by Joseph Hone
Ben’s Story
This was a scrape we really had to get out of. I sat on my bed and rolled a cigarette. The phone was dead. One of the toughs, putting us both in our separate bedrooms, had disconnected it and taken the flex away, and locked me in. I could hear him, and the other fellow, walking up and down outside in the corridor. They’d taken rooms on the same fourth floor.
Well, there was only one way out and that was to tell O’Higgins all that I suspected about where the paintings might be, but I knew no more than him about this. Would he believe me? I didn’t know.
And then suddenly I thought maybe I do know. The Modi nude. Why had my father kept the painting hidden in the attic all those years, a painting in which he had no artistic interest? Why hadn’t he sold it, legally or illegally? Because the painting must have had some very special importance to him. All I’d thought about it was the secret behind the woman, Emelia. The woman behind the inscription ‘Emelia-Amedeo-Amore’ written on the canvas turnover, hidden by the edge of the hessian backing. But what if the real secret, something much more important to my father, was also hidden behind the backing, on the back of the actual canvas itself?
I went with O’Higgins for lunch at the Roma, a little restaurant next to the marble theatre just up the road from the hotel. One of the minders took another table close by, and I told O’Higgins all I suspected about where the hoard was hidden – somewhere in a cave in the marble-quarry mountains above us. And then I told him how I thought the directions might be hidden on the back of the Modi nude.
He had a slice of melon and a wafer of Parma ham almost into his mouth. He lowered the fork, and a glint of greed showed again in his eyes. ‘Of course! To think I never thought of that. Come on, Ben,’ he said, making me a friend and accomplice by using my Christian name, and finishing his melon and Parma ham in two mouthfuls. ‘We must move quickly.’
Back at the hotel we went up to his room. He unwrapped the painting and asked me to tear the hessian up along both edges of the frame.
And there it was. Several lines of writing in dark ink, my father’s hand, in Italian – and below it a drawing. O’Higgins was on tenterhooks. ‘So? What does it say?’
I translated the Italian. ‘“Colonnata Village. On a theodolite line taken from the top of the middle pinnacle on the church tower.” And then there are some figures: looks like “Thirty-something degrees south-west and at an elevation of forty-nine degrees”, I think it is, “In the valley of the twin peaks, between the Cave di Gioia and the Cave Cancelli di Gioia”.’
‘And the drawing?’ It showed what seemed a sheer rock face, high up, since it was between and not far below the two mountain peaks which my father had referred to. Marked high on the rock face, quite simply, was an X, like something from a child’s adventure book. X marks the spot.
O’Higgins beamed. ‘So, that cross must mark the opening to a cave!’
‘Yes. Those two quarries must have been my father’s. He must have hidden all the paintings there after the war, in a cave in some old workings, which he knew wouldn’t be disturbed later.’
‘And this Colonnata – where is it?’
‘It’s the marble village, end of the road, about six miles up the mountains from here.’
‘These twin peaks … they must be visible from the church tower.’
‘Probably, but that X on the drawing looks high up on the mountain. Could be difficult to get at.’
‘I have the men to get at it, trained in quarry and mountain work down at the marina, and a boat to get the stuff away.’
Elsa and I were guarded overnight by our minders, locked into our separate bedrooms. I couldn’t talk to her. Next morning one of the minders stayed behind in the hotel guarding Elsa, while O’Higgins and I – with the other minder, and two new men up from the marina – left for Colonnata in a big Toyota Land Cruiser. The new men, Italians, had the air of professionals. One of them versed in mining engineering, I thought, since he had a theodolite, tripods and other electronic equipment with him in the back of the truck. The second man a mountaineer, for the back of the truck was full of big coils of nylon rope, pitons, picks, pulleys, hammers and iron stakes.
We drove up the twisting mountain road, lush green trees to either side, another of those hot blue Tuscan mornings, a whole arc of sky opening above us as we approached the great white scarred peaks. We stopped in the tiny square at Colonnata. A dozen old red-tiled houses, a village hall with a church and a church tower, with three small stone pinnacles, above the piazza.
