‘I’m okay,’ Harry nodded in the white beam of Jake’s flashlight. ‘Not keen on tight spaces, that’s all. Forget it. Let’s concentrate on finding her.’
Caterina had to be here. But where? Where to start?
Jake wanted to bellow her name at every turn, to roar a warning to let her know he was coming. To tell her: Wait.
But fear rose in his chest, fear for her. Fear he was too late. Too slow. Too lost in this serpentine labyrinth. He was angry that she chose to do this without him. He and Harry had entered the tunnel system at Piazza San Gaetano and one of the maintenance men had guided them down the rough stairs cut from the rock, forty metres down into the belly of the earth. They had shed the maintenance guy and covered a lot of ground, the two of them, hardly speaking, each one tense behind the glare of his torch as they hurried to check every passageway and chamber.
Only once did Harry ask, ‘Do you really think Vincelli and Aldo are down here waiting for her?’
‘She thinks so. So I have to think so too.’
The bearded official at the Gaetano entrance swore she had not come past him, but admitted that there were other entrances, not all of which had been securely sealed. There were forgotten wells she could have climbed down or ancient access points that only the locals knew about. Jake had to assume she was down here.
A sudden image flashed into his mind of Caterina taking one look at the menacing darkness and retreating back up into the light, but the image was gone as quickly as it came. Caterina would not retreat. Not when she knew the lives of her brother and grandfather depended on finding Vincelli and Aldo Facchioni.
There was one of her.
Two of them.
Professional killers.
And what did she have? What was she carrying into battle? A thirty-year-old gun and a dog.
He ducked under a steep overhang of rock and heard Harry’s head collide with it behind him, followed by a grunt and a low curse that rumbled into the silence.
‘This is too slow, Harry,’ Jake whispered. ‘We have to separate. It will double our search area.’
‘Agreed.’
At the next fork in the tunnel, Jake’s flashlight took the left hand black hole; Harry took the one on the right.
‘If you find her,’ Jake urged, ‘fire your gun.’
Jake doubled his speed. He took risks.
The passageways darted off in different directions, a baffling maze that crept under the villas far above, where every courtyard had once possessed a well to the aqueduct below. In places his torch beam caught the metal of rungs set into narrow yellowish shafts that rose to the surface, but which had been built over long since, as the city expanded.
His boots made little sound. He’d had the sense to tie rags around them to muffle their tread. Time and again he halted, stopped breathing and listened intently. But all he heard was the ancient silence. It rolled over him and the thoughts of Caterina inside his head. Twice he almost knocked himself out on jutting projections and then without warning he ended up flat on his back when a sudden slope of scree beneath his feet skidded from under him.
The torch went out.
His ribs throbbed from their crack on the ground and granules of tufo gravel had embedded in his cheek. But as he lay there, winded, and silently cursing himself, he saw a line of light in the pitch darkness, a line no thicker than a hair and so dim that had his torch been on, he would never have seen it. It was a slit at ground level, at the base of the wall. The shifting of the scree must have uncovered it.
Jake rolled onto his side. He pressed his face silently to the line of light but he could see nothing through it. It was like trying to look through a thread of yellow cotton. He didn’t breathe, didn’t blink.
Then it came. A sound so faint it was scarcely a sound, but it had the cadence of voices, the rise and fall of two people speaking. Somewhere beneath him.
CHAPTER FORTY
Jake.
How do you do it?
Every day. How do you face your fear? Knowing a bullet could rip out your throat any moment and your blood arc in a scarlet torrent to drench the ground at your feet.
Tell me.
Every soldier in combat goes through this. Every soldier puts on his socks, combs his hair, picks up his rifle and instead of fleeing into the hills to hide, he stands and fights. Italy was forced into this war by Mussolini, Britain by Hitler, America by Hirohito of Japan.
None of you had a choice.
How do you live with death at your side?
