The Mafia Emblem

by Michael Hillier

  - 46 -

  The only possibility left to them was to get in to the attic area of the house through one of the small roof dormers that Ben remembered seeing when he was surveying the villa from the hillside above. The roof itself was fairly shallow-pitched and it should be quite easy to crawl on it once he had got up there. The eaves would have been too deep to reach without a ladder anywhere else around the building. But he believed these projecting balconies made it possible.

  Ben inspected the balcony rail carefully. The ornate ironwork had started to rust in the sea air but it still appeared to be quite sound. He tested it by putting as much of his weight as he could on it without risking over-balancing. It took the load without protest. He climbed on to it near the junction with the wall and stood up. It still seemed to be strong enough. He edged out from the wall to the front of the balcony. Now the edge of the roof was just above his head. He was glad to see that the gutter was solid cast iron and not the cheap, modern plastic stuff. It all seemed to be strong and sound. He let his weight hang on it and it didn’t deflect under the load. He jumped down lightly onto the balls of his feet. Then he pulled up the rope and coiled it on the balcony behind the shutter where no-one would see it.

  He spoke softly to Francesca. “I’ll get on to the balcony rail first. Then you get up beside me. I’ll show you what I want you to do.”

  He helped her up and supported her with an arm round her back. He noticed she was shivering. He wasn’t sure whether it was excitement or cold. For himself, he could feel the chill of the wind on his hands and cheeks but the rest of his body was glowing warm.

  “All right,” he whispered. “Can you reach up and catch hold of the gutter? Now – when I say, spring up as far as you can. I’ll give you a push to get you on to the tiles. Then, keeping as low as possible, I want you to crawl towards the nearest dormer.”

  Her white face looked up into his. “Oh, God. I don’t like this.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be just below you and I won’t let you fall. It’s nothing after what you’ve done this evening. Are you ready?”

  She nodded.

  “Right, then.”

  He reached down to find something to catch hold of so as to give her the greatest lift. The only obvious place was to put his hand in her crutch. It was hardly correct behaviour towards a young Italian maiden of good family. He hesitated, but now was not the time to bother about such niceties. He explained to her.

  “Sorry about this,” he muttered.

  Francesca hardly flinched as put his hand between her thighs. There was the ghost of a smile on her face, but she said nothing.

  “Are you ready?” They crouched down and he took a firm grip. “Now!”

  She sprang up and he hoisted her as she went. She was surprisingly light. His heave had her right up on the roof with just her legs dangling over. He pushed one foot as the rest of her disappeared from view with what seemed to be a large amount of rattling and creaking. He hoped the noises made by the wind would disguise it.

  Now Ben had to get up himself. This was more of a problem. It was a jump of over six feet and he had to get the whole if his body as far down as the waist over the gutter or he would lose his balance and fall back again. If he did fall he wasn’t sure he would find the balcony rail as he went down. He might well land inside the balcony and make a noise. Even worse, he might miss the rail altogether and be left dangling from the gutter.

  Well, there was no point in hesitating. He had to get on with it. He bent at the knees and went down to the full reach of his arms, flexing his body to prepare his muscles. Then, with a sudden furious burst of energy he threw himself upwards and outwards and over the gutter.

  He landed flat on his face on the tiles with a tremendous crash. Too late he realised that his hands were too close together. They were trapped underneath his body and he hadn’t got enough of his weight over the edge of the gutter. For a second he wobbled about his point of balance and he knew he was going to fall back. He tried to prepare himself to let his weight go down slowly enough to prevent losing his grip and falling to the ground.

  The next moment a small hand had grasped him firmly in the crutch and was pulling him onto the roof. Francesca had obviously decided not to follow his instructions to scramble up to the dormer.

  She hissed in his ear, “Sorry, but I couldn’t find anywhere else to catch hold of.”

  Ben was too breathless and startled to reply at first. Then he said, “Until a few days ago I thought you were an innocent young lady of high birth.”

