Picture of Defeat

by John Harris

  She grinned. ‘I thought you were a gentleman.’

  ‘Even gentlemen are known to behave out of character.’

  They were both skirting round the subject because neither wished to make the first move, then she gave a happy little laugh.

  ‘I think you are trying to tell me something,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d notice.’

  They stared at each other for a long painful moment, Pugh flushed, Tamara with a grave expression that was belied by sparkling eyes. Suddenly tears appeared.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’m so happy. I can’t help it.’

  As she made a grab for him, he fell across her on the settee. As she squirmed away from him, the bronze figurine fell to the carpet.

  ‘It will break,’ she said, reaching for it.

  ‘Not it.’

  As he hauled her back, the alarm in her voice died quickly. The fight she put up against his hands was only half-hearted.

  Her mouth was by his ear. ‘I saw the look your Sergeant O’Mara gave you in the restaurant,’ she said. ‘I think he was right.’

  Pugh shrugged. ‘Paddy O’Mara’s Irish,’ he pointed out. ‘And the Irish are supposed to have the gift of second sight.’

  Eleven

  For once everybody was doing all right. Patrick Fitzgerald O’Mara had long since come to the conclusion that the girl in his rooms would fit splendidly into the village in Galway where he lived, and, as a good Catholic, would be approved of by his family and the village priest. Sergeant Plummer had finally decided that he would marry his girl when he finally got around to it – if he didn’t change his mind in the meantime and go home instead to the girl who was waiting for him in Lancashire. Even Captain Jones was satisfied. He had recently met an Italian ‘contessa’ at a party in one of the neighbouring officers’ messes and they were getting along like a house on fire.

  ‘My mother was English,’ she had announced. ‘And when my father was killed in the desert I decided I would like to go to England.’ He didn’t believe her for a minute but that was the way it went with Italian ‘contessas’.

  The conversation Pugh was conducting with Tamara Detto Banti was also following an expected course. She was clinging to him, flushed and happy, her doubts about her morals thrust firmly into the background, while Pugh was reflecting what a source of contentment it was to be certain of someone, with no qualifications attached and no holds barred. He found that he was enjoying having her there to return to. She seemed to fill up some of the emptiness there had always been in his life and provided some of the warmth that had always been lacking.

  ‘Happy?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, Piu.’

  ‘When I’m an old man will you still call me, “Piu’?’

  ‘It is how I know you. To me you will always be caro Piu.’

  ‘I think you had your eye on me all along.’

  ‘Not really. From the second day in Vicinamontane. At first I thought you were odioso – hateful.’

  ‘I was being a very proper lawyer-like lawyer-type as well as a very straightforward and soldierly security sergeant-type concerned with duty. Mind you, I began to get ideas after we shared the curtain a few times. This is not the first time you’ve slept with me, remember.’

  ‘I think you showed much fortitude.’ She wriggled in the circle of his arm. ‘I have a day off today. Can you not telephone the army and tell them you have a bad leg?’

  ‘We have things to do. There are pictures to identify for a start!’

  She gave him a worried look. ‘You will take care? There may be more men with knives. Can you not delay a little?’

  ‘There’s plenty of time.’ He put his arms round her. ‘You know, I feel this is right.’

  ‘That I am in bed with you?’

  ‘Your mother,’ he pointed out, ‘got into bed with Bocco Detto Banti.’

  As Pugh headed for Jones’ office the following morning, he met the old man who lived behind the Pizzoni Palace and kept himself alive by carving cigarette holders, statues of saints and candlesticks from old bones. Pugh greeted him cheerfully, feeling on top of the world, but the old man merely shook his head.

  ‘Sono fottuto,’ he said. ‘I am ruined! I can no longer collect my bones from the San Placido catacombs. The monks have always allowed me to but now they’ve stopped me, and I have to go to San Gennaro and I’m too old to walk that far.’

  ‘Why have they stopped you?’

  ‘I was told by Brother Gregorio that it is the desecration of a sacred place. I didn’t believe him. I think he has started selling the bones to someone else.’