The voice vanished and the footsteps faded. Caterina stood with her back flat against a rock wall in total blackness, breathing quietly, imposing a steady rhythm. Eyes wide and blind. One hand rested on the dog’s head for reassurance, whether for herself or for Bianchezza, she didn’t care to ask. Only when some time had passed – she had no idea how short or how long – did she move.
She once more lifted Aldo’s gun holster from her bag and placed it against the dog’s nose, not because she doubted the animal’s hunting skill, but because she wanted to start again and do it better this time. Without the fear.
The torch went back on, still wrapped up to keep its light muted, she shortened the leash in her hand and whispered, ‘Seek.’ Without hesitation Bianchezza resumed her task, her creamy tail high and happy. Caterina had expected the dog to work with nose close to the ground, but no, the long white muzzle was raised, nostrils twitching, as though Aldo had left a strong-smelling miasma in his wake.
They progressed faster, their pace smoother now. She was getting better at navigating around the obstacles and didn’t have to keep reminding herself to breathe. There were fewer bumps and scrapes, until they came to a divide in the tunnel with a choice of two entrances. One was low and narrow, part of it blocked by rubble, the other wider and more inviting. With Aldo’s size in mind and remembering that he’d told her in her workshop that he loathed small spaces, she automatically opted for the wider entrance but Bianchezza had other ideas. The dog drew her unerringly to the smaller one. The low passageway veered abruptly to her right, almost turning back on itself, and the dog was straining at the leash now, but suddenly the subterranean world changed.
In front of her there was a flight of steps descending into an abyss of darkness below and Caterina caught hold of the dog’s collar to prevent it racing down. She listened hard but could hear nothing but Bianchezza’s soft whine of eagerness and her own chaotic heartbeat. The dog was her canary in a coal mine. If Bianchezza felt it was safe to go on, so did she. She ruffled the thick fur. Overtaken by a rush of gratitude, she knelt and kissed the silky head, rewarded by a soft whine of pleasure.
‘Come on, bella,’ she whispered. ‘Grazie.’
Cautiously she began the descent, keeping the dog behind her, the gun out in front. The torch and the leash had to share the same hand, so the murky beam was erratic on the steps, walls looming up on both sides. She felt calmer here, despite a sharp and sudden drop in temperature as they plunged down, and she instantly knew why. It was the smell that rose to meet her, an odour she knew as well as she knew the one in her own workshop. The scent was unmistakable. It was the sweet aroma of wood.
The beat of her heart grew violent and intense because this was what she had come for. This is where they would be.
Caterina wanted her father. Now, here in this cavern, where the darkness was solid and unbreakable because even in the almost impenetrable gloom under her torch, the beauty within the chamber shone out and Caterina wanted her father here beside her. It would have made his heart sing.
The collection of antique furniture and priceless ornaments lay shrouded in dustsheets and mystery. She spotted an exquisite dolphin foot that was part of a baroque secretaire, and she could not stop herself throwing back the sheet, so that she could shine her torch over the hoard of treasures. She had tantalising glimpses of ancient walnut and willow furniture piled on top of each other, rich with inlays of gold and ivory, decorated with carved mermaids, lions, eagles and
smiling cherubim. There was a Venetian overmantle mirror with parcel-gilt frame and eighteenth-century mercury glass. But no jewelled table.
She found a table from Ancient Rome made of citrus wood with a swan’s head rising from acanthus foliage. A medieval condottiere sword with an exotic blue mahoe wooden hilt and a rusty iron blade was propped against a graceful caryatid figure sculpted in marble. Off to one side stood a marriage cassone chest crafted for a noblewoman with the finest seventeenth-century ebony and satinwood veneers. All the sumptuous work of Italy’s greatest master-craftsmen. Here it was, spread out before her like a feast.
All stolen. All pillaged. All disembowelled from Italy’s heritage. And there, staring her in the face, was her father’s work. She knew it instantly. In the side panel of a superb cadenza cabinet, a repair to an inlaid biblical scene, and it made Caterina ache with need to see her father’s head bent over his work once more. Yet at the same time a sense of betrayal and disillusionment threatened to overwhelm her.
