The Liberation

by Kate Furnivall

  Another hesitation.

  ‘Leave the animal outside,’ Augusta Cavaleri ordered and backed down the hallway, her step heavy and reluctant.

  Caterina crouched in front of the German Shepherd and stroked its creamy white head. ‘Stay here, Bianchezza. I’ll be back soon. Stay.’

  The dog’s pale blue eyes fixed on Caterina’s.

  ‘Stay,’ she repeated and walked inside the house.

  The living room was cool, shady, and smelled of dog, though the animals themselves were shut away in the kitchen, still voicing hostility to the intruder in their yard. Caterina recalled a time when she would run through this house as freely as her own, when it would be full of the scent of lilac and the sound of the accordion played by Carlo’s father. Now the house had a neglected, unloved air to it and dirty clothes lay littered on a chair. Caterina stood facing the half-hooded eyes of the woman in the black mourning.

  ‘Say it fast and get out,’ Augusta Cavaleri snapped.

  ‘My brother was kidnapped.’

  ‘Am I supposed to care what happens to the Lombardi family?’

  ‘He was taken,’ Caterina continued, ‘by a man called Aldo. The police say his surname is Facchini. He works for Drago Vincelli.’

  Blank eyes stared back at her. ‘What has this to do with my son, Stefano.’

  ‘I saw Drago Vincelli’s black Rolls-Royce at your garage last week. I believe your son could be working for Vincelli and could be involved in the kidnapping.’

  ‘Do you have proof?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Then get out of my house.’ Augusta Cavaleri walked stiffly over to the door of the living room and flung it open. ‘Get out and don’t ever come back. You don’t know what you’re doing, any more than your whore of a mother did.’

  Caterina’s cheeks flushed, despite her determination to brush aside the woman’s insults, and unwillingly she saw herself as Augusta Cavaleri saw her. Fragile and foolish. Overreaching herself. She uttered a small suppressed moan, and blinked hard, as though her eyes had lost focus.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Augusta Cavaleri demanded.

  ‘Nothing.’ Caterina started to head for the door but her feet shuffled and came to a stop. ‘I’m not feeling well,’ she murmured under her breath. ‘Could I have a glass of water before I leave, please?’

  The woman strode from the room, her long black skirt rustling with impatience over the tiles. The second she had gone, Caterina darted over to the pile of crumpled clothes and extracted from it a man’s vest that was stained with wood-varnish, which she thrust into her shoulder-bag. By the time the footsteps returned, she was seated on a chair, her head in her hands.

  ‘Here.’

  Caterina accepted the glass of water and drank it down. It had the cool tang of well-water.

  ‘Grazie.’

  ‘Now go. Your family has taken one son from me, Caterina Lombardi. Leave my others alone.’

  ‘Do you or your sons know anything about the tunnels under Naples? I need to go there and—’

  A hand like an eagle’s talon gripped Caterina’s shoulder and yanked her to her feet.

  ‘Go!’ the woman hissed. ‘Or I will set the dogs on you.’

  Without a word Caterina walked out, her bag firmly under her arm. It was a relief to get away from that house where the air itself tasted of poison. A relief to inhale the clean sea-breeze, to take Bianchezza’s leash and to set off at a run downhill to the railway station.

  The bait was set.

  The Circumvesuviana train rattled Caterina’s bones all the way to Naples. The dog hated it, but it laid its head on her lap and suffered in silence. Caterina could not shake Augusta Cavaleri’s harsh words from her mind.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re doing, any more than your whore of a mother did.’

  She laid her hand on the dog’s strong skull, trying to absorb a portion of the animal’s instinct for survival.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ she muttered under her breath as she watched olive groves shudder past the window and a farmer prowling with a shotgun to keep hungry scavengers off his land. ‘You’re wrong, Signora Cavaleri.’

  She thought out each step that lay ahead of her.

  ‘I know exactly what I am doing.’

  A bell above the door tinkled when Caterina entered the jeweller’s shop this time, making her jump. She was too tense. The dog padded in at her side, its claws clicking on the wooden flooring. The place looked the same as before, a thin smattering of jewellery in glass cases, shoes ranged on display shelves as though inhabited by phantom limbs, and the rich smell of leather hanging in the shop. The dog lifted its muzzle to scent the air, its black nose inhaling the musky scent of dead skins.

