The Liberation

by Kate Furnivall

  ‘It might be dangerous for you, that’s all I meant.’

  ‘It’s too late for that, Captain Fielding,’ she said. ‘Who am I in danger from this time?’

  But Jake Parr cut in. ‘Do you have Sal Sardo locked up safe in the cells?’ he asked Fielding.

  ‘Yes. The man’s a damn weasel.’ He grimaced with distaste. ‘He gives one answer to every question. “I know nothing. Niente”.’

  Jake Parr turned to Caterina. ‘Would you mind waiting here, Signorina Lombardi, while I question this man?’

  ‘No, Major. I won’t wait.’

  The edges of his mouth tightened.

  ‘I won’t wait, Major. I will come with you. I want to see whether I recognise this prisoner of yours, if he is one of the thieves. Let me see if I can identify him.’

  ‘No.’ The word was flat. Absolute.

  ‘Jake, she might be right,’ Harry Fielding pointed out reasonably. ‘Think about it. She could help us.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t want her there.’

  As if she were a stranger to him, as if he had not felt the warmth of her hands on his hips or put his lips on her cigarette.

  ‘Major.’ Caterina’s voice was quiet. ‘It is the price I ask for my co-operation.’

  A silence fell, as abrupt as a door clicking shut.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Jake saw no glimmer of recognition when Caterina Lombardi set eyes on Sal Sardo for the first time on the other side of the grille. Just a brief shake of her head.

  ‘Niente! Niente!’ The words came from the interrogation room.

  Harry Fielding was questioning the prisoner, but using the soft touch. To lower his guard. Sal Sardo was forty-two, thin and twitchy, his bones restless inside his skin. with chestnut-brown hair in need of a brush and a face that looked as though it had been squeezed to a point from peering through too many keyholes. Jake had known wastrels like this back in Milwaukee, stoolies who turned police informer or were runners for some two-bit criminal.

  ‘Nice and easy, Harry,’ he murmured under his breath, as he peered through the metal grille that divided the dark observation cubicle from the harshly lit interrogation room.

  Beside Jake, Caterina Lombardi’s small frame was perched on a seat, her knee almost touching his own. He had motioned her to silence when they entered the cramped cubicle, but he was never sure with her. She was clever, he had to admit that. The way she’d manoeuvred him into compliance with her request to sit in on the interview. It both impressed and annoyed him.

  ‘So, Sal,’ Harry was asking for the tenth time, ‘what were you up to in that basement with all those stolen items?’

  ‘Madonna mia,’ Sal Sardo whined, scrunching a greasy black cap between his fingers. ‘I told you already. I have nowhere to sleep. I break into people’s basements for the night or into empty houses, but I do no harm, I tell you. It was dark. I had no idea what was in the stinking rat-infested hole. I would never have gone near it if I’d known what was there.’ He shot Harry a look of hostility. ‘How the hell was I to know your lot would come charging in at dawn?’

  ‘Ruined your beauty sleep, did they?’

  Sardo scowled. ‘You got nothing on me. Niente.’

  Harry gave a patient half-smile and sat back in his chair. ‘Well, Sal, I don’t see it like that. What I want to know is why you were carrying a knife?’

  ‘Why do you think? It’s fucking dangerous out there on the streets.’

  ‘The house was deserted. The owner died in the war. How long had you been staying there?’

  ‘One night, that’s all.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Si.’

  ‘And how did you get in?’

  Sardo sighed with exaggeration and abandoned the cap. His fingers started on the buttons of his fraying blue shirt. ‘I told you all this stuff already. It was through an air vent. I kicked in the cover and crawled inside. I couldn’t see nothing in the dark.’

  ‘You had a torch in your pocket.’

  ‘Si, but I was scared to use it. In case anyone saw.’

  ‘So you knew you were breaking the law,’ Harry said sharply. The smile had gone.

  ‘Come on, Captain. I needed somewhere to sleep.’

  ‘Who told you about it?’

  ‘No one. I found the place myself.’

  ‘Very convenient. A bedroom for you with thousands of pounds’ worth of treasure in Renaissance artefacts.’

