The Liberation

by Kate Furnivall

  ‘I am trying to help,’ Caterina said.

  ‘I want no help from you.’

  ‘Your son Roberto and my father were working together, weren’t they? Secretly. Illegally.’

  She kept her voice pitched beneath the noise of the sellers and the shoppers, who were bickering over the price of a box of tomatoes or a scoop of beans. A man pushed past with a chicken dangling from his fist by its yellow feet, its wings flapping in vain.

  ‘Do not speak ill of the dead, girl.’

  ‘It’s true though, isn’t it?’

  Augusta Cavaleri did not confirm it. Or deny it. Her mouth sat closed in a hard line, yet her silence confirmed in Caterina’s mind that her guess was correct and Roberto Cavaleri had been up to his neck in the criminal activity.

  ‘And your other son, Stefano? Is he involved in it now?’

  Augusta Cavaleri’s stare was unforgiving. ‘Go away,’ she hissed again.

  ‘I think we should talk,’ Caterina responded. But she did exactly as the woman requested and walked away from the market to its edge, where a lime tree spread its branches like a dusty old umbrella. She stood alone in its shade and waited.

  She watched the tussle unfold within the austere woman, saw her take two steps away, then turn back and stare first at the small cart and then at Caterina herself. The heat didn’t seem to touch her. Her skin looked cold and joyless. She walked over to join Caterina, her long black skirt scarcely rippling as she moved.

  ‘What is it you want, Caterina Lombardi?’

  So Caterina asked her questions.

  ‘Do you know of a place where your son, Roberto, used to store repaired antiques?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you heard of a jewelled table my father made?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do the names Caesar Club, Aldo or Count di Marco mean anything to you?’

  ‘No.’

  Augusta Cavaleri refused to look at her interrogator. She gazed up at a riot of cherry-red geraniums in a window across the street.

  ‘You’ve heard that the Rocco brothers were killed early this morning?’ Caterina asked.

  ‘Yes.’ Augusta Cavaleri shook her head in its jet-black scarf. ‘It is the work of the devil.’

  ‘I believe it is the work of Drago Vincelli.’

  It took a long moment for the woman to react. ‘Do you?’ She looked at Caterina properly for the first time. ‘Do you also remember the day your grandfather was found?’

  ‘Of course.’

  How could Caterina ever forget? In the narrow ravine with its steep sides. Nonno lying there in pieces. She had been ten. Her blue dress was torn and shredded as she thrashed through the undergrowth, shouts echoing up the steep rise of rock like the voices of ghosts. The blood on his white hair. On his face. She had squatted beside him until the stretcher came, squeezing his fingers tight to hold on to his life.

  ‘Yes, I remember.’

  ‘Do you remember what your grandfather said caused him to fall?’

  ‘Yes. He said he was out walking, saw a partridge with a broken wing and chased it. But he lost his footing and crashed down to the bottom.’

  ‘And you believed it?’

  A pain in Caterina’s ribcage cut through to the bone. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you want to know the truth?’ The words were relentless.

  ‘Yes.’

  Both were oblivious to the voices at the market stalls and the rustle of leaves above their heads. Somewhere someone was frying onions with garlic and it spiked the air.

  ‘The truth. Tell me the truth, signora.’

  ‘It was the work of that devil of yours,’ Augusta Cavaleri stated, ‘Drago Vincelli. Some say it was because he and your father had fallen out over work they were doing together. But I heard that it was because of your mother.’

  ‘My mother?’

  The woman’s scar puckered across her forehead. ‘Yes. Everyone knew she’d been seen having a good time with Vincelli in Naples for some time. But when he wanted your mother to leave your father and come to him, she refused.’ Her voice was bitter. ‘She had her eye on better. When she refused him, he and that henchman of his hurled your grandfather down into the gorge to show Lucia Lombardi and everyone else what happened to anyone who was stupid enough to thwart his desires.’

  There was a whirring inside Caterina’s head. She put out a hand. Felt the old woman grasp it.