  Pugh gave him the few coins that were in his pocket to help him buy food, reflecting that, as Tamara had often said, every day in Naples was a crisis day.

  When he arrived in front of Jones, he found him in an enthusiastic mood.

  ‘I saw the general,’ he said. ‘He put me on to the brigadier. I thought he would. But the brig thinks anyone who steals from the army is a crook – which, of course, they are – and the thought that his boys are having to do without things because they’re going into the dirty mitts of Italian gangsters and their pals gets him breathing fire and slaughter. He says we can call on the military police. On the Brigade of Guards, if necessary. We’ll keep the carabinieri out of it. Somebody might talk. When do we move? We could hide everybody in the catacombs if we wish.’

  Pugh frowned as a thought occurred to him. He had a sudden suspicion that the O Sole Mio bar was probably a staging post for whatever was coming from Africa. It was a perfect place, and Baracca used it a lot. And on his way back to Naples from Vicinamontane, hadn’t he seen the undertaker, Cirri, heading out into the country where he ought never to have been? Was he involved? Was he doing the same thing they had been doing, and using coffins to carry goods in secret? It was more than possible. If Pugh could use a hearse to fool people, so could Cirri.

  ‘Let’s pick him up quietly,’ he said. ‘Then announce we’re going to make a raid on the O Sole Mio bar. You never know what we might stir up. We might be surprised whom we rope in.’

  Jones looked at him quizzically. ‘Who are you thinking of?’

  ‘An undertaker for a start. The one who handled the Grei funeral. He must have known that coffin he provided was too big. So why did he provide it?’

  ‘They’d never store the stuff at the O Sole Mio, for God’s sake! Too many officers use it.’

  ‘No, but there are a lot of good places nearby. Let’s start the panic and see where they all start running to.’

  It was decided to pick up Baracca at the American mess the following day, and Sergeant O’Mara was sent to make sure he went there for the evening. An informer was to be let out early the following morning to call in at the O Sole Mio bar in a state of great excitement to make it known that a raid was in the offing.

  For Pugh’s evening meal Tamara provided something that looked and smelled like goulash, and he took home a bottle of wine. She was alongside him almost before he shut the door, kissing him and taking his briefcase.

  ‘Have you got the expert yet to look at the pictures?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s due any day. So is Tassinari’s man. You’ll soon have some idea how much you’re worth.’

  ‘Do you have to go out again?’

  ‘Not tonight. And I have a great capacity for shoving the day’s business under the carpet when I’m home.’

  At midnight the telephone rang. Pugh disentangled himself and went to answer it. It was O’Mara.

  ‘Baracca,’ he said. ‘He didn’t go back to the mess, boyo. He had a woman in his car when he left the Alexa Hotel. They’ve gone to her place. ’Tis my guess he won’t be reappearing.’

  ‘Keep an eye on it, Paddy,’ Pugh said. ‘I’ll contact Jones and we’ll pick him up in the early hours. I’ll be in the office in half an hour’s time.’

  Tamara was sitting up when he returned. ‘I have to go out after all,’ he said, pleased to see t
he disappointment in her face. ‘This time tomorrow,’ he said, ‘it’ll all be over.’

  She shrugged. ‘Nothing is ever over in Naples.’

  Jones was waiting at the office with the colonel in command of the provost department, and a colonel called Checker from the American Intelligence Service who was surrounded by men who looked like FBI agents out of an old film. The American looked at his watch as Pugh entered.

  ‘All right,’ Jones said briskly. ‘Let’s go and pick him up. We’ve got enough rank with us. He’ll not be able to complain.’ He smiled at Checker. ‘Since he’s your responsibility, we’ll leave it to you.’

  Checker nodded. ‘Right,’ he said.

  Baracca’s woman had an apartment near the Via Roma. It was in a large, expensive block, which, considering the condition of Naples, was surprisingly luxurious. Pugh wondered how much Baracca subsidised her and how much she drew from other activities. As they paused outside the door, Checker glanced round him.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Checker’s big fist on the door was enough to wake the dead, and they immediately heard sounds of alarm inside.

  ‘Open up!’ Checker roared. ‘Before we break the door down!’