  Sal slumped further in his chair. ‘I told you, I didn’t know it was there.’

  ‘Who paid you to guard it?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘Lies, Sal. All lies.’ Harry rose to his feet dismissively.

  ‘No, it’s the truth, I swear.’

  Harry let a dusty silence settle in the room.

  ‘Last chance, Sal,’ he said. ‘Give me some names.’

  ‘I know nothing, Captain.’

  Harry strode to the door, but paused to glance back over his shoulder.

  ‘Tell me this, Sal. What do you know about the jeweller, Bartoli, the one whose body was dragged out of Naples harbour the other day?’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘You’re a fool, Sal Sardo,’ Henry said through tight lips. ‘And very soon, without our protection, you’ll be a dead fool.’

  Jake walked into the bare and comfortless interrogation room. It smelled. Not of unwashed bodies or fear or even the usual disinfectant. To him it smelled of sadness and it was emanating from the black rectangle of the grille on the wall. He was acutely aware of Caterina Lombardi’s invisible presence behind it. He wanted her involved. That’s why he’d brought her here today, because he was certain there were things in her head that he needed to know, a key that would unlock a door in his investigations.

  But he didn’t trust himself not to want her involved for other reasons as well, reasons that he didn’t care to examine too closely. He pushed the thought aside and took a seat at the small table. He inspected Sal Sardo opposite him, aware of his bad breath, and it flitted through his mind to wonder if the tremor on Sardo’s lips was actually a prayer.

  ‘Name?’ Jake demanded.

  ‘I’ve already told . . .’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Salvatore Sardo.’

  His neck sank down between his shoulders, looking more tortoise than weasel.

  ‘Address?’

  ‘No address. I live on the street.’

  His voice was surly. Jake liked that. When a suspect passes through the early frightened and defensive stage to the angry and resentful stage, he is liable to lose his temper and make mistakes.

  ‘So you slept in that basement overnight.’

  ‘Si.’

  ‘By chance.’

  ‘Si.’

  ‘With a host of holy religious treasures from the churches of Naples.’

  A sigh. ‘Si.’

  ‘Look at me, Sardo.’

  Sardo had been gazing at his own grimy fingers on the edge of the table but now he looked up, quick and furtive.

  ‘My name is Major Parr. Do I look like a fool to you?’

  ‘No, Major Parr. No, no, of course not.’

  ‘So pay attention. You were in that basement as a watchman for someone, a useless watchman, but a watchman nonetheless.’

  Sardo was shaking his head.

  ‘I want,’ Jake continued, ‘the name of the man who employed you to be there.’

  ‘I know nothing. Niente.’

  Jake’s hand slapped down hard on the table, making the prisoner jump out of his skin and a strange wailing sound whooped from his mouth before being swiftly silenced.

  ‘Listen to me, you piece of gutter garbage,’ Jake snapped, ‘I will throw you in a cell and toss the key in the harbour if you don’t give me some straight answers. Who set you up to do it?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘I am going to charge you with being in possession of the stolen property hoarded in th
at basement – gold candlesticks, a marble statue of Christ and the Madonna, six silver crosses, three carved . . .’

  ‘No!’ Sardo’s fingers started to drum on the edge of the table but he seemed unaware of them. ‘I am innocent,’ he wailed.

  ‘How did you transport the marble statue? Who helped? Give me a name.’

  The head-shaking and shoulder-twitching started up again. ‘You have no right to keep me here.’

  ‘I have every right to detain thieves.’

  ‘I am not a thief. I know . . .’

  ‘Niente. So you keep saying.’ Jake abruptly leaned back in his chair, easing the pressure on the man opposite him. He considered providing a cigarette but decided against it. ‘So you used to be a carter, hauling goods around Naples.’

  The drumming stopped instantly. Sardo regarded his inquisitor through narrow eyes. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘It is my job to know things. It is your job to answer my questions. I say again, you had a horse and cart and used to make deliveries. Right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Just in Naples?’

  ‘No. To the villages as well. To Messigno and Starza Vecchia.’

  ‘To Sorrento?’

  Sardo pushed his hands between his knees as if he didn’t trust them not to run wild. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘It’s a long way.’