  ‘That same day,’ Augusta Cavaleri continued implacably, ‘your mother persuaded my son Roberto to run away with her and I never saw him again.’ She spoke fast. Suddenly in a hurry. ‘And now she’s back.’

  Her gaze drifted down to the covered cart at Caterina’s feet.

  ‘Tell Lucia Lombardi to stay away from Sorrento.’ She exhaled so hard that the air whistled from her lungs. ‘Tell that whore from me, she is not welcome here.’

  Caterina had laid a trail. Straight to herself. She sat on the scannella in her workshop, cutting out the delicate shape of an eagle’s wing tips from a rich walnut veneer, and she knew they would come.

  The cart had been a lure. A tease. To draw them into the open and make them show their faces. She was sick of eyes hiding in the shadows. Whoever was watching her would be curious to know what it was she had transported from one end of Sorrento to another. Her foot pedalled in a comfortable rhythm, working the hair-fine steel blade that sliced through the veneer as she guided it around each miniature feather. The familiarity was comforting, her skill innate. Her fingers demanded no attention, but performed their task effortlessly.

  All her thoughts centred on the door to her workshop and the metal bar she had fixed across it. Another iron pole leaned against the wall beside it. She may not have Nonno’s gun, but she was ready. She understood now. She had compassion for the reason her grandfather wanted to sleep with a pistol tight under his pillow and a knife rammed down the side of his chair. She understood why his stick was so eager to lash out. To hurt.

  ‘Get out of my house and never come back.’

  Oh Nonno.

  It is not her we have to punish. It is him.

  They came. One by one.

  The first was Carlo, Augusta Cavaleri’s grandson. He banged at the door, called her name cheerily and looked askance at the iron pole but passed no comment. He breezed through the workshop, full of charm and stories to tell, like a beam of sunlight sliding unexpectedly into her day. He kissed her cheek, admired her work on the eagle design, stuck two of its wooden feathers above his lip as a moustache to make her laugh. But there was no laughter in her. Not today.

  She asked him outright if he knew anything more about the murder of the Rocco brothers and the soldiers, but he shook his head in exaggerated sorrow, his long curls dancing around his handsome face. Caterina reminded herself that it was his father who had run off with her mother, and whereas for years when they were young their shared bewilderment and pain had bound them together, now it seemed to divide them.

  ‘How is shoemaking going in Naples?’ she enquired. The rhythmic hum of the treadle under her foot was the background music to her words, operating the tiny saw with a reciprocating motion. ‘Do you use machines or is it all done by hand?’

  His eyes shone as he described the process, but she was aware of the way he paid more attention to what was stacked in the corners of the room than to her. He prowled as he talked, prodding at things, fiddling with drawers, stubbing his foot against cardboard boxes.

  ‘Carlo,’ she interrupted, ‘how do you know the Bartolis? Why did they employ you?’

  ‘When my father lived here in Sorrento he used to be friendly with Signor Bartoli.’

  ‘Did they belong to a club together?’

  He jabbed an idle finger into a drawer and nodded.

  ‘Was it called the Caesar Club?’

  ‘I think maybe it was.’ He gave her a smile, making light of it, giving it no importance.

  ‘Do you know what the Caesar Club is about?’

  ‘No idea. A place for m
embers to go drinking together?’

  ‘Carlo, did your grandmother send you over here?’

  He laughed at that. ‘Of course not. I came to say hello and to see how you are.’ He lied beautifully. ‘I heard about the Naples bomb.’

  ‘Tell your grandmother that if she wants to know the contents of my cart, she’ll have to come and ask me herself.’

  She smiled at him and he had the grace to blush.

  The second knock on the door was soft. More of a scratch, fingernails on wood. No voice to announce their owner. Caterina jumped off the seat of the scannella and stood just inside the door, listening. There was no sound, no shuffling of feet with impatience.

  ‘Who is it?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s me. Leonora.’

  Caterina had not expected that name. She threw open the door and scooped the girl inside, slamming the door behind her.

  ‘Leonora, how did you find me here?’

  ‘I asked around.’