  ‘Bella Caterina! You have returned to us.’

  ‘This is my new friend, Bianchezza.’

  Caterina allowed herself to be enveloped in the warmth and abundance of flesh that was Signor Bartoli, and she allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to have this generous woman as her mother. Behind the counter, Delfina grinned at her. Not a trace of jealousy. Her strong features were relaxed in the knowledge that there were more than enough of her mother’s embraces to go round.

  Caterina kissed Signora Bartoli on both cheeks, smelling the sweetness of peaches on her breath, and smiled through lips that felt stiff and unwieldy.

  ‘I need to speak to you, Signora,’ she said.

  ‘About what?’

  Caterina had transferred her gaze to the door to the back workroom. It was closed. ‘Is Carlo Cavaleri here?’

  ‘No, not today. My son is working there on his own.’

  But Caterina walked over to the door, opened it and checked. Edmondo Bartoli glanced up from the pair of boots he was shaping at the table, surprised.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said and closed the door.

  Signora Bartoli had shifted to stand in the middle of her shop, hands on hips, scrutinising Caterina.

  ‘Don’t you trust me, Caterina?’

  ‘Of course I do. That’s why I’m here.’

  The woman was still in mourning dress, but she had brightened the black garb with a long string of glossy jet beads. She twirled the end of them in a defiant gesture and turned her head to her daughter. ‘Vermouth,’ she commanded. ‘Delfina, bring us vermouth. I can feel in my bones that we are going to need it.’

  The sticky brown alcohol tasted sweet as it hit Caterina’s stomach, burning away the tension.

  ‘Signora Bartoli, tell me about the network of tunnels under Naples.’

  Signora Bartoli’s glass froze halfway to her lips, and the dark liquid swirled up the side and over the rim, spilling on to her fingers. They were seated in a small living room that was strikingly feminine, decorated with rich lace and dusky pink velvet, walls adorned with gilt mirrors and tortoiseshell-framed photographs. Elegant porcelain shepherdesses lined the mantelpiece and a songbird perched in resolute silence in a cage.

  Signora Bartoli regarded Caterina quizzically. ‘What’s your interest in the tunnels, my girl? They are not pleasant, you know. Dark and forbidding, with a whispering voice of their own that can disturb those who aren’t accustomed to it.’

  Her drink resumed its path to her lips.

  ‘You mentioned before,’ Caterina said, ‘that you were a warden down there during the war.’

  ‘That’s true. Sections of the tunnels were used as bomb-shelters during the bombardments by the American and British aeroplanes. Those were hard times in Naples.’ She crossed herself devoutly. ‘Many were killed. But thirty metres underground they were safe. Before the war my father was one of the maintenance men who were subterranean caretakers down there, so I knew the tunnels well. I used to play in them as a child.’ She chuckled, one of her ready smiles finding its way on to her face at the memory. Caterina considered how much to reveal, how much to hold back.

  ‘Signora, I have learned that it is possible that precious artefacts stolen from churches and palazzos are being s
ecreted down there.’

  The jeweller’s widow burst out laughing. ‘Don’t be absurd, little one.’

  ‘It is true.’

  The laughter stopped. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Drago Vincelli’s man, Aldo Facchioni, told someone that there were things kept down there.’ She took a decent mouthful of vermouth. Her blood was singing in her ears. ‘Help me, please. Tell me about the tunnels.’

  Signora Bartoli emptied her glass. ‘Do you need that dog with you? I could shut it in the yard.’

  ‘Where I go, the dog goes.’

  ‘When you are serious, you are so like your father.’

  The words seemed to spiral inside Caterina’s head and she wanted to catch hold of them, to feel their softness. Instead she focused on the tunnels.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said again.

  ‘They are killers.’

  ‘Vincelli and Aldo?’

  ‘No. The tunnels. Sections of roof cave in. Walls collapse. Water floods when you least expect it. Don’t go there, I’m warning you.’

  ‘I have to. It’s possible that my father’s jewelled table might be hidden in one of the tunnels.’

