A Dead Man in Naples

by Michael Pearce

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And hearing things that he would perhaps not otherwise have heard?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘You know why I am asking this, Marchesa. There is a story making the rounds that he had heard something that he ought not to have done.’

  ‘I have heard the story.’

  ‘You may even, I think, have been the one who passed it on to the British Embassy?’

  ‘It is possible.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  The Marchesa was silent for a moment.

  Then she said: ‘I was angry. Poor little Scampion! What had he done to deserve that? He was an innocent, as I have told you. An innocent always in a world that had turned nasty. Why did they have to kill him?’

  ‘They?’

  The Marchesa smiled.

  ‘One hears so many things at parties,’ she said.

  Vincente reappeared carrying a tray on which was a solitary drink.

  ‘Look, I’ve done it!’ he said triumphantly, setting the glass down on the table beside her.

  ‘Oh, my dear, how clever of you!’

  ‘It was,’ he said. ‘They hadn’t got anything I needed. I had to send round the corner for it. Even for the Martini. Of course, they had a Martini but it wasn’t the one I wanted. It makes a difference, you know.’

  ‘I’m sure it does,’ said the Marchesa vaguely. ‘What would I do without you, dear?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Vincente, ‘I wanted to talk to you about that. Or at least get you to talk to Alessandro.’

  ‘I never talk to Alessandro,’ declared the Marchesa. ‘It is a matter of principle. Since he treats me so abominably.’

  ‘Yes, well, couldn’t you this once make an exception?’

  ‘Don’t be tiresome, Vincente. I know what you want me to ask him and the answer is No. No, to my asking him and No to him doing anything about it. We cannot spare you, Vincente. The family has decided. Your mother would be round every day if he let you go to Libya, and you know he can’t bear her. You’ll just have to face up to it, Vincente: you can’t go to Libya. Now, be a brave man and get back on your bicycle.’

  The Marchesa went off to make some more purchases and Vincente walked back with them in the direction of the Porta Capuana. The racers had all moved round now to the piazza in front of the Palazzo Reale and were packing up. Some were riding on their bicycles, other putting their kit into hand-carts.

  As they were standing there a file of red-shirted bicyclists rode past at the other end of the piazza.

  ‘Hello!’ said one of the racers. ‘What are they doing here?’

  ‘It’s the Redshirts,’ said someone else. ‘They’re here to bring about the Revolution.’

  ‘They’ll have a job! Why don’t they stick to bicycling?’

  ‘Or take up racing.’

  ‘Why don’t you suggest it, Guglielmo?’

  ‘Challenge them to a race?’

  ‘They’re not racers. They’d never do it!’

  ‘Give it a try! They might.’

  ‘They’d be fools if they did.’

  ‘But they are fools. They might be tempted.’

  ‘Put one across on the army. Wouldn’t that be tempting?’

  ‘They wouldn’t stand a chance!’

  ‘I know, but they might not think that.’

  ‘Challenge them, anyway: it might be a bit of fun.’

  ‘There’s talk of a race between the Racing Club and the Reds,’ said Francesca, as she helped Maria clear away the dishes that evening. ‘My money’s on the Club.’

  ‘You haven’t got any money,’ said Giuseppi.

  ‘Giorgio has, and he’s putting it on the Racing Club.’

  ‘That boy is going to the bad,’ said Giuseppi. ‘What is he doing, putting his money on that lot?’

  ‘He thinks they’d win. They’re proper cyclists, he says. The Reds are just amateurs.’

  ‘Of course they’re amateurs!’ said Giuseppi. ‘They’re honest men who work for a living. Not fancy boys whose fathers top up their pay so that they can go riding about the countryside.’

  ‘What I meant,’ said Francesca, ‘was that the Club takes cycling seriously. They race every week. Whereas the Reds –’

  ‘– cycle for a purpose,’ said Giuseppi. ‘And it’s a noble purpose. To tell people what an awful government we’ve got –’

  ‘Don’t they know that already?’ asked Maria.

  ‘– and what to do about it,’ concluded Giuseppi.

  ‘Well, I think they’ll get thrashed,’ said Francesca.

  ‘People will be putting down their money on this,’ said Giuseppi, when Francesca had departed into the kitchen with a pile of dishes.