  The door was opened slowly. Inside the room, Baracca was standing in his trousers and shirt and without shoes, and looked as if he had flung his clothes on in a hurry. ‘What the hell is this?’ he demanded.

  Checker pushed past him. ‘Never mind that,’ he snapped. ‘We’ve every right to be here.’

  ‘What’s it all about, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘You’re under arrest, Colonel. I’m Colonel Checker, of Intelligence, so your escort will be of equal rank.’

  Baracca had gone pale and seemed suddenly shrunken and old. ‘Why am I under arrest? What are the charges?’

  ‘Conspiracy. Handling stolen US army stores. There are a few others, too, but they’ll do to be going on with, I guess. You’ll hear ’em all in due time.’

  Baracca’s girlfriend pushed forward, a small woman with blonde hair that didn’t seem to go with her eyes and dark skin. ‘Leave my home at once,’ she said loudly. ‘I am the Contessa Giuccoli.’

  ‘Ma’am,’ Checker said in a bored voice, ‘you’re all goddam contessas.’

  Her eyes flashed with fury. ‘I am a personal friend of Brigadier-General Hosey.’

  ‘Ma’am, so am I.’

  ‘And he’s in constant touch with–’

  Checker stopped her dead. ‘Ma’am, I don’t give a good goddam if he’s in touch with the Lord Jesus H Christ. Your friend here’s under arrest and, since you’re probably in cahoots with him, you’d better come too. I can’t see how in hell you manage to live here if you aren’t.’

  Baracca was escorted to the car and whisked away to be cross-examined and charged. To their surprise, the woman really was a countess, but it didn’t take them five minutes to discover she had been accepting stolen US army clothing all the same, and turning it over to the black market.

  ‘Every bastard in Naples is at it,’ Checker growled.

  With Baracca locked up, they sat around smoking and drinking coffee until dawn, waiting until the streets began to become alive.

  ‘I want to catch Cirri red-handed,’ Jones announced.

  Eventually they headed for the Piazza San Placido and, taking up positions, sent their informer into the O Sole Mio with his warning of a raid. The place was just opening for early morning coffees and for a long time nothing happened. Then they saw Cirri’s hearse appear at a fast trot and stop outside. Cirri, who was driving, almost fell from the box in his haste and started to back the hearse into the yard behind the bar.

  ‘’Tis a quare feller for an undertaker, that one,’ O’Mara observed.

  The owner of the bar appeared and gestured wildly at Cirri, clearly urging him to hurry.

  ‘He hasn’t taken the nag out of the harness for once,’ Pugh pointed out.

  ‘I reckon ’tis a quick getaway he’s intendin’,’ O’Mara said. ‘They’re stuffin’ things into the old hearse as if they’re expectin’ th’ end o’ the world. Do we pick him up?’

  ‘Let him move off first. Let him get round the corner. He’ll not have a leg to stand on. Then we’ll move into the bar.’

  As O’Mara stepped out in front of the hearse, Cirri climbed down and wilted against the wheel as if he were about to collapse.

  ‘Okay,’ Jones said, lifting his walkie-talkie. ‘We’ll move in on the bar now.’

  Before he could speak, however, Pugh banged his shoulder.

  ‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘What’s this?’

  A British army staff car was roaring up the hill to stop outside the bar. The man who jumped out was Tasker.

  ‘He must have heard, after all,’ Jones observed.

  Tasker disappeared inside the bar but, before they could move, he reappeared with the owner, jumped into his car and hurtled across the square to the Church of San Placido. Leaping out again, he disappeared round the back of the church to where the entrance to the catacombs lay.

  ‘What in God’s name…?’

  Jones looked at Pugh, who was frowning deeply, his mind suddenly full of what the old man who lived behind the Pizzoni Palace had said – the old man who had been deprived of the bone which was the raw material of his small craftsmanship – that the monk responsible for shutting the catacombs to him was Brother Gregorio, who was often in the O Sole Mio bar at the same time as Tasker and Baracca.

  ‘By God!’ he yelled. ‘Of course! The catacombs! That bloody monk detests visitors! I always thought it was because he didn’t like people. But it’s not that at all. It’s because of what’s inside.’