  Sardo shrugged, the sharp bones of his shoulders jabbing the thin material of his jacket. ‘My Vulcan was strong, a big powerful horse who could pull all day. Muscles like boulders and brown eyes that would melt even your stony heart, Major. He was my . . .’ He stuttered, swallowed hard, and tried again. ‘He was my good friend.’

  Jake saw the man’s face change. Its hard angular points softened, his lips grew loose, his grey eyes blurred.

  ‘Tell me,’ Jake said, matching his tone to his prisoner’s, ‘what did you deliver?’

  ‘Machinery, furniture, shop goods, crates of oranges, anything that was wanted. Vulcan could haul it up the mountain as easy as one of your American Sherman tanks.’

  Jake nodded. Seemingly in no hurry. ‘Did you deliver to Antonio Lombardi in Sorrento?’

  Bull’s eye.

  The man’s hands started dancing all over the table. ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘Or to the Cavaleri place?’

  ‘I don’t recall that name.’

  ‘What happened to the horse?’

  To his horror, Sardo’s small eyes filled with tears. ‘When the war came, I couldn’t feed him any more. We were starving, both Vulcan and me. Not even grass to eat.’ He dragged in a whistling breath. ‘So I ate him.’

  Sardo dropped his face in his hands and sobbed like a baby. Jake realised he would get nothing more out of his prisoner today and after smoking another cigarette in silence, he decided Sardo would be of more use to him back out on the streets.

  Jake opened the door to the observation cubicle. Adrenaline was still charging through his veins like a boxer after a bout. It was always the same after an interrogation. He could smell Sardo’s guilt the way he could smell shit on his shoe.

  In the dim light he could make out Harry Fielding in his seat, bent over a notebook and writing furiously. It was hot and airless in the small space and a line of sweat had gathered at the base of Fielding’s neck – or was that adrenaline too? Jake knew he was lucky to have the English guy on his team, watching his back.

  But when he looked around for the white figure of Caterina Lombardi, as though she might be hiding in one of the dark corners, she was gone.

  Caterina was patient. She waited. She watched. Wreathed in shadow. Traffic was grinding past in a plume of grit and fumes, and the heat was turning the bandage on her arm grey with sweat.

  Finally the man came scurrying down the front steps of the old palazzo. The pavement was busy with military uniforms, flashing epaulettes and polished brass, but he dodged between them, head down, scuffed sandals held together with string. The cap that he had been scrunching in his fist was now on his head. He did not see her step out into his path until her arm slid through his and steered him into a grubby alleyway that stank of last night’s vomit.

  ‘Sal,’ Caterina said softly, ‘come stai? How are things?’

  Sal Sardo squealed. His eyes grew wide and his nostrils flared with panic as he tried to dislodge her arm from its grip on him, but it wasn’t going anywhere.

  ‘Caterina, what in the sweet name of Jesus are you doing here?’

  His eyes were jumping in his head, darting to everything except her face.

  ‘I want a word, Sal.’

  ‘What about?’

  She smiled. She waited until he looked directly at her, then she jingled a few coins in her hand. ‘Let me buy you a beer.’

  He grinned.

  The bar was in Camorra territory. They both knew that, but neither of them mentioned the strangeness of his choice or the danger of trespassing where you were not wanted. Maybe it was because Sal knew that neither the army nor the police liked to venture into this violent area of Naples where the rules were Camorra rules. They sat in a corner, backs to a grimy wall, one eye on the door at all times. The Naples mafia would know they were there. If it chose to tolerate them, it was for a reason. That thought made Caterina uneasy. Spread out through the bar were six other men, two of them playing briscola, but all of them made a point of keeping their gaze off the two strangers at the back.

  ‘I’m sorry about your father,’ Sal said as soon as the beer was set in front of him.

  Caterina swirled her coffee, trying to drown his words in it.

  ‘I’m sorry about Vulcan,’ she said and raised her cup. ‘To Papà and Vulcan. May they be in a special heaven for big-hearted woodworkers and horses.’

  Sal sniffed loudly and knocked back half his beer. ‘So, Caterina Lombardi. What’s this about?’

