the growing heat, it’s the stomach.’

  ‘Grei,’ Pugh said, cutting into the torrent of words.

  Cirri’s eyes flickered nervously. The undertaker’s shop was small, allowing room only for the display of one magnificently carved coffin partly draped in a black, skull-bedecked velvet pall like a Jolly Roger, and a large crucifix. It looked expensive, but even the poorest Neapolitan family would willingly reduce themselves to bitter want in order to bury one of their members with the best macabre trappings and necrophilistic embellishments their money could buy. Cirri seemed to find the place cramping, so he led the way to a small office, where he sat at a small table draped with another black and silver embroidered funeral pall. At his elbow was a vase of white flowers, rusting at the edges with age, and behind him was a background of palm leaves and fading wreaths.

  ‘Grei,’ Pugh said again.

  Cirri smiled. ‘A fine man,’ he said. ‘It was very sudden. They gave him a magnificent funeral.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘His relations?’

  ‘And who were they?’

  Cirri looked startled. ‘I don’t know. They said their name was Grei also.’

  ‘Where did they come from?’

  Cirri shrugged. ‘How do I know, Signore?’

  ‘Didn’t you get an address?’

  ‘They paid in cash. It’s often done these days. The lira changes so often and some of the money – well!’ He shrugged. ‘They insisted it should be a splendid funeral. All the best. The flowers to remain on the grave. Campo Sperano Cemetery, of course. The new part.’

  ‘He wasn’t buried here,’ Pugh said. ‘His coffin went on a train to Rome.’

  Cirri stopped dead, frowning, then the nervous smile returned. ‘Of course. I am confusing him with the other one that day. That’s right. They took him to be buried with his wife in Rome. That’s what they said. I made him a splendid coffin so that the Romans wouldn’t look down on us here in Naples.’

  ‘It was a big one. But he was only a small man. Why did you make a big coffin?’

  ‘It couldn’t have been too big, Signore. Or he would have rattled round inside.’

  ‘Did you put him in the coffin?’

  ‘No. The relatives did it. They said they wished to. To show reverence and respect for a much-loved relation. They didn’t want it done by someone who didn’t know him.’

  ‘Did the coffin remain in his home for the night?’

  ‘Yes. They remained with it. They were afraid someone might break in and steal it, you understand. It’s not unknown. Coffins are expensive. They also said they wished to pray. They wanted candles and prayers and a priest, they said.’

  ‘There was no priest. No candles. No prayers. Why did you make such a big coffin?’

  ‘It was not too big, Signore,’ Cirri insisted.

  ‘Did you measure him?’

  ‘They measured him. They said they had a cousin who’d been in the business and they didn’t want strangers there. They were very certain about it. Full of respect for the dead. Wouldn’t let me near him. They were so insistent, in fact, I wondered if he’d died of something odd – typhoid or cholera. That sort of thing. It’s not unknown when it grows warm. They asked for the coffin to be made for a big man.’

  ‘You saw him in the coffin?’

  ‘It fitted him well.’

  ‘With all the padding?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of which there was a lot?’

  ‘They asked that he should be comfortable.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  ‘Signore?’

  ‘It stayed the night in the house with these men who paid you cash and said they were relatives. But you didn’t take it to the station for the Rome train.’

  ‘No, Signore. I sublet the funeral. I had other work and it was a simple carrying job.’

  Pugh wondered if the truth was that Cirri had been nervous of the transaction and the men who were conducting it, and had been trying to avoid being too involved. ‘Who hired the uncle from Rome?’

  ‘The uncle from Rome?’

  ‘There was one. With a car with a Roman number plate and a medal ribbon.’

  Cirri looked blank. ‘I saw no uncle from Rome,’ he said.

  Pugh frowned. ‘They wanted six attendants,’ he said. ‘Why?’

  ‘They thought the coffin would be heavy.’

  ‘He was a small man.’ Pugh plugged the fact again, and once more Cirri stuck to his original description.

  ‘There was a lot of padding.’

  ‘Made of what? Lead?’

  They were getting nowhere.

  Pugh left Cirri nervously discussing a new coffin with the old man and the boy. He had checked the agencies who provided the well-dressed men who gave distinction to humble funerals. They were all situated in the poorer part of the city, so he left his motorbike behind and walked.