  San Placido was only a small part of the Neapolitan catacombs, which were among the most extensive in Italy, and possibly the world. Within minutes, cars, police vans and trucks were drawing to a stop outside the entrance. Using the radio to contact Checker, they had quickly built up an emergency force of sixty men, including Italian police, British Field Security men and American Counter-Intelligence agents, to cover all possible exits. As they gathered, fifteen jeep-loads of men coming to a halt by the entrance to the catacombs, loaded down with cave exploration gear and enough weapons to tackle a German division, Tasker’s camouflaged Humber was still waiting and empty, the engine still running. As Pugh reached over to switch it off, the monks who were responsible for the catacombs appeared, alarmed and hostile to the invasion.

  ‘This is nothing but an intrusion into a sacred place,’ one of them said angrily.

  ‘Never mind that,’ Pugh said. ‘We have questions to ask. There’s a man in there and we need to make a check.’

  ‘This is not a battlefield,’ the monk snapped. ‘The catacombs are well known and we are constantly having visitors.’

  ‘This visitor’s a senior British officer.’

  The monk sniffed. ‘He is well known to us. He seems to like the catacombs and he is always simpatico and generous with money.’

  ‘I’ll bet he is,’ Pugh said. ‘Let’s have Brother Gregorio out here. He’s the man who always shows him round, I expect.’

  It took some time to locate Brother Gregorio, who was found eventually hiding in a store room. As he appeared, his face was dark with anger and, planting himself across the entrance, he had to be removed by force.

  ‘Is there anyone in there now with Tasker?’ Pugh demanded.

  The monk refused to answer and they could only assume that there was. As they tried to push past, Brother Gregorio broke free and sailed into them, fists swinging in a most unlikely demonstration of brotherly love. A helmet clanked to the ground, then one of the Americans got his arm round Gregorio’s neck and squeezed until the monk went red in the face.

  ‘He’s probably in the game, too,’ Pugh said. ‘Even the bloody priests aren’t as honest as they might be these days.’

  ‘Okay,’ Colonel Checker said. ‘Take the sonofabitch away.’

  As Gregorio was pulled aside
, protesting loudly in a resounding condemnation of their desecration of a holy place, it was discovered that, though the catacombs had always been open to visitors, no one had any idea of how the corridors and chambers ran, and a police Jeep was sent off to headquarters to try to find a map.

  Even when it arrived there was no knowing how accurate it was, after damage by past earth tremors, eruptions of Vesuvius, and the various subsidences that had followed.

  For a while they crowded round the map, trying to decide if the reports of knocking they’d received in the past had anything to do with what they now knew, and whether they really had been caused by Germans or by gangsters hiding their loot down there.

  ‘There were two networks of catacombs, and the one at the back of the Church of San Placido was believed to date from the second century after Christ. Colonel Checker was awed.

  ‘Holy Jesus Christ,’ he said. ‘That old?’

  The catacombs consisted of several galleries, excavated one below the other, each with numerous branches and parallel passages. Two of the galleries had crumbled and had not been accessible since the turn of the century.

  They were still uncertain what they expected to find and Gregorio was dragged forward again, spluttering with rage. He refused to talk, and it was only when he was threatened with everything under the sun that he admitted that things ‘had been hidden in the catacombs’.

  ‘What things?’ Pugh demanded.

  The monk refused to say, and it was hard to tell if he knew. But it was possible, from what he said, to identify Cirri, the undertaker, the owner of the O Sole Mio, Baracca and Colonel Tasker.

  It was late in the day when they finally entered the catacombs, equipped with American lamps. Gregorio’s clear guilt had stirred up a show of conscience among the other monks, and two of them, both young, agreed to lead the way. As they went in, they heard the low wail of the air raid sirens.

  ‘Oh, shit!’ Checker said. ‘A lousy air raid! Do we call it off?’

  ‘Not damn likely,’ Pugh said hotly. ‘We’ve got this far. If we go for the shelters the buggers will escape. We take our chances. Everybody else’s taking chances. So will we.’