  That was all she needed, a count’s granddaughter chasing through the town, asking after her. The girl was wearing a white cheesecloth shirt and loose silky trousers, the white dog at her side, its muzzle held high as it drew in the strange mix of smells of wood and oil. An odd colourless couple that did not quite seem to belong anywhere.

  Leonora immediately wound her arms around Caterina’s neck and squeezed her tight. ‘I thought you were hurt. That night in Naples. I was frantic when I couldn’t find you. I came back to look for you.’

  The girl kissed Caterina’s hair and didn’t let her go.

  ‘It’s all right, Leonora, I’m not hurt.’ Gently she unwound her friend’s arms. ‘But what happened to you? Why did you run away? Before the bomb went off.’

  ‘I was worried about Bianchezza.’ Her hand slid along the snowy fur. ‘I felt something was wrong and I had to get home to Capri. Forgive me for deserting you. I am not . . .’ she shrugged her slight shoulders, ‘reliable.’

  Caterina wanted to believe her. That it was nothing, just a sudden whim to flee home, back to Capri and to her dog. But she wasn’t sure she did believe her. The girl was jumpy and excited.

  ‘What is it, Leonora? What’s going on?’

  ‘I brought you this.’

  She slid a strap off her shoulder and threw down Caterina’s canvas bag on her worktable. It was the bag she had left in Leonora’s bedroom when they changed into the elegant evening gowns for the nightclub.

  ‘I thought you’d want it,’ Leonora added, her dark bob swinging forward with excitement. ‘You might need it tonight,’ she whispered.

  Caterina did not hesitate. She snatched up the bag. They both knew what lay inside it.

  The third knock on the door was brisk and to the point.

  But this time Caterina’s heart did not leap to her throat and her hands lay calm in her lap, because this time they were wrapped around the Bodeo. Her finger carefully released the safety-catch, that was all. She and Leonora were sitting on two hard chairs, positioned to face the door, the metal bar securely in place while Caterina narrowed her eyes and considered the plan that Leonora had laid out with such eagerness.

  ‘Let us go to the caves,’ her friend had proposed. ‘Tonight.’

  She said it the way others would say Let us go the bar tonight, and Caterina loved her for that courage. Apparently men had been coming to the caves on Capri for the past two nights and Leonora described it in detail. The moonlight catching the prow of their boat and turning the spume to silver filigree over the waves. The rocks grating on the hull. The rumble of the engine. Crates coming and going, carried by figures in black with torches and voices puncturing the pitch-dark night at the foot of the cliff.

  Leonora had lain flat on the damp grass of a ledge halfway down the rock face, Bianchezza beside her. Caterina could see it as she described it, could smell the animal’s breath, could hear the crunch of men’s boots on the stones below and feel the weight of the black sky pressing down on her back.

  ‘Come with me tonight,’ Leonora urged. ‘Bring a sail boat. Pick me up from the quay on Capri when all is quiet and I will guide us around the island past the Faraglioni rocks to the cave. We will be as silent as night herons. They won’t even know we are there and we can find out if they . . .’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Caterina!’

  ‘I need to find the jewelled table my father made, not go chasing through the night after stolen antiques. It’s the only way I can get to Drago Vincelli.’

  The dog whined. That was when the knock came, brisk and to the point.

  ‘A message?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve come with a message for you from Jake.’

  Just the sight of Harry Fielding on her doorstep lowered the tension in the workshop, and Caterina slipped the gun back in its bag before he caught sight of it.

  ‘What message?’

  ‘He will be delayed. He won’t be able to come over till later. He has more questions he needs to ask you about your father’s workshop, but I’m afraid that with two of our men down it means we are all flat out and he can’t get away yet.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Harry.’

  There were no other words. She could see the shock etched on his face at the death of his comrades, but it wasn’t something he was ready to talk about.

  ‘I must go,’ Leonora announced abruptly. ‘Can you give me a lift down to the ferry at the marina?’

  Harry looked surprised at the request but was as courteous as ever. ‘Of course. I’d be happy to.’