  ‘Money they haven’t got,’ said Maria.

  ‘And which they’ll lose,’ said Giuseppi. ‘It’s always somebody else who makes the money out of betting.’

  ‘And usually the Camorra,’ said Maria.

  Giuseppi looked around uneasily.

  ‘Better not say that too loudly,’ he said.

  ‘I say what I like,’ said Maria, and went off after Francesca.

  Chapter Five

  ‘He would have wished you to have them, Giorgio,’ said Miss Scampion.

  Giorgio seemed stunned.

  ‘How can I ever thank you, Signora?’ he muttered.

  ‘It is not me you have to thank,’ said Miss Scampion. ‘It is my brother.’

  ‘But this . . . this munificence . . .’

  He spread his arms, as if overwhelmed.

  ‘I am sure they will mean a lot more to you than they do to me,’ said Miss Scampion, pleased.

  ‘They will mean much to me, Signora,’ said Giorgio recovering. ‘And I shall always treasure them.’

  With a sudden unexpected grace he kissed her hand.

  ‘And now at least I won’t have to carry them home again,’ said Miss Scampion, smiling. ‘I brought them in my basket and, really, it made the bicycle quite top-heavy.’

  ‘That is because the weight was all at the front, Signora,’ said Giorgio. ‘I will make you a little basket that will fit at the back and then you will be able to divide the load.’

  ‘Thank you. I hope, though, that I will not often be carrying so much.’

  ‘They are a treasure, Signora, a treasure!’ said Giorgio, his eyes starry.

  He took up the magazines tenderly in his arms.

  ‘Do you want some help with reading them?’ asked Francesca.

  ‘No, I don’t!’ said Giorgio indignantly.

  He took the pile and sat on a step.

  Francesca went off in a huff.

  ‘I am beginning to turn things out, Mr Seymour,’ said Miss Scampion. ‘I should have done this long ago.’

  She collected her bicycle and walked it along the street. The street was too narrow, and too crowded, for her to mount with decorum and ride with safety, but Seymour, whose eyes followed her as she went, saw her reach the broader thoroughfare at the end and ride away.

  ‘A fine pile,’ he said to Giorgio, looking at the cycling magazines.

  ‘I could sell them,’ said Giorgio, ‘but I won’t. They are a precious inheritance.’

  He showed them to Seymour.

  There were two main ones, Le Vélo and L’Auto-Vélo.

  ‘Le Vélo was the first,’ said Giorgio. ‘It was started in France but now we’ve got an edition in Italy. The other one, L’Auto-Vélo, was also started in France, by Monsieur le Comte de Dion. He is a big industrialist so Giuseppi does not like him. But without him there would be no bicycles. He makes the Dion. He makes motor cars, too, and some say he is going to make aeroplanes. But the bicycles will do for me.’

  ‘I see they’re on different coloured paper,’ said Seymour.

  ‘Yes, L’Auto – it’s called L’Auto now, the Vélo sued, and he had to change the name – is on yellow paper and the Vélo on green. There is great rivalry between them, especially now that they’ve both started sponsoring road ra
ces.’

  ‘And teams, too?’

  ‘Yes, and teams.’

  ‘The Racing Club of Naples, Signor Scampion’s team, would, then, be in the Dion stable? Since it wears yellow?’

  ‘Yes. The Yellows are more . . . how shall I say? . . .aristocratic. That is why Giuseppi doesn’t like them. But I like them because they are the army’s team, and I support the army. One day, when I am old enough, I will join the army and go to Libya and fight. Giuseppi says that the army is for Dion because he sells them most of their equipment. It is a fix, he says. But then, Giuseppi says everything is a fix.’

  ‘Everything is a fix,’ said Giuseppi, suddenly appearing out of the door. ‘And the sooner you find out, young man, the better.’

  Giorgio ostentatiously buried himself in a magazine.

  ‘Where did you get these from?’ asked Giuseppi. ‘You haven’t been spending good money on them, have you?’

  ‘Signora Scampion gave them to me,’ said Giorgio.

  ‘She should know better. A poor man cannot afford to waste his time on trash like that.’