  ‘Why did they let you go?’

  ‘Who? Those fucking army bastards?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘They had nothing on me. I didn’t do nothing.’ His eyes screwed into narrow slits. ‘What do you know about it?’

  ‘They’re questioning me too. About Papà.’

  His hands grabbed the lip of the table, scarred by cigarette burns, and for a moment she feared he would bolt. She would never find him again in this shattered city.

  ‘This is me you’re talking to, Sal. Not Major Parr. You used to give me rides on Vulcan’s broad back, remember?’

  But Sal was all over the place and suddenly started pulling at the skin at the sides of his fingernails, tearing off strips till they were raw.

  ‘Don’t, Sal.’

  Caterina laid a hand on one of his to calm him, and a flood of words came pouring from him, but in a dialect she didn’t understand. Before Italy was united into one country in 1861 most Italians didn’t speak Italian because the citizens of every major city – Rome, Venice, Florence, Milan – had their own language. Even now it could cause confusion when someone reverted to their local dialect instead of using the Tuscan language that was generally adopted as the Italian language.

  ‘Sal,’ Caterina whispered. ‘I told them nothing. I didn’t mention your name.’

  Sal picked up his beer and lapsed into silence. His eyebrows kept on the move as if chasing his thoughts.

  ‘I believed my father was a decent honourable man,’ Caterina said in a low voice, ‘I looked up to him all my life, but now . . .’

  ‘He was a decent man. And he loved you even more than he loved his wood.’ A rare smile flashed across Sal’s bony face. ‘And that says a lot.’

  Caterina couldn’t find an answering smile. ‘All those years that you were delivering the veneers that he imported into Naples, you were bringing stolen antiques for him to work on as well, weren’t you?’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘I often asked him why he didn’t have the veneers brought to Sorrento by boat from Naples – it would have been easier. What a blind stupid fool I was. Papà always said he wanted to give you the work, rather t
han anybody else.’ A tremor spilled through her hands. ‘Now I know why.’

  ‘Don’t despise him, Caterina.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He was your father. He deserves respect. He was a good man.’

  ‘He was robbing Italy.’

  Sal ran a hand across his mouth and stared at his empty glass. ‘We all have to survive in our own way,’ he muttered.

  ‘Who employed you? Who paid you to cart these valuable wooden antiques to my father? Was it the Camorra? Tell me that much, Sal, and I’ll buy you a brandy to go with your beer. If you . . .’

  Her glance flicked to the door. A man had entered, wearing shabby blue overalls and a greasy cap. Nothing remarkable in that. But from the moment he stepped through the doorway he ignored everyone in the gloomy room except Sal and Caterina, whom he was regarding with open interest. He slouched over to the bar’s counter and a beer was placed in front of him without any words passing. Unlike the other scrawny customers, this man’s face was well-rounded and his stomach curved like a ripe pumpkin. Caterina took it as a bad sign. Honest Italians went hungry these days.

  She lowered her voice to an urgent whisper. ‘Who paid you, Sal?’

  Sal’s restlessness was growing. She could feel the tension in him twisting to snapping point and his eyes looked into hers with a pained expression.

  ‘You ask too many questions, Caterina.’

  ‘Who arranged where you should pick up and deliver?’

  ‘A man, Caterina. Just a man. And no, I don’t know his name.’

  ‘Was he one of the Camorra or . . .?’

  ‘I don’t ask questions,’ he hissed at her. ‘I do what I am paid to do and take my money.’

  ‘Is that what my father did?’

  ‘Don’t disrespect your father. There was more to it than that for him.’ His hands were leaping up and down his glass.

  ‘What do you mean, “more to it”?’ She frowned as she tried to make sense of his words. ‘What—?’

  ‘Enough, Caterina. Where’s the brandy you promised me?’

  His gaze shifted to the bar with a narrow smile but it froze on his face at the sight of the man standing there in overalls, beer in hand. Sal leapt to his feet, knocking over his glass, which rolled with a crash to the floor.

  ‘Andiamo,’ he said in a rush. ‘Let’s go.’ Without waiting for Caterina, he raced for the door.