She needed to know if Stefano Cavaleri and the Count were involved, so she removed from her canvas bag the small towel she had taken from the Capri villa. She whispered to Bianchezza and held it in front of the dog’s nose. Obviously the scent was familiar, but when told to Seek, Bianchezza walked among the antiques with no sense of direction. No connection. But when Caterina quickly did the same with Stefano Cavaleri’s vest, the dog went immediately to a sumptuous silvered fauteuil. So Stefano had been here or at least handled the stolen chair.
She was in no doubt that some of these valuable works of art came from that lock-up hiding place to which her mother had hurried with greed dripping from her lips, the one they’d found empty. Vincelli had already got his hands on them. He and her Papà had been up to their necks in crime together and yet Caterina had trusted him and believed in him.
Bianchezza uttered a deep-throated growl.
Caterina had prepared herself for this moment. Talked herself through each tiny fragment of it. She was ready with the gun in her hand, no shakes, no regrets, no terror at the prospect of taking a man’s life.
The hammer was cocked, safety off. Ready to fire.
The walls of the chamber were lined with planks of pinewood and a section of it suddenly swung forward to reveal the gaping maw of another wide tunnel. Secrets within secrets. Now she understood better how they transported the furniture here.
‘Signorina Lombardi.’
Shoot now.
Don’t speak to him.
Just shoot.
It was Drago Vincelli, wearing a suit and white shirt covered in cave dust. He advanced into the shadowy light of her torch and Caterina could see the outline of a gun in his hand. It was pointing straight at her.
‘Signor Vincelli. You came, I see.’
Pull the trigger. Pull it now.
‘You knew I would come.’ Vincelli gave a sour grimace. ‘Once I heard you were going around announcing you were heading for the tunnels under Naples, I knew you had a death wish, you stupid bitch. I gave you a chance and you wasted it. So my friend and I are here to finish the job, because it’s clear that you do not know where the jewelled table is hidden. Isn’t that so, Aldo?’
The big man stood in his own circle of amber light behind his boss, holding an oil lamp in his bandaged hand, and an embroidered antique footstool with feet in the shape of ball and claw in the other.
Now, Caterina told herself, now. While Aldo is unarmed.
Her finger tightened on the trigger. A hair’s breadth. But it froze.
The cavern was chill and she could hear death breathing in the dark corners.
His death?
Or hers?
‘I know who has my father’s jewelled table,’ she stated.
‘Lies! You know nothing.’ Vincelli was angry. Not listening. She suddenly realised how much he wanted to pull that trigger to rid himself of her. ‘Caterina Lombardi, you should never have put your fucking nose down here.’
He took two steps closer to her, his decision clearly signed and sealed in the narrowing of his dark eyes, and Caterina could almost see each tendon contracting in his fingers. Her heartbeat shut down.
‘You do not have the nerve to shoot me,’ he taunted her with a flash of gold tooth.
Caterina pulled the trigger of the Bodeo.
The white shirt erupted in a splash of crimson and Drago Vincelli dropped to his knees.
The noise of the gunshot ripped the air apart in the confined space. Caterina’s ears throbbed and the dog threw itself under a beautiful gesso table.
There was blood. On the floor, on the dustsheet, spattered on Caterina’s face. A bright vital red, as vivid as poppy petals. Drago Vincelli was somehow staying upright on his knees – Caterina had no idea how – swaying forward and back like a child’s toy. His gun was discarded and both his hands clawed at his chest, his fingers drenched in scarlet, but he didn’t fall.
His eyes grew dull and there was blood on his teeth, but he fixed his gaze on Caterina and mumbled words at her that she didn’t hear because she was busy re-cocking the hammer and directing her gun at Aldo, who didn’t move a muscle.
‘No military bomb. Not . . . from the planes.’
She caught Vincelli’s whisper. ‘What do you mean?’
‘No military bomb,’ he repeated slowly, ‘on the . . . workshop.’ A crooked smile twisted his face. ‘Police bribed. To lie.’