  ‘They come as a gift,’ said Francesca, popping out, ‘in memory of her brother.’

  Giuseppi sniffed.

  Then gasped.

  ‘Francesca! What are you –? What have you –? Maria! Maria!’

  ‘What is it?’ said Maria, running out of the kitchen.

  Giuseppi gestured towards Francesca. He seemed to have been rendered speechless.

  ‘Francesca, what have you been doing? Oh, Francesca!’

  ‘I have just altered my skirt a little,’ muttered Francesca, losing confidence.

  ‘You have made trousers out of it!’

  ‘No, no, just – just stitched the sides together in the middle.’

  ‘But why, Francesca, why?’

  ‘It’s handier like this.’

  ‘It’s indecent,’ said Giuseppi.

  ‘And looks better,’ said Francesca.

  ‘The idea! Where do you get these ideas from, Francesca? Your mother is a decent woman – what will she think?’

  ‘What would your father think,’ thundered Giuseppi, ‘if he learned that his daughter had been making herself into a slut?’

  ‘Go and unstitch – at once!’ ordered Maria.

  Francesca fled and Chantale and Seymour moved on.

  High up in the sacristy, packed in rows along the balcony, but visible to all, were what looked like a collection of travelling-trunks, upholstered in leather and with brass nails, but often with crimson covers of velvet and damask which had faded to russet-gold and amber under the sunlight that filtered in through the windows.

  Looking up at them, with glazed, bemused eyes, was a little group of tourists. English, unmistakably, and clearly uncomfortable at the extravagant trappings of a Papist church, but determined to get their money’s worth.

  ‘Rum!’ pronounced a red-faced, perspiring man, mopping his face with a silk handkerchief. ‘That’s what I call it!’

  Chantale, who had just come into the San Domenico Maggiore with Seymour, was puzzled.

  ‘Rum?’ she whispered to Seymour. ‘What is this to do with drink?’

  ‘You mean their bodies are up there?’ said a woman standing beside the leader of the party, whom Seymour now saw to be Richards, on duty for the consulate in Scampion’s place. ‘Up there? Now?’

  ‘That’s right, Mrs Learoyd,’ said Richards. ‘Those are the coffins of the Aragon rulers of Naples.’

  ‘Coffins?’ said the woman, shuddering. ‘Those boxes? And they’re in them?’

  ‘I imagine so,’ said Richards. ‘I haven’t actually taken a look,’ he admitted.

  ‘Isn’t it a bit . . . unhygienic?’ said Mrs Learoyd.

  ‘Not much risk now, I fancy,’ said Richards, ‘after all these years. They’ve been there for centuries.’

  ‘Kings and queens and such?’ said Mrs Learoyd. ‘Up there?’

  ‘That’s right, Mrs Learoyd. The Aragon rulers of Naples at, oh, about the end of the fifteenth century.’

  ‘It’s a funny place to put them,’ said Mrs Learoyd doubtfully.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the man perspiring beside her. ‘That way they can keep an eye on things. See what people are up to.’

  ‘The idea of it!’ said Mrs Learoyd, shuddering.

  ‘It may have been a temporary measure,’ said Richards. ‘They were probably put there while their tombs were being prepared. And then the next lot weren’t very interested and just left them there.’

  ‘Yes, but you can’t do that,’ objected Mrs Learoyd. ‘Not leave bodies lying around. I mean, suppose we all did it?’

  ‘Well, these days, of course, the city authorities would see that you didn’t.’

  ‘You would have thought someone would have done something about it. Them being royalty.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why they didn’t do something about it?’ suggested Richards. ‘They didn’t want to disturb them. They might think of it as showing a lack of respect for them.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s disgusting!’ declared Mrs Learoyd. ‘The idea of them being up there. Where everyone can see them!’

  ‘Looking down on you,’ said her husband.

  ‘It makes me feel quite faint. I want to go back to the hotel.’

  ‘Would you like me to accompany you?’ asked Richards, with, Seymour thought, a certain amount of relief.

  ‘No, no, that will not be necessary. We can find our own way, thanks.’

  ‘Thank you very much, Mr Richards,’ said a woman politely.

  Richards saw Seymour and Chantale standing there and came across.