  The Agenzia Gesmundo was in a shabby little shop in the Via Ingrao, and the owner, one Gino Gesmundo, was a small, thin man wearing a pair of pince-nez with a cracked lens and a nose piece which appeared to have been repaired with sticking plaster stolen from an army hospital. He knew nothing of the Grei funeral. ‘Not us, Signore,’ he said. ‘We have some splendid relations, of course. They speak the Roman dialect, the Roman accent, and they do not use their hands.’ He opened a drawer and produced a medal with a pink ribbon. ‘The Legion of Honour, Signore. We have acquired it for them to wear. The car we hire, but we have a Roman number plate. It is little trouble to change it. Of course, now that Rome’s been liberated we can arrange for them to be picked up at the station as if they’ve arrived by train!’ He smiled. ‘If the Signore Sergente should wish a relative to impress the neighbours or, perhaps, a young lady to while away an evening’ – Gesmundo’s smile widened – ‘with no questions asked, of course.’

  There were two other similar agencies offering everything under the sun – the usual ‘uncles’, ‘wealthy relatives’ or pretty ‘cousins’, to say nothing of young girls, even young boys – but neither of them knew anything of Grei.

  ‘He couldn’t have been important,’ one of them said.

  Pugh took his thoughts to Jones, who was still pondering the question of the Detto Banti canvasses. As soon as Pugh appeared, he lifted his head.

  ‘I’ve just heard Baracca’s due to be posted home,’ he said. ‘And that he’s negotiating a lift in a Dakota to London. You can bet that if we turn those paintings over, they’ll go with him to the States.’

  Pugh was showing no interest and Jones was faintly irritated. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he said. ‘I thought this was your baby.’

  ‘I’ve got another one,’ Pugh said. ‘I believe they’re twins.’

  He explained what he’d been thinking and Jones leaned forward, his eyes gleaming.

  ‘Probably just someone earning a little on the side,’ he said. ‘All the Italians do it, and this uncle from Rome’s an old dodge.’

  ‘This one wasn’t the right type. There was the usual medal ribbon and the car had a Roman number plate, but he was a phoney, all the same.’

  ‘All the uncles from Rome are phoneys. We know that.’

  ‘This one wasn’t even a phoney uncle from Rome. He was a phoney phoney uncle from Rome. He was impressive. He was well-dressed but he wasn’t the right type. Uncles from Rome are chosen because they speak in a Roman accent and because they don’t use their hands when they talk. This one was Vicenzo Sansovino and the last time I saw him he was Mayor of Vicinamontane, and he was offering veiled threats that if I didn’t turn over the Detto Banti canvasses it might be worse for me. He’s no uncle from Rome. He uses his hands and speaks in a Neapolitan accent. He’d never be accepted. I know, because I’ve heard him speak. He’s also in touch with Tirandolo, my drug-pushin
g friend. He’s one of Vito Genovese’s boys, and I suspect that, since he couldn’t get his mitts on the Detto Banti canvasses, he’s been put on to something else.’

  Jones was looking puzzled. ‘So what are you getting at?’

  ‘There was something special about that bloody funeral,’ Pugh said.

  ‘What sort of special?’

  ‘I don’t know, but if this Grei family wanted to see an uncle from Rome at the funeral, why have him accompany the coffin to Rome? Why not produce someone in Rome itself and have him meet the coffin there? And why bother, anyway? According to old Mori, they’re a wealthy family, and wealthy families don’t bother with an uncle from Rome. It’s the lower middle classes who want to impress. If they’re wealthy they don’t need to. But I don’t think Grei was from a wealthy family. I think he was just a dead man who was reported to the police, and that someone at the Questura who knew what was wanted reported the fact to where it mattered. He was grabbed because someone wanted a spare stiff.’ Pugh thought for a moment. ‘Besides,’ he went on, ‘I looked up the agencies who supply the uncles and they know nothing about the Grei funeral. Nobody asked any of them to supply an uncle.’

  Jones frowned, and Pugh pressed his point. ‘On one of the first trains to Rome,’ he went on. ‘Remember that.’

  Jones’ frown grew deeper. ‘In Reggio di Calabria,’ he said, ‘they think that now the Germans have been pushed north, drugs from Africa are going to arrive in larger quantities because there’s going to be more of Italy where they can be disposed of. And I’ve just heard that Rome’s reporting dud penicillin there.’ He lit a cigarette and drew on it thoughtfully. ‘But since they’ve not had time to start a racket up there yet, it must be going up from Naples.’ He looked up. ‘That coffin would go as goods, and you have to get special permission to remove goods northwards. So where did they get it? Who gave it? Find out.’

  It didn’t take Pugh long. The despatch form was there in the office at the station and the clerk indicated the official stamp at the bottom. It was smudged, as if it had been smudged deliberately, and it was worn, the letters broken, but it clearly showed the US army’s eagle.