  Signora Bartoli sighed, long and hard, poured another slug of vermouth into each glass and downed her own at once. ‘The first thing you have to realise is that there is not just one tunnel system under the city of Naples. There are three.’ She ticked them off on her fingers. ‘First there are the Catacombs of San Gennaro. These are under the Basilica of Madre del Buon Consiglio in the northern part of the city, inside the slope leading up to Capo-dimonte. I don’t like them.’ She shuddered. ‘It is an underground burial site going back to the fifth century BC. Yes, it has beautiful frescoes and mosaics lining the walls, but honestly, Caterina, it is a gruesome reminder that that’s how we will all end up. Nothing but dust and bones.’ She rubbed a knuckle in one eye. ‘Even my poor Orlando.’

  Caterina gave her a minute of respectful silence, then pressed her further. ‘So you think there would be no artefacts down there?’

  ‘Not unless you count ghoulish rows of skulls and thigh bones. More than three thousand of the revolting things.’ She crossed herself again.

  ‘So what about the other tunnels?’

  ‘There’s the Bourbon tunnel.’

  ‘Where is that?’

  ‘It’s an escape passage. It runs for more than five hundred metres from the Royal Palace. It was constructed by King Ferdinand II in 1853 to create a fast route from the palace to the military barracks in Via della Pace. That’s in the Chi-aia seafront district.’ She chuckled to herself. ‘He was no fool, that one. He wasn’t going to hang around to be murdered in his bed by peasants with pickaxes. Anyway, sections of it were used as bomb shelters during the war and there’s still a lot of rubbish chucked down there. The soldiers searched it, you know.’

  ‘The Allied troops have searched it?’

  ‘Oh, yes. They were hunting for the German soldiers who were supposed to be lurking down in the tunnels by day and committing sabotage by night. But also for booby-trap bombs and for any hidden treasures.’

  ‘What?’

  Caterina was stunned. Jake had not told her that. The tunnels had already been searched. It made sense, of course it did, but disappointment wrapped itself around her mind.

  Jake. Why didn’t you tell me?

  She rose from her chair, no longer able to sit still, and paced around the dainty room, watched by the dog and Signora Bartoli. The soldiers didn’t find anything of value down there in the tunnels. That had to be the answer. That was why he didn’t tell her. She had not asked Jake where he’d found the triptych, the altarpiece her father had repaired.

  Why hadn’t she asked?

  At the time she had been too shocked. Too angry. Unable to talk to him. But now she was . . . She sought after a word, but none came. Except different. She was different. It didn’t sound much. But different was a big word. Did Jake see it too, that she had changed? Of course he did. Jake had eyes that stripped you right down to the underside of your skin.

  She turned back to Signora Bartoli. ‘Did your husband know my grandfather, as well as my father?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘Before he became a jeweller, did he make shoes? Like your son does now?’

  ‘No.’ But she nodded her head. ‘But his father did. His father was a cobbler.’

  ‘My grandfather possesses many pairs of shoes in the bottom of his wardrobe, most of them unworn. So I assume they came from your husband’s father. They must have been good friends.’

  Signora Bartoli glanced at the vermouth bottle at her elbow but didn’t touch it. ‘Yes, little one, they were. I am sorry about Giuseppe Lombardi’s eyes.’

  She switched the subject back to the tunnels with a speed that Caterina didn’t miss.

  ‘The third tunnel system,’ Signora Bartoli held up three fingers, ‘is the massive network of aqueduct tunnels that were used to distribute water throughout Naples in wells and cisterns. These date back thousands of years to Ancient Greek and Roman times.’ She paused and beamed her approval. ‘You should see the brickwork they did back then. It is wonderful, as intricate as Venetian lace. But now many of the tunnels have collapsed or are blocked with rubbish thrown down there. It saddens me. And most of the entrances to the wells or access stairs are locked.’

  ‘Is that where you played as a child?’

  ‘Yes. I used to love to scare myself and my friends getting lost in the bowels of the earth.’

  A boisterous laugh broke from Signora Bartoli but was abruptly choked off. ‘No,’ she said in a sudden whisper. ‘Don’t, Caterina. Don’t even think of it.’