  “Until a couple of days ago, I was.” She grinned roguishly.

  There wasn’t time to pursue that conversation further. The new tiles were quite rough and gave a good grip, but Ben didn’t want to be out on the roof any longer than was necessary. The nearest dormer was almost directly above them and about ten feet away. He crawled up to it and offered a hand to Francesca as she followed. The dormer was very small and had a fixed glass pane about two feet square. The only way to get in was to break it.

  He decided there was no point in messing around. Nobody seemed to have heard the noise of them climbing onto the roof, so he might as well make a little more noise. Arching his back, he pulled off his warm anorak. The wind immediately seemed to cut into him like a knife, giving new urgency to his actions.

  He rolled the jacket into a ball and placed it against the centre of the glass. Then he put his shoulder to it and pressed hard and firmly until there was a sharp report. When he took the jacket away there was a large star of cracks spreading to all the sides of the pane.

  He selected one of the biggest pieces and, wrapping his jacket round his fist, he applied more pressure to this part. It took a surprising amount of effort to make the glass give. Suddenly it snapped near the frame and fell into the room, followed by several other smaller pieces. There was a resounding tinkle. Surely someone must have heard that.

  Well, there was nothing to be done but to continue. Using his jacket like a mitten he started to wriggle away the pieces of glass around the hole. Piece by piece he wriggled it out and rested it against his crooked leg. It took him another ten minutes to remove the rest of the glass from the frame and during that time there had been no sound. With a bit of luck no-one had yet heard them.

  He brushed the bottom of the frame clear of broken fragments. Then he carefully wrapped the pieces of glass in his jacket which he handed to Francesca for safe keeping.

  “You can pass it to me when I’m inside.”

  As he looked at her he realized he could see her face more clearly than he had before. He glanced to the east. It was definitely starting to get light now. The sky was full of angry, glowering clouds. Clearly the fine weather had deserted them.

  “Must hurry,” he thought.

  There was no longer any chance of them getting out of the villa again unobserved. But they might still have a chance of finding Signor Vitelli before the rest of the house woke up. The fleeting idea of taking him hostage to get them out crossed Ben’s mind.

  Forget that for now. The first thing was to get in. He peered through the window to see what was inside. However his body blocked out what light there was and he couldn’t manage to discern any features inside the roof. He couldn’t even see if there was a floor. Well, there was nothing for it but to go in as quietly as he could.

  Catching hold of the front of the dormer, he pulled himself into a standing position. Then he slid his legs through the window and felt about carefully in the blackness with his feet. He didn’t come into contact with anything anywhere.

  Little by little he eased himself through the opening but still his searching feet could find nothing. How far down was the floor? Was there any floor? He daren’t just jump down because he didn’t know what he might land on.

  It wasn’t until he was resting on his shoulder blades and in considerable discomfort that his pointed toes rested on something solid. It seemed to bear his weight. Cautiously he lowered himself until he was standing firmly w
ith his head at window cill level.

  For a moment he waited for his eyes to adjust to the even dimmer light in the loft. As far as he could see the place was almost bare of the clutter which normally seems to gather in roof spaces but that didn’t seem significant.

  Ben turned back to the window and took his jacket and its burden of glass from Francesca. He placed it carefully on the floor behind him then went back to help her. Her feet were already on the cill. He helped her to sit down, then he caught her by the waist as she sprang through, landing lightly on her toes in front of him. Her face was smiling up at him. It dawned on Ben that now she was actually enjoying this adventure.

  “What a nice secret place.” Her lips were only inches from his.

  “We’ve got to get a move on,” he said, reluctantly tearing his eyes from her.

  She pretended to be put out. “Oh,” she asked innocently. “Are you in such a hurry?”

  She stepped back and, with a noise like thunder, she disappeared through the ceiling into the room below leaving a hole more than a foot and a half in diameter.