Bile rose into Caterina’s throat. ‘No,’ she whispered. The Bodeo was shaking.
‘Yes. To kill your father.’
‘Who?’ she demanded. ‘Who planted the bomb in my father’s workshop? You?’
He shook his head and an odd sound escaped that was meant to be a laugh. Each breath was loud and liquid.
‘Why?’ Caterina stepped closer. ‘Why would anyone want to kill my father?’
But Drago Vincelli’s eyes started to roll in his head. He was falling.
‘See you in hell.’ He spat out the words and a stream of blood came with them.
Still clutching his chest, he keeled over on to his side on the ground. His breathing stopped. His eyes glazed, but remained wide open, startled, as though he could not believe he had died.
It was Sal Sardo all over again. Without the sunlight and the crows.
Aldo crossed himself.
‘Stay where you are,’ she ordered.
He placed the lamp on a chinoiserie bookcase and lowered the footstool in his arms to the floor, but he had the sense to move no closer.
‘Stay where you are,’ she said again.
Nothing was functioning right. Her thoughts were backing into each other. Her pulse stopped and started, jumped and raced, forgetting how to work, and wherever she looked, she saw everything through a veil of blood. Even Aldo. The massive muscles of his shoulders were tense, the scab on his neck was black, his eyes kept flicking wildly between her and Vincelli, the ring on his finger glinting as he rubbed at the bandage on his hand, and she knew he wanted his hands around her throat.
‘The first death-shot is the hardest, they say,’ she warned. ‘The second comes easier.’
He said nothing. He glared at her.
‘You will be handed over to the police,’ she informed him, ‘and tried for kidnapping. Or,’ she said softly, ‘we can finish it here.’
Suddenly he was grinning, a sick greedy twist of his mouth and it scared her, just as something hard jammed against the back of her head, forcing it forward. ‘Put the gun down, Caterina, or I will have to blow your brains out.’
It was Harry Fielding.
‘Harry?’
Caterina placed her gun on the ground and tried to turn but the muzzle of his gun pressed harder, holding her there. He kicked the Bodeo away.
‘What are you doing, Harry?’ she asked, baffled.
‘Ah, poor Caterina, you are too clever for your own good. I told you again and again to stay away from Drago Vincelli, but you wouldn’t listen. Now look where it’s got you.’
His voice was
tight, but still the old Harry. He sounded almost compassionate, but she knew better now and swore at herself for being taken in by his English charm.
‘You are working with them, aren’t you?’ she accused. ‘Stealing Italy’s treasures. Why Harry? We trusted you.’
‘Why do you think, sweet girl? Because I need the money, of course.’ He was standing far enough behind her to avoid any kicks. ‘I told you,’ he elaborated, ‘that my Pa lost all our wealth in the 1929 Wall Street crash and shot himself, the cowardly bastard. What was my mother supposed to live on?’
‘The same as the rest of us,’ Caterina said quietly.
Harry paid no heed. Aldo edged over to the tunnel through which he’d entered, but he moved with a wariness that showed he was not certain of what Harry intended to do. Maybe they didn’t get on. The thought gave Caterina hope.
‘It’s been absolutely vile watching my beloved Ma scrimp and save, the banks seizing our home, Bradeway Hall, and selling off her precious horses.’ He jabbed at her skull. ‘She lives in rented accommodation, you know, like a bloody fishwife.’
‘So you decided to steal.’
‘Just an artefact here, a painting there, nothing much.’ She heard his voice soften. ‘Enough to make Ma happy again.’
‘Don’t do this, Harry. You’re better than the Vincellis of this world.’
He laughed, a soft affectionate sound. ‘I really liked you, Caterina, if only you’d listened to me and steered clear. But now,’ she felt him shrug, ‘I’m going to have to kill you and that’s a shame.’
A shame?
She tried to step away, telling herself he would not pull the trigger, not on a woman, but she knew he would. If he had to, he would. He was a soldier.
‘Stand still’ he said. Polite but firm.
‘Does Jake know?’
The Liberation Page 40