  As he turned to the door, noting the iron pole with a nod of approval, Caterina put out her hand and murmured, ‘Take good care of yourself, Captain Harry Fielding. Someone is carrying a sharp knife around out there.’

  He took her hand. ‘Keep a tight hold on that pole, Caterina. Let no one in until we have ascertained who the murderer is.’

  ‘For God’s sake,’ Leonora muttered as she walked out of the workshop, ‘she can look after herself. And so can I. We’re not the ones careless enough to get our throats slit last night.’ She ignored the stony expression that descended on Harry’s face. ‘Tonight, Caterina,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Ten o’clock.’

  Caterina shut the door on them. Slid the metal bar back in place across it.

  She was alone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  For a long time Caterina waited for another knock on the workshop door but none came. She lit a cigarette and walked over to the wall where the photographs of her father hung. One was of him laughing straight at the lens, taken years ago when he was a strong and vital man clearly in love with the person behind the camera. The second photograph was years later, with him in the centre, flanked by Caterina and Nonno on each side. She was no more than seven or eight, her bony arm and hip moulded to the robust shape of her father. Caterina yearned to slide her hand inside the picture and hold on to that moment when happiness still seemed as normal as breathing. She brushed the tip of her finger across her grandfather’s eyes, still bright and black.

  ‘Nonno,’ she whispered, ‘dearest Nonno, you should have told me.’

  Tears pricked her eyes and she looked across at the third picture. It was of Papà at work on the scannella, cutting out a section of veneer, and as she stared at it she saw that behind him stood a blurred figure she had not noticed before. She bent down and inspected it more closely, her nose almost touching the glass.

  For a moment she failed to recognise it but then it came to her. It was a young girl called Rosamunda who used to turn up at times to sweep out the workshop for a few lire, a grey, unobtrusive child who merged with the background. Caterina had forgotten about the girl because she usually came when Caterina was at the uniform factory.

  She stared hard, trying to conjure up an image of Rosamunda. Maybe the girl might remember something. She was trying to recall where the girl lived when there was a thud and a crash against the door outside. Caterina leapt across the room to the gun and spun back to confront the door that was quivering on its hi
nges. But the metal bar held.

  ‘Now,’ she said softly. ‘Now you are here.’

  This was why she had laid the trail of the cart to this place. Here. Her workshop. It was the place that defined her, that spoke of who she was and who her father and her grandfather had been. This was where she was strongest. This is where she could confront him.

  Another kick clattered against the wood, splintering one panel.

  ‘Wait!’ she commanded.

  She removed the metal bar, turned the key and stood back. When the door crashed open, the business end of her grandfather’s gun was pointing directly at the intruder’s chest and her hands were rock steady.

  It was Aldo. He seemed to fill the small workshop, sucking up all the available space for himself. His massive shoulders appeared to stretch from wall to wall, as he kicked the door shut and faced Caterina with no shred of fear on his broad features. The gun might as well have been a fly.

  ‘I’ve been expecting you,’ Caterina said.

  She had known he would come, the trail she’d laid was too tempting. But she had to show him now that he was wrong not to fear her. With no hesitation she pulled the trigger.

  Sound exploded around her. The Bodeo recoiled in her hand, knocking her off balance. She steadied herself and heard the bullet slam into the timber of the door behind the big man. The noise in the confined space set her ears ringing and there was a taste in her mouth that she didn’t recognise. Hot and metallic. As if she could taste the gun.

  ‘You bitch! Stronza!’

  His eyes were black with fury, his teeth bared at her, but he didn’t move. Not a muscle. That was good. He had learned to fear her.

  She kept the gun aimed at the centre of his chest. ‘I don’t know where you come from or how you watch me, but I drew you here because I want some information from you.’

  He chuckled, a nasty sound that rumbled deep in his barrel of a chest. ‘I don’t give out information.’

  ‘This time you do. If you want to continue breathing through your mouth instead of through a hole in your chest, you murdering bastard.’

  He blinked, heavy hooded eyelids. Surprised.