‘Well, that’s one confirmation,’ O’Higgins said. ‘The middle pinnacle, looking south-west.’
It took some time, asking at the café-grocery in the square, to get the key of the church tower. We waited outside the café while the minder went to look for the verger. The square was empty.
‘The locals all work down in Carrara, or in the quarries,’ I said.
We could hear the faint roar of machine saws and dump trucks above us, down the valley, but not on the twin-peaked mountain to the south-west, which we could see in the distance now, old white scars on it, the rest unworked. One of the Italians gazed at the mountain through powerful binoculars. He turned to O’Higgins.
‘No sign of any current workings,’ he said in English. ‘All old workings, and you can see a hairpin track, cut into the mountain, leading up to the most recent of them: but the track stops far below the summit, and way beneath that rock face where the oldest workings are, where the cross on that map is likely to be.’ He handed O’Higgins the binoculars, and consulted a large-scale map. ‘And if I’m right, the only way to get at that high rock face would be from above.’
The minder came back with the verger who opened the church and we climbed the steps inside the tower with the theodolite, tripod and camera, because they’d said they wanted to take photographs from the tower for an Italian travel magazine.
At the top there was a marvellous view, and a clearer sight of the twin peaks. They set up the theodolite just above the middle pinnacle of the tower, moved the lens first into the horizontal degree which my father had given in his directions, and then raised it into the vertical angle. The second Italian gazed through the lens, moving it slightly from side to side, then up and down, until finally he was satisfied.
‘Yes, the cross-hairs focus exactly on that rock face, the old workings, thirty or forty metres down from the plateau between the two peaks.’ He moved to gaze through the binoculars, which had been set on another tripod. After a minute he said, ‘There’s a line of old workings there. Partly cut blocks of marble, on narrow terraces down the rock face, dropping for about fifty metres, and then there’s a sheer drop, no way up to the old terraces. Those high workings must have given out, so they started again, to the side or lower down the mountain. There’s no way to get at those old workings except from above.’
‘Do you have the exact part of the rock face – identifiable by one of those marble blocks – where that cross is on the map?’
‘Almost exactly. It’s the second terrace down, about thirty metres down and fifty metres along from the western end of the terrace, with quite a bit of partly cut marble blocks at that point. Somewhere there, behind those loose blocks – there must be an entrance.’
‘Good. Good.’
O’Higgins was sweating, fidgeting with anticipation.
We drove out of the village, up one rough track and then along another, followed by a succession of rising hairpin bends, down through a small valley to the left of the twin peaks, then turning up behind them, to the west, along another twisting track that ended at an old disused quarry working. We had to go on foot at this stage, carrying the ropes and other equipment, up a slippery scree of old marble chippings, moving between the two peaks towards the level ridge, among alpine lichens now on bare craggy rock. At the top of the ridge, at three or four thousand feet, there was a sensational view. Carrara in the distance, the hazy pale-blue sea beyond.
We moved down towards the edge o
f the ridge, gingerly, because we were on a slope now and the stones were loose. The ridge ended in a sheer precipice. We stopped. One of the Italians crawled forward on his belly, looked over the edge, then crawled back, stood up, dusted his hands.
‘Yes, it’s there, the rock face we want and the terrace of old marble blocks – about thirty metres beneath us.’ He hacked the rock beneath the loose stones with the heel of his boot.
‘Absolutely solid. A couple of stakes, abseil down.’
The two Italians inspected the terrain thoroughly, and hacked the loose rock away with small picks, finding a secure place to hammer their stakes in. They uncoiled two lengths of nylon rope, attached them to pulleys at the top of each stake, now deeply embedded in the rock, and put on body harnesses and belts carrying pitons, small picks and torches. Then, feet first, they eased themselves towards the precipice, played out their ropes and disappeared over the edge.
O’Higgins, myself and the minder waited above in the fierce sun. After about fifteen minutes we saw the pulleys moving on the stakes. The two men returned, sweating, but pleased. The first man, who had the best English, spoke to O’Higgins. ‘There’s an opening between two half-cut marble blocks, the second terrace down, about fifty metres in from the southern end. There are no other possible openings anywhere along the terrace, all solid blocks, partly cut into the rock face. So that must be it.’