  ‘I need a drink,’ he said. ‘Would you care to join me?’

  He took them to some tables under a stone archway where it was pleasantly cool.

  ‘A pressed lemon for me, please,’ said Chantale.

  ‘A beer for me.’

  ‘I think I’ll have a beer, too,’ said Richards, signalling to the waiter.

  He sat back.

  ‘Phew!’ he said. ‘Hard work this morning!’

  ‘Do you do it every morning?’ asked Chantale.

  ‘Not every,’ said Richards gloomily, ‘although sometimes it feels like it. How are you getting on?’

  ‘With the Scampion business? Well, at any rate, we’ve made a start. And one or two fresh things have come up.’

  ‘They have? Oh, that’s excellent! I was afraid you would find everything buried under a veil of silence.’

  ‘Like this.’ Seymour took out the ticket and placed it in front of Richards.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A lottery ticket.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Of course. Look, old man, they’re not exactly uncommon in Naples.’

  ‘This one was found in Scampion’s shorts. The ones he was wearing when he was killed.’

  ‘Really?’

  Richards picked it up gingerly. ‘Are you sure about that, old man? I wouldn’t have said Scampion was the betting sort.’

  ‘This was found by his sister. When she was going through his clothes.’

  ‘Funny!’ said Richards. ‘I wouldn’t have thought he went in for that kind of thing. Dead against it, in fact.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Thought it sinful. He was a bit of a child of the manse.’

  ‘I got that impression from his sister, too. But, you see, that makes it all the more interesting.’

  ‘Why he should have it, you mean?’

  ‘Yes. And in his racing shorts.’

  Richards handed the ticket back to him. ‘Maybe one of his army friends gave it him? He might not have been very interested in betting, but they certainly were!’

  ‘The racing men, you mean?’’

  ‘Yes. And one of them might have given it him at the racing. That would account for it being in his shorts.’

  ‘Yes, but why would they have given it him? They would surely have known what his attitude to betting was.’

  Richards shrugged. />
  ‘A bit of a puzzler, I see.’ He sipped his beer. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘they might have given it him knowing that he was like that. Expecting him to pass it on. In fact, they might have given it him to pass on.’

  ‘To pass on?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a bit of a Neapolitan habit. Almost a superstition, you might say. Suppose you find yourself somehow with a lottery ticket on your hands unexpectedly. Picked it up, perhaps, in the street, or found it lying on your table when you were having a drink. Well, that’s a bit of luck, you haven’t earned it. You didn’t buy it, did you? So you don’t really deserve it. And if you try to benefit from it yourself, well, it might turn out not to be so lucky. It could turn out nasty. So maybe the thing to do is get rid of it. Pass it on. But if you pass it on to a friend, that might not be very friendly. You’d be passing on bad luck. So what they do is pass it on to a charity. Give it to a priest or something. So maybe that’s how Scampion came to be in possession of the ticket. Someone gave it him knowing that he couldn’t present it himself, so he wouldn’t be incurring bad luck. Knowing, too, that he would pass it on for them to some charitable cause.’

  ‘A priest, perhaps?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You could be right,’ said Seymour. ‘His sister told me that she was thinking of passing on his clothes to a priest. A particular priest who was a friend of his.’

  ‘I know him. Father Pepe. They got pally over a puncture. Father Pepe had a puncture one day. Scampion was riding by, and he had a repair kit. They got down to it together and friendship bloomed. They had an important thing in common, you see. They were both crazy about bicycles.’

  ‘Someone’s told me about this Father Pepe. Isn’t there some story about him and betting?’

  ‘That’s how he got his bicycle. Before he came to Naples he was in a village out in the countryside and he became persuaded that what he needed in order to perform his duties better was a bicycle. The parish, you see – or whatever Catholics call them – was a widespread one and the alternative was to walk on foot. But Father Pepe was a modernist, in his way, and he decided to buy a bicycle.

  ‘Being a lowly priest, he hadn’t any money of his own and he applied to his bishop. The bishop was not a modernist and didn’t think much of the idea. But Pepe was not the man to give up. He decided to place a bet with the National Lottery, reasoning that God would know better than the bishop and might be willing to favour his purpose. And, blow me, he won.