  ‘I will go down there, Signora. With you or without you.’

  For two full minutes the silence in the room seemed to solidify between them, disturbed only by the tick of a porcelain mantle-clock and the soft breath of the dog. Signora Bartoli then rose from her chair and bustled over to a delicate inlaid cabinet. She opened a drawer and removed something from it that she held aloft like a trophy. Her face was solemn, her eyes direct as she focused not on Caterina, but on the object in her hand.

  ‘If you are not afraid of the tunnels, I still have a key.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Jake entered the narrow street where Caterina lived and immediately he sensed that something wasn’t right. A small pulse was thumping at his temple. The war had honed his alertness to danger during the street by street fighting, and he had developed a sixth sense that told him when he was in a sniper’s sights. It had saved his hide more than once.

  Yet he could spot no danger here, nothing out of place. The street lay in shade, a lazy and harmless scene. Two kids were dangling string for a kitten on a windowsill and a young man wearing an Italian army cap was sitting in a doorway, one leg missing below the knee. He was setting out tarot cards on a board and further down the street a woman hummed as she watered her geraniums. Nothing to fear.

  So what was it?

  Caterina. He moved rapidly to the door of her house and rapped on the door using the brass knocker.

  No answer.

  Images of Aldo Facchioni crushing Caterina’s fine-boned skull between his massive paws leapt into his head, but he banished them fast. There was no sign of forced entry, no reason to believe she was in trouble. Except for that pulse at his temple that wouldn’t stop.

  He knocked again. Harder. Louder. Longer. He gave it no more than thirty seconds and then he called her name.

  ‘Caterina!’

  He had told her not to leave the house, instructed her to lock the door till he got back, to stay with her brother and grandfather. She had nodded. Nodded and smiled and kissed him. Not once had the words ‘I promise’ passed her lips, but at the time he had been bewitched by her kisses and the scent of her skin and had not forced the promise from her.

  Fool. Dumb fool.

  ‘Caterina!’

  The Italian soldier with his tarot cards was staring and Jake ca
lled out, ‘Have you seen . . .?’

  A voice came through the door, faint and female. It wasn’t Aldo. Thank God it wasn’t Aldo.

  ‘Caterina?’

  It came again, firmer this time. ‘Go away.’

  It wasn’t Caterina.

  His mind churned through the options. A neighbour? A friend? Her mother? No, that wasn’t her mother’s confident tone.

  ‘I’ve come to see Caterina.’

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘Who am I speaking to?’

  ‘Go away.’

  ‘I am Major Jake Parr, a friend of Caterina’s.’

  Silence.

  He put his mouth close to the door. ‘Is she here?’ he asked, curbing his impatience. ‘If you tell her I called, she will want to . . .’

  ‘Jake?’

  A different voice. Immediately he recognised it as her brother’s.

  ‘Luca, yes, it’s Jake here. Open the door will you?’

  ‘No. Don’t you dare.’ The female voice once more, sharp and determined.

  ‘Luca,’ Jake called. ‘This is important. Listen to me. I can’t help your sister if I don’t know where . . .’

  A bolt slid across on the inside of the door, followed by the rattle of a lock, and the door swung open. In the hallway stood her brother, his dark eyes bright, his young face chalk-white and shaky.

  ‘She’s gone,’ Luca said. ‘You have to find her.’

  Jake stepped inside the house.

  The gun was six inches from his face and pointed straight at him. It was a Mauser HSc, a highly efficient 7.65 pistol made in Germany. One twitch of her finger and he could say goodbye to his brains.

  Jake stood still, not even a blink, and waited for her to calm down. He wanted to tell her to take deep breaths instead of standing there, rigid and unbreathing. He had recognised the young woman instantly as the friend with Caterina at the nightclub, rigged out in white again, a white wrap-around dress this time that emphasised her tiny waist. But right now he wasn’t looking at her waist. Her pupils were huge, her arm stretched out stiff in front of her holding the gun. He could see she wanted to pull the trigger.

  ‘I am a friend of Caterina’s,’ he told her in the kind of tone he’d use to a nervous horse that was threatening to kick him. ‘Ask Luca.’