‘How wide is the opening?’ O’Higgins was excited.
‘Several metres.’
‘And how high?’
‘About two metres.’
‘That must be it. Tall and wide enough to get big canvases in. Did you go inside?’
‘Yes.’
‘How far?’
‘Only a few metres. The entrance was closed then by a block of solid marble, but there is a narrow entrance beside the block, just wide enough to get through.’
‘Well, that’s the way in. So go down again, squeeze in and see what’s inside.’
The two men crawled back, feet first, and disappeared over the edge again.
O’Higgins fidgeted, impatient. A gust of wind took his straw hat and it sailed away over the cliff, swirling about like a kite, before drifting down into the huge valley below. O’Higgins put a hand to his bald pate quickly, trying to cover it, as if his private parts had been exposed. The minder, mopping his brow, sat down on the rock near me. I rolled a cigarette. The three of us waited in the hot sun. Five, ten minutes, fifteen.
Then the explosion. Deafening. Just below our feet, it seemed. A cracking series of explosions, or it may have been the echoes reverberating round the valley, for half a minute. Finally silence.
‘My God!’ O’Higgins yelped. And then, to the minder, ‘See if you can see anything below.’
The man crawled forward, and leant over the edge.
‘Can you see anything?’ O’Higgins called out.
The man half-turned. ‘No, I can’t see –’
And that was all he said before the entire edge of the precipice, loosened by the explosion just beneath, gave way and disappeared. We heard his screams on the way down.
That just left me and O’Higgins. I looked at him, appraisingly. I was bigger than him. He was frightened. Thinking of help from below he started to tug at one of the two ropes, but there was no weight on it. He did the same with the other rope, pulling it all the way up. Just blackened fibre strands at the end. He pulled the first rope up. It was in the same state.
I turned to O’Higgins, shaking one of the scorched ends at him. ‘The entrance was booby-trapped.’ I said.
I wondered if O’Higgins had a gun on him. I waited a moment. Clearly he hadn’t. He would have got it out by now. Guns had been the minder’s job. And, yes, I was bigger and younger and tougher than O’Higgins. I moved towards him, with menace.
‘Don’t!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t throw me over there! For the love of God!’
‘I think you’d do well,’ I said, ‘to follow your hat.’
I wasn’t sure what else to do with him. Truss him up with all the rope about? Leave him on the mountaintop? No, I had to take him back with me to Carrara and hand him over to the police. While I was thinking, he’d been thinking, too. And now he was talking fast.
‘The police will be up here any minute, Ben. They’ll have heard the explosion all over the valley. If we leave now in the truck we’ll both get clear away, no questions asked.’
‘You’ve got it wrong again, O’Higgins. I’m not one of you. Come on back to the car to Carrara and the police.’
‘You’re not one of us?’ He laughed. ‘Oh yes you are. You came back here to Carrara to get the stuff in that cave and you knew it was booby-trapped, so we’d go down first and you’d get us out of the way. You’re in this up to your neck, like your father, both of you crooks – and the Italian police certainly won’t believe otherwise. So you come on with me – now, while we have the chance.’
O’Higgins was right about my father. It was clear now that he was a criminal, and worse. The explosion had finally proved that he had hidden the rest of the art in the cave. Finally I had confirmation of all my worst fears about my father, the father I had loved. But I wasn’t going to argue with O’Higgins. I said, ‘I’ll take my chances with the police. And so will you.’
He changed tack now, became petulant. ‘All right, be like that. I’ll take my chances alone.’ He turned and ran, down the other side of the mountain, as fast as his fat little legs would carry him, which wasn’t far. Unable to slow down, he slipped on the loose scree and started to roll down the hill, on and on, like a child playing a roly-poly game down a meadow slope, until he was lost to sight over a ridge.
I moved down carefully to the edge. It wasn’t a steep fall, and he lay amidst some rocks, about twenty yards beneath me, spread-eagled, motionless. I got down to him. He was semi-conscious, bleeding from a head wound. I took the red hanky from the breast pocket of his torn and soiled linen suit, and staunched the wound on his bald pate. Embarrassed again, he tried to cover his head with a hand, but couldn’t move his arm, wincing in pain. It was probably broken. He looked up, seeming to appeal to me with his watery eyes, and I pitied him a moment, and said, ‘My God, O’Higgins, why didn’t you stick to conning old ladies out of their heirlooms in Foxrock?’
There was a faint, rictus smile. He didn’t speak. I covered his head with the hanky, making a sort of tight turban with it over his head, so that the blood was staunched. He fainted. I loosened his tie, opened his collar, propped him up against a rock, letting the blood run to his feet, and waited.
I’d already heard a siren down in the valley, and now I heard an engine groaning up the mountain track. Another few minutes and the carabinieri jeep appeared, stopping at the end of the track where they’d parked the Toyota. Two carabinieri got out and came up towards us. Of course there remained one vital problem – the other minder was still holding Elsa prisoner back in her hotel bedroom.
As O’Higgins had said, the carabinieri, like the superintendent at Ulm, were not inclined to believe what I told them on the way back down the mountain. They took O’Higgins straight to the new hospital in the upper town, then returned with me to the carabinieri headquarters in Carrara, a fine classical building opposite the Academia delle Arte. I spoke to the carabinieri chief, a tall, dark-haired man with a luxuriant moustache. A nameplate above his breast pocket read ‘Chief Superintendent Giorgio Marello’.
‘You have to believe me.’ I spoke in Italian, in his airless office looking over the Academia. ‘What do you think they were doing abseiling down that mountain? Did it look like a climbing holiday? They’re all crooks. And the proof of that is back at the Hotel Michelangelo right now, where one of them is holding my friend in her bedroom. Elsa Bergen – we have to get her out without his harming her.’
The chief turned to a colleague, a younger man. ‘Get a plain-clothes man down to the hotel and talk to Carlo, the manager – see if what he says is true.’
‘Why would I bother to
lie?’ I was annoyed, exhausted, alarmed about Elsa.
‘We have to check, Signor Contini. It’s a difficult story to believe.’ He brushed his moustache. ‘Your father, Luchino Contini, hiding a vast store of paintings, Italian masterpieces, looted by the Nazis, up in that quarry.’
‘Well, get up there and see for yourself. The explosion may have burst open the cave behind.’
He nodded. ‘We’ll do that.’
‘Good. It’s your affair now, Chief Superintendent.’
He stood up, moved about the room, went to the window. Turning, he said, ‘Your father Signor Luchino Contini, he and his family owned those two quarries up there beneath the twin peaks. They were a very well-known family round these parts.’
‘Yes, but they were Jews, all murdered except my father.’
‘That’s true. You see, my father worked for the Contini Marble Enterprise here. Not in the quarries, but down at the main office at the marina. He was an accountant, chief clerk to the quarry manager who lived up here in Carrara.’
‘The manager?’
‘Yes. A Signor Roberto Battaglia. He ran everything here, your father lived abroad, only came here once or twice a year.’
I became alert now because, as I had thought, my father surely had an accomplice: this manager must have collaborated with him all along, until the late sixties when my father, with his friend Joseph Bergen in Dublin – with their fill of the loot, and not wanting to take any more risks in getting the stuff out – had sold the quarries.
‘This Signor Battaglia … is he still alive?’
‘No. He died about ten years ago.’
‘And your father?’
‘Also dead.’ I said, ‘You see the implications? The cave was booby-trapped. And Battaglia must have had a hand in helping my father get the paintings out. My father couldn’t have done all that on his own. The two of them were in it together, the manager getting a fat cut of the proceeds.’
‘Yes, that makes sense.’ The chief went to the window again, turned. ‘My father always thought there was something suspicious about Battaglia. He knew exactly what his salary was from the Contini enterprise. And I remember in the sixties, when I was a teenager, Battaglia bought an old palazzo here, did it up expensively, and got a big cruiser down at the marina. Took us all out on it. I remember that. He’d clearly come into a large amount of money.’